on sf/f

[xparrot]

Meme from snarkydame - NPR's list of the top 100 sci-fi/fantasy books, as voted on by 60,000 people. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you've partly read, italicize the ones you intend to read, and strike the ones you will never read.

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
22. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
23. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
24. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
25. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
26. The Stand, by Stephen King
27. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
28. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
29. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
30. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
31. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
32. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
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
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
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
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 Gabaldon
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

It's a weird list, I must say. They didn't allow "YA fiction", which explains some of the most noticeable absences (Earthsea is YA? um, why? because it's short?), and I'm betting no manga either (even though there are 2 comic books), but even besides that, I don't get why there are individual books from series and then whole series. Not to mention Neal Stephenson's on there 4 times while neither Octavia Butler nor CJ Cherryh appears once. And Codex Alera instead of Dresden Files? The heck? I don't know anyone who's read the former who hasn't read the latter - and I've yet to meet a single person that has read CA that doesn't believe Dresden Files is far superior...

That being said...yeah, I read a lot of scifi back in my high school years; about half the books marked on here I read then. Quite a few of them I doubt I could read now without flipping out...I used to be much more capable of enduring/ignoring things like blatant sexism. Ah, the freedom of youth...