50 SF Books meme

[shewhomust]

Turning up all over the place, but this is desperance's version, which I like because it has the preamble: This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club.

ETA: Thanks to sartorias for pointing to this clarification from james_nicoll: "significant" means 'Not exactly "best" and not exactly "most popular," but somewhere in the middle, with as much wiggle room as we could build in. Basically, they were books that we thought were important to the history of the field, for various reasons.'

Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished, and put an asterisk* beside the ones you loved.

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 Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by 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

As sartorias says, it's not the answers that are interesting, but the questions: where do these lists come from? I note that this one allegedly lists "significant" books rather than good ones - which maybe explains why I have read as many of them as I have: we don't know what's significant and what isn't until it's had time to settle, so that inevitably skews the list towards older works.

Even so, let's quibble: I suppose Harry Potter is "significant" through sheer popularity. But why The Silmarillion? Because it's such a perfect example of how not to do it? I note that it's one of the very few books on this list that I actively hated, and conclude that it takes a lot to make me finish a book that I am really not getting on with (being the long-awaited sequel to Lord of the Rings would do it) and - looking at how few books I've started and abandoned - that it also takes a lot to make me even start to read a book that doesn't draw me in to some extent.

I began by thinking that that "significant" bit is also why they list the wrong Pratchett (important because it's early, it's the start of something - but he improves so much later). But then, I have the opposite problem with the Delany (too late!) and, unless I'm confused here, the Gene Wolfe...

Sins of commission, sins of omission: I'm not a fan of John Wyndham, but shouldn't he be on this list? And Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud? And where are the comics - no, that's a whole 'nother game...

Comments

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to note that only a handful of the books on this list were actually available through the book club. That might seem cynical of me, but it's actually a measure of how not-significant much of the list seems.

I'm going to tell myself that nothing by Lem was on the list because it's limited to books that were written in English. And I'm going to be restrained and mention only one obvious omission: Watership Down.

I didn't do this meme because most of the books that I've read on this list, I read when I was between the ages of 10 and 13. And who cares what someone that age thinks of Childhood's End?

Glad to see that I am not alone in not having read that vampire thing by Anne Rice. Sometimes I feel like the only literate person in the world who hasn't read it.

And you're not alone in hating The Silmarillion. It was a much-anticipated Christmas gift for me when it was new... and I hated every minute I spent trying to read it. Not that you should care what a 12-yr-old thought.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of you (of you and books, in fact) on Saturday: reading Ian Rankin on the subject of Thomas Pynchon (http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1950558,00.html) in the Guardian.

I'm not convinced that availability from the book club is that good a measure: you'd have to know that the omissions were because they didn't want to bother with a book, rather than, say, because thry couldn't make a deal with the publisher.

You're right about Lem, though. Good call.

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

Pynchon and Muriel Spark in the same paragraph- thanks for that link.