1980s Sci-Fi Books That Aged Badly (And 4 Still Worth Reading)

Written by a Star Trek alum, this book centers around a group of self-described “losers” who are among the remaining survivors after a cataclysmic event wipes out most of humanity. Unfortunately, the survivors who make up the book’s main characters spend a good chunk of their time describing women’s bodies in lascivious and offensive ways and mocking survivors from other cultures. If you’re looking for post-apocalyptic science fiction, there are plenty of other, better books to choose from.

Heinlein is rightfully recognized as a major contributor to science fiction for his many books that pushed the envelope not only in terms of technology but also in terms of how societal structures might be reshaped in the future. However, The Number of the Beast, written after an illness-driven hiatus, crosses the line from exploring controversial topics into vulgarity for shock’s sake. If you’re looking to explore sci-fi classics from this writer, start with his earlier catalog to get a sense of why he was so influential.

Niven and Pournelle were prolific science fiction authors in the seventies and eighties who earned a following for their action-packed stories featuring alien encounters. While they can tell a good story of human vs. alien war, most of their books suffer from the trope of women as burdens to the ultra-achieving, always-right heroes. Even in the future, Niven and Pournelle envisioned women as sidekicks who were divided into “good” and “bad” girls.

A mainstay of the cyberpunk genre, Neuromancer follows Case, an unemployed computer hacker who is hired by a mysterious employer named Armitage to join other outcasts in disconnecting all-powerful AIs owned by a powerful, rich family located on a space station. As Case gets further and further into the job, he begins to see how the cyber world and the human world have begun to blend in dangerous ways.

The first book in Octavia Butler‘s post-apocalyptic Xenogenesis trilogy, Dawn takes the reader to the spaceship of the Oankali, where human Lilith Iyapo has just awoken from a centuries-long sleep. She finds that the Oankali rescued her from dying Earth, and now they want Lilith to lead a reawakening of her planet. The trilogy explores issues of race and gender with Butler’s signature, thoughtful writing.

In the distant future, humans are spread across thousands of planets, each with their own customs and social structures. The book zooms through various planets and worlds, mostly through the perspective of Korga, a human who had a procedure known as Radical Anxiety Termination, which leaves patients as “slaves, but happy.” As Korga moves between worlds and societies, Delany plays with ideas about how static categories like race, class, and gender are. Delany’s works have been cited as inspiration by many science fiction writers tackling similar questions in their works today.