To have a great Sci-Fi list, if put two quotas of 20% foreign books and 20% pre-1950. That would secure the forefathers like Olaf Stapleton.
A city of glass, 1,000 years in the future, domed, with a green wall, to keep out all the undesirable, primitive life forms. Animal, human, vegetable or insect...A clean and sparkling place, for its millions of citizens, everything and everyone, has a schedule, the perfect "One State". No privacy, people have numbers for names, they dress (light blue uniforms) , and eat the same food, live in small, sparse apartments, which are transparent. No drinking or smoking, even sex regulated by, yes, an appointment. Regular daily walks, pep talks at auditoriums, to keep all, motivated. Thousands sing and listen to the sacred words, they have heard, countless times before. Guardians to help the "Benefactor's" rules, be followed, timetables are enforced! Any deviations, are rigorously crushed. D-503, is the chief, in charge, of building the spaceship, Integral, now the perfect society, can conquer space, soon bringing happiness and order, to a chaotic universe. D-503, has a regular sex partner, 0-90, but she falls in love, with the mathematician, the State, doesn't approve, emotional entanglements. It causes disorder, in a strict culture, no more conflicts! The blue planet, was devastated, after the 200 - year - long war, 99% of the population died. Then he sees 1-330, a Will -o'-the- Wisp, forever coming and going, befuddling D-503. He can never differentiate, reality from a mirage, when she's around, a brilliant man, who returns to Earth. Love reduces people to silliness, misery and sometimes, a little euphoria, but there is something strange going on, a secret, she has an agenda. His best friend, R-13, is somehow connected, the poet, is full of big dreams, what ? Mad Revolution, unthinkable, "Unfreedom", is paradise, D-503 is scared ... He is taken by her, amazingly, outside the walls, he feels naked, uncomfortable . Seeing crawling things, always moving about, in the frightening, and unknown green environment, is the vegetation, very unhealthy ? Yellow fruit, which D-503, recognized, from ancient books, in old museums. The hot sun shining down, nothing to regulate it here, humans too, dressed unalike ... Weird, they don't look any different, from us. The wise man, is drawn deeper into a plot, he just can't say no, to the beautiful, 1-330. Causing much turbulence between he and dear, jealous, 0-90, but he is being watched, closely, by the Guardians. Does he risk torture and death, for the woman he loves, who may just be using D-503, for her own, personal ambitions? Still the builder, is a romantic, at heart, in a civilization, that doesn't believe or tolerate, such nonsense. What will it be, a bland but safe existence, all the worries, taken care of, by the suffocating, inhuman, State ? Not very fulfilling, or an exciting, prospect, an unfamiliar, perilous world? ... And Birds are seen, inside the city ...