BOOKS « In Which We Count Down The 100 Greatest Science Fiction or Fantasy Novels of All Time »
Monday, January 18, 2010 at 9:30AM 
john harris The 100 Greatest SFF Novels of All Time
by ALEX CARNEVALE
What to read? It is a question asked mostly by women, who comprise the majority of America's reading public. Males make up some teensy other part. Either sex is challenged by a lack of a path through difficult material. It is difficult to know what is best. Although many have made a distinction between the fantasy and science fiction fields, I see no reason to arbitrary draw such a lien. The novels I find I most enjoy straddle the boundaries of the two, which is not to say that hard science fiction and pure fantasy don't retain their pleasures, and many books characterized at such found their way to this list.
At the nexus of the two genres is where the human imagination begins to reveal frightful and hopeful things about our own society. Sometimes I will come across someone reading what looks to me like a really boring book; e.g. anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald or James Patterson or Bill Bryson. Instead look to the vast store of cheap entertainment found in these immemorial classics of the page:
100. The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin
An extraordinary powerful novel inspired by Vietnam in LeGuin's Hainish series, where one planet gives the gift of interstellar travel to the universe.
99. Sorcerer's Son by Phyllis Eisenstein
An original fantasy with the crucial grasp of how to make magic entertaining and plausible, not silly and random. Castles and sorcerers were never so deftly done.
98. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Kress is in true command in her short fiction, but this was her memorable attempt to capture how our society might change and still endure.
97. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
One of his more well-thought out plots with interesting commentary on religion and sacrifice.
96. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Incredibly entertaining and knowing about all sort of aspects of life, some of which I'd never even thought of before.
95. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
An out-of-nowhere smash with rich detail.
94. The Company by K.J. Parker
Parker's been one of the most exciting new writers to appear in the field. The Company is the best thing written about the meaning and import of war in two decades.
93. An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe
Wolfe's inspired memoriam on Karl Rove, the Republican party, and the politics of the future. An insanely complex and deep science fiction story lurks below a Lovecraftian blend of Christianity and atheism. Easily the best book of 2008.
92. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
This list is also about pure readability — these books should flow easily into your subconscious, hopefully inhabiting your dreams. Park did more than that; it inspired an entire generation of fossile hunters, and it did it with a gripping adventure story that was also a pure morality play to the very last. Every time the story is told, we ask ourselves what to do with these beasts out of time? No answer forthcomes.
91. Dhalgren by Samuel Delany
An insane narrator with a lot of time.
90. Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch
Disch killed himself, a harsh end to one of SF's great cult heroes. Camp Concentration is a novel about prisons real and imagined, and its subtlety is convincingly rewarding in comparison to other novels that approach the same. Kafka-inspired, it reminds one of the master. What greater compliment is there?
89. Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
Sly, understated, and poignantly delivered, Kushner wrote an incredible novel near the tail end of the 1980s. I never really cared for the sequel, but the original should be paired with the protagonist's origin story that she wrote last year and rereleased as one volume.
88. Song of Kali by Dan Simmons
As horror novels go, this one's relatively simple. Like Simmons' brilliant retelling of the death of Charles Dickens in Drood, this isn't all that it appears. Simmons is a preternaturally talented genius.
87. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
Some call Speaker a sequel to Ender's Game, but the books are vastly different. Here is larger scope, greater torment. Xenocide followed, a worthy sequel before the series grew inevitably stale without a common element or quest. Card would remedy that inefficiency with the Alvin Maker books, his shot at creating an American fantasy.
86. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
The post-apocalyptic theme is so dumb and I never really liked it until I read Walter Miller's version.
85. Sphere by Michael Crichton
The slightly better book, Sphere had a really strange Barry Levinson movie. It's basically a sub movie recast as a alien movie recast as a psychological fantasy. I have always found its claustrophobic environment enhancing. Crichton's remaking of adventure novels with science fiction was prescient.
84. Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin
The quintessential vampire story turned on its head. GRRM sets his vampire mythos in the legends of the American South, and essentially condemns slavery and blood-drinking as different but the same. A masterful treatment of the Dracula theme.
