![]() A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. I, Robot (Isaac Asimov, 1950) Asimov actually invented the word “robotics,” in 1941, and this collection of short stories canonized his most famous literary creation, the Three Laws of Robotics (“A robot may not harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.Its description of time travel in a four-dimensional universe presaged the cottage industry in theoretical space-time machines that has sprung up among physicists in recent decades. Still, the 1895 book deserves credit for popularizing the idea that time travel might be done using scientific and technological methods, rather than the magical means used in earlier time travel stories. Wells, 1895) There’s a little bit of self-plagarism in this book, as the operating principles of the eponymous machine are pretty much directly lifted from an earlier short story written by Wells, called The Chronic Argonauts, published in 1888, seven years before The Time Machine. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea(Jules Verne, 1870) Verne wrote some of the earliest works recognizable as science fiction (even though the term “science fiction” wouldn’t enter popular culture for another 60 years.) Twenty Thousand Leagues is probably his most prescient work, anticipating submarine warfare (not for nothing was the first nuclear submarine called Nautilus), scuba diving, and even the taser. ![]() Do you think we got any wrong? What are your favorites? Tells us in the comments below. While we’re not adverse to, say, a good bit of space opera or New Wave, we’re focusing on hard science fiction in TR:SF, because these types of tales, grounded in the cutting edge of science and technology (albeit with varying degrees of artistic license), are the ones most cited by scientists and engineers as the inspiration for embarking on particular projects, or indeed, entire careersĮven if history later proves it utterly off base, a good hard science fiction story makes you think “That could actually happen!” That’s certainly the case for each of our ten favorite hard science fiction books, listed in chronological order.
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