The best classic science fiction books: humanity’s future in space and time

This was my first venture into science fiction, and it is the greatest novel by one of the genre's masters. I found it to be truly inspiring in both scope and concept. 

The story deals with the collapse of the imperial empire, the rise of a new federation, and a future of possibilities I had never imagined. I simply could not put it down and went on to read all the other books in the series. Asimov makes the everyday sound extraordinary.

I was drawn to the way the main characters in this story are normal people, more or less like you and me, but in circumstances that exist only in our imaginations. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to expand their appreciation of the genre.     

The main thing that impressed me about this book was the sheer originality of the story. Greg Bear has created a world unlike any I have read. 

A giant asteroid appears above Earth and is hollow. Inside is a world beyond imagining, a world without end and a path to the future. I was inexorably drawn into the story from the very first page. I especially loved the way all of this is grounded in the very human characters and described in terms to which the reader can easily relate.

Bear is a master of descriptive writing, an author I cannot read enough of. Highly recommended.

I love this book because I could easily imagine myself in its setting. It is set in the near future and is about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, successes and failures. 

I felt this story to be most significant because it may well happen in my lifetime or yours. As the characters undertake their first exploration of Mars, I find myself traveling with them in my imagination. Being a Mars fanatic, I know enough about the planet to know how accurate the descriptive writing is, and I really felt I was there. Superbly written, this is a story of our time.

The thing I like most about this book is that it is one of the most outstanding works of imaginative fiction I have ever read. Written as a sequel to The Time Machine, it celebrates the centenary of that book’s first publication. 

This journey is more varied than the original. The hero journeys to different times and places and even gets marooned in one. I love the way the author uses the basic concept to explore various aspects of humanity’s future, such as the entire race living on the inner surface of a Dyson sphere around Sol.

I enjoyed journeying to different times and worlds, each vividly and realistically portrayed. I strongly recommend this work for lovers of time travel stories.

My all-time favorite time travel book, this story tells of a young student’s journey into the past for a university project. Things go awry, and she arrives at the wrong time, squarely in the path of the Black Death.  

As a history buff, I loved the historical perspective of the story imposed against modern university life, as the story tells of the gradual demise of a small English village and the university's attempts to get the student back.

I found the story most realistic, and the sheer urgency of the main character’s dire situation kept me fully engrossed to the last pages, where she is finally rescued. I recommend it to lovers of time travel stories and history buffs.