83. The Alteration by Kingsley Amis
Amis' disturbing vision of England without the Reformation.
82. The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
In this distinguished and wildly successful stint at world-building, McCaffrey built a fantasy of extreme and exciting possibilities that could capably consider almost any topic.
81. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
Time travel stories are uniformly bad except when they aren't.
80. Watership Down by Richard Adams
An astonishing novel of anecdotal ecology, the best book ever written from the perspective of the animal.
79. Griffin's Egg by Michael Swanwick
If man evolves and no longer is man, what's left? Swanwick's virtues have been praised recently in these pages.
78. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
Supreme inheritor of the noir sensibility, Morgan's chilling novel sets a murder mystery in a near unrecognizable version of future Earth.
77. Free Live Free by Gene Wolfe
A waystation for indigents in modern-day Chicago, a time-travel story with balls and depth. Wolfe's haunting and miraculous horror novel is more unnerving that any Eli Roth movie.
76. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Clarke was a decent scribe, but most of his work is a bit on the clumsy side. Not so with Rama, a scattered exploration of how space might fare put in close context with man.
75. Ringworld by Larry Niven
A wonderful out-of-the-box fantasy and introduction to Niven's Known Space universe.
74. Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling
A talented short story writer, Sterling created the perfect collection of this transcendant material with Schismatrix Plus.
73. Old Man's War by John Scalzi
The best science fiction can offer is some concrete re-imagining of what will actually become of us. In the world of Old Man's War, Scalzi consistently poses the bitter questions, and answers them with even tougher ones. By the time he's rehashing Heinlein's usual space colony plot in The Last Colony you feel more bowled over than ever.
72. Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance
Vance's flawless bildungsroman takes up eminent domain in the context of a spy story and moving clash of cultures. A phenomenal example of how to write serious but simple fantasy.
71. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
First and foremost a telling of one of the most intriguing human myths in a very fun way.
70. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Still feels very cinematic if not very edgy. Bradbury's future history is always fun to relive.
69. Flow My Tears The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
Almost everything written about future America is dwarfed by Dick's dystopia. It has now become a SF cliché, but Dick remakes it with thought and verve in this book and the 15th ranked book on this list.
68. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
Asimov was a determined technician and an inspired historian. This is a great example of his ability to take a familiar theme and completely flip it on its head.
67. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
It is something extraordinary to write with real feeling about places, people and ideas when most of them are invented. Stephenson's extraordinary perceptiveness is the key to this steampunk fantasy, and the plaudits of his readers are his true reward.
66. The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
We always imagine that human cultures that preceded us wouldn't fare well against starfaring conquerors. Anderson undermines this point of view by casting the early English amongst the stars. The English villager is a hearty sort, but Anderson's grasp of what makes alien cultures 'alien' is pitch-perfect. A hilarious book.
65. A Song for Lya by George R.R. Martin
A beautiful story about our common empathy for others, life as a kind of parasite.
64. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
How to come at Lovecraft but from an angle? Here was one of predictive sensibilities and great zest for the occult. At the Mountains is among his finest work, but there is so much else to recommend.
63. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
When we imbue ourselves with recognition for nonhuman intelligences, we enrich the closeness between all peoples of difference. This message floats about in a terrific but sad novel.
62. Wildlife by James Patrick Kelly
A pitch-perfect classic of the future. Imagine Requiem of a Dream crossed with Hunter S. Thompson's most fevered imaginings. A rewardingly sad story.
61. The Book of Knights by Yves Maynard
The most time-honored standard in fantasy fiction redefined for a new era. A most moral adventure.
60. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
No knock on Jordan. His series is long and impressive, and full of pleasant malefactions and strange echoes of America's military history. Its characters are numerous and sometimes difficult to track, but the rewards the story provides in the moments it strains to achieve make the journey worthwhile.
59. Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
The advancement of technology will soon consume our experience of everything, especially how we act as a species. Haldeman describes this triusm and watches the inevitable new humanity emerge from the wreckage of an action story.
58. Nightwings by Robert Silverberg
A novel in three discrete parts, Silverberg's masterpiece of science fantasy imagines a dessicated Earth vividly.
57. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
A small little tale of sheer perfection, Bilbo was such a memorable and worthy person that it felt reassuring to get to know him in such a fashion. Therefore handing off his tale to Frodo seem a difficult and preposterous transition, until you figured out it was all about man's love for man.
56. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The doomsday book, the one about death in every molecule of life. Vonnegut writes at his highest level here.
55. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
This was his best effort at describing a philosophy in terms of a world.
54. The Book of the Short Sun by Gene Wolfe
Following right after his Book of the Long Sun, this effort takes us to dual planets of Blue and Green, where inhumani stalk people and machines, and Horn tries to unite his worlds.
53. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
His reimagining of his experience in Vietnam as space conquest rendered bloody and mind-numbing. The novella inside, the tale of the soldier's return to a society he no longer recognizes, is a masterpiece in itself, but Haldeman is also interested in turning over in his mind the harshest parts of a military life.
52. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
He imagined civilizations across the stars and an Encyclopaedia Galactica.
51. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
A magical fantasy epic, LeGuin wrote slightly down to a younger reader, and she found a new and growing audience to appreciate her impeccable grasp of how individuals interpret and reacts to their civilizations.
50. The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe
Wolfe challenged himself by taking the most traditional theme and flipping it around so many times. As effortless as magic properly done.
49. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Rand took as subject the plight of the individual in a society that attempted to squelch his purpose and initiative at every turn. Through the story of Howard Roark, we begin to appreciate and see for the first time the visible constraints on ourselves that were invisible before. Among the most widely read books ever written.
48. The Demon Princes by Jack Vance
The most entertaining discourse on the subject of revenge and justice short of Kill Bill. Relentless, interplanetary fun along the Gaean Reach with Kirth Gersen and the women he loves and doesn't love. So funny you're still laughing when you start crying, and probably vice versa. Ranks with Vance's finest cultural, social, and moral investigations.
47. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The simplest and oldest of science fiction conceits: a boy is raised at war to save his people.
46. The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson
A marvelous explanation of world history as pieces of a larger puzzle. Incredibly erudite and incidentally educational.
45. Alastor by Jack Vance
Three vast and inspiring novels on the theme of utopia. The first has an astonishing setting and Vance's favorite invented game: hussade. The second of the two is a comedy of manners to set you up for the last, Wyst, which is every bit as moving and disturbing as the best utopian fiction, and with a more satisfying result.
44. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Invasion is a classic human story, because of the likelihood that it will happen in our lifetime.
43. Flatland by Edwin Abbott
Math and science are close bedfellows, but it is hard to inscribe such arcane pleasures in the guise of fiction. Abbott solved that difficult riddle marvelously.
42. Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
His only novel to take place on Ganymede, Jupiter's Moon. It presents incredible understanding of every subject it approaches, first and foremost that of a child growing up into an adult.
41. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
The drug culture never had a better advocate and enemy than Philip K. Dick. Great movie, too.
40. Animal Farm by George Orwell
Above all, a very funny book about the intransigence of people to live correctly.
39. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
An incomparable marvel of high and low humor, left and right galaxies. The sequels didn't have as much promise, but Adams always clued you in on the joke.
38. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
His own novel about what men become in war. Very discursive for the time and full of knowing insights.
37. Lyonesse by Jack Vance
A hilarious and exciting fantasy set in the Elder Isles, which sank into the Atlantic Ocean. The series is enchanting beyond anything else in the genre. The middle of the first book provides a vicious shock unique to Vance's distinctive patterning of individuals.
36. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
The first military adventure to grip us by our lapels and inform on exactly what war was, why it was waged, and how to go about waging it without losing your soul. As always, the enemy must be nameless and unthinking, until the enemy is no longer as threatening as the thought of continued war.
35. True Names by Vernor Vinge
Vinge's story basically described what would happen when diverse intelligence connected with each other on the internet. He was right about almost everything, and no one had really thought of this before, so the story has retained a certain flair even though Vinge was still improving as a writer of fiction.
34. Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Time travel has gotten so stale that J.J. Abrams plans to use it on all of his TV shows. Dick shows J.J. how it's really done, with plenty of personalities and jawdropping moments in time and space. He never had quite this much fun again.
33. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
Man's conquest of the stars is inevitable; Simmons detailed some of the potential complexities with such an arrangement. Hyperion is a wondrous and incantatory setting for some of the best words per entertainment science fiction has ever seen. A wild and amazing ride.
32. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein
Besides its many virtues as a narrative, it is among the finest pieces of anti-slavery prose written by a white man. Heinlein's concerns are many: the rise of poverty, the existence of nationalism and prejudice, the vagaries of wealth. He concentrates them all in this modest tale about a slave bought at an auction by a particularly free-thinking individual, and raised across the stars.
31. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
This was a book for children? I still remember the first confusing words of A Wrinkle in Time, proof that I was not alone in the universe. How they teach this book to young people is beyond me. Even now, mysteries arise and emerge out of each tesseract made real. A book still ahead of its time.
30. A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge
Both an immensely moving epic and a hilarious commentary on the primitive stages of the Internet, Vinge created two amazing alien spieces and never lost track of the personal in a world where gods appear out of the Beyond.
29. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
He was just never bad, and here he was at his immortal best with an examination of the interconnections between all that is and will be. A true classic with fantasy undertones. Like most masterpieces, its straddling of genre is part of the charm.
28. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
What happens to homo sapiens after we die on the inevitable altar of natural selection?
27. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The idea that anyone who destroys knowledge is a sinister creature is directly related to this novel, and it has guided many estate lawyers.
26. 1984 by George Orwell
As a ripping good read, it's slow and methodical in parts. Its ideas are so clearly subsumed within our culture that it seems funny to think that really this was a utopian fantasy of serious horror. If this book didn't exist, we'd still be waiting for someone to write it.
25. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Matheson's version of the vampire apocalypse, it is a far deeper mix in print, and funny, too.
24. The Cadwal Chronicles by Jack Vance
Like much of Vance's work, its ostensible subject is the ownership of everything. Cadwell is a secluded planet as nature observatory where a class of elites dominates the undermen Yips. In three volumes it approaches titanic questions philosophical and strategic, and dispenses with them for the fun of revenge and the purity of moral action. Wayness Tamm is among fiction's great heroines.
23. Lost Horizon by James Hilton
The gorgeous, austere fantasy classic that inspired a generation. Lost Horizon is about coming to terms with the limits of your own life.
22. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
So much of what we think is unusual flows from this book.
21. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Fantasy as a triumph granted to us upon crossing of worlds.
20. The Fifth Head of Cerebus by Gene Wolfe
The greatest novella ever written in any genre, this is Wolfe's tribute to Proust, and these two crazy planets are a lot more interesting than upper-caste France. Also one of the great mysteries written in English. Thank God for Gene Wolfe.
19. A Song of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin
With Martin 1100 pages into the fifth book, what better time to revisit a deep and complex epic than before its HBO premiere?
18. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
The simplest science fiction story infused with the basic tenets of Heinlein's philosophy of free love. The best alien ever makes you want to taser E.T. until he stops his weird relationships with young boys.
17. The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
Awe-inspiring scope that never falters or is intimidated by the wild fantasy. More real and telling about humanity than The Great Gatsby.
16. The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The finest non-Orwell repudation of communism packaged in a wild novel that rises above doctrine, creed, or power.
15. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
His conceptually fascinating contradiction of Triumph of the Will. Only Dick could turn something so natural and simple into the darkest of mysteries.
14. All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman
Most books have some things, but this book has everything. Haldeman's underappreciated masterpiece is begging to be a big budget film, but for now it's available whenever you want to leave this world, and go beyond it. The best presentation of mystery in the genre since Edgar Allen Poe.
13. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
It has been the major influence of many horrible things, but also many wonderful things. Where it leans on frivolity and wishful thinking, it is forgiven. It's really hard to read these today with how far things have come, but an important effort at the time.
