62 books like The Voyage of the Space Beagle

Even though The Lord of the Rings is recognized as the classic of high fantasy, Tolkien himself was deeply influenced by Eddison’s book. It is here that the first concepts of the hero’s journey, while encased in a thrilling saga of protagonists against impossible odds are sown, and of the great worldbuilding that encapsulates such an epic.

Even though the story itself (a never-ending war between the honorable demon princes and an immortal witch king) is pure simplicity, Eddison added an amazing twist: he wrote it in 16th-century English. If you can imagine William Shakespeare writing Lord of the Rings, then this is it.

Some people may get turned off by the archaic prose, but once you get into it, the novel becomes a highly enjoyable romp, filled with action and adventure.

With an equal mix of strangeness and enigmatic philosophies, this short novel barely sold a hundred copies when it was first published in 1920, but has since been recognized as a unique work by noted critic Colin Wilson. Once you’ve read it, you’ll find it both hard to categorize and understand, but it sticks to you like the remnants of a drugged-out fever dream. 

The story of a mysterious man named Maskull, who travels to a planet called Tormance, a world both wondrous and strange. Even though it’s written as a travelogue, the sheer originality invokes an atmosphere of hidden, yet unattainable knowledge for both the protagonist and the reader. The abrupt ending itself neither answers anything nor brings the story to a conclusion, and it’s an experience you won’t soon forget.

While his dense prose may not be for everyone, the sheer imagination of The Night Land has captured a small but dedicated fanbase that exists to this day.

Published in 1912, this dark tale of a grieving 17th-century widower who experiences a vision millions of years to a future where the sun has been extinguished, plunging the earth into perpetual darkness. The last remnants of humanity lives within an armored pyramid that’s under constant assault by nightmarish shadow creatures, intent on exterminating them.

Within this bleak unforgiving world, the narrator learns his beloved may also be alive, but she is trapped in another lost city and he sets out to find her. The potent mix of romance and doom serves as a compelling epic, if one has both the patience and dedication to read through it all.

The first in a series of science fantasy novels, the works of Vance are largely unknown to the general public, but this particular set of stories has some very influential fans, like George RR Martin (the author of A Game of Thrones), and Gary Gygax (who invented Dungeons & Dragons).
In The Dying Earth, Vance has created a unique system of magic, in which a wizard must memorize a lengthy spell in his mind that disappears from memory once it is cast. This and other innovations along with unique characters and worldbuilding has created an endearing tale that has thrilled readers since it was first published in 1950.

If you want to know where today’s top sci-fi and fantasy authors got their influence from, look no further than Jack Vance.

What I love most about this story is the fresh new take on ‘the aliens among us.’ The author picks a ‘backwoods country boy’ to confront and eventually be chased by powerful creatures from outer space. Lucky for the country boy, he is given some superpowers to help him survive.

I liked how the story moved along with snappy enthusiasm (this is the first of six volumes).

I’ve always wondered about those amateur detectives who just happen to be nearby when murder occurs, especially the sixth or seventh time. Surely they are secretly serial killers, or they’re really, really unlucky. It’s the latter for Mallory Viridian, so when the possibility arises she flees Earth to a space station inhabited only by aliens to escape. I love truly alien aliens, and there are plenty of those on board, with strange customs and otherworldly motives for the ever-increasing number of murders. I also really loved how this book delves into the question of why murder seems to follow Mallory around, and the resolution is satisfying and delightfully science fictional.

I always wondered what happened to “Hal,” the intelligent computer, at the end of the story in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this sequel, I found the answer to nearly all the questions that lingered after I read the earlier novel.

The new personalities introduced in this book fascinated me, especially the love interests and how they are handled during deep space explorations. The whole story left me wanting to know even more about the spaceships and the people who flew on them.

This is, in my humble view, the best science fiction novel ever written. I have read it no less than ten times so far and intend to keep rereading it. What nowadays seems incredible is that it was written back in 1961, when most science fiction was still in its age of innocence, full of naïve assumptions about extraterrestrials and their malevolent ambitions.

It will be many years before the first ideas of benevolent aliens appear and even more before we fully realize Lem's wisdom from Solaris: there isn't going to be any First Contact because Others are neither bad nor good, but indifferent, as it is the planetary intelligent ocean on Solaris. We aren't still mature enough even for contacts with ourselves, let alone Others.

Yes, another series recommendation. Imagine one of those currently popular plots where a small group of people wake up in a place with no memory and don’t know where they are or why they are there. This series is like that only everybody who has ever lived is there with you, and you retain all your memories from your first life. Also, the entire planet seems to be one long river.

Things get weird pretty fast. The Riverworld series focuses on human interaction, starting from a science fiction premise. There are aliens and such, but no interstellar space battles. The series is very engaging and the idea of putting together famous figures from the entire history of humanity was, for me, extremely compelling.

This book provides an early history of the modern UFO era by a credible U.S. Military Officer. Read this book or another book you can find by Donald E. Keyhoe.

I recommend Major Donald E. Keyhoe’s book on flying saucers because of the personal passion he has exhibited for the subject, especially for the reality and importance of it. I recall viewing in a video showing how he was on TV telling viewers how important the subject of flying saucers was, while at the same time his TV broadcast was right then and there being censored off the air. Someone like Keyhoe… right in the act of being censored, well, I think, it doesn’t get more emotionally moving than that!

Major Kehoe investigated many of the earliest encounters allegedly between U.S. Air Force pilots and UFOs (so-called “flying saucers”). Keyhoe believed the Air Force was actively investigating these close encounters,… show more.