Slate: Can you tell us some of the science-fiction stories you’ve encountered that our readers are unlikely to have read?

Margaret Atwood: The Coming Race, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The Purple Cloud, by M.P. Shiel. The Green Child, by Herbert Read. A Crystal Age, by W.H. Hudson. Donovan’s Brain, by Curt Siodmak. These are not recommendations as such. But you are unlikely to have read them (full interview).

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The Purple Cloud, by M.P. Shiel. The Purple Cloud is a “last man” novel by the British writer M. P. Shiel. It was published in 1901. H. P. Lovecraft later praised the novel as exemplary weird fiction, “delivered with a skill and artistry falling little short of actual majesty.”

The Coming Race, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The Coming Race, an early science-fiction work, with its superman race the Vril-ya, from which in varied streams has flowed the dominant civilization of the world spawned a occult secret society known as the Vril Society. 

A Crystal Age, by W.H. Hudson. A Crystal Age is a utopian novel/ Dystopia written by W. H. Hudson, first published in 1887. The book has been called a “significant SF milestone” and has been noted for its anticipation of the “modern ecological mysticism” that would evolve a century later (sources: Wikipedia, Google Books).