12. Planet of Adventure by Jack Vance
The greatest series of adventure novels ever written. Real thrills that come from Vance's immaculate ear, revolutionary style, and deftness with plot. The most fun you can have with books.
11. Dune by Frank Herbert
Why is this arcane tale of sand people such potent fodder? It is at once a brilliant retelling of the destruction of the Earth and a cipher for all our wants and deepest desires. Herbert's supreme achievement is a bit dated today, but still brilliantly structured and legendary.
10. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
We've all seen the Kubrick movie, which captures this brand of madness better than most films. The subject of violence in our culture gets short shrift because artists opine against it constantly. Thus genre can encompass what traditional fiction cannot.
9. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
Her Hainish cycle is full of vastly different works, but the strange people of Winter are an unforgettable brew. LeGuin is the supreme master of how we belong to our cultures more than our institutions. Her descriptions of intercourse among the native peoples are among the most startling in all of history. Incredibly, she would go on to top this perfect novel.
8. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
Jack Vance's Dying Earth was a comedy of errors; Severian's tale is a tragedy beyond measure. Wolfe basically rewrites Earth's languages and culture until they look unrecognizably familiar. Close to perfect as a series of four can get.
7. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The theme of utopia is never properly done for obvious reasons. Huxley built on other's shoulders to ask all the right questions. In doing so, he raised his subject matter above its usual weaknesses and infused it with a new point of view, the objective of any truly great piece of literature.
6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
She came first, and there was no better. Even today, Frankenstein is no more than a mere afternoon's reading, but it raises questions that never stop being summoned by the recesses of the modern mind. Maybe the only myth that truly matters.
5. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
It is the hardened tale of revolution in a strange and sacred place. As far as contemporary fantasies go, it has to look up on no other. Awesome sorcery, staggering statesmanship, perfect action and characterization. A nearly perfect novel.
4. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
How do we live with each other without breaking our societies apart? LeGuin took the two sister planets concept to unbelievable heights. Shevek's tale is possibly the only one that matters, and I won't be shocked if it inspires a religion and saves us all at some point down the road.
3. The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
Vance picked up this world again in the early 1980s with the masterful Cugel's Saga and finished it off with Rhialto the Marvellous. Along with the original eponymous volume and quite easily the greatest fantasy sequence ever devised in The Eyes of the Overworld, these books provide everything of what we seek from literature: wry humour, great sorrow, masterful prose and dialogue, and intricately beautiful plotting.
2. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
Science fiction and fantasy have played roughly equal part in this list, but there is a fantasy element to Heinlein's ultimate masterpiece that rises above the rest. Heinlein imagines a world both breaktakingly real and manifestly impossible. He makes us care more deeply about unliving things that never existed than the people in our own lives. This is the import of fantasy. Then you have that the story of Mike and Wyoh and his friends builds on technology...geology...physics...politics...human rights. There is no subject that is not more enriched by this text's understanding of it.
1. The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe
Gene Wolfe wrote these four novels in one incredible gasp. The series begins with the quiescent Nightside the Long Sun, where we are brought to Viron, the place of all our deepest hopes and desires. Like any great tale, it begins in the darkest poverty and ends in it. Three more books follow, each more entrancing and mystifying than the last. The Book of the Long Sun is really one novel, Wolfe's rewriting of the generation starship theme for modern readers. Wolfe is a Catholic — he converted when he married his wife — and his convictions are colorfully borne, yielding lessons for atheist and the most indoctrinated among us. Naturally, our protagonist is a man of considerable faith. Wolfe's imaginings are more real to me now than many actual events, managing to mercilessly strip ourselves of what we believe it is to be human until all that is left is our humanity.
Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He is a writer living in Manhattan, and he tumbls here.
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Reader Comments (299)
There is no Greg Egan in this list - so something is very much amiss. Oh - and a few Dicks, but not Valis?
Great list for the most part, but excuse me, no Lem? How can that be?
