What To Read: The Best Of Science Fiction

APTOPIX Hubble 25 Years — This undated photo provided by NASA shows an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope showing a breeding ground for stars in the Constellation Carina, about 20,000 light years from Earth. Friday, April 24, 2015, marks the 25th anniversary of Hubble's launch.

Heather Goldstone is the science editor at WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR Station. She holds a Ph.D. in ocean science from M.I.T. and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and spent a decade as an active researcher before leaving the lab to become a writer.

August 20, 2018

Updated July 03, 2023

This week, we bring you a discussion about science fiction – the track record of visionary authors predicting the future, warning us about the perils of the course we are on, and exploring tough social and ethical issues. Over the years, science fiction has had a large influence on how we perceive of science and relate to it.

Living Lab Radio’s Heather Goldstone hosted a Facebook Live event at WGBH’s studio at the Boston Public Library July 31. It was part of a series of Facebook Live discussions hosted by WGBH as part of PBS’s The Great American Read Initiative. The folks at PBS have identified one hundred of America’s favorite books – and some Sci-Fi classics like Frankenstein and Asimov’s Foundation Series are on there.

But science fiction is much bigger than a handful of books can represent, and new authors are pushing the bounds of what the genre encompasses. So, join us as we dive deep into the world of science writing and how what we read in books has the power to shape our perception of science, scientists, and the world around us.

Our panel:

Thomas Levenson of MIT, professor of science writing in MIT’s graduate science writing program, the author of The Hunt for Vulcan, and the recipient of the Walter P. Kistler Science Documentary Film Award.

Meredith Goldstein, author of the Love Letters advice column for The Boston Globe. She’s also the author of the young adult novel Chemistry Lessons.

Kaitlyn Greenidge, a Radcliffe Fellow and author of her debut novel We Love You, Charlie Freeman.

Joelle Renstrom of Boston University, professor of writing at Boston University. Her collection of essays is Closing the Book: Travels in Life, Loss, and Literature. She’s the robot columnist at the Daily Beast and her works has appeared in Slate, The Guardian, Cognoscenti, and others.

Here are some of the books they recommended:

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin

Neuromancer, Virtual Light, and Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Time Travel: A History by James Gleick