Best Science Fiction Books
Nebula Awards are chosen by the members of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America
Hugo Awards are chosen by the members of Worldcon
Modified by Rachel Bussan for NLS Network Libraries
Nebula Award Novel Winners
1965
BRN9442, DB/RC44126
Title: Dune
Author: Frank Herbert
Series: Dune, Book 1
Annotation: An exile with psychic powers becomes the prophet of the savage people on the planet Dune. Followed by "Dune Messiah." 1984.
1966
BR18365, RC33245
Title: Flowers for Algernon
Author: Daniel Keyes
Annotation: The narrator, a mentally impaired man of thirty-two, receives an operation to increase his learning ability. But although his mentality develops at high speed, there is always the possibility of regression. For senior high and older readers. Originally published in 1966. Made into the movie Charly.
DB/RC16378
Title: Babel-17
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Annotation: Alien invaders disrupt Earth's communications and data flow with an unknown battle code Babel-17. General Forester and the Cosmic Poetess, Rydra Wong, must find a way to discern the inner meaning of the aliens' bizarre communications weapon or watch the human race perish. Nebula Award.
1969
BR12827, RC43166
Title: The Left Hand of Darkness
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Annotation: Confused and afraid, a lone human becomes the pawn in an intrigue on Gethen, a planet inhabited by creatures that are neither male nor female. They are not neuters but have the potential to be either man or woman. Originally published in 1969. Hugo and Nebula Awards. RC 48931 and BR 12827 are the 25th anniversary edition with a new afterword and appendixes by the author.
1970
RC17418
Title: Ringworld
Author: Larry Niven
Series: Ringworld, Book 1
Annotation: A motley band of humans and aliens is sent from known space to unlock the mysteries of a vast, ring-shaped world built around a distant sun by a defunct civilization. Hugo and Nebula Award Winner. First Ringworld book. Followed by "Ringworld Engineers."
1971
RC19415
Title: A Time of Changes
Author: Robert Silberberg
Annotation: In the world of Borthan, men had found peace by denying all concept of self and love. Even mention of the word "I" was taboo. Then Prince Kinnal Darival discovers a doorway into the Self by taking the self-baring drug, and henceforth his people regard him as a traitor. Nebula Award winner.
1972
BR1860, DB/RC10913
Title: The Gods Themselves
Author: Isaac Asimov
Annotation: In the twenty-first century Frederick Hallam discovers the electron pump which delivers a ceaseless flow of energy from another universe. It soon becomes evident that this is a one-way ticket to cosmic disaster. 1972.
1973
BRN8219, DB/RC34890
Title: Rendezvous with Rama
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Series: Rama, Book 1
Annotation: Rama is the name given to the massive object that passes through the solar system in the twenty-second century. Explorers discover that Rama is not an asteroid or a dead relic but is instead a thirty-one-mile-long alien spaceship that is undergoing amazing changes as it approaches the sun. 1973. First book in the Rama series. Followed by "Rama II."
1975
BRN9407, DB/RC48659
Title: The Forever War
Author: Joe Haldeman
Series: Forever War, Book 1
Annotation: William Mandella is drafted after college to fight a war in outer space. William only ages months while earthlings age by decades. He finds civilization completely changed each time he returns from bloody combat. After 1,143 years, the war's end brings him home. Some strong language. Hugo and Nebula Awards.
1976
DB/RC60854
Title: Man Plus
Author: Frederik Pohl
Annotation: In a future plagued with near certainty of thermo-nuclear war, the U.S. races to turn astronaut Roger Torraway into a cyborg able to survive on Mars. Some strong language. For high school and adult readers. Nebula Award.
1977
BR15605, DB/RC59083
Title: Gateway
Author: Frederik Pohl
Series: Heechee, Book 1
Annotation: Wealthy prospector Robinette Broadhead wins a one-way trip to Gateway, an abandoned interstellar depot of the vanished Heechee race. Unsettled by the experience and with the help of his computerized psychoanalyst, Broadhead begins a personal journey that could lead to his destruction. Strong language. 1976. First book in the Heechee Saga. Followed by "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon."
1978
DB/RC65218
Title: Dreamsnake
Author: Vonda N. McIntyre
Annotation: On her first mission, healer Snake loses her "dreamsnake," the telepathic serpent essential to her work. On a dangerous quest for a replacement she encounters desert dwellers, mountain inhabitants, and Arevin, a youth who has fallen in love with her. Descriptions of sex and some violence. 1978.
1979
DB/RC12962
Title: The Fountains of Paradise
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Annotation: A novel that brings together the past and future, revealing the aspirations of two dreamers--a tyrannical second-century prince and an engineer of the twenty-second century.
