Frank Herbert's Dune

Top 100 SF & Fantasy Books. Dune by Frank Herbert.

Dune. Forget the movie and the mini-series, just read the book. It’s an epic sf read of Shakespearean proportions and delves into every crevice of life. Grander than Game of Thrones, more sweeping than Star Wars, as fundamental as a religious text Dune has the power to enthral, and that’s just what it did to me when I was young …

Top 100 SF and Fantasy Books, These Fantastic Worlds, Jake Jackson

100 Top SF & F Books. Blackmark by Gil Kane.

Blackmark is the creation of masterful artist-storyteller, Gil Kane. It’s a rare beast, and you won’t find it in many top SF and Fantasy lists. However, for me it brings together so many genres (Sword and Sorcery, SF, Wild West), and expresses the mix with great power: in a post apocalyptic world, brought to its knees by the banished forces of science …

Top 100 SF and Fantasy Books, These Fantastic Worlds, Jake Jackson

100 Top SF & F Books. The Subtle Knife. Phillip Pullman

The second book in Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy The Subtle Knife is a roaring good read, and a sophisticated modern fantasy. Originally I bought the edition here for my son, 12 at the time, but he was rather less interested than I was, mainly, as I now discover, because he didn’t share my taste for science fiction and fantasy. Fantasy for Children? …

100 Top SF & Fantasy Books, These fantastic Worlds, Arthur C Clarke

100 Top SF & F Books. The Songs of Distant Earth. Arthur C Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke demands to be taken seriously. His fiction operates on the grand scale, employing meticulous scientific knowledge to create a series of “what ifs?” based on plausible technological, psychological or ecological events. Sometimes he offers too much detail, and forgets about the storytelling part of his fiction – I re-read the RAMA series recently, and struggled with its …