SF 101
http://io9.com/5626861/a-syllabus-and-book-list-for-novice-students-of-science-fiction-literature
Genre Foundations
Frankenstein
, Mary Shelley
The Time Machine
, H. G. Wells
A Princess of Mars
, Edgar Rice Burroughs
At the Mountains of Madness
, H.P. Lovecraft
Utopias and Dystopias
Herland
, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Brave New World
, Aldous Huxley
1984
, George Orwell
The Man In the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
The Female Man, Joanna Russ
Robots
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
Neuromancer, by William Gibson
Saturn's Children, by Charles Stross
Aliens
Who Goes There
, John W. Campbell
Lilith's Brood, by Octavia Butler
The Secret City, by Carol Emschwiller
Space Travel
Triplanetary
, E.E. “Doc” Smith
Downbelow Station, C.J. Cherryh
The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks
Science Fiction as Political Philosophy
Orlando
, Virgina Woolf
Stranger In A Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
Dhalgren, Samuel Delaney
The Dispossessed, Ursula LeGuin
Anathem, Neal Stephenson