1980
DB/RC19699
Title: Timescape
Author: Gregory Benford
Annotation: In 1998, while the world is slowly dying from ecological disasters, famine, and social collapse, a small group of scientists work feverishly to send a message of warning back into the past. In 1963 a young physics professor receives this message and must convince a doubting world to take steps to avert a hopeless future. 1980.
1981
DB/RC18149
Title: The Claw of the Conciliator
Author: Gene Wolfe
Series: Book of the New Sun, Book 2
Annotation: Continues the odyssey of Severian, the banished torturer, in the barbaric world a million years in the future. While traveling to his city of exile, he confronts unknown dangers and manages to survive because he carries a magical jewel called the Claw of the Conciliator. Sequel to "The Shadow of the Torturer." Second in The Book of the New Sun.
1982
BR9195, DB/RC36086
Title: No Enemy But Time
Author: Michael Bishop
Annotation: While on a time-travel assignment in pre-historic Africa, John Monegal joins a group of early pre-humans. He shares in the intimate life of the group and in their brutal struggle for survival in a brutal world. After fathering a child, he returns to the present, where he finds the conflicting realities of two different lives in two different times have changed him forever. Strong language and explicit descriptions of sex. Nebula Award.1982.
1983
RC23715
Title: Startide Rising
Author: David Brin
Series: Uplift, Book 2
Annotation: Armadas of alien races clash in space to claim a Terran exploration vessel manned by a crew of humans and dolphins and bearing one of the most important secrets in galactic history. Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Sequel to "Sundiver." Second book in the Uplift Saga.
1984
BR9062, DB/RC34589
Title: Neuromancer
Author: William Gibson
Series: Sprawl, Book 1
Annotation: Case, a twenty-first century computer interfacer, is caught stealing and receives nerve damage as punishment. When even Japan's medical minds can't repair the injury, drug-addicted and penniless Case loses hope, until he is kidnapped by strangers who promise to cure him if he uses his expertise on their dangerous project. Strong language, violence, and explicit descriptions of sex. Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards. 1984.
1985
DB/RC22934
Title: Ender’s Game
Author: Orson S. Card
Series: Ender’s Saga, Book 1
Annotation: In a future Earth engaged in an interstellar war against insectoid aliens, Ender Wiggins is chosen at the age of six to be trained as the military genius who will carry his people to victory. Along with his brother Peter and his sister Valentine, he not only brings the conflict to an end, but also affects the evolution of human society. Strong language. First book in the Ender Wiggins series. Followed by "Speaker for the Dead."
1986
DB/RC24421
Title: Speaker for the Dead
Author: Orson S. Card
Series: Ender’s Saga, Book 2
Annotation: Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania discover a species of intelligent life whose puzzling, brutal customs threaten to trigger a second war. Ender Wiggins, hero and scapegoat in the last war, seeks a chance to redeem his own and humanity's greatest crime, the failure to understand. Sequel to "Ender's Game." Second Ender Wiggins book.
1987
BR8700, RC33352
Title: The Falling Woman
Author: Pat Murphy
Annotation: Alienated from modern society, archaeologist Elizabeth Butler finds contentment excavating an ancient Mayan city in the Yucatan jungle. Her grown daughter seeks her out to renew their mother-daughter relationship, but Elizabeth's life becomes bound up with the specter of a long-dead Mayan priestess who shows her the ancient rituals of the Maya. The priestess, though, requires a horrible sacrifice. Nebula award. 1986.
1988
BR9367
Title: Falling Free
Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Annotation: Leo Graf, a highly skilled welding engineer, has come to Cay Project, an orbital habitat, to teach the inhabitants welding. When Graf arrives, he discovers there are only 400 downsiders --average people--living there. The other 1,000 are quaddies --children with two sets of arms and no legs. Graf is concerned about their lack of knowledge of the outside world. And rightly so. For soon two quaddies attempt to escape to that world. Some strong language. 1988.
1989
RC35232
Title: The Healer’s War
Author: Elizabeth A. Scarborough
Series: Healer’s War, Book 1
Annotation: Drawing upon her own nursing experiences in Vietnam, the author tells the story of Kitty McCulley, a nurse in Vietnam. While on duty, Kitty makes some bad decisions that result in contempt from her co-workers. But an amulet, given her by a Vietnamese patient, allows her to help people in special ways. It comes in handy when she finds herself in the jungle with a crippled child and an American soldier. Violence and strong language. Nebula Award. First in Healer's War series. No other titles transcribed.
