Science Fiction Stories with Good Science
A Listing Compiled by Andrew Fraknoi (Foothill College)
Copyright ©1997 Andrew Fraknoi. All rights reserved.
This is a selective list of some science-related stories that use more or less accurate science and can be used for teaching or reinforcing astronomy or physics concepts. The headings of the sections refer to chapters in Voyages Through the Universe. I include both traditional "science-fiction" and (occasionally) more serious fiction that derives meaning or plot from astronomy or physics ideas. The titles of short stories are given in quotation marks; while a book source is given for each short story, note that many stories can be found in other collections as well.
The author welcomes suggestions for additions to the list.
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank David DeGraff, Alan Friedman, Neil Lark, and several of my students of the years for making suggestions for this list.
Banville, John Doctor Copernicus. 1976, Godine.
A fictionalized biography of the astronomer.Brecht, Bertold Galileo.
A 1938 stage play available alone (Grove Press) or in many collections; not historically accurate, but with strong political points to make.Harrison, Harry & Stover, Leon Stonehenge. 1972, Scribners.
A novel by a science fiction writer and an anthropologist.Stover, Barrie Lamp at Midnight. 1966, Bantam Books.
Revised edition of a 1942 play about Galileo and his conflict with the Church.
Banville, John Kepler: A Novel.1981, Godine.
Fictionalization of Kepler's life by a British novelist.Garn, Jake & Cohen, Stephen Night Launch. 1989, William Morrow.
A techno-thriller about the hijacking of the Space Shuttle in space, written by the first Senator to fly on the Shuttle.Schmidt, Stanley Newton and the Quasi-Apple.1975, Popular Library.
In another star system, Earth visitors introduce notions from 20th-century physics to an alien civilization just as their Newton publishes his ideas.
Bester, Alfred "The Pi Man" in Star Light, Star Bright. 1976, Berkley/Putnam.
Story of a man sensitive to many bands of the electro-magnetic spectrum (and much more); not very scientific, but can help students see how lucky for our sanity that our senses filter so much information.
Asimov, Isaac, et al., eds. The Science Fictional Solar System. 1979, Panther/Granada.
A collection of short stories set on the planets and satellites of our solar system.Preiss, Byron, ed. The Planets. 1985, Bantam.
A collection of essays by noted astronomers about the planets in the solar system and science fiction stories inspired by our current understanding of each world.
Anderson, Poul "Life Cycle" in Earthmen and Other Strangers, Silverberg, Robert, ed. 1966, Manor Books.
Suggestion of a lifeform that can survive on Mercury.Hartmann, William "Handprints on the Moon" in The Planets, Preiss, Byron, ed. 1985, Bantam.
A touching story by an astronomer about international cooperation as the Moon is colonized.Varley, John "Retrograde Summer" in The Persistence of Vision. 1978, Dell.
Life on Mercury in an era of easy biological engineering.
Benford, Gregory Against Infinity. 1983, Pocket Books.
About terraforming Ganymede and trying to survive in that harsh environment.Benford, Gregory "The Future of the Jovian System" in The Planets, Preiss, Byron, ed. 1985, Bantam.
Story about settling the moons of Jupiter and exploiting their resources.Benford, Gregory & Carter, Paul Iceborn. 1989, Tor.
Proposes a form of life that can survive on Pluto and in the Oort Cloud.Clarke, Arthur 2010. 1984, Ballantine.
Sequel to 2001, featuring life under the ice of Europa, Von Neumann probes, and more.Niven, Larry "Wait it Out" in Tales of Known Space. 1975, Ballantine.
Protagonist is marooned on Pluto and discovers a form of life that use superfluidity as a means of survival.Silverberg, Robert "Sunrise on Pluto" in The Planets, Preiss, Byron, ed. 1985, Bantam.
Suggests a form of life that could exist on Pluto.Varley, John "Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" in The Persistence of Vision. 1978, Dell.
About symbiotic humans and plants who adapt to life in the rings of Saturn and make unearthly music.
Innes, Michael The Weight of the Evidence. 1943, Harper/Perennial.
A somewhat ordinary murder mystery, but the murder was committed using a meteorite in a university setting.
Benford, Gregory & Eklund, Gordon If the Stars Are Gods. 1977, Berkley.
Proposes that the Sun might have an intelligence within.Brin, David Sundiver. 1980, Bantam.
Involves a trip into the Sun. Brin has a PhD in astrophysics.Clarke, Arthur "The Wind from the Sun" in The Wind from the Sun. 1973, Signet.
About the effect of a solar flare on a solar wind "sailing race" of the future.Clement, Hal "Proof" in Where Do We Go from Here? Asimov, Isaac, ed. 1971, Fawcett.
About possible life-forms within the Sun.Niven, Larry "Inconstant Moon" in All The Myriad Ways. 1971, Ballantine.
