My Top 10 Favorite SF Books of All Time

I recently watched a Media Death Cult video on the viewers' favorite books and I have to admit that haven’t read more than one or two of them. Still it got me to thinking about my favorite books of all time. So I racked my memory to come up with a list of my ten favorite SF books. This proved to be rather hard since I've forgotten 97% of them. On the flip side, it means that if I do remember them, and remember really enjoying them -- they're a candidate for the list.

Before I begin, I should note that “all time” is the trick words here. What I’ve done is try to recall what were my favorite books during my nearly sixty years of reading SF, in one era or another. They are not necessarily my favorite SF books today. Indeed, most of them would not even being the running today, since my tastes have evolved over my lifetime. Still, at one time, they were my favorite books and I still recall them fondly because of that.

All but two of the books come from my early years of reading SF in the 1960’s and early 1970’s when I was reading  50 to 100 books a year. This means that most of the books are classic SF. I'm not going to list them in any order, and I’ll save my recent favorite books for last. 

1. Starman Jones, Robert A Heinlein. This is my favorite of Heinlein book. Farm boy with a photographic memory inherits an astro-navigator's books and saves the day when the ship he is serving on gets lost. Or something like that. I think it is my favorite Heinlein because I liked his juveniles the best and this one has just a hint of romance in it that was quickly shut down. Heinlein didn’t do romance in his juveniles. The fact that I can still remember the basic plot of the story is telling since, I can’t say that for most of his juveniles. I reread it in my early 20’s and was surprised at how much of what I remembered wasn’t actually in the book. A testimonial to how much a young reader’s imagination adds to a story. Back in our day, at least, we spend our days making up stories while playing, and this skill lingered on into adolescence. From my records of the period, I can say that I rated it “E” for excellent together with Space Cadet, a book that I have no recollection of.

Credit:  http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?258176, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48787509

2. The Star Conquers, Ben Bova. This book is a military SF, story with space battles, and an appealing young hero. Reading the Wikipedia description doesn’t bring back the story for me. I loaned this book to a friend 30 years ago to read to his son, and every time I see him he offers to return it, but since I know I'll not read it again, I tell him to keep it. Still it was a favorite of both of ours. I seem to recall that the sequel, Star Watchman wasn’t as good. I guess he wrote two more in the series years later. Who knew? I rated it a “E” back then.

3. Galactic Patrol, E E Smith. The best book, by far, of the Lensmen series. A space opera on a vast scale. I haven’t reread it, and would likely find it too grand and nonsensical for my tastes these days. I made a galactic wargame board game out of it, at the time. Still, its another “E” book in ‘65.

4.Ossian’s Ride, Fred Hoyle. An adventure set in Ireland. A recent graduate is recruited by British secret service as an amateur agent and sent to Ireland to discover the secret of a wildly successful company with amazing technology. It has a lot of hiking around Ireland, and, in a way, foreshadows my appreciation of the books like John Buchan’s 39 Steps which had his hero tramping around Scotland. I recently reread this book for the third time at least, and, indeed, I still enjoyed it. I first read it in 1966, but I wasn’t rating books that year, it seems.

5. Highways in Hiding, George O Smith. To begin with, the version I have has a wonderfully evocative cover by Roy G Krenkel, The story is a mystery story that centers around two opposing secret organization dealing with a deadly disease brought back from space. Road signs are modified by one group to lead people in the know to contact agents. This is another book of travel, thought this time it was road trips around the pre-interstate US. At the time there seemed something romantic about getting into a car and taking to the open roads which appealed to me back in the day. These days, an hour in a car is about all I can take. No contemporary rating for this book either.

6. Sands of Mars, Arthur C Clarke. I count this as the first adult SF novel I read. How could you not like a book about Mars – a Mars still unexplored by remote spacecraft when I read it. A Mars that anything could go? The hero was a middle aged SF writer visiting Mars that he wrote SF books about early in his career, which seems a strange hero for a young teen. Indeed I find in my records of the time that in 1965 I rated it only a “B” so I guess its memory must’ve aged well. The thing is that I remember it when 97% of the books from that period I have no recollection of at all, That must mean something. Plus, I know I reread it. On the other hand, another Clarke book, Dolphin Island I rated an “E” though I believe it was a juvenile. In any event, I have no recollection of the story.

7. A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs. One of my perennial favorites. But even with so much to love about it, there's still so much I wish was better – bigger, fuller, with deeper characters. I’ve reread this book probably four or five times. I read it to the kids at bedtime. In 1971 I rated it ***½, which is a little above average. But like Sands of Mars, it seems to has aged well, and I now consider it the best of ERB's books. Contrast that with his Venus series that I rated “E” back in ‘65, but never have had any interest in rereading. The first three books of Barsoom are one of my favorites for all their flaws.

