The 50 most significant SF books
(via)
Ones I’ve read bolded:
- 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 (the only Heinlein novel I haven’t read)
- 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 (half read; blech)
- Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
- Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
- The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson (half read; blech)
- The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
- Gateway, Frederik Pohl
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling (first three books)
- 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 (in progress)
- 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 (half read)
- 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 (half read)
Wow.
I’m a bit of an SF geek.
(And, actually, I’ve tried to focus my SF reading on stuff that is well-respected, so I’m probably scoring higher than might be expected of someone who has read the same amount of SF, but did so by picking randomly from the bookstore shelf).
November 1st, 2006 at 10:54 am
Seeing as how you are a huge Heinlein fan, I’m guessing you are intentionally avoiding Stranger in a Strange Land?
I’ve only read 15 on this list, but I’m not ashamed.
November 1st, 2006 at 11:17 am
Dude, you put “Snow Crash” at 43? We cant be e-friends anymore.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:32 pm
No, no…someone else made this list, and rank-ordered it thusly.
All I did was add < b > tags…
November 1st, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Tried it once when I was a teen. Got a few pages in, put it down.
I’m sure I’d like it if I tried it.
Just havent gotten around to it yet.
November 1st, 2006 at 1:00 pm
I’ve read 22. Hmmm. I’m geekier than I thought.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Well I am definitely safe from being a geek, I’ve only read 3 1/3 ( lord of the rings is really big).
November 1st, 2006 at 2:51 pm
44, for me.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:51 pm
…so I’m twice the geek DF is.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Wow- I’ve read 23. I can’t believe I’m more of a geek the DFF. What I want to know is what the hell is The Sword of Shannara doing on a list of most significant SF books.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:12 pm
There are several important questions of the kind JMD asks. And I’m sure Travis would boot “Cities in Flight”. I went through the list and I’ve read 26 or so, plus a lot of the books that *should* be on this list and aren’t. Viriconium and The Dying Earth books are a huge gaff, just to name two.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:21 pm
I think that Sword of Shanara is significant in that it was the first Tolkien-clone, thus pretty much throwing open the doors for modern fantasy.
Imagine if the history of science fiction was:
1948: Asimov delivers the Foundation series.
Thirty years pass with no other science fiction novel.
1978: Alan Dean Foster writes “A cute kid and an alien run around in a city-planet”.
1979: 500 SF novels are published.
November 1st, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Good point- Terry Brooks was the first author to establish a fantasy formula enabling him to sell millions of books. At least they didn’t pick a Robert Jordan book.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:30 pm
I found the list somewhat irritating – my score would have been a little higher if we were listing the authors of those books, rather than those particular books. For instance, Left Hand Of Darkness may be the only Le Guin book I haven’t read, and likewise with Zelazny. And I’ve been carrying Cities in Flight around with me since college but haven’t managed to read it yet.
And what, no Piers Anthony?
;-)
November 1st, 2006 at 5:03 pm
And what about poor ole L. Ron…….;-)
November 2nd, 2006 at 7:30 am
Why do some people confuse SF and fantasy?
Potter’s not SF
But then, it’s not significant either!
November 2nd, 2006 at 3:30 pm
I think any book read by the number of people that read Harry Potter is significant. This is a complete guess, but I’d bet that at least half of the English speaking world population between the ages of 12 and 20 has read at least one Harry Potter book.