A growing number of science-fictional experiments conducted by mainstream writers (such as George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, Evgenii Zamiatin's We, Karel Capek's R.U.R., Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker, Kingsley Amis's The Alteration and several novels by Kurt Vonnegut and Doris Lessing) have won acceptance as modern literary classics. Unfortunately, many great works written within the science fiction genre itself are almost unknown outside of the field. As readers may have heard of such science fiction "giants" as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Frank Herbert, the following list contains a baker's dozen of science fiction classics written by some of the field's most outstanding other authors:
- Bester, Alfred., The Demolished Man
- Butler, Octavia E., Parable of the Sower
- Dick, Philip K., A Scanner Darkly
- Disch, Thomas M., Camp Concentration
- Gibson, William., Neuromancer
- Haldeman, Joe., The Forever War
- Le Guin, Ursula K., The Left Hand of Darkness
- McIntyre, Vonda N., Dreamsnake
- Miller Jr., Walter M., A Canticle for Leibowitz
- Stephenson, Neal., Snowcrash
- Sturgeon, Theodore., More than Human
- Tepper, Sherri S., Grass
- Tiptree Jr., James. Brightness Falls from the Air
For those interested in reading beyond this limited list, John Clute's recent Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia can be used as an excellent readers' guide. Basic resources such as Neil Barron's Anatomy of Wonder, and John Clute and Peter Nicholl's Encyclopedia of Science Fiction should also be part of any science fiction reference collection.
