“What are the most award-winning Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 1975?” 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 1975, let’s set the scene for those awards by taking a look at what else was happening that year:

1975

International Women’s Year. Fractal Theory first presented, Sociobiology introduced. Space Mountain Opens at Walt Disney World. The Weather Underground bombs the United States Department of State main office. Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first Female leader. Daylight Savings Time starts 2 months early because of energy crisis. The Rocky Horror Show opens on Broadway. Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft. Bus Massacre leads to start of Lebanese Civil War. Vietnam War Ends with the Fall of Saigon. Vietnam Cambodia war begins. Helsinki Accords are signed. over 200,000 die when Banqiao dam in China fails. Viking 1 launched toward Mars. Ford survives second assassination attempt. Ali defeats Frazier in Thriller in Manila. Other Popular Entertainment Released – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Saturday Night Live, Jaws, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, The Jeffersons, Grey Gardens, The Stepford Wives, A Boy and his Dog,

And now, on to the list…

The Top Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels Of 1975

17 .) Inverted World by Christopher Priest

The city is winched along tracks through a devastated land full of hostile tribes. Rails must be freshly laid ahead of the city and carefully removed in its wake. Rivers and mountains present nearly insurmountable challenges to the ingenuity of the city’s engineers. But if the city does not move, it will fall farther and farther behind the “optimum” into the crushing gravitational field that has transformed life on Earth. The only alternative to progress is death. The secret directorate that governs the city makes sure that its inhabitants know nothing of this. Raised in common in crèches, nurtured on synthetic food, prevented above all from venturing outside the closed circuit of the city, they are carefully sheltered from the dire necessities that have come to define human existence. And yet the city is in crisis. The people are growing restive, the population is dwindling, and the rulers know that, for all their efforts, slowly but surely the city is slipping ever farther behind the optimum.

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16 .) Prince of Annwn by Evangeline Walton

These books are not only the best fantasies of the 20th century, but also great works of fiction. They are actual retellings of the diverse legends of The Mabinogion in novel form…dealing with Good and Evil…and the nature of love.

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15 .) Frankenstein Unboundby Brian W. Aldiss

Some years into the twenty-first century, a newly devised weapon of mass destruction will do far worse than kill; it will disrupt time and space. Suddenly, land, buildings, animals, and people are falling through “timeslips” and being transported briefly back to earlier eras. One of these inadvertent time travelers, Joe Bodenland, is shocked when he finds himself parked outside a villa on the shore of Lake Geneva—and soon after, unbelievably, in the presence of nineteenth-century literary luminaries Lord Byron and Percey Shelley, along with Shelley’s very enticing fiancée, budding author Mary.

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14 .) The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

The story is set in the distant future of Pournelle’s CoDominiumuniverse, and charts the first contact between humanity and an alien species

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13 .) Fire Time by Poul Anderson

Firetime is coming to Ishtar. This once-in-a-millennium event occurs when one of the planet’s three suns encroaches on Ishtar’s surface, to disastrous effect. The nightmare rapidly approaching, barbaric tribes have declared war on their more civilized brethren in hopes of avoiding a natural extermination. Standing between the opposing forces are the colonists who settled on Ishtar after abandoning their home planet, Earth. But in this time of chaos and destruction, there is little the humans can do to aid their Ishtarian allies in the desperate fight for survival. The Terran powers, engaged in their own terrible conflict with a hostile alien race, will offer no help to the endangered planet. With a fiery doomsday on the way, the humans can do nothing but watch and wait—and pray for a miracle that will forestall the inevitable apocalypse

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12 .) Watership Down by Richard Adams

Set in England’s Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage, and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.

