Fifty Favorite Works of Fantasy and Science Fiction
Several rules: (1) I have listed these books in alphabetical order by the author’s last name, rather than in order of preference. (2) I have chosen no more than one book per author, except when a trilogy or a pair of books seemed to call for a single shared listing. (3) I have favored a broad definition of fantasy and science fiction, which is to say that you’ll find some of these books shelved as fantasy and science fiction in the bookstore, but others as mainstream fiction or children’s fiction. —Kevin Brockmeier, January 15, 2024
1. Ghosts by César Aira
2. The Other City by Michal Ajvaz
3. Feed by M. T. Anderson
4. The Complete Stories by J. G. Ballard
5. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle
6. The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry
7. The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos
8. Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
9. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
10. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
11. The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
12. The Fat Man in History by Peter Carey
13. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
14. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
15. The Latin American Trilogy by Louis de Bernières
16. Tales of Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany
17. The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch
18. Under the Skin by Michel Faber
19. Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler
20. In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss
21. The Cockroaches of Stay More by Donald Harington
22. The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
23. The Wandering Jew by Stefan Heym
24. Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
25. The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka
26. Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy
27. The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel by John Kessel
28. Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter
29. The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
30. White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link
31. Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels by Giorgio Manganelli
32. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
33. Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin
34. Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet
35. Metamorphoses by Ovid
36. And Yet They Were Happy by Helen Phillips
37. Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater
38. The Inverted World by Christopher Priest
39. The His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
40. The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century by Olga Ravn
41. Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
42. Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables & Problems by Adam Ehrlich Sachs
43. Blindness by José Saramago
44. The Dragon Griaule by Lucius Shepard
45. The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
46. The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain
47. After World by Debbie Urbanski
48. Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
49. Grow a Pair: 9½ Fairy Tales About Sex by Joanna Walsh
50. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham