(via PZ) Here’s a list of The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years.
When I first looked it over I couldn’t believe how many of these books I have NOT read. Shocking. For example: I have not read Sword of Shannara. Tsk, and I call myself an SF&F fan!
Here’s the list marked up to show what I’ve read and what I haven’t. I’m sticking with tikistitch’s markup method, which cannot be improved upon:
Bold = I’ve read ‘em
Italic = I read the first three chapters and now they’re in a box somewhere
Times font = author is douchebag
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The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
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on Mar 12th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Hmmmm … interesting list. I highly recommend Neuromancer by William Gibson. I’m surprised that some classics didn’t make the list:
‘Number of the Beast’ by Robert Heinlin
‘Hyperion’ by Dan Simmons
I hate to admit it but Isaac Asimov seems so dated now. Boy did I love his stuff as a teen. I’ve always thought Delaney writes crap. Ann Rice is fantasy?
L.E. Modesitt is a good SF author. I liked ‘Timediver’s Dawn’ the best. Tad Williams Dragonbone series was cool fantasy (really long, but cool). I can’t believe that James P. Hogan’s ‘Inherit the Stars’ didn’t make it. Mpls author Stephen Brust’s ‘Vlad Taltos’ series is great of which the first one, Jhereg, is the best.
There really is SO much out there.
The Big E
mnblue is home to the Norm Coleman Weasel Meter
on Mar 12th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Yeah. Actually I don’t know who came up with this list; maybe tikistitch did. It sure has an impressive sounding title, tho: “The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years”.
Lists like this are so subjective, the only real purpose behind them is to provoke discussion, and that’s what this one’s doing, so… mission accomplished, Whoever!
I agree with you about Ann Rice; disagree with you about Delaney. And I’ve read a lot of Heinlein, just not Number of the Beast. And where’s James Tiptree, Jr? And R.A Lafferty?
..Among others that I’ll no doubt keep remembering.
The deal with me is that I never liked much fantasy after I read Tolkien so I pretty much stopped reading fantasy a lo-o-o-ng time ago. Then in the late 80s I started feeling the same way (disenchanted) with about 90% of the SF out there, and I nearly stopped reading SF altogether, with a few exceptions like John Varley and Connie Willis. As a result, my tastes in SF & F look pretty dated now.
Is there anything as sad as an old, out of touch SF&F fan whom the genre has left behind? *sob!*
on Mar 12th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Wow, that’s a lot of douchebags!
I’ve read 40 of ‘em, but seeing as how I haven’t read a sci-fi novel since the early ’80s, that’s a testimony to how stale that list is.
on Mar 12th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I did a little better than you, with 33 books out of the list read. I’ve bounced off Neal Stephenson a couple of times. I find Gene Wolfe fairly impenetrable, and I keep *meaning* to read William Gibson, but just haven’t gotten around to it.
It is kind of a weird list, isn’t it?
I won’t say I’ve been TOTALLY left behind by the genre, although I don’t keep up with everything like I used to. I’ve read more fantasy in the last couple of decades than science fiction, but a good SF book will suck me in in a heartbeat. I just think it’s harder to find interesting stories that are NEW these days. When you’ve read as much sf/fantasy for the last 40 years as I have, you tend to pick up a book, read the back cover and say “Oh, that’s THAT story. YAWN..” and pass on.
Vernor Vinge rarely disappoints. Peter Watts is writing some interesting stuff, though it’s pretty dark for SF. His novel “Blindsight” is a first-contact novel with an interesting perspective on it. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett rule as fantasy writers, IMHO. Listen to Gaiman’s Anansi Boys narrated by Lenny Henry. Just wonderful.
Yes, I’m an old SF geek.
on Mar 12th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Can that be right? I’ve only read 24? Yeesh, that’s worse even than I thought…
Wege, nice try but the only one that’s actually in Times New Roman font is Ender’s Game by Orson Scott “douchebag” Card. It’s not my fault that you can’t tell the difference between 11 pt Times New Roman and 12 pt Georgia.
on Mar 12th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
I suspect my browser is overriding your font choices. 12 pt Georgia looks almost twice as big as 11 pt TNR, and I’ve got no such size difference.
I did read the Wolfe trilogy (tetrology?), which I’m sure is one most people couldn’t check off. Four books about a traveling executioner on a planet that’s 90% crypts was probably a little dark for most folks.
on Mar 12th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Dark, cryptic, yeah, but for some reason Miss Sweetness and Light (uh, that’s me) really loved them and read all four cover to cover. …which is more than I can say about that Great Classic, Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. Did I have that one in italics? I should have, cuz those books are definitely in the “read 3 chapters then dumped ‘em in a box” category.
With Asimov, I always preferred the “Lucky Starr” juvies he wrote under the name “Paul French”.
on Mar 16th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
For example: I have not read Sword of Shannara.
You didn’t miss much. Same with Stephen R. Dorkelson.
on Mar 16th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Yep, that’s what I thought. The Donaldson books are unread in a box in my garage. The Sword of Shannara I never even looked at. After reading LOTR, pretty much ALL fantasy sucked.
on Mar 22nd, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Harlan Ellison’s a douchebag, too.
on Mar 22nd, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Ain’t it the truth!