Dane of War’s Recommended Reading List

Theodore Parker once talked about the books that we read and how important they can be to us.

The books that help you most are those which make you think the most…A great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deeply freighted with truth and beauty.

Isn’t that an awesome idea? Isn’t it even more awesome when we recognize that we want to read some books that make us think in profound ways?

I read a lot of books. And I have a lot of books on my shelf. For today’s post, I thought I would take some time and introduce you to the stories that I feel are absolute “must-reads” for not only us geeks, but for the population at large.

I’ve chosen the Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction genres to start you off, as these are the genres that I personally read the most. I have only included books that I have read myself – and have purposely excluded books like Harry Potter or Twilight, as I don’t consider them serious literature – and flavor-of-the-month hipster subgenres like Steampunk which will not stand the test of time.

A quick note on genres

Fantasy

Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form – stories involving magic, paranormal magic and terrible monsters.

Horror

Horror is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural.

Science Fiction

Science fiction deals with imaginary but more or less plausible (or at least non-supernatural) content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities.

• Cyberpunk – features advanced science, such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.
• Dystopian – is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being Utopian.
• Post Apocalyptic – is concerned with the end of civilization due to a catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, alien invasion, impact event, cybernetic revolt, Technological Singularity, Dysgenics, supernatural phenomena, Ecological disaster, resource depletion or some other general disaster.

Fantasy

• Various – 1001 Arabian Nights
• George R.R. Martin – A Game of Thrones
• William Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Virgil – The Aeneid
• Anonymous – Beowulf
• Glenn Cook – The Black Company
• Robert E. Howard – The Complete Chronicles of Conan
• Stephen King – The Dark Tower Series
• Scott R. Bakker – The Darkness That Comes Before
• Ursula Le Guin – The Earthsea Quartet
• Michael Moorcock – The Elric Anthology
• R.A. Salvatore – Exile
• Robert Jordan - The Eye of the World
• Fritz Leiber – The Fafhrd and Gray Mouser Series
• Steven Erikson – Gardens of the Moon
• Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
• J.R.R. Tolkien – The Hobbit
• William Hope Hodgson – The House on the Borderland
• Homer – The Iliad
• Lord Dunsany – The King of Elfland’s Daughter
• Peter S. Beagle – The Last Unicorn
• J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings
• Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind
• Homer – The Odyssey
• T. S. White - The Once and Future King
• William Goldman – The Princess Bride
• J.R.R. Tolkien – The Silmarillion
• Patrick Rothfuss - The Wise Man’s Fear
• Gene Wolfe - The Wizard Knight

Horror

Classic Horror

• Mary Shelley – Frankenstein
• Bram Stoker – Dracula
• Henry James – The Turn of the Screw
• Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Washington Irving – The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• Edgar Allen Poe – The Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
• Robert W. Chambers – The King in Yellow
• Matthew Lewis – The Monk
• Charles Maturin – Melmoth the Wanderer
• Ambrose Bierce – Ghost, and Other Stories

20th Century Horror

• Shirley Jackson – The Haunting of Hill House
• Richard Matheson – I Am Legend
• Clive Barker – Books of Blood
• Ray Bradbury – Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Stephen King – It
• Thomas Harris – The Silence of the Lambs
• Dan Simmons – Song of Kali
• Algernon Blackwood – Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood
• M.R. James – Casting the Runes, and Other Ghost Stories
• Mervyn Peake – Boy in Darkness
• Stephen King – Pet Sematary
• William Hodgson – The House on the Borderland

New Horror

• Laird Barron – Occultation
• Joe R. Lansdale – The Best of Joe R. Lansdale
• Will Elliot – The Pilo Family Circus
• Edward Lee – Bullet Through Your Face
• Tim Curran – The Devil Next Door
• Dave Brockie – Whargoul
• Joe Hill – Heart-Shaped Box

Science Fiction

Early Science Fiction

• Jules Verne – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• Jules Verne – A Journey to the Center of the Earth
• David Lindsay – A Voyage to Arcturus
• Mary Shelly – Frankenstein
• H.G. Wells – The Invisible Man
• H.G. Wells – The Island of Dr. Moreau
• Mary Shelly – The Last Man
• Lucian of Samosata – True History
• Voltaire – Micromegas
• H.G. Wells – The Time Machine
• H.G. Wells – The War of the Worlds

Golden Age Science Fiction

• Edgar Rice Burroughs – A Princess of Mars
• Fritz Leiber – The Big Time
• John Wyndham – The Day of the Triffids
• Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man
• George R. Dickson – Dorsai!
• Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles
• Hal Clement - Mission of Gravity
• C.S. Lewis – Out of the Silent Planet
• A.E. van Vogt – Slan
• Olaf Stapledon – Star Maker
• Alfred Bester – Stars My Destination
• Philip Jóse Farmer – To Your Scattered Bodies Go
• Edward E.  Smith – Triplanetary
• A.E. van Vogt – The Voyage of the Space Beagle
• Algis Budrys – Who?
• John W. Campbell Jr. – Who Goes There?
• A.E. van Vogt – The World of Null-A