What I want to see is the list of 100 sci-fi novels that didn't make this list.
h8 watership down
This is as heavy on the Vance and Wolfe as I've ever seen in such a list, but that's no bad thing. I'd have made room for some Samuel Delany -- Dhalgren or Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand -- and maybe The Player of Games by Iain Banks (a deceptively simple setup taken to a wrenching climax), Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (Dragonball Z rendered in gorgeous language with an intelligent plot), or something by Lois McMaster Bujold; but even without those, I'll take it.
So much Stephenson and no William Gibson?
Missing Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. I realize The Black Cauldron was turned into a hard-to-find and under-/over-rated Disney movie, but the series cooks. Of course, it's also not the heavyweight that the LOTR series is, and the conceits aren't altogether different.
Riddley Walker
I love many of the books on this list, but I believe the *best* SF novel is Solaris by Stansilaw Lem. There should probably be one or two books by him in consideration for top 100.
From one sci-fi dude to another: APPROVED! Although, really, no Olaf Stapledon?
Women "compromise" the majority of readers? I do tend to menstruate heavily at the sight of a novel, but I feel like that compromises the books themselves, not the readers.
Why is Ender's Game rated so low?
Disappointed that Earth Abides by George Stewart did not make the list. One of the best Sci-Fi/Post Apocalypse books ever written.
I see a lot of Phillip K. Dick on here, but no Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I had some CRAZY intense vivid dreams after finishing this book. Also, not sure if this fits -- Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
And Olaf Stapledon, William Gibson, other Robert Silverberg Works, Iain Banks, More Roger Zelasny, Vladimir Dudincev, Terry Pratchett, PHILLIP JOSE FARMER FOR GOD'S SAKE? I think Neil Stephenson is a little overrated in the Baroque and Cryptonomicon, the same for Dan Simmons and his Hyperion stuff or Robert Jordan and Wheel of Time. Agree with a lot of thinks specially with Jack Vance, is a formidable sci-fi adventure writer. But the list is ok, a good guide of 100 sci fi - fantasy things that you can read without wasting your time, but i would not put the word "greatest".
Myself, always open to arguing, i spend the last twelve years reading sci-fi and Fantasy, so, i think i can at least, know a little about the theme.
Greetings to you all
I personally revile most of the writers you mention Nicaprio, but I'd like to read your list. I'd rather throw myself off a cliff than read anything William Gibson wrote for example. Philip Jose is also so terrible to read today.
Earth Abides is OK, it might make my top 200.
I've never been that big a Lem fan but if you can read and enjoy Solaris, I envy you.
Also, someone e-mailed me and asked me why Ender's Game was so high.
this would've been a great list but for the lack of Stanislaw Lem - it's rubbish.
Gotta second Pratchett-- he's really in a class by itself when it comes to satiric breadth. Gaiman, particularly American Gods, also crossed my mind. If you're looking for a day of pure gladness, you can't do better than the cracktastic joyride that is Good Omens.
Also The Handmaid's Tale.
Interesting list and one that I mostly agree with (well except for Ayn Rand), but I'm actually shocked that neither Brunner's Stand On Zanzibar or The Shockwave Rider didn't make the cut. Both have aged remarkably well - if not better than some of the books that are on the list.
Since there isn't a single J.G. Ballard book on the list, I'll simply assume that the compiler is insane. The fact that I'm the first commenter to bring up both Brunner and Ballard makes me fear for the future.
Yea, Ballard too! Crash and Concrete Island both deserve a mention, without a doubt.
Also, the nerd-troversy carries on over at The Awl: http://www.theawl.com/2010/01/list-of-scifi-books-promises-to-enrage
You have The Fountainhead on this list but not Neuromancer?? No Lem, no Islandia, no Philip Pullman, no Star of the Unborn?!?!?!!
Actually a good list - a few I haven't read and many I agree with. No surprise that there are some violent disagreements - there are suppose to be - that's what taste is about.
I would add Brunner, Lem, Tad Williams' 'Memory, Sorrow and Thorn' books, The Dosadi Effect by Herbert, Samuel Delany (Babel-17 and Stars in My pocket like grains of sand come to my mind), David Brin maybe (but only the sundiver/startide rising/uplift war trio), and if we are putting in really old school writers then we have to give Jules Verne credit for being the single most accurate and prescient predictor of over 100 years ago and also EM Forster for 'the machine stops' because it is so good.
