“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1984?” We looked at all the large SFF book awards given, aggregating and ranking the books that appeared so we could answer that very question!

A note on our grading system: We give 5 points for every nomination a book received and an additional 5 points for each win. These values are purely arbitrary, easy to add up, numbers. For more info on our super scientific grading system visit our Info page. For a full list of the awards and award winners can be found below our rankings at the bottom of the page.

Before we take a look at the top Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 1984, let’s set the scene for those awards by taking a look at what else was happening that year:

1984

First Personal Assistant introduced. Flash memory invented. Superstring Theory can only work in 10 dimensions. Brunei becomes fully independent state. Macintosh personal computer put on sale by Apple Computer. Winter Olympics are held in Yugoslavia. First untethered spacewalk by Bruce Mccandleuss II and Robert L. Stewart. TED conference founded. First World Youth Day is held in Italy. Largest protest in history of Brazil held to demand direct elections. AIDS virus officially announced as “discovered” by scientists. 1984 Worlds Fair opens in New Orleans. Liechtenstein becomes last country in Europe to grant women the right to vote. Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles. First Solo crossing of the Atlantic in a hot air balloon. Galileo forgiven by Vatican 368 years after being condemned. Reagan defeats Walter F. Mondale in the presidential election winning 49 states.Peace agreement signed between Kenya and Somolia. Crack Cocaine introduced in the United States. Minivans introduced. Deaths – Marvin Gaye, Ansel Adams, Andy Kaufman, Foucault, Truman Capote, Dirac, etc. Popular Entertainment released: Ghostbusters, Sixteen Candles, Amadeus, Dune, The Terminator, The Temple of Doom, The Karate Kid, Nightmare on Elm Street, The NeverEnding Story, Miami Vice, This is Spinal Tap, Footloose, The Cosby Show, Gremlins, Romance the Stone, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, The Search for Spock, Children of the Corn, Repo Man, Blood Simple, The Last Starfighter, etc.

And now, on to the list…

The Top Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Of 1984

47 .) Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

Sophi Fevvers—the toast of Europe’s capitals, courted by the Prince of Wales, painted by Toulouse-Lautrec—is an aerialiste extraordinaire, star of Colonel Kearney’s circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover Fevvers’s true identity: Is she part swan or all fake? Dazzled by his love for Fevvers, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser joins the circus on its tour. The journey takes him—and the reader—on an intoxicating trip through turn-of-the-century London, St. Petersburg, and Siberia—a tour so magical that only Angela Carter could have created it.

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46 .) Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

Moreta, Weyrwoman of Fort Weyr, struggles to save the dragons of Pern from a deadly plague and risks her life to destroy the lethal parasite Thread and to preserve the future of the planet.

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45 .) Voyager in Night by C. J. Cherryh

Rafe Murray, his sister Jillian, and Jillian’s husband Paul Gaines, like many other out-of-luck spacers, had come to newly-built Endeavor Station to find their future. Their tiny ship, Lindy, had been salvaged from the junk heap, and fitted to mine ore from the mineral-rich rings which circled Endeavor. But their future proved to be far stranger than any of them imagined, when a “collision” with a huge alien vessel provided them with the oddest first contact experience possible!

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44 .) The Glamour by Christopher Priest

Cameraman Richard Grey’s memory has blanked out the few weeks before he was injured in a car bomb incident. But when Susan Kewley speaks to him of that time, he finds himself glimpsing a terrible twilight world – the world of “the glamour”.

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43 .) Emergence by David R. Palmer

“With international relations rapidly deteriorating, Candy’s father, publicly a small-town pathologist but secretly a government biowarfare expert, is called to Washington. Candy remains at home.

The following day a worldwide attack, featuring a bionuclear plague, wipes out virtually all of humanity (i.e., Homo sapiens). With her pet bird Terry, she survives the attack in the shelter beneath their house. Emerging three months later, she learns of her genetic heritage and sets off to search for others of her kind.”

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42 .) Double Crossing by Erika Holzer

A tightly plotted international intrigue. Russian doctor’s desperate bid for freedom—a page-turner and a passionate defense of man’s right to be free.

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41 .) The Alchemists by Geary Gravel

In its eagerness to expand, the Empire was often too willing to look the other way while entire alien races were destroyed. When the Kin were discovered living on the beautiful planet that men called Belthannis, scholar Emrys headed the team brought in to judge the aliens’ right to survive. The Kin looked human, so at first the verdict was clear But the Kin were not human and Embrys had a plan to protect them from the Empire.

