Seventeen SF Books

Confessions of a Nerd: When I was a kid in the seventies, while my friends were playing Little League and whatnot, I spent a huge chunk of time in the library. I loved the quiet, the air conditioning, the industrial carpeting, the smell of the books, the thrill of discovery. My hometown library devoted one corner to science fiction, maybe four stacks holding a two or three hundred books, and this is where I spent 99.99 percent of my time. I was fearless and read above my level, though obviously I didn't understand much of what I read. But I did read close to three-quarters of those books. Here's a short list of the best of the best, at least to a young boy with an overactive imagination.

Killerbowl, A Generation Removed, and The Resurrectionist by Gary K. Wolf
The Spinner by Doris Piserchia
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Red Planet and Time for the Stars by Robert Heinlein
The Earth Brain by Edmund Hamilton
The Hellhound Project by Ron Goulart
The Psychopath Plague by Steven Spruill
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Colors of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Who Can Replace A Man? by Brian Aldiss
Tau Zero by Poul Anderson
Medusa's Children by Bob Shaw
Conquerors from the Darkness by Robert Silverberg
To Die in Italbar by Roger Zelazny

By the way, I've hunted all but a couple as an adult and re-read them with tremendous interest. What's truly interesting is how a book changes over time to you, over various readings at various ages. That's something I'll post about at a later date.