I would take out the multitudes of Vance and Wolfe - a couple of examples are enough. And finally - Ayn Rand is pure poison - should be taught as an example of how to spot propaganda and stalking horse argument.
I'm so glad you've got Master and Margarita on the list, it's such a great book and too often overlooked. Otherwise, I'm ashamed at how many of the list's books I haven't gotten around to reading, or didn't even know existed. Very helpful, as are people's comments about books that should have been included.
I am a bit saddened that William Gibson didn't make it on this list. I understand that some people don't like what he's written, as Alex mentioned above me, but he did add another chapter to the history of SF. Neuromancer was a starting point for the Cyberpunk sub-genre and coined the term "Cyberspace". Personally, he's my favorite author, but even if you don't like him you can't deny the effect that he's had.
Lathe of Heaven
Riddley Walker
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Pavane
Bug Jack Barron
The Sheep Look Up
Beyond The Blue Event Horizon
Cities In Flight
the mind reels...
Editor, edit thyself!
Nothing to do w/ the choices, but I can't believe you've read 10 books, let alone 100. If you did, judging from your typos, mis-spellings & cliched, platitudinous summaries, you must not have retained the slightest memory of anything you read.
Ayn Rand?
i wrote off sci-fi at one point, i think because i thought since parts were implausible, they were also frivolous. (note: i was also a freshwoman in high school.) reading this list, though, i realize the genre is in some ways some of the most rigorous thinking: you have to extend our finite knowledge into what is unknown, and then layer characters over that, and take what we know of human behavior and project that into how it would change in these scenarios. it is one of the least frivolous genres.
one omission: jon christopher's tripod series. actually you could get away with just putting the white mountains on there, if only because it fucks with your head for, what is it, the first hundred or pages as you slowly come to grips with what has happened to earth. 'the road' also could qualify as sci-fi.
the head is brimming; to the bookshelves i go.
You can never please anyone but I think this is a pretty good list. Delighted to see so much Vance although Wolfe is not so high on my list. I'm glad that someone else out there loves Swordspoint - truly a forgotten classic.
My own fantasy list (here: http://timstretton.blogspot.com/2009/12/essential-fantasy-list-as-requested-by.html) has a lot of crossover, but as you'll see, I'd have to include Joe Abercrombie, Iain Banks and a dash of Moorcock.
But the fun of these kinds of list is that no-one will ever agree!
A Voyage to Arcturus
From Wikipedia:...A Voyage to Arcturus is a novel by the Scottish writer David Lindsay. First published in 1920, it combines fantasy, philosophy and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence. It has been described by the critic and philosopher Colin Wilson as the "greatest novel of the twentieth century"The novel is not really science fiction in the technological sense. An interstellar voyage is mostly a perfunctory background framework to a narrative of a journey through fantastic landscapes. The book was written at a time when it was no longer realistically possible to conceive strange lands in the antipodes (as in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, or in Thomas More's Utopia), so these had to be set at Tormance, an imaginary planet orbiting Arcturus, which, in the novel (but not in reality) is a double star system, consisting of stars Branchspell and Alppain.The lands are used to represent philosophical systems, or states of mind, through which the main character, Maskull, passes on his search for the meaning of life.
Not completely asinine, as such lists tend to be (I'm guilty myself of said asinintity). Kudos for Bulgakov and Nabokov, but pooh to Rand and Shelley (ugh!). But where the hell is John Crowley (or Mervyn Peake or Italo Calvino)? Little, Big is possibly the best novel (in English, anyway) of the last thirty years, regardless of genre considerations (The Passion and Properties of Light are contenders, too). Also, have a look at Kevin Brockmeier (The Brief History of the Dead), Chris
Adrian (The Children's Hospital), and David Marusek (Counting Heads). And, please, enough badmouthing of poor Fitzie.
What about Alfred Bester?
Good list. Needs Perdido Street Station.
We could quibble about details-- notably that I'd flip Long Sun's #1 slot with New Sun-- but you've got The Wolfe Himself on the top, & that is what counts.