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40 .) Against Infinity by Gregory Benford

A gripping, masterfully written adventure set against the violent beauty of a planet in the throes of cataclysmic transformation, Against Infinity is Gregory Benford’s timeless portrait of a young man’s coming of age. — On the icelands of Ganymede, a man and a boy hunt for the Aleph—an alien artifact that ruled Ganymede for countless millenia, Infinitely dangerous, the Aleph haunts men’s dreams and destroys all efforts to terraform Ganymede into a habitable planet. Now an ancient struggle is joined, as a boy seeks manhood, a man seeks enlightenment, and a society seeks to survive.

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39 .) Them Bones by Howard Waldrop

Madison Yazoo Leake, the hero of this science fiction novel, attempts to travel from the 21st century to 1930’s Louisiana in a bid to prevent the outbreak of World War III. Instead he is transported to an alternative Earth, where history is twisted, and where he fears he may be stranded.

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38 .) Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard

Shanghai, 1941—a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war…and the dawn of a blighted world.

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37 .) Starrigger by John DeChancie

Independent space trucker Jake McGraw, accompanied by his father, Sam, who inhabits the body of the truck itself, his “starrig,” picks up a beautiful hitchhiker, Darla, and a trailer‑load of trouble. One of the best of the indies, Jake knows a few tricks about following the Skyway, which connects dozens, or maybe hundreds, of planets—nobody knows how many and nobody really knows the full extent of the Skyway, and much of it remains unexplored. But somehow, a rumor gets started that Jake has a map for the whole thing, and suddenly everybody wants a piece of him: an alien race called the Reticulans; the human government known as the Colonial Assembly; and a nasty piece of work called Corey Wilkes, head of the wildcat trucker union TATOO. No matter what Jake does, no matter how many twists and turns he makes, he cannot shake any of the menaces on his tail.

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36 .) Tik-Tok by John Thomas Sladek

Something has gone very seriously wrong with Tik-Tok’s “asimov circuits.” They should keep him on the straight and narrow, following Asimov’s first law of robotics: A robot shall not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. But, that’s not what’s happening. Although every thing looks fine from the surface, and Tik-Tok maintains the outward appearance of a mild-mannered robot, his agenda is murderously different. And, it’s not just because of his artistic tendencies and sympathy for the robot rights movement, either. This witty chronicle of one abnormal machine-man, and his dealings with an assortment of deranged and maniacal humans, truly showcases the satirical genius of John Sladek.

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35 .) The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson

2047: For the small Pacific Coast community of San Onofre, life in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear attack is a matter of survival, a day-to-day struggle to stay alive. But young Hank Fletcher dreams of the world that might have been, and might yet be–and dreams of playing a crucial role in America’s rebirth.

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34 .) The Nagasaki Vector by L. Neil Smith

It was supposed to be a routine historical survey, but things livened up when a mutiny knocked Bernie off course.

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33 .) Frontera by Lewis Shiner

Ten years ago the world’s governments collapsed, and now the corporations are in control. Houston’s Pulsystems has sent an expedition to the lost Martian colony of Frontera to search for survivors. Reese, aging hero of the US space program, knows better. The colonists are not only alive, they have discovered a secret so devastating that the new rulers of Earth will stop at nothing to own it. Reese is equally desperate to use it for his own very personal agenda. But none of them have reckoned with Kane, tortured veteran of the corporate wars, whose hallucinatory voices are urging him to complete an ancient cycle of heroism and alter the destiny of the human race.

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32 .) Green Eyes by Lucius Shepard

Life the second time around is short, strange and terrifying to the awakened. One “zombie”, victim of a bizarre scientific obsession, breaks away, leaving a trail of muder and miracle as he flees the Project and the horror his “life” hasbecome.

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31 .) A Rumor of Angels by M. Bradley Kellogg

“After six years in a maximum-security prison, political dissident and photographer Jude Rowe will take freedom at whatever price it is offered. She’s naturally suspicious of the authorities’ deal—liberation from the Wards in exchange for her service on the paradise planet of Arkoi. A parallel world to the overpopulated and environmentally depleted Terra, Arkoi has enough open land and raw materials to revitalize a dying Terra, making it a playground for scientists and a resort for the ultra-rich.