1990
BR15416, DB/RC32958
Title: Tehanu
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Series: Earthsea, Book 4
Annotation: Tenar, once priestess of Atuan and now the middle-aged widow of a Gontish farmer, lives quietly, caring for her foster daughter Therru, an abused child. Soon another needs Tenar's care; Ged, no longer Archmage of Earthsea, returns home, borne half-conscious on a dragon's back. Follows "The Farthest Shore." Final volume in the Earthsea series. For grades 6-9. 1990.
1991
DB/RC41182
Title: Stations of the Tide
Author: Michael Swanwick
Annotation: The bureaucrat is sent to the planet Miranda to track down the renegade scientist and magician, Gregorian, who has acquired forbidden technologies for unknown purposes. As the bureaucrat tries to counter Gregorian's powers, he must unravel the ecological mysteries of Miranda's Jubilee Tides, a cyclical inundation of the continents caused by the melting of the planet's icecaps every 200 years. 1991 Nebula Award. 1991.
1992
DB/RC36888
Title: Doomsday Book
Author: Connie Willis
Annotation: Kivrin, a young, twenty-first-century history student, travels back in time on assignment to fourteenth-century Oxford. But something goes wrong, and she is stranded in the Middle Ages right at the outbreak of the bubonic plague. As her modern mentor struggles to rescue her, Kivrin must come to terms with life and death in an age of superstition, fear, and suffering. Winner of the 1992 Nebula award.
1993
DB/RC36318
Title: Red Mars
Author: Kim S. Robinson
Series: Mars Trilogy, Book 1
Annotation: About 100 people, mostly Russian and American scientists, have been sent on a mission to Mars -- they are to establish a community for humans. But conflicts among the colonists have divided them into the Reds and the Greens. The Reds want to leave the planet in its virgin state, but the Greens want to transform it. In the perilous and hostile landscape, the settlers act out many human emotions -- love, hate, envy, and ambition. Some strong language. First in the Mars trilogy. Followed by "Green Mars." 1993.
1994
DB/RC37868
Title: Moving Mars
Author: Greg Bear
Annotation: Casseia Majumdar, daughter of one of the oldest colonizing families of Mars, and Charles Franklin, a brilliant physicist, are caught up in the struggle for Mars's political independence from Earth. As hostilities break out between Earth and Mars, the discovery of new physical laws of the universe adds another dimension to the conflict, and the future of Mars will be changed forever. 1993.
1995
DB/RC59138
Title: The Terminal Experiment
Author: Robert J. Sawyer
Annotation: 2011. To test his immortality theories, Dr. Peter Hobson creates three electronic simulations of his own mind. The duplicates somehow escape into the global matrix--and one becomes a killer. Some descriptions of sex, some violence, and some strong language. Nebula Award. 1995.
1996
DB/RC47340
Title: Slow River
Author: Nicola Griffith
Annotation: Lore, a young kidnap victim whose identity implant was removed, chooses to depend on a stranger rather than return to her wealthy home. She describes Spanner, the woman who becomes her lover and draws her into illegal activities, intermingled with flashbacks to her family and the ordeal that took her from them. Descriptions of sex. Nebula and Lambda Awards. 1996.
1997
BR11672
Title: The Moon and the Sun
Author: Vonda N. McIntyre
Annotation: At the command of King Louis XIV, a Jesuit natural philosopher captures a female sea monster, thought to hold the secret to immortality. The Jesuit's sister understands the creature's songs, realizes that she is a thinking, feeling being, and befriends her. Protecting the sea lady leads to confrontations with the king and even the pope. 1997.
1998
RC50404
Title: Forever Peace
Author: Joe Haldeman
Series: Forever War, Book 2
Annotation: 2043. The Ngumi War has been going on for over eight years, when burned-out "soldierboy" Julian Class and his older lover, Dr. Amelia Harding, make a scientific discovery that could set the universe back to square one. Violence, some descriptions of sex, and some strong language. Nebula Award. 1997.
1999
DB/RC48070
Title: Parable of the Talents
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Series: Earthseed, Book 2
Annotation: In "Parable of the Sower," Lauren Oya Olamina established the community of Acorn, inhabited by followers of her Earthseed religion. Now with the election of Christian fundamentalist Reverend Andrew Steele Jarret as U.S. president, the residents of Acorn are in grave danger, including Lauren's infant daughter. Strong language and some violence. Second book in the Earthseed series.
2000
DB/RC50676
Title: Darwin’s Radio
Author: Greg Bear
Series: Darwin's Radio, Book 1
Annotation: Disgraced archaeologist Mitch Rafelson, geneticist Kaye Lang, and government epidemiologist Christopher Dicken are embroiled in researching a miscarriage-producing virus named SHEVA, which spontaneously generates replacement pregnancies of new evolutionary humans. The ensuing panic spreads worldwide. Then Kaye becomes pregnant. 1999. Followed by "Darwin's Children."