A key novel in its author’s development is set in a world where a new religion could pave the way for humanity’s expansion to the stars.

Many science fiction authors have crafted one or more “future histories”, which trace humanity’s imagined development in the years to come. The product of a somewhat unusual writing and editing process, To Open the Sky was the first true future history written by the prolific American author Robert Silverberg. In this distinctive take on the idea, the journey beyond Earth’s solar system rests less on technology, and much more on religious belief.

In the 1950s, Silverberg was working at “assembly-line speed”, producing many competent SF stories for several magazines. Later, he entered a new phase in which he remained prolific but became more thoughtful and strategic in his approach. To Open the Sky is one of the novels which commenced the most praised part of his career, from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. It is a brisk projection of humanity’s future, steeped in the theme of religion and cleverly bringing together five carefully planned, previously published stories.

A look at the only two full-length works in the Thousand Worlds science fiction setting by the author of A Game of Thrones.

Few science fiction and fantasy writers can really be thought of as household names, but George R.R. Martin definitely qualifies. His as-yet unfinished epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, has sold over 90 million copies and its TV adaptation was an international phenomenon in its own right. Martin has been called “the American Tolkien”, and is almost synonymous with the fantasy genre. What even some of his fans may not realise, though, is that Martin was originally successful in the field of science fiction.

Between 1971 and 1986, Martin published 26 shorter works of SF which all formed a part of a single setting, which he called the “Thousand Worlds”. In this loose future history, humans have achieved interstellar travel and have colonised numerous planets. However, due to the vast distances involved and the impact of conflict, humanity has splintered into various disparate cultures. Many of the stories explore the differences between these societies, as well as with other forms of life. They range quite widely in style, from the military SF of “The Hero” (1971) to the horror of the novella Nightflyers (1980).

Here, we explore the only two full-length works in the Thousand Worlds setting. The first is the novel Dying of the Light (1977), Martin’s debut novel set on the declining rogue world of Worlorn. The second is Tuf Voyaging (1986), a collection of stories featuring the eccentric trader Haviland Tuf. Together, they are an interesting insight into the neglected SF works of an author who would become a dominant force in fantasy.

The Culture discovers that even its abilities have limits, in the fourth novel in Banks’ revered series.

Following the publication of Useof Weapons in 1990, Iain M. Banks took a break from his Culture setting. Over the next several years, he published three so-called “mainstream” novels and Feersum Endjinn (1994), a standalone science fiction book which won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. Banks returned to his post-scarcity setting with Excession (1996), which secured Banks his second BSFA Award within three years. Today, Excession remains one of the most popular entries in the series, and some consider it to be the best.

The novel takes its title from a designation given by the Culture to a strange, vast artefact which suddenly appears on the edge of known space. The Excession is a black body sphere over 50 km across, which appears able to exert previously unseen influence on nearby space. Its emergence draws in two separate Culture factions, an ex-Culture splinter group, a militaristic empire known as the Affront, and a handful of humans. The novel allows Banks to explore how the Culture responds to an issue outside their previous experience, what he calls an “outside context problem”.

Cosmic-scale terror and wonder mingle in Poul Anderson's classic of hard science fiction.

Interstellar travel would require an extraordinary level of sustained acceleration. Many science fiction stories take this technology for granted. The idea of faster-than-light (FTL) travel conflicts with what we know about causality, but is a common trope in SF. Often, travel between stars is merely a means to an end, a way of getting to the next battle or galaxy-shaking discovery. Poul Anderson’s novel Tau Zero considers seriously the implications of massive acceleration. It is rooted in a question: what would happen if a starship was unable to stop accelerating?

Originally published in 1970, Tau Zero sets its characters on a genuinely mind-boggling trip through the cosmos, one which places an almost intolerable strain on their society, their relationships, and their very sanity. The book has been recognised as a landmark in hard science fiction for over 50 years. In 1985, David Pringle declared it “second to none” among novels which emphasise scientific plausibility.

Even today, Tau Zero impresses with its vast scale and scientific rigour. While these are the reasons it remains an SF classic, the book is also worth reading for its political and social themes which are rooted interestingly in Anderson’s personal background.

Exploring a thrillingly unusual British space opera focusing on “one of the five best-dressed men in the universe.”

In the galaxy-spanning human civilisation of the far future, Peder Forbarth is a nobody. Reluctantly, he joins an expedition to the hostile planet Kyre. The objective is to conduct an illegal salvage operation on a crashed freighter from the mysterious splinter civilisation of Caean. The result proves to be life-changing - because Peder Forbarth is a tailor, and the freighter’s cargo is of inestimable value: the garments of Caean.

The Garments of Caean is a science fiction novel by the British author Barrington J. Bayley (1937 - 2008). While getting his start in comics in the late 1950s, he met Michael Moorcock, who was to become a titan of British SF and especially fantasy. The two became friends and collaborators; in the 1960s Moorcock published Bayley’s stories in New Worlds magazine and consistently championed his work.

Bayley published his first novel, The Star Virus, in 1970. He is generally thought to have hit his stride in the middle of the decade, publishing a string of inventive, fast-paced novels which fused pulp SF tropes with New Wave innovations. Originally published by Doubleday in February 1976, The Garments of Caean falls in the middle of this strongest period. It is a rip-roaring, planet-hopping SF adventure which also deals thoughtfully with cultural exchange, self-image, and whether the clothes really make the man.