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, August 15, 2025
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. On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle
6. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle
7. Blood Music by Greg Bear
8. The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry
9. The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos
10. Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
11. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
12. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
13. The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
14. The Fat Man in History by Peter Carey
15. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
16. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
17. The Latin American Trilogy by Louis de Bernières
18. Tales of Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany
19. The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch
20. Under the Skin by Michel Faber
21. Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler
22. In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss
23. The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
24. The Wandering Jew by Stefan Heym
25. Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
26. The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka
27. Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy
28. The Dark Ride: The Best Short Fiction of John Kessel by John Kessel
29. Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter
30. The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
31. White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link
32. Centuria: One Hundred Ouroboric Novels by Giorgio Manganelli
33. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
34. Tuf Voyaging by George R. R. Martin
35. Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet
36. Metamorphoses by Ovid
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