A giant flare on the Sun wreaks havoc with Earth civilization.
The Sun's Interior
Clayton, Donald The Joshua Factor. 1986, Texas Monthly Press.
A novel by an astronomer involving intrigue and neutrinos from the Sun.
Anti-matter
Davies, Paul Fireball. 1987, Heinemann.
Micrometeorites of antimatter threaten the Earth.Niven, Larry "Flatlander" in Neutron Star. 1968, Ballantine.
Two explorers find a high-speed protostar and a planet made of antimatter, passing through the Galaxy.
Asimov, Isaac "Nightfall" in Nightfall & Other Stories. 1969, Fawcett.
On a planet in a multiple star system, night comes only once every 2000 years.Niven, Larry "Flare Time" in Limits. 1984, Ballantine.
Life on a planet in a binary star system with a flare star.
Anderson, P. "Starfog" in Beyond the Beyond. 1969, Signet.
What life might be like in the middle of dense star cluster.Hoyle, Fred Ossian's Ride. 1959, Harper.
Aliens come to Earth fleeing the disaster of their star having become a red giant.
Allen, Roger & Kotani, Eric Supernova. 1991, Avon.
An exploding star threatens the Earth. (Kotani is the pen-name of a NASA astrophysicist.)Anderson, Poul "Day of Burning" in Beyond the Beyond. 1969, Signet.
An advanced race tries to mobilize the still feudal inhabitants of a planet whose star is about to go supernova.Baxter, Stephen Flux. 1994, HarperCollins.
Portrays life on a neutron star.Clarke, Arthur "The Star" in The Nine Billion Names of God. 1967, Signet.
Classic story about a supernova that becomes the star of Bethlehem.Cowper, Richard The Twilight of Briarius. 1974, John Day.
An alien intelligence rides the shock wave of a supernova explosion to Earth.Forward, Robert Dragon's Egg. 1981, Ballantine.
Also proposes a life-form that can live on the surface of a neutron star. Sequel is called Starquake (1985, Ballantine).Niven, Larry "Neutron Star" in Neutron Star. 1986, Ballantine.
A space traveler gets too close to a neutron star and experiences enormous tidal forces.Niven, Larry The Integral Trees. 1984, Ballantine.
Takes place in a thick ring of gas, stripped from a Jovian planet, in orbit around a neutron star. Sequel is called Smoke Ring (1988, Ballantine.)Silverberg, Robert "The Iron Star" in The Universe, Preiss, Byron & Fraknoi, Andrew, eds. 1987, Bantam.
Involves two supernova explosions, a neutron star, and a black hole.
Gunn, James The Listeners. 1972, Signet.
Good early portrayal of a scientifically reasonable search. (Note that the author is not the James Gunn the astronomer.)Anderson, Poul "Kyrie" in Black Holes, Jerry Pournelle, ed. 1978, Fawcett.
Explores the distortion of time near a black hole.Asimov, Isaac "The Billiard Ball" in Asimov's Mysteries. 1968, Dell.
Committing murder using general relativity.Brin, David "The Crystal Spheres" in The River of Time. 1987, Bantam.
Advanced races use black holes to bear with the loneliness of a universe in which life is still rare.Brin, David Earth. 1990, Bantam.
A mini black hole falls into the Earth's core.Haldeman, Joe The Forever War. 1974, Ballantine.
An interstellar war is fought using black holes for travel between battles.Niven, Larry World Out of Time. 1976, Ballantine.
Protagonist uses a supermassive black hole to travel into distant future.Niven, Larry "The Hole Man" in A Hole in Space. 1974, Ballantine.
How to commit murder using a mini-black hole.Niven, Larry "The Borderland of Sol" in Tales of Known Space. 1975, Ballantine.
Space pirates use a mini-black hole.Pohl, Fred Gateway. 1977, Ballantine.
Enjoyable novel with rotating black holes, event horizons, and "black hole guilt". (Has a series of sequels where the science gets too "far out" for inclusion on this list.)Sagan, Carl Contact. 1985, Simon & Schuster.
The protagonists use a kind of black hole-wormhole "subway" system for interstellar travel. The system was designed by astrophysicist Kip Thorne and his students and later shown to be scientifically plausible.Sheffield, Charles "Killing Vector" in Vectors. 1979, Ace.
Mini-black holes are used for space propulsion. Sheffield has a PhD in physics.Varley, John The Ophiuchi Hotline. 1977, Dell.
Complex novel, in which mini black holes are hunted as energy sources.Varley, John "The Black Hole Passes" in The Persistence of Vision. 1978, Dell.
A mini-black hole threatens two deep space outposts.Wheeler, J. Craig The Krone Experiment. 1986, Pressworks.
