the pod bay door

.: While scanning a few friends’ blogs, I found this meme at Cindi’s site. Generally I loathe blog memes, I think they are silly and too cute for their own good, but I’m sucking it up here and participating in this one, because I found myself scanning the list and making mental notes about various titles, given that I used to read a lot of SF once upon a time. Plus I like Cindi! Cindi notes that the layout of the list is a bit odd in that after the first ten titles, the list is alphabetized. ‘zup with that?? Anyway, here goes:

“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
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 First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, 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**** (my all time favorite sf novel)
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*

There are no books on the list that I read and hated, but some of my all-time faves are there, including The Left Hand of Darkness, Stand on Zanzibar, Ringworld, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Neuromancer, and A Canticle for Leibowitz. In addition to Lord of Light, there might be one or two others I started but never finished, but it was so long ago that I can’t be sure about which titles those might be.

ADDENDUM: In his comment, Jason notes, “Leave it the SF Book Club (the SF presumably still stands for Science Fiction) to include a number of outright fantasy novels in their top list of science fiction novels.” It’s a valid point, and I agree – the list would have had more credibility if the SF Book Club had limited the criterion for inclusion to science fiction novels only. In addition to the important titles Jason suggests are missing from the list, I would add The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin, Way Station by Clifford Simak, and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. I’m sure there are dozens of others that could be included as well.