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*

[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. :-)

[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...

[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?