Mini black holes pose a threat to the Earth; written by an astronomer.Willis, Connie "Schwarzschild Radius" in The Universe, Preiss, Byron & Fraknoi, Andrew, eds. 1987, Bantam.
Haunting story combining episodes from the life of Karl Schwarzschild and black hole images.
Benford, Gregory "Mandikini" in The Universe, Preiss, Byron & Fraknoi, Andrew, eds. 1987, Bantam.
Humanity confronts the power of intelligent life consisting of machines, and the dangers of the black hole at the center of our Galaxy. (See next entry as well.)Benford, Gregory Great Sky River. (1987, Bantam)
Tides of Light. (1989, Bantam)
Furious Gulf. (1994, Bantam)
Sailing Bright Eternity. (1995, Bantam).
All four books take place in the far future, in the environment of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, with humanity being hunted by vast machine intelligences.Niven, Larry "At the Core" in Neutron Star. 1962, Ballantine.
An explosion at the galactic center transforms the Milky Way into an active galaxy.
Bezzi, Tom Hubble Time. 1987, Mercury House.
A fictional memoir of Hubble's life; gets some of the facts wrong, but an intriguing effort.
Benford, Gregory "Exposures" in Creations, edited by Isaac Asimov, et al., 1983, Crown.
A beautiful, multi-level story about an astronomer whose images of active galaxy NGC 1097 lead him to some important insights about the universe and himself.Hoyle, Fred & Geoffrey The Inferno. 1973, Harper & Row.
The Milky Way becomes an active galaxy, but life on Earth is saved by a higher intelligence. Hoyle is a well-known astronomer.
Benford, Gregory "Relativistic Effects" in In Alien Flesh. 1986, TOR.
A ram-scoop spaceship accelerates very close to the speed of light and flies between two galaxies about to collide, able to remove some of the interstellar matter that would have flown between them, due to relativistic effects.
Asimov, Isaac The Gods Themselves. 1972, Fawcett.
Ambitious novel that "solves" the origin of the big bang and quasars.Benford, Gregory "Matter's End" in Matter's End. 1994, Bantam.
Physicists in India find that protons do decay as predicted by some Grand Unified Theories, with dire consequences for reality.Sawyer, Robert Starplex. 1996, Ace.
Complex hard-science novel by a Canadian amateur astronomer with intriguing ideas about the nature of dark matter and even dark matter life forms. Includes more cosmological concepts than any novel we have seen.Updike, John Roger's Version. 1988, Fawcett Crest.
A computer student and a professor of divinity grapple with questions of cosmology and religion.
Searching for Life via Radio Surveys
Gunn, James The Listeners. 1972, Signet.
Good early portrayal of a scientifically reasonable search. (Note that the author is not the James Gunn the astronomer.)McDevitt, Jack The Hercules Text. 1986, Ace.
Flawed, but interesting novel about radio communication with a distant civilization.Sagan, Carl Contact. 1985, Simon & Schuster.
The discovery of radio signals from extra-terrestrial intelligence leads humanity to re-evaluate its self-image.Zerwick, C. & Brown H. The Cassiopeia Affair. 1968, Curtis.
An exploration of the effects that an alien radio message might have on Earth. One of the authors is a geochemist.
Interesting Examples of Plausible Extra-terrestrial Life
Anderson, Kevin & Beason, Doug "Reflections in a Magnetic Mirror" in Full Spectrum, ed. L. Aronica & S. McCarthy 1988, Bantam.
A plasma physicist and science writer explore a life-form that can exist within plasma anomalies, but on a different time-scale.Benford, Gregory In The Oceans of Night. 1977, Dell.
Physicist Benford postulates a universe in which advanced machine intelligences confront (and often overwhelm) organic life. The story continues in Across the Sea of Suns (1984, Bantam) and in his novels that take place at the galactic center (see listings for Chapter 24).Clement, Hal Mission of Gravity. 1962, Pyramid.
Life on a massive, rapidly rotating planet. Clement is a high-school science teacher.Clement, Hal "Uncommon Sense" in Space Lash. 1966, Dell.
About life-forms with liquid metal blood that "see" by smell.Crichton, Michael The Andromeda Strain. 1969, Dell.
Doctors and scientists battle an extra-terrestrial micro-organism; written by a doctor.Hoyle, Fred The Black Cloud. 1957, Signet.
Intelligence develops in interstellar dust clouds which can move from star to star.LeGuin, Ursula The Left Hand of Darkness. 1969, Ace.
Award-winning story of contact with aliens who are alternately one sex and then the other.Sheckley, Robert "Specialist" in Contact, Keyes, N., ed. 1963, Paperback Library.
Proposes the idea that life in the universe is all specialized by function, except on Earth.Sheffield, Charles Between the Strokes of Night. 1985, Baen Books.