8. The Witches of Karres, James H Schmitz. I’ve read this book several times -- indeed, after pulling it out of the bookshelf for this post, I'm rereading and enjoying it once again. I’m a sucker for stories set on spaceship, and worm weather was such a cool idea. So cool, in fact, that I sort of borrowed it for an episode in my Bright Black Sea. I must have acquired the book prior to 1968 as it is on my inventory for that year, but I have no record of when I read it or my original rating.

The last two entries on this list are recent books (relatively speaking) and are still very much in favor.

9.Johannes Cabal The Detective, Jonathan L Howard. This is one of my current favorite books. In fact, I just reread it. It is the second book in a series of five featuring the necromance Johannes Cabal, and is my favorite of the series, perhaps because it is a take on an old fashioned detective story and set in a mythical Balkan country, like A Prisoner of Zenda. Howard is one of those British authors with a clever, witty style that I really enjoy reading in my old age. Each book in the series is a little different, with a nod to Lovecraft, plus werewolves, vampires, and the devil himself. Normally these types of stories would not be my cup of tea, but his writing draws me in.

10, Shades of Grey, Jasper Fforde. This is my all time favorite speculative fiction book. In part because of Fforde's writing – cleaver, witty, endlessly imaginative, all of which plays a large part in my enjoyment of the story. It can be read as satire or absurd fiction, which again wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but not only is the writing wonderful, but he still manages to make the narrator and other characters seem like real people in a very unusual world where there is a strict cast system based on the color that they can see. I’ve read this book maybe four times – and will pick it up and read it again. I guess it’s my “comfort read.” Unfortunately its sales did not justify continuing on with the planned trilogy so that, Painting by Numbers, and The Gordini Protocols were never written, leaving so many mysteries left mysteries. The only bright side is that it did not give Fforde the chance to screw it up. I’ve read almost all of his adult novels and while the last two novels written after Shades of Grey were witty and endlessly imaginative, I couldn’t help wishing I was reading the last two books of the series. Life can be cruel.

So those are my nine favorite books. However, as a bonus, while looking up my old ratings for these books in my papers from the era, I found my top 22 book list from the mid-1960's. Heinlein dominated it.

1 Starman Jones – Heinlein

2 Star Conquers – Bova

3 Tunnel in the Sky & The Stars are Ours! – Heinlein & Norton

4 Sixth Column – Heinlein

5 Galactic Patrol – EE Smith

6 Space Cadet & Farmer in the Sky – Heinlein

7 Dolphin Island & Islands in the Sky – Clarke

8 Time Traders – Norton

9 Crossroad of Time & Citizen of the Galaxy – Norton & Heinlein

10 Outside the Universe & Raiders from the Rings – Hamilton and Nourse

11 Sargasso of Space & Plague Ship – Norton

12 Space Viking – Piper

13 The Star Kings – Hamilton

14 Revolt on Alpha C – Silverberg

15 Robot Rocket – Rockwell

16 Venus Series – Burroughs

My Library -- Andre Norton

Andre Norton in the 1950's
Source: https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2020/3/17/andre-norton-15-years-gone

I thought that I would start the exploration of my library with the books of Andre Norton. Over the past year or so, Tor.com has been running a series of articles discussing the books of Andre Norton. Plus, I’ve run across a number of other articles about her books as well. What I found amazing was all the Andre Norton books that I had no clue existed. She was one of my favorite writers when I first began to read science fiction, but given all the books that I missed, it seems that we must have had a falling out at some point rather early on. Something happened, and I think I know what, so let’s explore what that was.

First; a time line. I began reading science fiction books from the library and paperback books probably in 7^th Grade, which would be 1962. (I was a rather slow starter as a reader). This would be the point where I discovered Andre Norton books. Presently, I have 28 of them of them in my collection, pictured below. However, just for a point of reference, Night of Mask was copyrighted in 1964, and all the books to its right were copyrighted in 1964 or later.

In the ten years from 1962 to 1972 my passion for science fiction was white hot. I recorded reading 100 SF books in 1966. And yet, the vast majority of those 28 Andre Norton books I read were written in decade before I started reading science fiction. However, I know know that she wrote several dozen books during my white hot decade, but I only read a handful of them. And further, I have no recollection of ever coming across all those books of hers that I must have passed on. (That’s not too surprising, as I have a very poor memory of my life.)

Arranged in copyright date order. Ace periodically reissued these books, so that this would not be the order I acquired them. The final two books had her name, and the Solar Queen, but little else of Norton, I suspect. 

