Science Fiction Book Club’s Top 50
Carrying on the theme of my list of key scifi/fantasy books I posted, I found this meme at sarahowe.com (via scifichick.com).
Science Fiction Book Club list most significant SF novels between 1953-2006.
Bold the ones you have read, strike through the ones you read and hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put a star next to the ones you love.
I make no comment on what I think of this list, it’s always hard to put a list like this together and so when I come across them, unless I feel something glaringly odd, I just accept them and appreciate the effort that goes into such an undertaking. I starred ones I love or at least ones I loved when I read them, if it was some time ago.
1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin*
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson*
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester*
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card*
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin*
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson*
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock*
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks*
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
Read: 18
Read & Hated: 0
Read & Loved: 7
Started & DNF: 1
This list makes me feel remiss in my lack of reading Bradbury, Philip K. Dick and Tolkien. I don’t know, I guess for some reason I never really got too into the classics. Oh well, there’s always more to read!
March 19th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Nice to see Ursula Le Guin gets two books on the list.
I’m sure everybody has a favorite SciFi book that never gets onto lists like this (mine is The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut), and these lists are usually linkbait, so I’ll reserve most of my other comments, other than this: Dude, you gotta read Lord of the Rings. Why deny yourself?
March 19th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Heh, I love that $.35 cover on wikipedia, we should talk to our astronauts and see if indeed this was an image of “how life might be for the space travelers of the future”. Awesome. I guess that’s just how they marketed these things back in the day! :) Haven’t read much Vonnegut, either. Oh well, one day I’ll read that Tolkien. I hear he could write a decent story.