SF Book club top 50 meme

There is a meme going round the sci­ence fic­tion and fantasy blog­gers, and after real­ising how many of the books I have actu­ally read, I thought I would pick it up, even though I haven’t read that much in the past 15 years.

Via Jonathan, even though he has not done it yet. The list is the top 50 sci­ence fic­tion and fantasy books from 1953 to 2002 accord­ing to the SF Book Club. Bold the books you have read, strike through the books you hated, and as this is a blog, what would be a list without edit­or­ial comments.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien – The clas­sic fantasy tri­logy, then half way through the thrid volume, good defeats evil and they all go home. I never fin­ished read­ing it.
2. The Found­a­tion Tri­logy, Isaac Asimov – I know I read them, well at least the first volume, because there was a time I was attempt­ing to read all the clas­sic SF books. Did it make an impres­sion, afraid not.
3. Dune, Frank Her­bert – I read this in a half day between uni­ver­sity exams. I waited till after the exams to read Dune Mes­siah, that took two months to read two chapters. That put me off reread­ing Dune for a few years, but in the end I did and enjoyed it again.
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Hein­lein – When I first read this novel, it was miss­ing 50 pages. So I reread a few months later and it made less sense then. This miss­ing pages wheret the hero sleep­ing with his mother. My favour­ite Hein­lein by far, great story telling, inter­est­ing storyline.
5. A Wiz­ard of Earth­sea, Ursula K. Le Guin – My less favour­ite Le Guin, it lacked the depth of her other novels.
6. Neur­oman­cer, Wil­liam Gib­son – Yes I know I am a pagan, the book I should of read years ago
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Elec­tric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick – It was Dick and Brad­bury short stor­ies that got me into read­ing SF in high school. It was not until I read this book a second time a few years later that I really under­stood it.
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zim­mer Brad­ley — I know I have read this book, I vividly remem­ber the cover and that is it.
10. Fahren­heit 451, Ray Brad­bury – Another from high school, it did make an impres­sion on me, but then I went and read 1984 which blew me away.
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Wal­ter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Chil­dren of the Atom, Wil­mar Shiras
15. Cit­ies in Flight, James Blish — A book I can vaguely remem­ber, which is more than I can say for a few books on this list.
16. The Col­our of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dan­ger­ous Vis­ions, edited by Har­lan Ellison
18. Death­bird Stor­ies, Har­lan Ellison
19. The Demol­ished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhal­gren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragon­f­light, Anne McCaf­frey – I read a num­ber of the Pern books, but I never got into, unlike my friends at the time.
22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chron­icles of Thomas Cov­en­ant the Unbe­liever, Stephen R. Don­ald­son – On par with Dune Mes­siah, bor­ing never got fur­ther that the second chapter on a couple of attempts.
24. The Forever War, Joe Hal­de­man — Owned three cop­ies, read three times, lent to friends three times, never returned three times. I should of learnt, one of my favour­ite nov­els of all time.
25. Gate­way, Fre­derik Pohl – I read a num­ber of Pohl nov­els, just do not know which ones.
26. Harry Pot­ter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams- One of my favour­ite sum­mer­time read­ing books. I would read it every sum­mer once Uni­ver­sity finished.
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Inter­view with the Vam­pire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Dark­ness, Ursula K. Le Guin – Now this is good Le Guinn
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick – I read almost everything Dick wrote, and I do not remem­ber this one
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 — Seen the movie a couple of times does that count ;-)
38. Ren­dez­vous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke - Another book I barely remember.
39. Ring­world, Larry Niven – I read everything the Niven pro­duced in the sev­en­ties and early eighties. I con­sumed them rap­idly and without much thought. Ring­world was prob­ably the best, a fun read but not thought provoking.
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Sil­maril­lion, J.R.R. Tolkien – The only book I rated worse than Dune Messiah.
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Von­negut – Up there with Dune Mes­siah, I tried read­ing this in high school, it just did not make sense so I didn’t fin­ish it.
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zan­zibar, John Brun­ner — Another one that I came remem­ber the cover and that is it.
45. The Stars My Des­tin­a­tion, Alfred Bester – I read, enjoyed and recom­men­ded to friends, but 25 years later, I do not remem­ber the details.
46. Star­ship Troop­ers, Robert A. Hein­lein – Hein­lein on a recruit­ing drive for the US Mar­ines. I read this after The Forever War and it just seemed so old fash­ion and jingoistic.
47. Storm­bringer, Michael Moor­cock – Friends raved about this series, so I read and enjoyed, but not enough to rave about.
48. The Sword of Shan­nara, Terry Brooks — Again people I knew rave about this book. I read and asked why there was far bet­ter fantasy novel around at the time.
49. Times­cape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bod­ies Go, Philip Jose Farmer – I am a Farmer fan, enough said.

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