Technology book series in reading order

by Lisa Greenwald

by Ernest Cline

Arthur C. Clarke

74 books• 10 series

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (16 December 1917 to 19 March 2008) was an English science fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer and television host. Clarke promoted space travel in books and magazine essays, received UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for popularising science in 1961, and was called the Prophet of the Space Age. The Space Odyssey and Rama series appear in the catalogue with A Time Odyssey and Blue Planet, and Against the Fall of Night (1948), Prelude to Space (1950) and The Sands of Mars (1951) are among the early titles.

Cory Doctorow

48 books• 4 series

Cory Doctorow, born 17 July 1971, is a Canadian-British science fiction author, journalist and blogger who co-edited Boing Boing. Doctorow campaigns for looser copyright law and supports Creative Commons, releasing some books under its licences. Digital rights management, file sharing and post-scarcity economics recur in the fiction. The catalogue counts 48 books, from A Place So Foreign and Eight More (2000) through Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003) and Eastern Standard Tribe (2004) to The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (2026). Little Brother and Martin Hench are the series.

Lisa Greenwald writes for middle-grade readers about friendship, school and adolescence. My Life in Pink & Green (2009) opens 29 catalogued books that reach You'll Find It All Still Here (2025). Six series divide the list: Pink & Green, TBH, Friendship List, Seagate Summers, Ellie's Deli and Fortune Tellers. Bullying, secrets, best friends, early dating and family life supply the material.

Terry Deary

340 books• 41 series

Terry Deary is a British children's author, born in 1946, best known as the writer of the Horrible Histories series. Deary has written 351 books, which have sold more than 38 million copies in over 45 languages, and has ranked among Britain's best-selling authors since 1994. In 2012 Deary was the tenth most-borrowed author in British libraries, and Books for Keeps magazine named Deary the Outstanding Children's Non-Fiction Author of the 20th Century. The catalogue lists 340 titles from Teaching Through Theatre (1977) onward, including the True Stories and Tudor Terror series.

David Macaulay

32 books• 2 series

David Macaulay, born 1946, is a British-born American illustrator and writer whose books explain how buildings and machines are made. Cathedral (1973) opens a catalogue of 32 titles, followed by City, Pyramid, Underground and Castle through the 1970s. The Way Things Work (1988) and its revisions, The New Way Things Work (1998) and The Way Things Work Now (2016), form the other long thread. Macaulay took the 1991 Caldecott Medal for Black and White and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006; Mammoth Science (2020) is the newest title.

Isaac Asimov

553 books• 31 series

Isaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer who also taught biochemistry at Boston University. Hard science fiction is the core of Asimov's reputation, and the Foundation series about a fallen space empire is the most famous work; Asimov ranked with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke as one of the "Big Three" of the genre. The output also covers mysteries, fantasy and popular science, with non-fiction lines such as How Did We Find Out and the Library of the Universe. Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books. This catalogue opens with the story Marooned Off Vesta (1939) and names Asimov on 400 of the listed books.

Neal Stephenson

34 books• 8 series

Neal Stephenson (Neal Town Stephenson, born October 31, 1959) is an American writer of speculative fiction classed as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk and baroque. Mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency and the history of science recur in the novels. The site lists 34 books from The Big U (1984) to D: Heavy Water (2026), including Snow Crash (1992) and Cryptonomicon (1999). Baroque Cycle and Foreworld Saga are series. Stephenson and George Jewsbury, an uncle, co-wrote novels as Stephen Bury.

Philip Reeve

48 books• 12 series

Philip Reeve, born on 28 February 1966, is an English author and illustrator of children's books, known above all for Mortal Engines (2001) and its sequels, the Mortal Engines Quartet published between 2001 and 2006. Here Lies Arthur (2007), Reeve's novel drawn from the Arthurian legend, won the Carnegie Medal. Forty-eight catalogued titles reach Bridge of Storms: A Mortal Engines Novel (2026), across Fever Crumb, Larklight, Railhead, Goblins, Buster Bayliss, Utterly Dark, Adventuremice and the Not-So-Impossible Tales, written largely for readers in grades 6 to 8.

Greg Egan is an Australian science fiction writer and mathematician, born in 1961 and known above all for hard science fiction. Egan has won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award and the Locus Award. Forty-four titles are catalogued from An Unusual Angle (1983) to Morphotrophic (2024), among them Quarantine (1992), Permutation City (1994), Distress (1995) and Diaspora (1997), with the Subjective Cosmology Cycle and Orthogonal as the two series. Short stories make up a large share of the catalogue.

Victor Appleton is the name on the Tom Swift books, and the catalogue lists 161 titles under the Victor Appleton name from 1910 to 2023. Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle, Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat, Tom Swift and His Airship and Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat all date from 1910, the start of the peak decade. The series credited to Appleton are Tom Swift I, Tom Swift Jr., Tom Swift III, Tom Swift IV, Tom Swift Invention, Tom Swift: Inventors' Academy and Tom Swift, Young Inventor, plus Don Sturdy and Moving Picture Boys. Subjects include inventors, robots, space flight, science fiction and children's adventure. Tom Swift and His Flying RaceYacht (2023) is the newest listed title.

Judy Moody, a series that has sold more than 30 million copies, is what Megan McDonald is best known for. McDonald, born Megan Jo McDonald on February 28, 1959, is an American children's author and a former librarian, and also wrote the Julie Albright books for American Girl as well as picture books. The catalogue lists 113 McDonald books, from Is This a House for Hermit Crab? (1990) to The Big Bad Badgers (2025). Other series include Stink, Judy Moody & Friends, Beezy and Sisters Club, and the subjects include school, family life and brothers and sisters.

Murder, investigation and women psychics head the subject list for Kari Lee Townsend, whose catalogue runs to 43 books published between 2010 and 2025. Cozy mystery series account for most of it: Sunny Meadows Mystery, Mind Reader Mystery, A Kalli Ballas Mystery, Cece Monroe Mystery and A Sheridan Hendley Mystery. Some titles carry the byline Kari Lee Harmon. Fused (2010) opens the run and Bachelor, Badges & Bad Luck (2025) is the newest title.

Michael Bruce Sterling, born in 1954, is an American science fiction author linked to the cyberpunk subgenre and known for editing the Mirrorshades anthology. Sterling sold a first science-fiction story, Man-Made Self, in 1976. The catalogue holds 33 titles from Involution Ocean (1977) to Robot Artists and Black Swans: The Italian Fantascienza Stories (2021), taking in The Artificial Kid (1980), Schismatrix (1985), Islands in the Net (1988), Crystal Express (1989) and Globalhead (1992). The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (1992) was the first non-fiction book Sterling published. Mechanist Shapers is the one series listed, beside standalone novels, short fiction and non-fiction. Subjects cover cyberpunk fiction, American science fiction, short stories and life on other planets.