What to Expect

Briefly: I don’t know.

To be rather more prolix: I am here endeavoring to give myself an excuse to consume science fiction and practice writing. Moreover, given my historical turn of mind, I am curious as to what one might learn by following the genre’s development over time. These being my aims, I have prepared a list of science fiction works and arranged them in largely chronological order (works that form part of a series/franchise are listed under the earliest work in their respective group). My intention is to work my way from the top of the list to the bottom, reading and watching as many of the items as I can access. As I do so, I may (and hopefully will) have some thoughts. When that should be the case, I shall endeavor to arrange said thoughts into some coherent assemblage of words. That is as much of a plan as I have sketched thus far. Will I have something to say about everything on the list? Will I write reviews? Will I use some part of what I read/view as a jumping off point to meditate upon other things? Will some works prompt more than one post? Will any of it be informative or interesting? What will I do when I’m done with the list? Stay tuned and you may find out along with me.

Without further ado, here is my list as it currently stands:

• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
• “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” by Edgar Allan Poe (1835)
• De la Terre à la Lune by Jules Verne (1867)
• Looking Backward: 2000–1887 by Edward Bellamy (1888)
• The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (1895)
• The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (1897)
  • Orson Welles broadcast (1938)
• Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902)
• A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• R.U.R. by Karel Čapek (1921)
• Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis (1938)
  • Perelandra (1943)
  • That Hideous Strength (1945)
• “Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov (1941)
• El supersabio (1948)
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)
• The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (1951)
• Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)
  • Foundation and Empire (1952)
  • Second Foundation (1953)
• “The Nine Billion Names of God” by Arthur C. Clarke (1953)
• Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke (1953)
• The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett (1953)
• “The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick (1956)
  • Movie (2002)
• A Case of Conscience by James Blish (1958)
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. (1959)
• Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (1959)
  • Movie (1997)
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (1961)
• Solaris by Stanisław Lem (1961)
  • Movies (1972, 2002)
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)
  • Movie (1971)
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
  • Movies (2003, 2018)
• La Planète des singes by Pierre Boulle (1963)
  • Planet of the Apes (1968)
  • Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
  • Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
  • Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
  • Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
  • Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
  • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
  • War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
• Le cosmicomiche by Italo Calvino (1965)
• Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
  • Dune Messiah (1969)
  • Children of Dune (1976)
  • God Emperor of Dune (1981)
  • Heretics of Dune (1984)
  • Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)
  • Movies (1984, 2021)
• Santo contra la invasión de los marcianos (1967)
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton (1969)
• The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)
• “The Women Men Don’t See” by James Tiptree Jr. (1973)
• Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1973)
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974)
• The Inverted World by Christopher Priest (1974)
• The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974)
• The Female Man by Joanna Russ (1975)
• A Momentary Taste of Being” by James Tiptree Jr. (1975)
• The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke (1979)
• Alien (1979)
  • Aliens (1986)
  • Alien 3 (1992)
  • Alien Resurrection (1997)
  • Prometheus (2012)
  • Alien: Covenant (2017)
• Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)
  • The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980)
  • Life, the Universe and Everything (1982)
  • So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984)
  • Mostly Harmless (1992)
• The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe (1980–1983)
• Tron (1982)
• Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)
  • Count Zero (1986)
  • Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988)
• The Terminator (1984)
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
  • Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
  • Terminator Salvation (2009)
  • Terminator Genisys (2015)
  • Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
• Contact by Carl Sagan (1985)
  • Movie (1997)
• A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski (1986)
  • Daughter of Elysium (1993)
  • The Children Star (1998)
  • Brain Plague (2000)
• Dawn by Octavia Butler (1987)
  • Adulthood Rites (1988)
  • Imago (1989)
• Spaceballs (1987)
• Hyperion by Dan Simmons (1989)
• Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1992)
  • Green Mars (1993)
  • Blue Mars (1996)
• The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (1993)
  • The Parable of the Talents (1998)
• Ghost in the Shell (1995)
• The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell (1996)
• Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora edited by Sheree R. Thomas (2001)
• So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan (2004)
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (2008)
  • The Dark Forest (2008)
  • Death’s End (2010)
• District 9 (2009)
• Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction edited by Grace L. Dillon (2012)
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
• The Book of Strange Things by Michel Faber (2015)
• The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (2015)
  • The Obelisk Gate (2016)
  • The Stone Sky (2017)
• Arrival (2016)
• Annihilation (2018)
• The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal (2018)
  • The Fated Sky (2018)
  • The Relentless Moon (2020)
• Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (2018)
• Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan (2019)