50 Science Fiction Books meme

[xela]

Inspired by goldsquare, but my version has a more detailed legend.

The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002 according to Sci-Fi Book Club.

-bold the ones you've read
-strike-out the ones you hated
-italicize those you started but never finished (or read some but not all of the stories, in the case of anthologies)
-put an asterisk beside the ones you loved
-put a question-mark beside to the ones you think you read once upon a time but can't for the life of you remember.

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
*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
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
*Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
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
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
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

Comments

[pwaa.livejournal.com]

Starship Troopers but not Stranger in a Strange Land? Wizard of Earthsea but not The Disposessed? This list is wack...

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Look again; Stranger's there. And Le Guin is already one of only five authors with two titles on the list.

[pwaa.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha...was confused because most of it's in alphabetical order :) *phew*

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

pwaa's comment made me realize that the list is in an odd order: eleven through fifty are alphabetical by title; one through ten are in no discernible order — unless that's they're ordered by "significance".

[pwaa.livejournal.com]

My guess is that it's a "top 10" list concatenated with the next 40 in alphabetical order (that is, unranked other than being in the top 50 and not in the top 10). It might have even started as just the top 10 list.

[gardenfey.livejournal.com]

The Sword of Shannara?!? Ack!