Science Fiction

Fantastic works about imaginary possibilities of science fall under the category of Science Fiction.
+ Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
The book opens with one of several letters from from a sea captain encouraging his sister to share his enthusiasm about his journey to the North Pole. His last letter tells the startling story of his having seen a being of gigantic stature shaped like a man, fleeing across the ice which is threatening to enclose the ship. The next day another sled appears, carrying the wasted and maddened Victor Frankenstein, who is pursuing the giant and gets taken aboard. Frankenstein tells his story of how once he began in earnest to know all that could be known.

+ Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
The book opens in the year 2495 at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, a research facility and factory that mass-produces and then socially-conditions test-tube babies. Such a factory is a fitting place to begin the story of mass-produced characters in a techno-futurist dystopia, a world society gone mad for pleasure, order, and conformity. The date is A.F. 632, A.F.—After Ford—being a notation based on the birth year (1863) of Henry Ford, the famous automobile manufacturer and assembly line innovator who is worshipped as a god in Huxley’s fictional society.

+ Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
As Mike learns about human society, he comes to see that much of his Martian wisdom could be used to help alleviate the sufferings of mankind, but society's institutions are not designed to resist new and radical teachings like Mike's.

+ On the Beach, Nevil Shute
The characters cope with the reality that they're among the few people in the world left alive after a catastrophic nuclear war, and that within several months they too will inevitably die from radiation sickness.