Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Incompleat SF Reader

Everyone else is, so I'm jumpin' off the cliff, too.

But what's up with this list? No R. A. Lafferty collections. No Cordwainer Smith. No Theodore Sturgeon??? Geesh. And Wilmar H. Shiras' In Hiding isn't even mentioned.

But I read some of 'em, in bold. Red, I saw the film but didn't read the book:

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams (loathed it)
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle (I have this, I think, but I don't remember reading it).
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke (Started, got bored)
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

About 60%. A little more if the movies count.

17 comments:

Drang said...

No Hal Clement. Et cetera.
Hmmm, we're neck-and-neck, +/-. I was surprised that I'd read so many than Tam.

Bruce H. said...

I strongly recommend A Fire Upon the Deep to any anarchist/libertarian minded person.

wrm said...

Clockwork Orange doesn't seem to be popular that side of the ocean? It's worth reading.

OK, Ms X, why don't you compile a list of books what need to be read. Not a hundred, maybe 250 or more... and ixnay on the stuff on bama :-)

Roberta X said...

I've read a lot of other Vinge. I'll probably read that. The Connie Willis book is said to be good, too.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

No H. Beam Piper. No Murray Leinster. No Poul Anderson.

Not a great list.

Blackwing1 said...

Nothing from C.J. Cherryh? The "Pride of Chanur" series, at the least. I didn't see any of Andre Norton's stuff either.

None of Niven's "Known Space" stuff, none of Pournelle's Sparta series, and where is Stirling's "Draka" series? Or "Island in the Sea of Time"?

Guess I've got weird tastes compared to NPR listeners.

(WV - "trashile": I that must be the aisle where I get my books.)

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Oh, and the Willis book is good. However, I read "To Say Nothing of the Dog" first, and the two books -- written in the same "universe" -- are as different as night and day. Like them both but "Doomsday Book" is very dark. I'd recommend reading "Dog" immediately after, to cleanse the palate, as it were :)

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Personally I don't care much for Stirling. If I were to put my finger on anything in particular, it's that his villains are too smart and too wily, and too much exposition goes into exactly how smart and how wily they are -- but never quite smart and wily enough to beat the side of the good, it would seem.

I read the "Nantucket" trilogy and was never so happy to see a villain get his just desserts as I was in that one -- and probably wouldn't read any farther in that series if he continued it. As a result I can't bring myself to read his related "Change" series at all.

Likewise, I felt like Pournelle's work suffered when he teamed up with Stirling.

Tam said...

Blackwing1,

"none of Pournelle's Sparta series, and where is Stirling's "Draka" series?"

The Venn Diagram of "People Who Read And Enjoy Pournelle" and "People Who Respond To Surveys On National Public Radio" contains almost zero overlap.

And any Garrison Keillor fan who read a Draka book would spontaneously fricking combust.

RobertSlaughter said...

I only scored a 31 (and all I read for years was fantasy and SF).

My list: http://secondamendmentliberty.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/the-100-science-fiction-novels-my-readings/

Drang said...

Tam:
And any Garrison Keillor fan who read a Draka book would spontaneously fricking combust.
I'd pay to watch that...

NotClauswitz said...

I'd pay to make 'em read it so you could watch it!

Anonymous said...

Also missing: Keith Richards'
"Pavane." Glorious writing.
Anon, Don

og said...

Miss X: If you have a chance, read Princess Bride. The movie is great, but the book brings a lot of flavor- and it's excellent flavor- to the characters, that you otherwise lose.

Roberta X said...

Anon, Don: Absolutely. --And I thought I was the only person to have read it.

Bruce H. said...

>> I strongly recommend A Fire Upon the Deep
>> to any anarchist/libertarian
>> minded person.

Amendment to my previous comment. I still recommend A Fire Upon the Deep, but A Deepness in the Sky is the title I was thinking of when I wrote the comment.

Blackwing1 said...

Tam:

If they combust when reading one of Stirling's Draka books, what would happen if I was to read the first of David Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" collection to them?

I envision the sawdust coming out of their ears in explosive streams.