The inclusion of any Crichton, let alone two, is groan-inducing. The guy was a terrible, terrible writer who had the great fortune to occasionally have marketable ideas. To be a good writer, you need more than just having Steven Spielberg's number on speed-dial.
The inclusion of much Vance is heartening, although possibly a little over the top. LYONESSE and DYING EARTH are fantastic works, PLANET OF ADVENTURE less so, although still enjoyable (and SERVANTS OF THE WANKH is one of the most gloriously awful book titles of all time).
However, the total absence of Alastair Reynolds, Connie Willis, Kim Stanley Robinson, Iain M. Banks and Terry Pratchett is baffling. No William Gibson either? No Aldiss or Ballard? But then you do include KJ Parker's latest novel, a very fine (but relatively minor) work but not particularly better than her earlier trilogies?
I also take exception to the notion that Ayn Rand's FOUNTAINHEAD is one of the most 'widely-read novels of all time'. Rand's classic status is down almost entirely to her reception in the United States. In Europe, for example, she is regarded with little enthusiasm.
THE BOOK OF THE LONG SUN at #1 with LORD OF THE RINGS, NEW SUN and other works much further down is certainly a different approach to what people would be expecting, and not without some merit. Interesting choices.
Danny, the Champion of the World?
Seriously, you'd class that as SFF?
'To me pheasants were creatures of the farthest imagination.' But not to Dahl, and not to me either. It would be like suggesting a book was fantasy because it contained zebras.
Pretty Good list, but no Peter F Hamilton? Robert Silverberg, Greg Bear, Francis Jose Farmer (riverworld)
Good list. It's reminded me of a lot of books I've meant to read and suggested some new titles. As has been said, I was very surprised not to see Gibson on the list, and, given some of the other authors here, I'm amazed Ballard isn't on there.
Great list, but what about Mervyn Peake or Alfred Bester?
+1 for China Mieville, burt for the Scar, not perdido ss.
am I the only one that approves of Rand? although i would have chosen Atlas Shrugged over the Fountainhead.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is boring and post-apocalyptic themes are dumb ...
List invalidated.
Way, WAY too much Vance. He might be (apparently) your favorite author but he didn't invent the genre; there are dozens of authors (listed in comments above) that deserve a spot on the list.
I will say kudos for The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress at #2.
How about David Brin?
"Search: donaldson
Phrase not found"
Fuck this shit
This list would be better as a top 100 sci-fi/fantasy writers list, as it seems to be polluted with a notable preference for certain authors.
Seriously-- a Game of Thrones is more important than 1984? Not so much.
This is a list that includes Robert Jordan and not Octavia E. Butler. I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Although I do see many books here that I like and admire, there are also too many 'old standards' that are not BAD books- but I don't know that I would include them in the top 100. Also, I think 'The Baron in the Trees' by Italo Calvino could have been included, as well as 'The Stars Our Destination' by Bester among others. No Connie Wills? No Octavia Butler? no 'Bridge of Birds' by Barry Hughart?
I do wonder if the writer has read all these books RECENTLY or just read many of them in a teen-age hormonal fog and has based the list on his fond memories. Not a terrible list, but not the list I would have picked for sure.
No Jules Verne - FAIL
Ayn Rand anywhere on such a list, let alone #49/100 - FAILx2
Nice list overall. Glad to see a number of books not usually treated as SF given their proper nods....The Fountainhead, Alice in Wonderland, Lost Horizon for example. Also nice to see some authors other than the standards. Am curious about a couple of things. First, I agree, no Stapledon or Lem? What about Van Vogt? More to the point, where on Earth is Harlan Ellison? Did I just miss The Deathbird Stories? ("Repent, Harlequin! said the TickTockMan." is a classic.) I am surprised that Delany isn't represented on your list. Dhalgren is a Must Read on my list. As are Nova and Triton.
Also, and this may just be my own lonely opinion, but I would rank Stephen R. Donaldson's Gap series heads and shoulders above Simmons' Hyperion series. Both equally worthy of a good, long read...but incomparable in scope, quality and depth. Thanks for compiling this list!