[Meme] Significant SF/F novels, 1953-2006

[edenfalling]

Gakked from willowgreen: 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.

I almost never hate a book -- even if I dislike them, I usually find something of redeeming value to counteract my main reaction, and besides, hating things is such a waste of energy -- so instead of striking things out, I've just added lots of comments. :-)

1. *The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. *The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov (Asimov is the patron saint of clarity.)
3. Dune, Frank Herbert (This book needs about 100-200 pages hacked out of it with a machete. The idea's brilliant; the execution is mediocre at best.)
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (There's good stuff in here, but there's also a lot of bloat. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is still my favorite of his non-juveniles.)
5. *A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin (The Tombs of Atuan is my favorite of the series, but this one's good too.)
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke (This book freaked the hell out of me when I was a kid.)
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley (I liked it when I was about twelve. Looking back, it's far too simplistic.)
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (I got distracted by other things, and never quite got back to this. I should fix that -- I remember liking the beginning.)

11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. *A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Just read this a couple months ago -- slow start, but it packs a hell of a punch by the end.)
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 (Least good of the Discworld novels, really -- why isn't Night Watch on here instead, or maybe Reaper Man or Small Gods?)
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester (I loved The Stars My Destination -- which is also on this list, near the end -- so I'm really not sure why I haven't read anything else by Bester. I should fix that.)
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany

21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey (Pern was not a bad idea at first. It just dragged on way too long and has now zombified.)
22. ***Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card (Love. Utter love. When Card is on his game, he is amazing.)
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson (This series... I dunno... Donaldson is so didactic and uncompromising, and he has this thing where he falls in love with particular strange words, like 'argence,' and overuses them abominably, but there's something compelling about the story and characters that kept me reading through all three books, and the second trilogy as well. I never particularly liked them, though.)
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling (Fun.)
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (It's somewhat overrated, but I love the tone and it is actually quite funny.)
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson (Not a comfortable book, and not without some serious handwaving issues, but it makes you think.)
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice (A lot more subdued and depressing than I expected from Rice's reputation.)
30. *The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin (I really like The Dispossessed much better -- that book had a profound effect on me -- but this one is quite good and was probably very thought-provoking at the time of its publication.)

31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. ***Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny (I love this book with a huge, sweeping, epic, romantic love that I cannot adequately explain. Also, it has one of the best endings ever.)
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick (I do mean to read this someday.)
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 (I never emotionally connected with this book, but it was intellectually interesting.)
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys

41. *The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien (I'm chronically weak toward world-building and mythology.)
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut (It's funny; I think this is Vonnegut's most famous book, and yet, while I've read a lot of his 'lesser' works, I've never even started this one.)
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner (I keep meaning to read this...)
45. *The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester (Grabbed me by the throat and refused to let go... in a good way.)
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein (Pay no attention to the movie. Please pay no attention to the movie.)
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock (To be perfectly honest, all of Moorcock's Elric books blur in my mind, so I can't say if I've read this specific one or not. But it's quite possible that I have.)
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks (I liked this when I was eleven or so. In retrospect, it's very trite.)
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer (It's a fascinating concept, but I've never been able to finish a single one of Farmer's books. For whatever reason, he both irritates and bores me.)

Comments

[iponly.livejournal.com]

ROGER ZELAZNY. I am in the process of collecting everything he has ever written, ever. Even the poetry. Lord of Light is definitely one of his best though, probably with only some of the short stories in competition for excellence per line. Damnation Alley, Jack of Shadows, Amber... all amazing, but Lord of Light is a master's masterpiece. And I'll stop flailing now, sorry.

What I'm really curious about is this: what would you cut from Dune, if you can remember? Besides the ridiculous amount of sequels that go nowhere, that is. (Or at least, that's what I'd cut.)

[edenfalling]

It's not that I'd cut any specific chapter or section -- I just think the book needs a LOT of tightening. It sprawls far too much. At some point an editor should've sat down with Herbert and asked him pointed questions about whether every single damn subplot and piece of backstory really needed to be in the book, which might have let the underlying ideas and plot shine through without so much flab dimming them.

I actually read... hmmm... three or four of the sequels? Five? Let's see. Dune Messiah, the one about Paul's kids (Children of Dune, maybe?), God Emperor of Dune, and that last one with Duncan Idaho's reincarnated zombie or whatever... Chapterhouse: Dune, was it? I think I skipped a couple in the middle though, since I never gave a damn about Leto. I was reading for Paul, and for the ideas. Once Paul kicked the bucket, the ideas weren't enough to keep me slogging through the endless flab.

As for Zelazny, I'm rather fond of Jack of Shadows, Creatures of Light and Darkness, The Mask of Loki, and Isle of the Dead, and I do enjoy Amber -- it has some brilliant characters and moments -- but Lord of Light is still the best of his books. What irritates me most about the posthumous collaborations with Jane Linskold (like Lord Demon or that one about virtual reality whose title escapes me) is that you can see flashes of Zelazny's genius, but there are some really awkward bits that I can't help thinking he would have fixed if he'd lived, and she didn't feel she had a right to change.

[iponly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I found Leto boring and mouthpiece-like. Ideas are better when they are delivered through the strangeness of advanced civilizations fighting with daggers and such. I really loved the otherness of Dune's setting, and for the matter, the otherness of Creatures of Light and Darkness too.

