The best sci-fi/fantasy books that inspire you to be a better person

A mystical tree named the Ellcrys, which keeps demons trapped in an otherworldly prison, is dying, and a fiend called the Dagda More has gotten loose. Hope for restoring the Ellcrys lies with the elven princess, Amberle, and her protector, Wil Ohmsford. Unfortunately, Wil can’t unlock the power to control his primary weapon, the demon-slaying Elfstones, so he and Amberle go on the run. 

For me, it is Wil who really ties this elegantly written story together, in his genuine desire to be strong while plagued by self-doubt. I feel his pain as he strives to protect the princess and unleash his latent abilities…the Dagda More is terrifying and relentless…the momentum is nail-biting…the final showdown is magnificent.

Overall, I’m more a fan of The Narnia Chronicles, but Lewis’ lesser-known Space Trilogy is also very good, with many of the same themes of ancient evil versus ageless good. Perelandra, the second in the trilogy, is self-contained and doesn’t really require the other books. 

In Perelandra, Lewis re-imagines our entire solar system, filling it with massive numbers of amazing creatures. The eldila, angelic beings that guard planets and their denizens, send the human protagonist, Dr. Ransom, on a mission to save Perelandra, the world we call Venus. Perelandra is in a kind of primeval Eden-type state, but another Earth man, the arrogant and overly rationalistic Weston, is bent on bringing about its ruination.

You know the story already: a magic ring once controlled by the evil Sauron is now the property of a guileless hobbit named Frodo, who is tasked with carrying it to Mt. Doom to destroy it.

There are so many wonderful characters, thrilling battles, and hideous monsters here, so much magic and adventure, but when I’m done reading it I find that what lingers the most is a desire to be good. I want to be virtuous and brave like Frodo and Gandalf and Aragorn—and I don’t want to even trifle with the possibility of giving in to the evil impulses that consume and destroy the likes of Sauron, the Orcs, and poor Gollum, impulses which wound and scar even beloved protagonists like Boromir, and Frodo himself. The Lord of the Rings tends to bring out the best in the reader, and that, more than anything else, is what makes it such a classic.

As is usual with Crichton’s books, the author makes the reader feel smart; the way he makes complex scientific ideas intelligible and then turns them into pop entertainment is astounding. His dinosaurs are blood-curdling, and the story of how they came to be and how the protagonists struggle against them is splendid. The real villain is humankind’s arrogance; our fatal tendency to reduce existence to narrow rationalistic parameters and then, from there, launch schemes of avarice and domination. Therein lies why I place it on a list of books that inspire me to be better. Like everyone else, I often feel the pressure to ignore the balance and design of our world and seek out whatever it is that I want. Jurassic Park reminds me to resist.

Scotland Yard detective Gabriel Syme is charged with infiltrating a network of violent anarchists, which (rumor has it) is led by a mysterious arch villain known as ‘Sunday’. Syme serendipitously finds himself elected to the anarchists’ high council, and a kind of whimsical journey into the heart of darkness begins.

Chesterton’s book presents what is good as those things opposed to anarchy, e.g. order, justice, common decency…Syme stands for all of them. The further he infiltrates the anarchists’ society, though, the more his sense of the good is shaken. By the end it seems as though all of England has lost its mind. It isn’t until his final encounter with Sunday that things start to make sense again. The effect, for me, is a strong renewed hope in humanity, or at least a hope for humanity.