50 important SF books

[beowabbit]

List from the Science Fiction Book Club; meme from hrafn.

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 [This was a book? I thought it was a short story. I think I read the short story in an anthology by a different name, but I’m not 100% sure.]
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. [Tragically, Vatican II broke the future painted in this book. But Pope Benedict may end up fixing it.]
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
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 [I’ve started it several times.]
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

Comments

[drspecial.livejournal.com]

I know it's a classic, but Neuromancer did not hold my attention.
I really liked A Game of Thrones (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=billydechandm-20&creative=9325&path=tg/detail/-/0553573403/qid=1122165835/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by George R. R. Martin (gotta love that name), which is the first book of his Fire and Ice Trilogy. The trilogy has become a .. hexology... due to his tendency to write more than originally intended. Book four really rambles...
My faves from that list include Stanger in a Strange land and The Man in the High Castle, since I love alternative histories.
Also, I'll read anything by Ursula Le Guin.

[beowabbit]

I know it's a classic, but Neuromancer did not hold my attention.

I don’t remember being very impressed with it either, as a piece of writing. I did find it interesting as the first of a new sub-genre.

I’ve heard really good things about A Game of Thrones; I should add it to my (very very long!) list.

[...] and The Man in the High Castle, since I love alternative histories.

Me too, and I love Dick (as bitty and lilbjorn have pointed out above :-), but I haven’t read that one. What’s its premise?

[linaria.livejournal.com]

I liked Neuromancer. You have to take it for what it is--a kind of period piece. I think we get bored with it because the internet isn't a new concept to us anymore. But it wasn't supposed to be deep, or transcendent, it was supposed to play around with some new ideas and be entertaining.

As for Do Androids Dream, here's a quick synopsis: Earth has been mostly depopulated by a (something, we're not told). Androids were created to assist settlers off-world, but are not recognized as intelligent beings because they 'don't have emotions,' and are thus hunted down when they escape b/c the humans are afraid of them.

Several androids escape to Earth and try to make a living for themselves, assisted by a "special" (person mentally damaged by radioactivity) who befriends them, seeing that they are just about as human as he is. They hide from a bounty hunter who is trying to find and kill them--but the bounty hunter, in finding them, starts to have doubts about the morality of his profession, and begins to re-evaluate his society's definition of sentience.

I wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on these two books:)

[drspecial.livejournal.com]

The Man in the High Castle:
The allies lost WWII. America is occupied by Germany in the East. They've also drained the Mediterranean, using Africans as slaves, and pretty much rule half the world. The midwest is still American, but very poor and weak. The West is occupied by Japan, and we see the caste system in San Francisco, where many Dick novels reside: Japanese rule, whites are working class, and you can guess what status the blacks have. They always get the bum deal.
This book is all about exploring a scenario; the plot seems to be going somewhere, but ultimately end in a wimper. As long as you are prepared for that, it's very fascinating for its "what if?s".
If you give a rat's ass about my opinon on books, go here:
http://billydechand.com/books.html