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11 .) The Godwhale by T. J. Bass

Rorqual Maru was a cyborg – part organic whale, part mechanised ship – and part god. She was a harvester – a vast plankton rake, now without a crop, abandoned by earth society when the seas died. So she selected an island for her grave, hoping to keep her carcass visible for salvage. Although her long ear heard nothing, she believed that man still lived in his hive. If he should ever return to the sea, she wanted to serve. She longed for the thrill of a human’s bare feet touching the skin of her deck. She missed the hearty hails, the sweat and the laughter

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10 .) How Are the Mighty Fallen by Thomas Burnett Swann

CYCLOPS AND SIRENS, HALFMEN AND GODLINGS … THAT OF WHICH MYTHS ARE MADE AND THAT FROM WHICH WORSHIP ARISES – THESE ARE THE MATERIALS THOMAS BURNETT SWANN WEAVES TOGETHER IN THE FANTASY – HISTORICAL TAPESTRY OF THIS NEW NOVEL, WHICH HE CONSIDERS TO BE.HIS MOST IMPORTANT WORK TO DATE. FOR THE AUTHOR OF GREEN PHOENIX AND THE FOREST OF FOREVER NOW TELLS OF A QUEEN OF ANCIENT JUDEA WHO WAS MORE THAN HUMAN, OF HER SON WHO BECAME LEGEND, OF THEIR CYCLOPEAN NEMESIS WHOSE NAME BECAME SYNONYMOUS WITH COLOSSUS, AND OF LOVES AND LOYALTIES AND COMBATS FIXED FOREVER IN THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMAN SOCIETY

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9 .) 334 by Thomas M. Disch

Set 50 years into the future in New York, technocrats and administrators have alleviated the ills of economic deprivation. But in this “paradise” of harmonious life, there seems a sense of spiritual alienation. The residents at 334–a huge and anonymous apartment complex–give us a vivid, humorous and disturbing view of what the future holds

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8 .) Orbitsville by Bob Shaw

Racing from the certain vengeance of Earth’s tyrant ruler, space captain Vance Garamond flees the Solar System. And discovers the almost unimaginably vast spherical structure soon to become famous as ‘Orbitsville’ – a new home for Earth’s huddled masses

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7 .) Merlin’s Ring by H. Warner Munn

Merlin’s Ring is a fantasy novel by H. Warner Munn, the third in a series of three based on Arthurian legend.

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6 .) Protector by Larry Niven

Phssthpok the Pak had been traveling for most of his thirty-two thousand years. His mission: save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some two and a half million years before

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5 .) Up the Line by Robert Silverberg

Up the Line is a time travel novel by American science fiction author Robert Silverberg. The plot revolves mainly around the paradoxes brought about by time travel, though it is also notable for its liberal dosage of sex and humor.

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4 .) The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A, McKillip

Like the Ring trilogy or the Earthsea books . . . this magical moonlit fantasy has dignity and romance, heart-stopping suspense, adventure, richness of concept and language

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3 .) A Midsummer Tempest by Poul Anderson

The setting is in a parallel world where William Shakespeare was not the Bard but the Great Historian. In this world, all the events depicted within Shakespeare’s plays were accounts of historical fact, not fiction. As some of the plays depicted anachronistic technology, Anderson extrapolated that this world was more technologically advanced than in reality. However, the fairies of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are also part of this world. The novel takes place in the era of Cromwell and Charles I, but the characters deal with the English Civil War which is coeval with anIndustrial Revolution. The fairy element provides a plot tension with the more advanced technology.

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2 .) Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

Jason Taverner—world-famous talk show host and man-about-town—wakes up one day to find that no one knows who he is—including the vast databases of the totalitarian government. And in a society where lack of identification is a crime, Taverner has no choice but to go on the run with a host of shady characters, including crooked cops and dealers of alien drugs. But do they know more than they are letting on? And just how can a person’s identity be erased overnight?

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1 .) The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin*

Centuries ago, the moon Anarres was settled by utopian anarchists who left the Earthlike planet Urras in search of a better world, a new beginning. Now a brilliant physicist, Shevek, determines to reunite the two civilizations that have been separated by hatred since long before he was born

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The 1975 Award Nominations & Winners

(Winners Highlighted)

Nebula Award – Best Novel

Hugo Award – Best Novel

BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) – Best Novel

Jupiter Award – Best Novel

The World Fantasy Award – Best Novel

Seiun (Japanese) Award – Best Translated Novel

John W. Campbell Memorial Award – Best Science Fiction Novel

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award – Adult Literature

Locus Award – Best Science Fiction Novel

The Ditmar (Australian) Award – Best International Long Fiction