Our Top Sci-Fi Literary Picks

Remember those books in middle school you were assigned to read? Some you hated, some you forgot the moment you put the book down. However, in rare cases, there was that one special story that actually managed to stick with you through the years. Fahrenheit 451 was such an instance for me. Most of my classmates ended up hating the novel – then again, they appeared to just hate reading in general – but I fell in love with the dystopian-future book almost instantaneously.

Not only did the book predict things such as flat screen televisions and iPods, which in itself struck me, but I’ve always gravitated toward the narratives about the main characters “waking up” to the world around them. Guy Montag burns books for a living, in a future where firefighters are assigned to suppress knowledge from books by destroying homes “contaminated” with them. Yet, he begins to question his entire existence through a chance encounter with a friendly neighborhood child and a secret he’s been harboring comes to light. Most of you have probably already read it, but in some strange instance you haven’t, I highly recommend you give it a read. Even if it doesn’t stick with you the same way it did with me, I guarantee it’ll at least make you think about the world we live in today.