The Terran colony spreads like a blight, pushing at its boundaries, subjugating Arkoi’s improbably small and seemingly primitive native population, and threatening to destroy a world that has existed unchanged for centuries. Yet, every Terran expedition past the colony’s borders has ended in death or insanity, spurring rumors of Others and Dark Powers lurking beyond the ring of mountains called the Guardians.”

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30 .) The Wandering Unicorn by Manuel Mujica Láinez

Elynas, the King of Albany (an old name for Albania), went hunting one day and came across a beautiful lady in the forest. She was Pressyne, mother of Melusine. He persuaded her to marry him but she agreed, only on the promise — for there is often a hard and fatal condition attached to any pairing of fay and mortal — that he must not enter her chamber when she birthed or bathed her children. She gave birth to triplets. When he violated this taboo, Pressyne left the kingdom, together with her three daughters, and traveled to the lost Isle of Avalon.

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29 .) Thendara House by Marion Zimmer Bradley and Jacqueline Lichtenberg

The cross-currents of two cultures, one male-dominated, one egalitarian, combined with the human problems of two who switched allegiances, brings into focus all the deepest questions of love and marriage, justice and injustice. THENDARA HOUSE is a novel of speculation which has become a classic masterwork on the role of women on any world, past, present, or future.

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28 .) Orion Shall Rise by Poul Anderson

Centuries ago, humankind was nearly destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse. Many generations have passed since that terrible time, and the remnants of civilization have re-formed into separate, vastly different societies. The dominant culture of a widely diminished Earth, the ecologically sensitive Maurai hold fast to their belief that “non-green” science is an unacceptable evil. But the reborn dream of space flight harbored by a forward-thinking few could herald the revival of the nuclear technology that once ravaged the planet and its people—and the powerful Maurai Federation will take every step necessary, no matter how drastic, to prevent doomsday from dawning again.

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27 .) King’s Blood Four by Sheri S. Tepper

In the lands of the True Game, your lifelong identity will emerge as you play. Prince or Sorcerer, Armiger or Tragamor, Demon or Doyen… Which will it be?

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26 .) Pet Sematary by Stephen King

“Don’t miss the classic tale from King of Horror and #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King, described by Publishers Weekly as “the most frightening novel Stephen King has ever written.”

When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son—and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all…right down to the friendly car.

But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth—more terrifying than death itself—and hideously more powerful.”

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25 .) White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson

Thomas Covenant knew that despite his failure on the Isle of The One Tree, he had to return to the Land and fight. After a long and arduous journey, fighting all the way, he readies himself for the final showdown with Lord Foul, the Despiser, and begins to understand things he had only just wondered about before…

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24 .) The Blackcollar by Timothy Zahn

Allen Caine was too young to remember when the Earth had not been a conquered planet, one of many such in the huge and sprawling Rygril empire. But he knew of the legendary black collars, guerrilla warriors trained to the limit of human speed and skill, then turned into nearly superhuman combatants by use of the now-lost backlash drug. Eanh and its former colony worlds had been overwhelmed, but sparks of rebellion still smouldered, and the rebel underground on Eanh had sent Caine on an undercover mission to the former Eanh colony of Plinry, where there was a faint hope that a black collar unit still existed. The underground alone knew of a secret that might be humanity’s ace in the hole. And if a remnant of black collar fighters still existed on Plinry, they were the only hope of playing that ace in a final bid for the freedom of humanity.

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23 .) Dr. Who by

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22 .) Pilgermann by Russell Hoban

After Pilgermann, a German Jew in the year 1096, ravishes the tax collector’s wife, an angry Christian mob retaliates by brutally castrating him. Bleeding and left for dead, Pilgermann experiences a vision of Jesus Christ and resolves to set out on a journey to the Holy Land. Along the way, he will be joined by a motley group of companions: the headless corpse of the tax collector, a lascivious talking pig, a dead bear, and Death himself. In the story of Pilgermann’s quest, by turns funny and nightmarish, Russell Hoban is at his most original and most imaginative.

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21 .) The Tempting of the Witch King by Russell Blackford

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20 .) Thor’s Hammer by Wynne Whiteford

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19 .) Yesterday’s Men by George Turner

On a futuristic Earth where the repressive leaders of the Ethical Culture attempt to control the aggressive instincts of the human race, part-Cyborg Peter Corrigan becomes a part of a secret government experiment.

