The best science fiction books explore how technological advances come with a double-edged sword

I get it. This topic is low-hanging fruit, yet classic science fiction is always worth revisiting, particularly when it is the first of the genre. And the first was written by a woman.

It was 1818 when Mary Shelley explored what can happen when a laboratory experiment goes wrong. In this case, an experiment that eliminates the need for human propagation. Taking such an experiment to its logical conclusion eliminates the need for women. Or men for that matter. The prose holds up surprisingly well.

I recommend it because it illustrates why science fiction is as much an art form as anything Rembrandt produced. And perhaps more impactful. A literary masterpiece, Frankenstein considers a future where technology succeeds, but humanity fails.

In the dystopian future that Bradbury creates, technology has eliminated the need for books.

We are not smarter in this future without history or literature, in fact, we are dumber, relying on meaningless entertainment to fill the intellectual void created by the written word’s eradication. Many successful science fiction authors are masters of the craft of writing, but Bradbury is on another level.

His stark vision of the future is propelled by ordinary characters living in extraordinary times, with each setting painted with beautiful prose that is both prophetic and thought provoking. The Dewey Decimal System has no hold on where one can find literature in a bookstore, nor do the critics.

I do not recommend 1984 because it is one of the most powerful books ever written. Readers know that. I love this book for its artful prescience.

While Yevgeny Zamyatin’s Me normally gets credit for being the first dystopian novel, Orwell perfected the genre. The novel becomes more important with each passing decade. Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth altering documents for the government.

Catchphrases like “doublethink” and “thought police,” coupled with the pervasive use of surveillance technology highlight why science fiction shines a light on a future our “betters” had just as soon we not see and does so in a spare, literary style that is both eloquent and to the point. 

Reading the first pages of Brave New World is like falling down an elevator shaft. Once you begin, you cannot stop.

The people readers meet in Brave New World are, so to speak, content, fat, and happy. Enter John, someone who grew up outside the dystopian utopia and is not happy. Instead, he is disturbed by the swarm of narcissists that surrounds him. He feels loss. Loss of nature. Loss of simple kindness.

Like all the movie adaptions of this great work, he sees prolific vacuousness. Huxley uses John to illuminate the dark places of a future that uses technological advances to shape a culture that has extracted everything that is human from the souls of those who invite him into their world.     

The third book of the Space Trilogy combines lore of medieval England, Merlin the magician, myth, academic snobbery, the status of marriage, God, and scientists determining what the rules are for the rest of society.

This science fiction tale compares to the best of Jules Verne, with a little bit of Mary Shelley and Ray Bradbury thrown in for good measure. Lewis’s imagination and literary talent are on full display in this swipe at elitism, technocracy, and ambition, all of which points toward the elimination of biological life and the artificial horror that will replace it.

Many may be surprised that this Christian apologist wrote several science fiction books. For those who love this genre, I highly recommend giving this one a try.