I’m almost always on the lookout for lesser-known sci-fi and fantasy, so your request got me excited. In this case, I’m choosing to interpret “lesser-known classic” as a book that inspired attention in its day, but has largely fallen out of the hype cycle or an underrated book by an otherwise lauded author or maybe I personally have never met another person IRL who’s read it. Some of these are out of print, but I’ve managed to get lucky in the stacks at used bookstores if you’re looking for an epic little quest of your own to hunt them down.
Margaret St. Clair is probably better remembered for her short stories and Ace Doubles, but her novel Sign of the Labrys stands out to me. The premise is pretty standard, all things considered—it’s about a post-apocalyptic novel about a world ravaged by plague—but St. Clair’s blending of a classic science fiction premise with the occult really sets this one apart. It’s an odd, surreal little book that delivers just the right amount of pulp. Supposedly it inspired Dungeons and Dragons’s Castle Greyhawk? That’s cool, too.
Crystal Express by Bruce Sterling isn’t that obscure. “Swarm” is in it, after all. “Swarm” is wild. You should definitely read “Swarm.” But I think the other stories in this collection are among his best, and you don’t need much of a background in Sterling’s Shaper/Mechanist universe to understand them. The book also includes some really excellent illustration work by Rick Lieder (think late-80s 2D computer graphics), and it’s honestly worth picking up a copy if you can find it, just for that.
Prince of Annwn is chronologically the first book of Evangeline Walton’s Mabinogion Tetralogy, but it didn’t hit shelves until the 1970s. Of the four books, only The Island of the Mighty went to press in its time despite it being the final volume, then fell into obscurity for fifty years before Ballantine’s Adult Fantasy series revived it. These linguistically lush retellings of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi are peak pre-Tolkien fantasy, perfect if your heart wants something that feels adjacent to medieval sword and sorcery but hits a little different.
Is Nancy Kress’s
Beggars in Spain lesser-known enough? It’s definitely the most recently published book on this list. In a future where some humans are genetically modified to not need sleep, this one has a lot of interesting things to say about productivity, technology, and privilege. My hottest take is that you should read the novella it was expanded from if you have the chance (conveniently titled
Beggars in Spain). I think it’s a much tighter story, but if you don’t, the novel will do just fine.
I can’t end this without recommending Engine Summer by John Crowley. Another post-apocalyptic story, yet this one is so quiet, dreamy, meditative. This book has such an atmosphere to it, with lyrical prose and a sort of gorgeous lingering sadness. It reaches far beyond the immediate apocalypse and instead explores long-term effects.
I hope these books are obscure enough for you!
–Oliver Scialdone, Community Editor
