This week’s meme comes via Dorothea Salo’s Caveat Lector
Below is a Science Fiction Book Club list most significant SF novels between 1953-2006. The meme part of this works like so: 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.
1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien *
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov Like a lot of ‘Golden Age’ SF, this one has dated badly, and is nowhere near Asimov’s best work. Ignore the flatulent 80s sequels like the plague.
3. Dune, Frank Herbert * Just read the original novel. Ignore the terminably dull sequels.
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson * Notable for having changed the real world, in that it caught the imagination of some of the people that went on to create the Internet. Were it not for this book, you might not be reading this.
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 * I find Wolfe frustrating. Some of his work, such as this one, are utterly compelling. Other’s I’ve really struggled with.
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. I found this quite amusing at the time, although it pales by comparison to later Discworld novels. I’ve never emphasised much with Rincewind as a character, and later Rincewind novels are by far the weakest Discworld books.
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. Danger! Hazardous leak of long words following explosion at thesaurus factory! Quite possibly the worst prose this side of E. Gary Gygax. And that’s before we start on the utterly dislikeable protagonist.
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. Agree with Dorothea, Ãœbermenchen lording over mere mortals doesn’t do it for me. And I don’t care much for Amber either.
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick * Rivals Keith Robert’s Pavane as the gold standard for alternate-history novels.
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. Probably Niven’s best, in that the central ideas are strong enough that you don’t notice that Niven can’t really do either characters or plots.
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson Still a good book even if nothing can top that incredible first chapter.
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein Ugh. This is the only book I’ve ever thrown across the room in disgust. Reading it was like being stuck in a lift with Norman Tebbit. On the other hand, I loved Paul Verhoeven’s movie adaptation precisely because it trashed Heinlein’s awful book and royally pissed off all the crypto-fascist SF geeks that worship the book.
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock Black Blade! Forged a million, billion years ago!
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
