The 100 Best Science Fiction Books of All Time

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Tor, 116 Books

Germany’s SF portal Tor Online asked its community to help create a definitive, German-language guide to the genre. Over a two-week window, 219 readers were allowed to name up to five favourite novels. Their input produced 1 099 nominations covering 450 different titles.

A six-member jury (three women, three men drawn from the site’s editors/critics) then read the long-list and selected the final 100 books. The list is deliberately alphabetical, not ranked, and the jury’s brief was to offer “einen repräsentativen Querschnitt”—a balanced snapshot of classics plus very recent works (roughly the last four to five years). All titles had to be available in German translation, with one deliberate exception (A Door Into Ocean).

Who voted & how many?
Community phase: 219 readers supplied the raw nominations.
Final decision phase: 6 jurors chose the 100-title shortlist.

This list was originally published in 2019 and was added to this site about 2 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
2900 City Clifford D. Simak 1952 American English
17119 Andymon Angela Steinmüller, Karlheinz Steinmüller 1982 German German
14787 Two Planets Kurd Laßwitz 1897 German German
4533 Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer 2014 American English
3483 Consider Phlebas Iain Banks 1987 Scottish English
9541 Binti Nnedi Okorafor 2015 Nigerian English
528 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick 1968 American English
711 Flowers for Algernon Daniel Keyes 1959 American English
2413 The Stars My Destination Alfred Bester 1956 American English
17119 Commander Perkins H. G. Francis 1978 German German
2352 Contact Carl Sagan 1985 American English
14983 River Of Gods Ian McDonald 2004 British English
2583 Dawn Octavia E. Butler 1987 American English
13922 Dangerous Visions Harlan Ellison 1967 American English
17119 Midworld Alan Dean Foster 1975 American English
3145 Dhalgren Samuel R. Delany 1975 American English
15899 The Last Flight Of Dr. Ain James Tiptree Jr. 1969 American English
17119 A Door Into Ocean Joan Slonczewski 1986 American English
3085 Dragonflight Anne McCaffrey 1968 American English
14206 Dragonquest Anne McCaffrey 1971 American English
14232 The White Dragon Anne McCaffrey 1978 American English
2326 The Three-Body Problem Cixin Liu 2006 Chinese Chinese
17119 The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, And Five Doris May Lessing 1980 British English
15899 A Boy And His Dog Harlan Ellison 1969 American English
6154 Use Of Weapons Iain Banks 1990 Scottish English
2605 Ender's Game Orson Scott Card 1985 American English
14961 Dying Inside Robert Silverberg 1972 American English
17119 Evolution Stephen Baxter 2003 British English
2432 The Forever War Joe Haldeman 1974 American English
9369 Leviathan Wakes James S. A. Corey 2011 American English
10570 Caliban's War James S. A. Corey 2012 American English
10424 Abaddon's Gate James S. A. Corey 2013 American English
11832 Cibola Burn James S. A. Corey 2014 American English
11925 Nemesis Games James S. A. Corey 2015 American English
11036 Babylon's Ashes James S. A. Corey 2016 American English
12225 Persepolis Rising James S. A. Corey 2017 American English
12725 Tiamat's Wrath James S. A. Corey 2019 American English
11796 Leviathan Falls James S. A. Corey 2021 American English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
39 Frankenstein Mary Shelley 1818 British English
361 Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951 American English
13763 Foundation And Empire Isaac Asimov 1952 American English
13765 Second Foundation Isaac Asimov 1953 American English
1675 The Time Traveler's Wife Audrey Niffenegger 2003 American English
553 The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin 1974 American English
368 Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein 1961 American English
2235 The Futurological Congress Stanislaw Lem 1971 Polish Polish
7152 Gateway Frederik Pohl 1977 American English
4590 Vurt Jeff Noon 1993 British English
14232 The Carpet Makers Andreas Eschbach 1995 German German
5716 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Haruki Murakami 1985 Japanese Japanese
887 Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1915 American English
11411 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang Kate Wilhelm 1976 American English
17119 Hell Is The Absence Of God Ted Chiang 2001 American English
2469 Hyperion Dan Simmons 1989 American English
822 I, Robot Isaac Asimov 1950 American English
5680 The Illustrated Man Ray Bradbury 1951 American English
459 The Island of Doctor Moreau H. G. Wells 1896 British English
9922 Children Of Time Adrian Tchaikovsky 2015 British English
13565 Old Man's War John Scalzi 2005 American English
372 War of the Worlds H. G. Wells 1898 British English
776 War with the Newts Karel Čapek 1936 Czech Czech
14983 The Long Earth Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter 2012 British English
13941 The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet Becky Chambers 2014 American English
8879 Mockingbird Walter Tevis 1980 American English
17119 The Last Day Of Creation Wolfgang Jeschke 1981 German German
17119 Love Is The Plan The Plan Is Death James Tiptree Jr. 1973 American English
363 The Left Hand Of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin 1969 American English
17119 Little Brother Cory Doctorow 2008 Canadian English
1453 The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury 1950 American English
2740 The Martian Andy Weir 2011 American English
4665 Red Mars Kim Stanley Robinson 1992 American English
8214 Green Mars Kim Stanley Robinson 1993 American English
8514 Blue Mars Kim Stanley Robinson 1996 American English
5700 Ancillary Justice Ann Leckie 2013 American English
14983 Metro 2033 Dmitri Glukhovsky 2005 Russian Russian
3887 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Robert A. Heinlein 1966 American English
10747 Stand on Zanzibar John Brunner 1968 British English
17119 Aftermath Chuck Wendig 2015 American English
17119 Life Debt Chuck Wendig 2016 American English
17119 Empire's End Chuck Wendig 2017 American English
893 Neuromancer William Gibson 1984 American, Canadian English
2132 The Man in the High Castle Philip K. Dick 1962 American English
17119 Otherland Tad Williams 1996 American English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
11538 Perdido Street Station China Miéville 2000 British English
15899 Enterprise Stardust K. H. Scheer 1961 German German
2809 Roadside Picnic Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky 1972 Russian Russian
926 Journey to the Center of the Earth Jules Verne 1864 French French
5936 Rendezvous with Rama Arthur C. Clarke 1973 British English
132 The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood 1985 Canadian English
2237 Ringworld Larry Niven 1970 American English
50 Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1932 British English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
15899 Simulacron 3 Daniel F. Galouye 1964 American English
1597 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson 1992 American English
327 Solaris Stanislaw Lem 1961 Polish Polish
11411 Spin Robert Charles Wilson 2005 Canadian English
11231 The Mote In God's Eye Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle 1974 American English
5333 Starship Troopers Robert A. Heinlein 1959 American English
917 The Day of the Triffids John Wyndham 1951 British English
1421 Ubik Philip K. Dick 1969 American English
153 A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess 1962 British English
14983 Altered Carbon Richard Morgan 2002 British English
881 Utopia Thomas More 1516 British Latin
2664 The Lost World Arthur Conan Doyle 1912 British English
14983 The Rediscovery Of Man Cordwainer Smith 1975 American English
4933 Who Fears Death Nnedi Okorafor 2010 Nigerian English
17119 We Were Out Of Our Minds With Joy David Marusek 1995 American English
14210 The Word For World Is Forest Ursula K. Le Guin 1972 American English
100 Dune Frank Herbert 1965 American English
294 The Time Machine H. G. Wells 1895 British English
1117 The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin 2015 American English
6 Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 1949 British English
1004 2001 Arthur C. Clarke 1968 British English
673 Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne 1870 French French