So, what happened?

I think what happened can be narrowed down to two words; “Witch World.”

I still have a typewritten list of books that I read as of January 6^th 1965. Below is the list of Norton Books with my letter grade rating for each book.

The Stars Are Ours E (Excellent)

The Crossroad of Time E

The Time Traders A

Galactic Derelict B

The Defiant Agents B

Key Out of Time B

The Beast Master B

Lord of Thunder B

Sargasso of Space A+

Plague Ship A+

Storm over Warlock B

Catseye B

Star Born C

Star Gate C

Starman’s Son C

Judgment on Janus C

Witch World F

Web of the Witch World F

I also have an upgraded list from September 1965 without grades that lists 7 more Norton books, but they were more of her earlier books. It seems that I got rid of the Witch World books, since I don’t have them in my collection, which is something that I usually don’t do, unless I really, really don’t like a book. Though, perhaps they were library books – I noticed that in one book, I marked the books I had read, and the books I owned from the books listed, and there were more that I had read then I owned at that point, so it is possible.

Given my opinion of her Witch World series, and the fact that I picked up only a handful more of her books over the following decade, I think I can clearly lay the blame for our breakup on Ms Norton. She moved on as an artist, moving more and more into fantasy, while as a reader, I didn’t, or at least, I didn’t move with her into fantasy when she moved on. My impression is that I’m far from the only one who puts a line under Witch World, as a turning point in her writing focus. She became more focused on exotic world-building and fantasy elements than she had been in her earlier books. And while I have some fantasy books in my library, they are a distinct minority. And, indeed, today, I have no interest in reading fantasy – even if Tor.com gives them to me for free. But my issues with fantasy can be another post, someday.

Andre Norton 1990's
Source: http://www.andre-norton-books.com/

Looking back, I can now see that what I liked about her early books was that they were largely “boys’ adventure stories.” Ms Norton had reliably delivered these male-orientated adventure stories – even changing her name to do so – before moving on by expanding her horizon with a wider range of characters and more fantasy settings. Now, this is all to the good. Artists of all sorts should evolve and explore the extents of their talents and interests, even if they risk alienating old fans by doing so. So I have nothing to complain about. I enjoyed her boys’ adventure books, and I moved on as well, by eventually outgrowing her target audience. And to be fair, I have never abandoned my taste for adventure stories. Indeed, I write them now. So all, in all, I have fond memories of her books – the early ones, and would like to read some of her non-SF adventure books even today. But I’ve no desire to revisit the ones I’ve read. I’ll leave that for new readers or readers who are more nostalgic than I.

My Library

Exploring My Library

I find that writing is a wonderful way to fill one’s time, and well, I have a lot of time to fill these days. I can’t blame that on the pandemic, as that hasn’t affected us in any significant way, i.e. my wife only allows me go grocery store once a week, and only to the supermarket a minute away, and at 5 in the morning. Being both the household cook, and a former grocery store clerk, I rather like grocery shopping. I miss the deals and imported food of Aldi and the vast selection of everything at Wodemans. Sad, but we all must soldier on, I guess.

Anyway, I find that time really flies when I’m writing. Hours go by unnoticed. However, I am not writing fiction at present. I am, however, running the beginning of what I hope will be my next story through my head -- for a few minutes at a time all through my waking hours. But writing it, if I get an actual story out of it, is still months away. However, since I have the time and I enjoy writing, I’m focusing my typing efforts on this blog. Now, I don’t think I’m very good at this type of writing, but on the theory that practice makes perfect … I’ve decided to launch yet another series of posts, this time featuring the books in my library. Contain your excitement.

My library is pictured above. It used to be spread out along two walls, but having moved last year, I had to condense everything into just one wall, floor to ceiling, with many of my old paperback SF stuffed along the edge and along the top of the actual shelves. A little awkward, but I don’t think I’ll be re-reading most of those old SF books anytime in this life. They’re still with me, not as books to be read, but as loyal, lifelong companions. Some of them have been my faithful companions for the better part of 60 years. They’ll see me dead. Hopefully they won’t end up in a land fill when that time comes.

My plan for this series of occasional posts is to pick an author, show the books of that author that I have in my collection, and talk about them and what they mean, or did mean, to me. The first author I am planning to feature is Andre Norton. The reason I wanted start with her is that I’ve been follow the Norton re-reads on TOR.com and I am amazed at all the books of hers that were published in my white-hot decade of reading SF (1962-1972) that I have never heard of. So why did I stop buying Andre Norton’s books? I still have fond memories of her books, though I know… Well, we’ll save those speculations for the first blog post in this series, coming soon. Stay turned.