Sheep: SF books I have known...

[liz_marcs]

Note:

After the day I've had, I can and will kill you all.

Now I'm going to show I'm a sheep. Hunh, I read more of these than I thought.

Gakked from everyone on my FList: The most significant SF/F novels from 1953-2006 according to Time.

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

Comments

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

You've never finished Dune!!

*Goggles*

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I think I was too young when I tried to read it (junior high school). All I know is that I was bored to tears in the first hundred pages. I keep meaning to go back and read it, but whenever I make up my mind to it, some bad movie and/or television adaption of the 'verse shows up and I change my mind.

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

Age can make a huge difference...especially when you get your first taste of SF young and then try to sample the whole field. I think that's why I have never read the Foundation trilogy.

Reading McCaffery as an elementary schooler was also interesting. "The Rowan" played much better to someone in 7th grade than it does now. One of the few books I've felt ok about taking _out_ of my personal library.

[set-aka-ian.livejournal.com]

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonjunk gets a lot of press (and I've read like six of them myself), but I think her best book is To Ride Pegasus.

[matgb]

Similar reaction here. I mean, I gave up at about book 4, and tried the prequels then realised that Andersen is never going to be a good writer and stopped, but the original?

Might have been easier that I watched the film first. The film is much better if you've never read the book...

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

I'll admit, I was never able to finish book 2. But Dune works so well as a stand-alone, I never felt slighted.

[willowgreen.livejournal.com]

Hey, we both hated Mists of Avalon and Thomas Covenant! I thought I was the only female fantasy reader who ever thought Mists of Avalon was a complete waste of time. I'm so pleased not to be alone any longer. :-)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

GAH! Thomas Covenant! HHAAAATTTTEEEEEEE! It was so all-encompassing that I positively will not read Donaldson (which is probably unfair). But when he wrote Thomas Covenant, there was already a cure for leprosy. DO YOUR RESEARCH IDIOT!

And Covenant...gah! Take your fucking meds for the leprosy, and the personality disorder, and whining, and....I'm supposed to feel bad for a rapist? Seriously? I know there was supposed to be some great philosophical underpinning to it all, but, HAAAATTEEEE!

And Mists of Avalon...*whams head repeatedly against the wall.* That what it was like reading that book. In my defense, I had read Firebrand first. While not a great book, it was pretty okay. Since Mists was supposed to be better...gah! *whams head against the wall again*

I so hated the book, that I will not read the Darkover series, even though I've heard from people who hate her "mythological stuff" that her Darkover series is completely different...to the point where you think another writer wrote it.

But still...Mists. GAH!

I better stop ranting now. I blame the meds I took tonight. I'm a leeeetle loopy at the moment.

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

So with you on the Donaldson book; it stopped me forever from discussing SF with my old friend the Programmer, because he's read and loved the whole series.

JUlia, it's beyond explanation

[anelith.livejournal.com]

That makes me feel better about never reading Mists of Avalon. I've read tons of Arthurian fantasy and always felt a little peculiar about not having read Mists; but now... I did like the Darkover books.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

I literally threw that book across the room when I tried to read it. (Later I read his Mirror duology, which was quite good. But I never forgave him the incessant whining.)

[othercat.livejournal.com]

I took one look at Mists, and didn't bother reading.

The Thomas Covenant books suck, though I did read the second series--mostly for the annoying psychologist character.

[(Anonymous)]

>>there was already a cure for leprosy. DO YOUR RESEARCH IDIOT!

Wow, that's a lot of anger. According to the World Health Organization there wasn't an accepted cure for leprosy until 1981. The first book was published in 1977. The drugs probably did exist but it's akin to you claiming that AIDS is cured because one of the experimental drugs in use right now might be widely used as a cure someday. Regardless one thing I know for certain is that nerve damage has no cure. In the chronicle Covenant is facing nerve damage resulting from untreated leprosy, impotence, and the stigma of being a leper.
I liked it. If its not your cup of tea that's fine, but seriously, do your research.

(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs101/en/)

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

Damn, I'm getting stalkery. (after the clown thing, which I found via the_red_shoes, decided to check out the rest of your journal; had to read the book thing even tho I never liked (and for a while quite loathed and wished death upon) Xander after the end of s2 and am very "meh" about fanfic).

