Table of Contents
Introduction 10
1 Ancient Myth & Legend
Anonymous: The Epic of Gilgamesh, c.1750 BCE 16
Homer: The Odyssey, c.725-675 BCE 18
Ovid: Metamorphoses, c.8 22
Anonymous: Beowulf, c.700-1100 28
Anonymous: The Thousand and One Nights, c.700-947 30
Anonymous: The Mabinogion, 12th-14th century 34
The Prose Edda, c.1220 Snorri Sturluson 36
The Divine Comedy, c.1308-21 Dante Alighieri 40
Le Morte d'Arthur, 1485 Thomas Malory 44
Orlando Furioso, c.1516/32 Ludovico Ariosto 48
Utopia, 1516 Thomas More 52
The Faerie Queene, 1590-1609 Edmund Spenser 54
Journey to the West (Xiyouji), c.1592 Wu Cheng'En 58
The City of the Sun, 1602 Tommaso Campanella 60
Don Quixote, 1605/15 Miguel De Cervantes 62
The Tempest, 1611 William Shakespeare 64
A Voyage to the Moon, 1657 Cyrano De Bergerac 68
The Description of a New World, called The Blazing-World, 1666 Margaret Cavendish 70
2 Science & Romanticism
Gulliver's Travels, 1726 Jonathan Swift 74
The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground, 1741 Ludvig Holberg 78
The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, 1863 Charles Kingsley 80
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 Lewis Carroll 82
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, 1870 Jules Verne 88
Erewhon, 1872 Samuel Butler 94
The Ring of the Nibelung, 1876 Richard Wagner 96
Treasure Island, 1883 Robert Louis Stevenson 100
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, 1884 Edwin A. Abbott 104
Looking Backward: 2000-1887, 1888 Edward Bellamy 106
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889 Mark Twain 108
The Time Machine, 1895 H. G. Wells 110
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900 L. Frank Baum 116
3 Golden Age of Fantasy
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, 1906 J. M. Barrie 124
The Lost World, 1912 Arthur Conan Doyle 130
At the Earths Core, 1914 Edgar Rice Burroughs 132
Herland, 1915 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 134
Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie: Their Adventures Wonderful, 1918 Cecilia May Gibbs 136
We, 1924 Yevgeny Zamyatin 138
The Castle, 1926 Franz Kafka 140
The Cthulhu Mythos, 1928-37 H. P. Lovecraft 144
Brave New World, 1932 Aldous Huxley 148
Conan the Barbarian, 1932-36 Robert E. Howard 154
Alamut, 1938 Vladimir Bartol 156
Tlón, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, 1941 Jorge Luis Borges 158
Islandia, 1942 Austin Tappan Wright 162
The Little Prince, 1943 Antoine De Saint-Exupéry 164
The Moomins and the Great Flood, 1945 Tove Jansson 166
4 New World Order
Gormenghast, 1946-59 Mervyn Peake 170
Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1949 George Orwell 174
The Chronicles of Narnia, 1950-56 C. S. Lewis 178
I, Robot, 1950 Isaac Asimov 184
Fahrenheit 451, 1953 Ray Bradbury 186
The Lord of the Rings, 1954-55 J. R. R. Tolkien 188
Pedro Páramo, 1955 Juan Rulfo 192
Solaris, 1961 Stanislaw Lem 194
A Clockwork Orange, 1962 Anthony Burgess 196
Pale Fire, 1962 Vladimir Nabokov 198
Planet of the Apes, 1963 Pierre Boulle 200
One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967 Gabriel García Márquez 204
A Wizard of Earthsea, 1968 Ursula K. Le Guin 206
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968 Philip K. Dick 208
The Last Unicorn, 1968 Peter S. Beagle 210
Slaughterhouse-Five, 1969 Kurt Vonnegut 212
Ringworld, 1970 Larry Niven 214
Invisible Cities, 1972 Italo Calvino 216
The Princess Bride, 1973 William Goldman 218
Dhalgren, 1975 Samuel R. Delany 220
W or the Memory of Childhood, 1975 Georges Perec 222
Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes, 1977 Gerd Mjøen Brantenberg 224
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, 1979 Angela Carter 226
Kindred, 1979 Octavia E. Butler 230
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1979 Douglas Adams 232
5 The Computer Age
The Dark Tower series, 1982-2012 Stephen King 238
The Discworld series, 1983-2015 Terry Pratchett 240
Neuromancer, 1984 William Gibson 244
The Handmaid's Tale, 1985 Margaret Atwood 248
The Culture series, 1987-2012 Iain M. Banks 252
Obabakoak, 1988 Bernardo Atxaga 254
The Sandman, 1988-2015 Neil Gaiman et al 256
Snow Crash, 1992 Neal Stephenson 258
The Giver, 1993 Lois Lowry 260
His Dark Materials, 1995-2000 Philip Pullman 262
A Game of Thrones, 1996 George R. R. Martin 264
Infinite lest, 1996 David Foster Wallace 268
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997 J. K. Rowling 272
The Bas-Lag cycle, 2000-04 China Miéville 276
The Eyre Affair, 2001 Jasper Fforde 282
Inkheart, 2003 Cornelia Funke 284
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, 2004 Susanna Clarke 286
Cloud Atlas, 2004 David Mitchell 288
Never Let Me Go, 2005 Kazuo Ishiguro 290
Wizard of the Crow, 2006 Ngügi Wa Thiong'O 292
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, 2007 Michael Chabon 294
The Hunger Games, 2008 Suzanne Collins 296
1Q84, 2009-10 Haruki Murakami 298
The Man with the Compound Eyes, 2011 Wu Ming-Yi 302
The Imperial Radch trilogy, 2013-15 Ann Leckie 304
Lagoon, 2014 Nnedi Okopafor 306
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, 2015 Salman Rushdie 308
Contributor Biographies 310
Index 314
Credits 318