I am not all that surprised by how many of these I've read, just as I'm not surprised by the ones I have not. Sword of Shanana is one of the worst books ever typed. Thomas Covenant is a leper of the soul as well as the body and as such was totally unreadible for me.
(ones in red not read)
The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002
from SFBC
- Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
- 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
- 1st Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Stephen Donaldson
- The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
- Gateway, Frederik Pohl
- Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
- 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
- Ringword, 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
2 comments:
handdrummer, I am woefully unread in this genre. =(
I do have _Snow Crash_, though -- highly recommend to me by a number of folks. Should I dig it out of my pile? And I did read the story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by LeGuin. Does that count?
Heck.
Snow Crash is a hoot. If I were recomending some books to introduce a new reader I'd recommend LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz, and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
My favorite book on the list is Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar. I wouldn't necessarily recommend starting with that one. Dip into a few others first to pick-up some of the prevailing genre tropes. Smow Crash might be a bit daunting as well. It's a long postmodern SF in-joke in a lot of ways.
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