Anyway, didn't get very far in Mists. Read and loved tons of Darkover stuff. (and quite a lot of openly gay relationships and lead characters there, *long* before it was fashionable)

And you've just convinced me never to read Donaldson, and I thank you muchly for the warning. (not cause of the leprosy research thing; I mean, I don't care; I'm just sick to death of all the things trivializing rape and have long been wanting to slaughter everyone involved in it)(that said, not really a psycho killer)(just thought I should clarify given the slaughter comment and you don't know me even a tiny bit and all)

[anelith.livejournal.com]

Interesting list! So Time magazine decided on these? I wonder who actually picked them.

I might actually do this meme...

Neverness, by David Zindell

[(Anonymous)]

I'm surprised Neverness, and the rest of David Zindell's follow-up trilogy The Broken God, The Wild, and War in Heaven, don't get more love. They are unique, fantastic books.

SDM

[nocturnalista.livejournal.com]

It took me three tries to get through Dune (way back in High School) but in the end I really loved it. Not so much the sequels. I'm curious about who picked this list, too. It seems to ignore a lot of excellent books and authors.

[set-aka-ian.livejournal.com]

I've read 28 of these. Not bad.

On my hate, hate, hate list are Canticle for Leibowitz, Sword of Shannara and Thomas Covenant the Unbelievable Whining Ass.

On my love, love, love list are Snow Crash and Lord of Light, although I loved several others to a lesser extent.

Tons of great books / authors didn't make this cut. No Greg Egan (Distress, Quarantine, Permutation City), Peter Hamilton (Reality Dysfunction, Fallen Dragon, Mindstar Rising), Raymond E. Feist (Magician, Daughter of Empire), Charles Sheffield (the Mind Pool), C.S. Friedman (Black Sun Rising), David Brin (the Uplift War, Startide Rising), Walter Jon Williams (Hard Wired, Aristoi), Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time, for all it's neverendingness, it's quite well-written!), Patricia A McKillip (Forgotten Beasts of Eld), Andre Norton (Witch World novels), Fred Saberhagen (Empire of the East) or Poul Anderson!

I can't believe William Gibson and the Sword of Shannara rip-off made it on to the list. Boring derivative hacks.

I really have to get around to reading I Am Legend before the movie comes out...

[othercat.livejournal.com]

Another remake? Argh. >_<

The book is nothing to write home about.

[learnedhand-dj.livejournal.com]

Considering how much press Neal Stephenson's been getting over the past several years, I'm surprised you haven't read Snow Crash. It's one of my favorites.

Also, I recommend Haldeman's The Forever War. I read it a while ago when I was attempting to read every Hugo winner for best novel (a project soon abandoned), but I remember being impressed.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Be glad you never read THE SILMARILLION. It's enough to make you tear your hair out. Good thing I'd already read The Hobbit and LotR.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

OMG OMG You hated the Thomas Covenant books??? I wondered if I was the only one. I read the trilogy with The One Tree (was that it?). I got tired of Donaldson's $50 words.

[thule222.livejournal.com]

I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson is about a guy who fights vampires. It's short and genuinely creepy. Of course I was 14 when I read it, but worth a look.

[shinwillow.livejournal.com]

Jesus, I've only read, like, two books from that list, Dune and Ender's Game. I am a philistine, fer sure.

Do. Not. Get me started about The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever! I fucking hate that series. I bought the first trilogy (it was a trilogy, right?) before I knew what a fucking bastard the "protagonist" is; wasted twenty bucks because I heard the series was *so* good and never got past the rape scene. I hoped when he got back to his world his dick promptly fell off. The worst was finding out the kid--you know who I'm talking about--forgives him for what he did to her mother. Uhg, *vomits*. Uhg.

Hmm... Sorry, I get stabby when I think about that series.

Any who, you know what needs to be on a SF's best list? The Wild Cards series. The only alternate history novels I really enjoyed. I just need to get my hands on the second cycle books.

[slkptn.livejournal.com]

Why, why-oh-why-oh-why do they never include Sheri S. Tepper or Lois McMasters Bujold (my personal favorite) in these lists?