The best sci-fi for summer...
THE summer holidays look different this year: children and teenagers haven’t been in school since March, and trips to European beaches look unlikely.
One of the best forms of escapism is to pick up a good book, so Glasgow Science Centre’s GSC At Home team have shortlisted the best science fiction summer reads.
Science fiction is one of the most creative genres in literature. It can transport you into space and parallel universes, show how technology could change our world (sometimes for the better, sometimes worse) and introduce you to fundamental scientific theory in an easy, thoughtprovoking way.
JURASSIC PARK, MICHAEL CRICHTON
STATE-OF-THE-ART technology, a tropical island and dinosaurs – what could possibly go wrong?
Michael Crichton’s book was inspired by an article in the journal Science in 1982. Real-life paleobiologist George Poinar Jr and electron-microscopist Roberta Poinar had discovered that nuclei, the location of DNA in a cell, could be preserved for millions of years inside an organism, trapped in amber.
Crichton imagined a world where humans could use this discovery to bring dinosaurs back from extinction. Although the intention was to delight and educate, the outcome of this endeavour was three-fold: running, screaming, and frantic hacking of a UNIX system. Jurassic Park serves as a reminder that scientific breakthroughs may not always have the best outcome. After all, life finds a way.
BINTI, NNEDI OKARAFOR
BINTI is a teenage Himba girl who is the first of her people to be accepted to Oomza University, the finest institution in the galaxy. Binti uses her transporter to join a ship leaving for the university, leaving home in the middle of the night to avoid her parents’ objections and disapproval. The short book takes place in futuristic Africa and among the stars and is the first of a trilogy that deals with space travel, aliens, adventure, identity, war and belonging. Definitely worth a read for teenagers and grown-ups.
STATION ELEVEN, EMILY ST JOHN MANDEL
STATION Eleven’s main story happens 20 years after a terrible pandemic swept Earth and wiped out 99% of the population. Tread carefully.
The book won the Arthur C Clarke prize for science fiction, as well as many others. It opens as the fictional Georgia Flu hits Toronto, with devastating consequences worldwide. The book jumps forwards and backwards from pandemic to the-post pandemic world, weaving the stories of different characters and their experiences together as it goes.
The heroine is Kristen, a survivor who is part of a travelling troupe of musicians and actors bringing Shakespeare to small settlements across what remains of North America. The book explores how humans need art and culture to survive. For anyone concerned about how the arts will fare after our own pandemic, or whether it matters, it will make an interesting read.
FRANKENSTEIN, MARY SHELLEY
DR Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t the result of sorcery or dark magic: this story is science fiction through and through.
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was just 18 years old and published the book anonymously.
The story begins on a ship bound for the North Pole, and tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a gifted scientist who pushes his laboratory limits to give life to a being of his own creation. It doesn’t go as he had hoped: he is repulsed by the creature and rejects it, as does the rest of the world. The monster then seeks bloody revenge.
Frankenstein is a classic and arguably the first ever science fiction book. It has science, a monster, mountains and even a trip to Orkney. What could be more summery than that?
THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS, JOHN WYNDHAM
BILL Masen is a biologist who works with triffids, a tall, venomous and carnivorous species of plants.
After he is splashed by their poison he ends up in hospital with his eyes bandaged, and misses the green meteor shower that lit up the night sky. Which is lucky for him, as the meteor shower blinds almost everyone on earth, except Bill and a few others. London and the surrounding areas fall into chaos, as almost the entire population is blinded overnight.
Which would be enough to deal with, but then the triffids start to advance and they’re hungry for humans. You’ll never look at your house plants the same way again.