The Best Science Fiction Novels of the Seventies

The  Top 10  Science  Fiction  Novels  of the  Seventies

I've been writing this blog for nearly 15 years, and so I think I've accumulated sufficient experience with the literature to display my egomania, and stand forth with my top 10 science fiction novels of the decade from 1970 to 1979. 

I am quite comfortable with ignoring novels that were awarded Nebula and Hugo awards during that time, as most of those novels are mediocre: 'The Gods Themselves', 'Inferno', 'The Fountains of Paradise', 'Rendezvous with Rama', 'The Forbidden Tower'. Best-seller status, and acclaim from professional critics, have no impact on my decision-making. 

One thing that stands out with my selections: many are short, under 250 pages as mass-market paperbacks (with some even under 200 pages). As compared to the modern era and its ponderous, 600-page tomes, this says something about the ability of authors in the 1970s to world-build, and get a plot up and running, with economy and skill.

These aren't presented in any particular order, but simply represent a 'Top 10' compendium of 5-Star novels.

Here we go:

'The Cloud Walker', by Edmund Cooper (1973): Cooper wrote for a living, and more than a few of his novels were perfunctory in nature. However, ‘The Cloud Walker’ deserves accolades as one of the best sci-fi novels of the 70s. It’s the tale of a postapocalyptic United Kingdom where the Luddite Church holds sway, and a young man risks death in his efforts to revive old technologies. ‘The Cloud Walker’ does much in its 216 pages to provide a gripping, impactful narrative.

‘Stolen Faces’, by Michael Bishop (1977): a disgraced starship pilot named Lucian Yeardance is assigned to be the chief administrator at Sancorage, the headquarters for the leprosarium on the planet Tezcatl. Yeardance’s charges are hardly the saintly folk of Father Damian’s mission at Molokai, Hawaii; in fact, they are violent, self-centered, unpleasant people. As the novel progresses, Yeardance learns the underlying truth about Sancorage and its lepers. This novel, while a slow read at times, best displays the advances in the genre’s treatment of characterization, mood, and setting bestowed by the New Wave movement.

'The Pastel City', by M. John Harrison (1971): in a far-future, depleted Earth, Queen Jane’s realm struggles to retain the remnants of technology, and prevent civilization from further decay. A crisis arises when barbarian hordes, wielding powerful weapons from older times, descend upon the Southlands. It will be up to Lord tegeus-Cromis, a swordsman and poet, to defend the realm and solve the mystery behind the revival of ancient knowledge. This was Michael John Harrison’s second novel, and in its 157 pages it fulfills the promise of the New Wave era by delivering a fast-moving plot; a memorable setting; and a vividly crafted cast of characters who subvert the traditional depiction of science fiction protagonists. 

'The Deep', by John Crowley (1975): In a strange, self-enclosed world, a medieval society composed of Red and Black factions is engaged in perpetual conflict. Then a mysterious being known as the Visitor arrives, and the Reds and the Blacks find their world forever changed. This was author Crowley's first novel and it adopts an understated, oblique approach to storytelling. There are strong overtones of entropy and futility to the antics of the Red and Black factions, and this invokes favorable comparisons with M. John Harrison's novel 'The Pastel City'.

'Jack of Shadows', by Roger Zelazny (1971): the eponymous Jack is a thief, seeking riches and power on a fantasy version of Earth where one side of the planet is perpetually in shadow, and the other side, perpetually is in daylight. As Jack is to learn, the lords of the dark and light realms do not take kindly to thieves. While many of Zelazny’s novels from the New Wave era could be self-indulgent exercises in avant-garde prose, ‘Jack’ features an imaginative mix of sci-fi and fantasy themes, inventive settings, and a lead character who is the antithesis of the traditional square-jawed, obstreperous hero.

'The Bladerunner', by Alan Nourse (1974): in a near-future, dystopian New York City, those suffering from illness risk sterilization under the mandates of the Eugenics Laws. A boy named Billy Gimp serves as a ‘bladerunner’, a courier of surgical equipment used by doctors to perform clandestine procedures on those who don’t want to be sterilized. But the advent of the mysterious ‘Shanghai Flu’ places all of the city’s residents, both rich and poor, in danger. 'Bladerunner' is a progenitor of Cyberpunk, presenting many of themes that later would come to define the genre.  

'The Warlord of the Air', by Michael Moorcock (1971): after falling asleep in a mysterious temple in the Himalayas, a British Army officer named Oswald Bastable wakes to find himself in 1973….a 1973 where the British Empire is intact, and travels by airship commonplace. But political ferment is growing, and with it, a threat to the empire. A fast and engaging read, in its 175 pages, 'Warlord' packs a lot of imaginative concepts, including alternate universes, proto-Steampunk, the liberation of people of color from their colonialist oppressors, and even a cameo from Mick Jagger (?!). 

'Hiero's Journey', by Sterling Lanier (1973): in a postapocalyptic North America, Hiero Desteen, a priest in the Metz Republic, ventures south from Kanda into the vast wilderness of what once was known as the United States. His mission ? Find and recover a lost technology that will aid the Metz Republic in its clandestine war against the Dark Brotherhood. This is the first entry in the two-volume 'Hiero Desteen' series, and it has much to recommend it: great world-building, interesting characters, a plot that never gets stagnant, and a simple, declarative prose style that well serves the novel's length of 372 pages.

'The Ginger Star', by Leigh Brackett (1974): Eric John Stark seeks the whereabouts of his mentor Simon Ashton on Skaith, a planet gripped by physical and psychological entropy. The people of Skaith resent ‘outworlders’, but then, they’ve never met anyone like Stark…….. Brackett won acclaim for her Golden Age planetary romances, and ‘The Ginger Star’ is an updated planetary romance, written by an experienced, and very underrated, author. The remaining volumes in the ‘Skaith’ trilogy, ‘The Hounds of Skaith’ and ‘The Reavers of Skaith’, are excellent novels in their own right.

'Altered States', by Paddy Chayefsky (1978): Eddie Jessup, a brilliant psychologist and faculty member at Columbia University, investigates the alternate realities that are induced by the use of psychoactive drugs. Eddie won’t abandon his obsession, even when it becomes apparent such a line of inquiry brings with it disturbing revelations about man and his place in the universe. This novel started as a screenplay before Chayefsky turned it into a novel, one of the best treatments of ‘inner space’ ever produced in the New Wave era. 'Altered' takes the self-absorption of the 'Me Decade' and lends it a 'cosmic' flavoring that makes the novel a fun read some 45 years after it first was published.

There you have it. I'm curious to see to what degree - if any - my blog readers concur.......