When it comes to buying science fiction books, there are endless titles and stories to choose from. This can confuse some while others might throw up their hands in desperation. It certainly is very difficult to pick the best and yet there are a few books that really do stand out from the rest and so are worth mentioning.
The Time Machine by H G Wells ought to top every list of best science fiction books. This was a story that was considered to be the best of its time. It was published way back in 1895 and it used the term Time Machine for the very first time and since then time machines have been associated with devices that make it possible for a human to travel through time.
This book involves the hero who is a Time Traveller who has successfully demonstrated to some of his friend that there is indeed a fourth dimension and devices are available that help in moving people back and forth through time which is the fourth dimension referred to by the author.
The hero then starts on a mission to build a large enough time machine to help transport him in time. He therefore embarks on a journey that takes him into the future. It is certainly a very compelling story and one that everyone ought to read through.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein is another excellent example of the best sci-fi books that one can find today. This story involves a person called Valentine Michael Smith who is a human being that has been raised on the planet Mars by the Martians. He returns to planet Earth while he is still in the early years of his adulthood and is transformed by the culture of our planet.
This is one of those stories that touch upon human taboos including homosexuality and cannibalism as well as nudity. Jubal Harsha is the main figure in this story and also in later works published by Heinlein. This particular novel has become a classic cult novel and is an excellent work of science fiction.
The Lensman Series written by EE Doc Smith is another one of the best books in the genre that are available today. The Lensman series introduced a number of innovative and novel concepts and many new ideas were introduced in this novel that was later used to solve problems that however were not related to science. In this respect, this series was groundbreaking and was part of a very new genre.
No discussion would be complete without a mention about a novel called 2001 A Space Odyssey. This was a novel written by Arthur C Clarke and was also adapted for screenplay when Stanley Kubrick made a movie based on this book. The book involves an alien race from way back in time that makes use of mechanisms to find out more about different worlds that are part of a galaxy and to promote development works on intelligent life forms. It has three sequels called 2010 and 2069 as well as 3001.