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, May 14, 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. A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle

6. Blood Music by Greg Bear

7. The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry

8. The Other Side of the Mountain by Michel Bernanos

9. Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

10. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

11. Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler

12. The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

13. The Fat Man in History by Peter Carey

14. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

15. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

16. The Latin American Trilogy by Louis de Bernières

17. Tales of Nevèrÿon by Samuel R. Delany

18. The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch

19. Under the Skin by Michel Faber

20. Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler

21. In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss

22. The Cockroaches of Stay More by Donald Harington

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


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