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Astronomy Beat No. 98 • June 19, 2012 Page 1
For many people, especially those with a
strong interest in the sciences, the mention of
science ction sometimes brings up memo-
ries of awful popular movies and TV shows they
have seen — with scripts that defy logic or subvert
the rules of the nature. Members of the public
sometimes get science ction confused with fantasy
(as many literary critics tend to do) and lump seri-
ous science ction in with stories of unicorns and
magic adventures. Yet, when you choose carefully,
science ction can be a remarkable tool for illu-
minating some of the most interesting ideas and
discoveries in science for a much wider audience.
I keep a web site of scientically reasonable sci-
ence ction stories on the Astronomical Society of
the Pacic web site at: http://www.astrosociety.org/
education/resources/sci.html and also use science
ction in my teaching of introductory astronomy.
As a result, from time to time, I am asked by stu-
dents or colleagues for a list of favorite authors or
stories for someone new to science ction (but not
to science) to read. Being
asked for your favorite
story is not unlike being
asked for your favorite
song or favorite lm — it’s
really hard to choose just
one.
So, in this column, I
thought I would highlight
ten authors whose novels
and stories use reasonable
science and whose work I
particularly enjoy. As with
any top ten list, I should
say that these choices are
personal and idiosyncratic,
and that there are many
other authors who also do
wonderful work in what
is called “hard” science
ction — meaning not that
Number 98 • June 19, 2012
© 2012, Astronomical Society of the Pacic,
390 Ashton Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112
Ten Science Fiction Writers for Scientists and Science Enthusiasts
Andrew Fraknoi (Foothill College)
Gregory Benford, Andrew Fraknoi, and Fred Pohl at JPL in 1989 (Photo courtesy of Andrew Fraknoi)
Publisher: Astronomical Society of the Pacic
Editor: Andrew Fraknoi
Designer: Leslie Proudt
astrosociety.org
Astronomy Beat No. 98 • June 19, 2012 Page 2
the stories are necessarily hard to read, but that they
are restricted by the hard realities of actual sci-
ence. Still, these ten are writers whose work I have
particularly enjoyed for both their adherence to real
science and for their style of writing. ey are not
in any particular order.
1. Gregory Benford
Benford is a professor of physics at the University of
California at Irvine and a remarkably gied writer,
who combines mind-boggling ideas from science
with vivid, memorable characters and philosophi-
cal speculation. He is perhaps the most skilled of all
modern writers at turning scientic concepts into
ideas for stories.
Where to begin: His acclaimed series of novels
that ultimately takes us to the bizarre region at the
center of the Milky Way Galaxy begins with In the
Ocean of Night. Many of his short stories, such as
“Exposures,” feature scientists at work.
2. Alastair Reynolds
Reynolds has a PhD in astrophysics, worked at ESA,
but is now a full-time writer. He usually combines
scintillating science ideas with a kind of baroque
mystery writing that is like “lm noir” on paper.
Where to begin: His “Beyond the Aquila Ri” is
one of the best science ction short stories I have
ever read and his rst novel Revelation: Space is a
good place to start unraveling the many mysteries
of his continuing series of novels and stories set in
the same future universe.
3. Larry Niven
Niven is the grand old man of “hard science” sci-
ence ction. His “Tales of Known Space” series has
some of the most interesting examples of alien life
forms and planetary
engineering ever put
on paper. His writing
is direct, to the point,
and enormous fun.
Where to begin:
e novel Protector
rethinks the origin
of humanity and sets
the scene for “Tales
of Known Space.” His
World Out of Time
uses black holes and
ideas from the general
theory of relativity to propose a way to travel into
the distant future.
4. Fred Hoyle
Hoyle was one of
the most imagina-
tive astrophysicists
of the 20th century,
sometimes right, oen
wrong, but always
outspoken and elo-
quent. He overowed
with ideas, some of
which he put into his
science ction novels
and stories.
Where to begin: His
October the First Is
Too L ate is one of my favorites — the rst attempt
to put the many-worlds interpretation of quantum
mechanics into ctional form.
5. Robert Sawyer
Sawyer is an amateur
astronomer and has a
passion for anthropol-
ogy, interests which he
frequently combines
to write about SETI,
exploring new ideas
and approaches to the
age-old question of
“Are we alone in the
universe?”
Where to begin: His
novel Illegal Alien is
an appealing send-up
of murder mysteries, with a solution that requires
an understanding of astronomy to appreciate fully.