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18 .) The Garments of Caean by Barrington J. Bayley

“Peder is not just a tailor, but a sartorial–a lowly trade that has now been elevated to an incredibly high standard. Sartorials compete fiercely in creating new apparel, and Peder has heard that the greatest of them all are in the Caeanic worlds, where clothing is a way of life and a philosophy of living.
In Peder’s sector, though, Caeanic clothing is prohibited, and he has fallen in with a band of pirates attempting to salvage a Caeanic freighter. In splitting the loot–clothes–Peder cleverly spots a legendary suit, one of five in the entire galaxy, and walks off with it. And no sooner does he put it on than his personality changes; he becomes self-assured, clever, successful–it almost seems as though the suit of clothes is wearing him!”

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17 .) The Armageddon Rag by George R. R. Martin

Onetime underground journalist Sandy Blair has come a long way from his radical roots in the ’60s—until something unexpectedly draws him back: the bizarre and brutal murder of a rock promoter who made millions with a band called the Nazgûl. Now, as Sandy sets out to investigate the crime, he finds himself drawn back into his own past—a magical mystery tour of the pent-up passions of his generation. For a new messiah has resurrected the Nazgûl and the mad new rhythm may be more than anyone bargained for—a requiem of demonism, mind control, and death, whose apocalyptic tune only Sandy may be able to change in time . . . before everyone follows the beat.

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16 .) The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov

“A millennium into the future two advances have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together.

Detective Elijah Baiey is called to the Spacer world Aurora to solve a bizarre case of roboticide. The prime suspect is a gifted roboticist who had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit the crime. There’s only one catch: Baley and his positronic partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, must prove the man innocent. For in a case of political intrigue and love between woman and robot gone tragically wrong, there’s more at stake than simple justice. This time Baley’s career, his life, and Earth’s right to pioneer the Galaxy lie in the delicate balance.”

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15 .) The Rainbow Cadenza by J. Neil Schulman

“The world was finally politically correct. The people who care have remade the Earth in their image, and its an Earthly Paradise. Humanity is joined together under a single, popularly-elected world government. Gay marriage is a normal institution, the Libertarian Party rules, and the First Lady is Head of State.
But who are the new underclass called Touchables, and why are they hunted for sport? Why are clones treated as inferior? Why do men outnumber women seven to one? And why are teenage women being drafted into government service for three years?”

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14 .) The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford

The Wars of the Roses have put Edward IV on the throne of England, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s court shines brilliantly, and Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza plots in Milan. But this is a changed world, and medieval Europe is dominated by the threat from the Byzantine Empire. Sforza, the Vampire Duke, marshals his forces for his long-planned attack on Florence, and Byzantium is on the march. A mercenary, the exiled heir to the Byzantine throne, a young woman physician forced to flee Florence, and a Welsh wizard, the nephew of Owain Gly Dwr, seem to have no common goals but together they wage an intrigue-filled campaign against the might of Byzantium, striving to secure the English throne for Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and make him Richard III.

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13 .) Millennium by John Varley

In the skies over Oakland, California, a DC-10 and a 747 are about to collide. But in the far distant future, a time travel team is preparing to snatch the passengers, leaving prefabricated smoking bodies behind for the rescue teams to find. And in Washington D.C., an air disaster investigator named Smith is about to get a phone call that will change his life…and end the world as we know it.

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12 .) When Voiha Wakes by Joy Chant

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11 .) The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Here is the magical legend of King Arthur, vividly retold through the eyes and lives of the women who wielded power from behind the throne. A spellbinding novel, an extraordinary literary achievement, THE MISTS OF AVALON will stay with you for a long time to come..

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10 .) The Void Captain’s Tale by Norman Spinrad

This is the tale of a love that shattered a world, between a woman destined to be queen and the young man who stole her heart with the magic of his music. Rahike was Young Mistress of Naramethe, an exotic land of spine and wine where women ruled and men lived at their pleasure. Mairilek was a humble potter, beautiful and graceful and strong, who defied custom to play the music forbidden to men, an dloosed the power of the ancient sleeping gods upon the earth.

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9 .) Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock

“The mystery of Ryhope Wood, Britain’s last fragment of primeval forest, consumed George Huxley’s entire long life. Now, after his death, his sons have taken up his work. But what they discover is numinous and perilous beyond all expectation.

For the Wood, larger inside than out, is a labyrinth full of myths come to life, “”mythagos”” that can change you forever. A labyrinth where love and beauty haunt your dreams. . .and may drive you insane.”