Proposes a life-form that can thrive in intergalactic space.Tiptree, James "Love is the Plan the Plan is Death" in The Alien Condition, Goldin, Stephen, ed. 1973, Ballantine.
Haunting, complex story of a truly alien life-form.Varley, John The Ophiuchi Hotline. 1977, Dell.
Ambitious novel, full of interesting ideas, about interstellar communication and the idea of a struggle between life-forms that develop on terrestrial and jovian planets throughout the universe.
Realistic Space Travel
Anderson, Poul Tau Zero.1970, Berkley.
While the ending is fanciful, this novel very nicely portrays some of the issues involving relativistic space travel.Benford, Gregory "Relativistic Effects" in In Alien Flesh. 1986, TOR.
A ram-scoop spaceship accelerates very close to the speed of light and flies between two galaxies about to collide.Haldeman, Joe "Tricentennial" in Infinite Dreams. 1978, St. Martin's.
Traveling near the speed of light and the effects of time dilation for the traveler.Varley, John "The Pusher" in Blue Champagne. 1986, Berkley.
Poignant story about the loneliness of relativistic space travel; time dilation makes it difficult to have a family on Earth.
The Nature of Time
Benford, Gregory Timescape. 1981, Pocket Books.
A superbly crafted book about time communication using tachyons (faster-than-light particles).Heinlein, Robert "All You Zombies" in 6 x H. 1961, Pyramid.
Not realistic science, but this famous story is perhaps the most outrageous exploration of what might happen if we could travel backward in time: a man becomes his own father and mother.Lightman, Alan Einstein's Dreams. 1993, Random House.
A fugue and meditation on the many different interpretations of time; portrayed as dreams a young Einstein is having.Niven, Larry World Out of Time. 1976, Ballantine.
Using the gravitational time dilation near a supermassive black hole to travel into distant future.
The Special Theory of Relativity
Benford, Gregory "Relativistic Effects" in In Alien Flesh. 1986, TOR.
A ram-scoop spaceship accelerates very close to the speed of light and flies between two galaxies about to collide, able to remove some of the interstellar matter that would have flown between them, due to relativistic effects.Haldeman, Joe The Forever War. 1974, Ballantine.
Award-winning novel of an interstellar war involving concepts from both special and general relativity.Haldeman, Joe "Tricentennial" in Infinite Dreams. 1978, St. Martin's.
Traveling near the speed of light and the effects of time dilation.Masson, David "Traveler's Rest" in Voyagers in Time. Silverberg, Robert, ed. 1967, Tempo.
Intricate, brilliant story in which relativistic time dilation becomes a function of latitude.Sheffield, Charles "The Long Chance" in Vectors. 1979, Ace.
Traveling into the future using relativistic space travel and suspended animation.Stith, John Redshift Rendezvous. 1990, Ace.
Explores the effects of a voyage in "hyperspace" where the speed of light is 30 meters per second.Varley, John "The Pusher" in Blue Champagne. 1986, Berkley.
Poignant story about the loneliness of relativistic space travel; time dilation makes it difficult to have a family on Earth.
Quantum Mechanics
Coover, Robert The Universal Baseball Association: J. Henry Waugh, Proprietor. 1968, Random House.
Works out some of the philosophical consequences of Einstein's remark about "God playing dice" with the universe.Hoyle, Fred October the First Is Too Late. 1966, Fawcett.
Fascinating working-out of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.Lem, Stanislav The Investigation. 1959, Avon.
A novel that considers the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics: what if a mystery is unsolvable in principle?McCormach, Russell Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist. 1982, Harvard U. Press.
A fictional physicist muses on the transformation of classical physics in the early years of the twentieth century; written by a historian of science.Niven, Larry "All the Myriad Ways" in All the Myriad Ways. 1971, Ballantine.
Works out some of the implications of the many-worlds interpretation for solving murder mysteries.Pohl, Fred The Coming of the Quantum Cats. 1986, Bantam.
A novel of parallel universes based on the many-worlds view.
Particle Physics
Preuss, Paul Broken Symmetries. 1983, Pocket Books.
A novel of science, politics, and intrigue surrounding the building of a giant particle accelerator in Hawaii.Benford, Gregory "Matter's End" in Matter's End. 1994, Bantam.
Physicists in India find that protons do decay as predicted by some Grand Unified Theories, with dire consequences for reality.
A Few Collections of Stories with Good Science in Many Areas
Great Science Fiction by the World's Great Scientists. Asimov, Isaac, et al, eds. 1985, Primus.
Twenty-one stories by writers with advanced degrees in science or engineering.Conklin, Groff Great Science Fiction by Scientists. 1962, Crowell Collier.
Stories by scientists in many fields, not just astronomy.The Universe. Preiss, Byron & Fraknoi, Andrew, eds. 1987, Bantam.
A collection of essays by leading astronomers and science fiction stories inspired by the science they describe.