Modern Science Fiction

• Verner Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep
• Robert Silverberg – A Time of Changes
• Iain M. Banks – The Algebraist
• Samuel R. Delany – Babel-17
• Michael Moorcock – Behold the Man
• Barry N. Malzberg – Beyond Apollo
• Harry Harrison – Bill, the Galactic Hero
• Greg Bear – Blood Music
• Kim Stanley Robinson – Blue Mars
• Joe Haldeman – Camouflage
• Iain M. Banks – Consider Phlebas
• Neal Stephenson – Cryptonomicon
• Greg Bear - Darwin’s Radio
• Ursula K. Le Guin – The Dispossessed
• Connie Willis – Doomsday Book
• C.J. Cherryh – Downbelow Station
• Frank Herbert – Dune
• Robert Silverberg – Dying Inside
• Orson Scott Card – Ender’s Game
• C.J. Cherryh – The Faded Sun Trilogy
• Poul Anderson – Fire Time
• Daniel Keyes – Flowers for Algernon
• Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle – Footfall
• Joe Haldeman - The Forever War
• Greg Bear – The Forge of God
• Frederik Pohl – Gateway
• Kim Stanley Robinson – Green Mars
• Brian Stableford – Halcyon Drift
• Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• Dan Simmons – Hyperion
• Harlan Ellison – I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
• Dan Simmons – Ilium
• Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson – The Illuminatus! Trilogy
• David Brin – Kiln People
• Ursula K. Le Guin – The Left Hand of Darkness
• Robert Silverberg – Lord Valentine’s Castle
• Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light
• Harry Harrison – Make Room! Make Room!
• Frederik Poul – Man Plus
• Jack Dann – The Man Who Melted
• David Gerrold – The Man Who Folded Himself
• Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle – Mote in God’s Eye
• Greg Bear – Moving Mars
• John Scalzi – Old Man’s War
• Verner Vinge – The Peace War
• Verner Vinge – Rainbow’s End
• Kim Stanley Robinson – Red Mars
• Alistair Reynolds – Revelation Space
• Larry Niven – Ringworld
• Alexei Panshin – Rite of Passage
• Ian McDonald – River of Gods
• Charles Stross – Singularity Sky
• Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. – Slaughterhouse Five
• Joan D. Vinge - The Snow Queen
• Stanislaw Lem - Solaris
• Mary Doria Russel – The Sparrow
• Robert Charles Wilson - Spin
• David Brin – Sundiver
• Poul Anderson – Tau Zero
• James Patrick Kelly – Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories
• Roger Zelazny – This Immortal / …And Call Me Conrad
• Gregory Benford – Timescape
• Stephen Baxter – The Time Ships
• Stepan Chapman-  Troika
• Phillip K. Dick – Ubik
• Jeff Noon – Vurt
• Larry Niven – World of Ptavvs

Cyberpunk

• Charles Stross – Accelerando
• Richard K. Morgan – Altered Carbon
• Neal Stephenson – The Diamond Age
• Phillip K. Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
• Bruce Sterling – Islands in the Net
• William Gibson – Neuromancer
• Greg Egan – Permutation City
• John Brunner – The Shockwave Rider
• Neal Stephenson – Snow Crash
• Rudy Rucker - Software

Dystopian

• George Orwell – 1984
• Philip K. Dick – A Scanner Darkly
• Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
• Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451
• Philip K. Dick – Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
• Lois Lowry – The Giver
• Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale
• William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson – Logan’s Run
• Philip K. Dick  – The Man in the High Castle
• John Brunner  – Stand on Zanzibar
• Yevgeny Zamyatin – We
• Kate Wilhelm – Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
• Robert Silverberg - The World Inside

Post Apocalyptic

• Walter M. Miller, Jr. – A Canticle for Leibowitz
• Madeleine L’Engle – A Wrinkle in Time
• John Wyndam – The Chrysalids
• David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
• John Crowley – The Deep
• S.M. Sterline – Dies the Fire
• Philip K. Dick – Dr. Bloodmoney
• Vonda M. McIntyre – Dreamsnake
• Jack Vance – The Dying Earth
• George R. Stewart – Earth Abides
• James Blaylock – The Elfin Ship
• Richard Matheson – I Am Legend
• Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle – Lucifer’s Hammer
• Carol Emshwiller - The Mount
• William Hope Hodgson - The Nightland
• Pierre Boulle – The Planet of the Apes
• David Brin – The Postman
• Rene Barjavel - Ravage
• Russell Hoban – Riddley Walker
• Cormac McCarthy - The Road
• Gene Wolfe – Shadow and Claw
• John Brunner – The Sheep Look Up
• Samuel Youd – The Tripods Trilogy