Anyway. The other posthumous collaboration is Donnerjack, I'm pretty sure. I haven't read The Mask of Loki yet but I know a bookstore where it's sitting on the bottom shelf. New motivation to go back and grab it now. Thank you!

[yuenoclow.livejournal.com]

*wince* I can't stand Fahrenheit 451. Actually, I just don't like Ray Bradbury's books. I had to read that and... Martian Cronicles, I think it was, back in 8th grade, and I was a *very* uphappy camper about it. *rolls her eyes* And then we watched the incredibly campy movies for both books. Augh.

The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett (Least good of the Discworld novels, really -- why isn't Night Watch on here instead, or maybe Reaper Man or Small Gods?)

Maybe they were just putting down the first book of the series? *shrugs* I really need to read more of Terry Pratchett's books... Mort amused the hell out of me...

[edenfalling]

I like Ray Bradbury, but in small doses. And I do see that he wouldn't be to everybody's taste. (This does not dispell my utter love for Something Wicked This Way Comes, however. Wonderful book, that.)

[(Anonymous)]

Huh. There's a LOT on this list I haven't read yet. I can see what I'll be doing for the next few months >.>

Donnerjack wasn't bad - I got through it, anyway - but I never liked it the way I did Lord of Light and Lord Demon, or the Amber series (early Amber anyway; I could never really get behind Merlin).

The Thomas Covenant books, now... I loved Thomas Covenant. Loved him, loved him, loved him. I still can't adequately articulate why.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is supposed to be one of the 'great-granddaddies' of sci-fi, right up there with Bradbury. I keep meaning to read it, but... yea.

-- Guile

[edenfalling]

The problem with Lord Demon is that the ending is such a complete cop-out. If it weren't for that, I would rank it much higher, because the rest of the book is so wonderful.

I despised Thomas Covenant the person all through the first trilogy. By the second, he'd basically learned the lessons life had to beat into his damned skull with a jackhammer, and was therefore a much more bearable person. And for whatever reason, I never disliked the female main character of the second trilogy (Linden? Lindsay? Damned if I can remember her name) half as much as I disliked Covenant in the first books. Possibly because while she was equally pigheaded, at least she wasn't as much of a bastard about it. But there is, as I said, something compelling about the ideas behind the two series -- I think it's the bleakness of the moral vision, for one thing -- that kept me reading even when I wanted to strangle every single one of the damned characters.

[arkeus.livejournal.com]

I haven't read a tenth of those books.
I liked The lord of the ring fairly enough when i was eight. Now, while it has some aesethetic points, there is just *so much* against it... even the fandom is kind of *slow*.

I [b] adored [/b] Dune when i was nine or ten - but remember, it was one of my first books (i read the hwole series in one go ^_^) and at the time i could read anything. Of course, thinking back about it, i still like the ideas and some if not most of the writing, but those are old souvenirs, and i don't know if i would have had the strentgh to begin the sequel without paul and his childrens now (even though i love Duncan!Zombie :ppp ). Oh, and i tried the prequels to a certain extent, but gave up on them. Maybe one day i'll change mind.

Thomas convenant... i read tha three or four years ago (16-7) and i must say that while i could read it at the time, now it would disturb me. The whole rape is never mentionned thing, thomas is a bastard but still good, and so on... i am not so sure about it. Alos, he sinned in the "i destroy the world and make a new one because i want to change dimension without the cliche" way. I prefer acknoweldged cliche than such a crime.

The hitchiker's guide to the Galaxy is farly funny, but i ust be too stupid to understand it compeltely, given that i was bored at the end of the series.

Will say more later, maybe.

[edenfalling]

Actually, a lot of people are bored by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and it has nothing to do with intelligence. Adams has a very particular sense of humor, and if it doesn't strike you as funny, then you will get very bored very quickly, because there is no real LOGIC to those books. The threads of causality are very thin, which means that more or less anything can happen, and often does, which can leave people wondering why the hell they should care what happens to any of these irritating people.

On the other hand, if Adams's sense of humor happens to mesh with yours, you will probably love the books. It's really a matter of personal taste.

I am one of the strange people who likes The Silmarillion better than either The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, even though it is by far the slowest of the works, and the densest, and the least related to traditional novel-style narrative. This is because I LOVE world-building to a slightly scary degree, and I grew up reading old myths and fairy-tales and Bible stories for children, so the cadence and pattern of the stories is deeply familiar to and comfortable for me.

[drich.livejournal.com]

Is there anything on that list that was actually written in the 21st century? I can pick out a couple written in the '90s. Most of the list is from what's considered classic-era, if not downright pulp-era.

I think that says something about the plethora of sf/f being published today; marketing, hype, and brain-bubblegum over quality, thought-provoking books. Admittedly the bubblegum has it's place, but I would have thought a few more current books would have made the list.

sorry, html error.

[iponly.livejournal.com]

well, it is a list of Time's most significant books and not the "best" books, right? Older books have had more time to influence people and to be studied and gain that unmeasurable literary value of "significance." Doesn't mean there aren't as many thought-provoking books being written today as there were in yesteryears. Think of China Miéville's politics, GRRM's worldsetting... they don't fit on this kind of list, but in a few decades I'm sure they will, because there will be new published authors who learned from them. That's my opinion anyway.

Re: sorry, html error.

[edenfalling]

Makes sense to me.