91 books like The Science of Doctor Who

I’d characterize the title story of this book as having Animal Farm energy—a huge idea in a short story—and a prime example of why Heinlein’s era is called the “Golden Age” of science fiction. I listened to multiple sections of this story twice after realizing my bearings had been off, slowed the audio to normal speed (I typically listen at 1.25x), and even looked up diagrams online outlining the order of plot events, which exist because this story pushes time travel to its limits.

Completing the story wasn’t the end, either. I wanted to read the analysis, discussions, and the aforementioned diagrams. It is a masterfully written, thought-provoking tale whose big reveals and revelations were legitimately jaw-dropping at times.

I was repeatedly impressed by H.G. Wells’ book, constantly reminding myself that it was written in the 19th century before relativity and the concept of spacetime, even before the game Red Dead Redemption 2 took place.

Conceptually, I found the ideas remarkably ahead of their time and enjoyed seeing the different eras of sci-fi that would follow represented to varying degrees, especially the Golden Age and New Wave. I went through a period of going through all of the fundamental science fiction I’d never read, and this was by far the most meaningful.

I frequently drive between L.A. and the bay, and the time I listened to it on my way home was the fastest the trip ever felt.

Any list like this needs to include a Hitchhiker’s book, and this is my personal favourite. These books skirt even further into the surreal and silly than the Discworld books, but somehow Douglas Adams saves them from falling into pointlessness. I can’t quite see how he does it. The settings are so diverse and mind-boggling, and the plot is thin enough that it would probably collapse if I tried to describe it, like a beautiful bubble popping in your palm. The characters are vividly memorable, but in these books, it is the language that really shines, the spectacular, witty, wonderful use of words and phrases, which somehow elevate the book, making us care about the journey despite its utter silliness.

Carlos Rovelli’s The Order of Time is not at all a fantasy book—it is science—but nevertheless the most inspiring, life changing fantasy I’ve ever read. If I look around me with scientist Rovelli’s eyes, I too see that “the world is made up of networks of kisses, not of stones.” Beautiful, weird, and scientifically accurate. True fantasy! 

The penultimate time traveler? What is not to love here. A time lord racing through time, saving the world past and present maintaining the status quo in a phone. Adventure, romance all done with a chuckle that will warm the coldest heart. Of course, a steady diet of this might lead one to become a cosplay addict existing from one Comic-con to the next.

If you want a blend of fun science fiction serials from the earliest days of television mixed with everything you love about modern Doctor Who set in an entirely new setting that draws you in from the moment you start reading, this book is the one to do it. The author deftly weaves a fantastic story centered around an impossible decision and the only person who can make it, aptly capturing the struggle involved in making the worst choice ever.

I still remember where I was when I read this book so many years later. The only thing disappointing about it was that it ended in such a way that this reader thought it was over. Tom Merritt said, “No, I have one more.” Be glad he wrote Trigor because you will not want to be done when Pilot X ends. 

This book is a delirious romp through time and space with a political edge, which is enough to make me love it on its own. However, versions of the main character, Jerry Cornelius, pop up in just about all of Michael Moorcock’s work, including The Dancers at the End of Time trilogy, the Elric of Melnibone books and even his Dr. Who novel.

But wait! There’s more! Moorcock gave other writers permission to use the character, so he appears in other people’s works (including one of my novels). One of the first explorers of the concept of the multiverse, Michael Moorcock brilliantly paved the way for the rest of us.

This is the first book of the Incarnation series. What got me to read this book was the description. A man sees the incarnation of Death (the dark hooded grim reaper) and he shoots and kills him. Now that he has killed death, he must take Death’s place and become Death himself.

The second book in the series is about Chronos (time) and he lives his life backwards! The entire novel is written with time moving opposite of everyone else in the novel. I read these books in my early twenties and a lot of the series plot points still stick with me today. I have been influenced by it because in my series if one kills a mage, they must take their place as that mage.

I think The Doctor in Doctor Who and his wife moving opposite in time might have been influenced by the second book, I… show more.

Lumley is steeped in both the occult detective and the Lovecraftian tradition, and it shows most clearly in this set of pulpy occult detective stories featuring his cerebral-yet-tough Titus Crow, and involving wild flights of fancy in time and space that also arguably show some influence from Doctor Who. We get a lovely creepy origin story here, and several vignettes, but the highlight is the longer tale of the mysteries of the wyrm, and festering, crawling things in an ancient manor house and its library. It fairly oozes supernatural evil and is one of my favorite things.

It was Star Trek, Star Wars, and, most of all, Doctor Who that first made me fall in love with science fiction.

Some will think it an odd choice to include this novelization of Terry Nation’s television story, The Genesis of the Daleks, but Terrance Dicks is a much-underrated writer, and this portrait of war-devastated Skaro offers a fantastic image of humanity and inhumanity. Just as much as C. S. Lewis in Perelandra, the book has the Nazis on its mind, and the bunker where Davros creates his army of autonomous half-machine warriors replays the Berlin bunker where Hitler awaited the end.

In the midst of it all, the Doctor himself stands for goodness, for good humor, for compassion–a compassion that even includes at the climax of the book, the Daleks themselves. Aged ten, the Doctor was to me an image of what it might be to… show more.