Philosophical SF: Thirty-Six Philosophers' Recommendations
... here!
This mega-list of about 360 recommendations is compiled from the lists I've been rolling out over the past several weeks. Thirty-four professional philosophers and two prominent science fiction / speculative fiction (SF) authors with graduate training in philosophy each contributed a list of ten personal favorite "philosophically interesting" SF works, with brief "pitches" for each recommended work.
I have compiled two mega-lists, organized differently. One mega-list is organized by contributor, so that you can see all of Scott Bakker's recommendations, then all of Sara Bernstein's recommendations, etc. It might be useful to skim through to see whose tastes you seem to share and then look at what other works that person recommends.
The other mega-list is organized by author (or director or TV series), to highlight authors (directors / TV shows) who were most often recommended by the list contributors.
The most recommended authors were:
Recommended by 11 contributors:
Ursula K. Le Guin
Recommended by 8:
Philip K. Dick
Recommended by 7:
Ted Chiang
Greg Egan
Recommended by 5:
Isaac Asimov
Robert A. Heinlein
China Miéville
Charles Stross
Recommended by 4:
Jorge Luis Borges
Ray Bradbury
P. D. James
Neal Stephenson
Recommended by 3:
Edwin Abbott
Douglas Adams
Margaret Atwood
R. Scott Bakker
Iain M. Banks
Octavia Butler
William Gibson
Stanisław Lem
George R. R. Martin
Larry Niven
George Orwell (Eric A. Blair)
Kurt Vonnegut
The most recommended directors / TV shows were:
Recommended by 7:
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Recommended by 5:
Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige, Batman: The Dark Knight, Inception)
Recommended by 4:
Ridley Scott (Blade Runner)
Recommended by 3:
Futurama
Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code)
Andrew Niccol (Gattaca)
Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Starship Troopers)
Andy & Lana Wachowski (The Matrix and sequels)
Reactions, corrections, and futher suggestions welcome (as always) in the comments section.