6. Stephen Baxter
Baxter is a British author with degrees in math and
engineering, whose stories scintillate with ideas
from science. His “Xeelee” sequence of novels and
stories imagines the past and future of the universe
on a scale arguably larger than any other author has
dared to contemplate.
Where to begin: His story collection Vacuum
Diagrams is annotated and has a timeline that can
help readers get into the sequence.
7. Ted Chiang
Chiang is a technical writer in the computer eld
and has so far written only short stories — but
each of those is small gem. He combines clever
ideas with beautifully craed prose. His inspiration
comes from many elds, including linguistics and
computer science.
Where to begin: His remarkable, award-winning
Larry Niven
(Photo courtesy of Larry Niven)
Fred Hoyle
(Cambridge University Photograph)
Robert Sawyer
(Photo by Christina Molendyk)
Astronomy Beat No. 98 • June 19, 2012 Page 3
short story, “e Story of Your Life,” combines
ideas of time and linguistics in a way that is truly
marvelous.
8. Isaac Asimov
Asimov, one of the most prolic authors in history,
with over 500 books to his credit, had a PhD in
biochemistry and oen extrapolated stories from
known facts in science. He was not a fancy writer,
but he wrote many stories with astronomical ideas
in them and kept up with new developments in the
eld throughout his life.
Where to begin: His classic novel e End of
Eternity was one of the two books that had a
strong inuence on my own decision to become
an astronomer.
9. Alfred Bester
Bester was not trained in science, although he was
widely read in many elds. He wrote in many other
areas besides straight science ction. His imagina-
tive short stories have been an inuence on many
other authors.
Where to begin: His novel e Stars My
Destination, a science-ction re-imagining of e
Count of Monte Cristo, has been cited by many
scientists (including Carl Sagan) as an early inspira-
tion; it was the other book that inuenced me as a
teenager to take up astronomy.
10. Fred Pohl
Pohl also is self-taught in astronomy, and has had
a long career as author, editor, literary agent, and
collaborator in science ction. His witty and some-
times acerbic takes on where modern trends in our
society could take us are quite thought-provoking.
Where to begin: I particularly like the novel
Gateway, which is lots of fun, uses black holes in
a scientically reasonable way, and introduces the
notion of “black hole guilt” into literature.
F F F
In addition to the above top ten, science-ction
novices who are astronomy fans may want to take a
look at the work of some of our astronomer col-
leagues who are writing science ction. ese in-
clude astronomer/artist William Hartmann, NASA
space scientist Georey Landis, astronomer Michael
Brotherton, former American Astronomical Society
president J. Craig Wheeler, and Eric Kotani (the
pen-name of NASA’s Yoji Kondo.) Brotherton and
Hartmann have written Astronomy Beat columns
— Brotherton’s is specically on writing science
ction. For other writers and stories organized by
topic in astronomy, see the web resource guide cited
above. However you select your rst excursion into
science ction, I wish you good reading and enjoy-
able ights of the imagination.
About the Author:
Andrew Fraknoi has been edit-
ing these Astronomy Beat col-
umns since the inception of the
series. He is currently Senior
Educator at the ASP and Chair
of the Astronomy Department
at Foothill College (near San
Francisco). He was founding
co-editor of the on-line journal
Astronomy Education Review and the lead author
on the Voyages series of introductory astronomy
textbooks. In the 1980’s, with Byron Preiss, he co-
edited two collections of science and science ction
(called e Planets and e Universe) for Bantam
Books. He chronicles new developments in astron-
omy and astronomy education on his “AstroProf”
Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/Fraknoi
Resources for Further Exploration
e Internet Speculative Fiction Database:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi
(A remarkable site which indexes most stories and
novels in science ction. You can see what any au-
thor has written or nd all the places a story you are
Painting of Isaac Asimov by Rowena Morrill
Astronomy Beat No. 98 • June 19, 2012 Page 4
interested in has been published.)
Free Speculative Fiction On-Line:
http://www.freesfonline.de/index.html
(A nice list of short stories that are available on line
without charge.)
ASP Board member Chris Impey interviews
Gregory Benford at:
http://www.gregorybenford.com/uncategorized/
interview-by-chris-ipey-university-of-arizona/
Fraknoi, Andrew “Teaching Astronomy with
Science Fiction” (in Astronomy Education Review:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/AER2002009 F
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