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8 .) The Birth of the People’s Republic of Antarctica by John Batchelor

In this book the author has written a stunning lament about the beastliness in man and the violence in nature, about the darkness of hope abandoned and the blood-price of hope regained. The power of his novel is its informed irony for what has been, and its measured fury for what may yet be. It is bewitching work of profound and prophetic vision.

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7 .) Lyonesse by Jack Vance

A monument of fantastic literature to stand beside such classics as Dune and The Lord of the Rings, Lyonesse evokes the Elder Isles, a land of pre-Arthurian myth now lost beneath the Atlantic, where powerful sorcerers, aloof faeries, stalwart champions, and nobles eccentric, magnanimous, and cruel pursue intrigue among their separate worlds. In this first book of the trilogy, Suldrun’s Garden, Prince Aillas of Troicinet is betrayed on his first diplomatic voyage and cast into the sea. Before he redeems his birthright, he must pass the breadth of Hybras Isle as prisoner, vagabond, and slave, an acquaintance of faeries, wizards, and errant knights, and lover to a sad and beautiful girl whose fate sets his undying hatred for her tyrannical father–Casmir, King of Lyonesse.

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6 .) Neuromancer by William Gibson

Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

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5 .) The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

Ace Books is proud to present this classic novel of time travel in a beautiful new trade edition. It took the fantasy world by storm a decade ago, and now fans can savor this Philip K. Dick Award-winner for the first time all over again. Only the dazzling imagination of Tim Powerscould have assembled such an insane cast of characters: an ancient Egyptian sorcerer, a modern millionaire, a body-switching werewolf, a hideously deformed clown, a young woman disguised as a boy, a brainwashed Lord Byron, and finally, our hero, Professor Brendan Doyle.

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4 .) The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe

The Citadel of the Autarch brings The Book of the New Sun to its harrowing conclusion, as Severian clashes in a final reckoning with the dread Autarch, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that will alter forever the realm known as Urth.

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3 .) Helliconia Spring by Brian Aldiss

The Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author and Science Fiction Grand Master delivers a sweeping epic of a planet suffering deadly conditions of alternating extremes in this Nebula Award finalist Helliconia follows an eccentric orbit around a double-star system with a twenty-six-hundred-year cycle of very long seasons. As spring slowly breaks the brutally long winter, humans emerge from hiding and a long sequence of civilization and growth begins to repeat again, unbeknownst to the participants but watched by an orbiting satellite station, Avernus, created by Earth some centuries ago. Humans free themselves from slavery to the aboriginal Phagors, and religion and science flower and expand. Brian W. Aldiss has, for more than fifty years, continued to challenge readers’ minds with literate, thought-provoking, and inventive fiction. Helliconia Spring’s prescience with regard to climate change is nothing short of extraordinary.

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2 .) Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy

Martha Macnamara knows that her daughter Elizabeth is in trouble, she just does not know what kind. Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd hours of the night are the only contact she has had with Elizabeth for years. Now Elizabeth has sent her a plane ticket and reserved a room for her at San Francisco’s most luxurious hotel. Yet she has not tried to contact Martha since she arrived, leaving her lonely, confused, and a little bit worried. Into the story steps Mayland Long, a distinguished-looking and wealthy Chinese man who lives at the hotel and is drawn to Martha’s good nature and ability to pinpoint the truth of a matter. Mayland and Martha become close in a short period of time and he promises to help her find Elizabeth, making small inroads in the mystery before Martha herself disappears. Now Mayland is struck by the realization, too late, that he is in love with Martha, and now he fears for her life. Determined to find her, he sets his prodigious philosopher’s mind to work on the problem, embarking on a potentially dangerous adventure.

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1 .) Startide Rising by David Brin

The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed in the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret–the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.

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The 1984 Award Nominations & Winners

(Winners Highlighted)

Nebula Award – Best Novel

Hugo Award – Best Novel

Locus Award – Best Science Fiction Novel

Locus Award – Best Fantasy Novel

Locus Award – Best First Novel

BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) – Best Novel

Philip K. Dick Award

The World Fantasy Award – Best Novel

Prometheus Award – Best Novel

Kurd-Lobwitz-Preis (German) – Foreign Fiction

Seiun (Japanese) Award – Best Translated Novel

John W. Campbell Memorial Award – Best Science Fiction Novel

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award – Adult Literature

The Ditmar (Australian) Award – Best International Long Fiction

SF Chronicle Award – Best Novel