Not appearing on this list: All the “Star Trek” novels I read as a kid
This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you’ve read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.
- 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
[via John Wick]
?
You didn’t like LoTR but you tried reading The Silmarillion?
I loved The Hobbit, but the density of Lord of the Rings‘ first fifty pages always turned me off as a kid. Then, one day, at a book fair, a teacher’s aide pointed me in the direction of The Silmarillion, describing it as good background information for LotR.
It was advice simultaneously accurate and damnable.
I didn’t attach an asterisk to LotR because I enjoy what I’ve read (made it to halfway through Return of the King when the movies came out), but it’s never quite been the literary epiphany that some of the other books on the list have been.
Sheesh, I’ve only read “The Foundation Trilogy” and have started but never finished about 5 others. What kind of a self-avowed sci-fi person am I?