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Mrs. Watson, all your children have been certified insane

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thistleingrey: the Guardian's science fiction and fantasy novels everyone must read. Bold if you've read the book, italicize the author's name if you've read three or more long texts by them. I have some very weird gaps in my reading. I also have a fever. One of these is much more easily remedied than the other.

Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
Brian W. Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958)
Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951)
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000)
Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987)
JG Ballard: The Drowned World (1962)
JG Ballard: Crash (1973)
JG Ballard: Millennium People (2003)
Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984)
Iain M. Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987)
Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987)
Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007)
Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)
Greg Bear: Darwin's Radio (1999)
William Beckford: Vathek (1786)
Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956)
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
Poppy Z. Brite: Lost Souls (1992)
Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland (1798)
Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960)
Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966)
Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871)
Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960)
Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982)
Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912)
William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)
Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979)
Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872)
Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957)
Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988)
Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)
Angela Carter: The Passion of New Eve (1977)
Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984)
Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
Arthur C. Clarke: Childhood's End (1953)
GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)
Michael G. Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)
Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)
Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000)
Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996)
Samuel R. Delany: The Einstein Intersection (1967)
Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
Thomas M. Disch: Camp Concentration (1968)
Umberto Eco: Foucault's Pendulum (1988)
Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000)
John Fowles: The Magus (1966)
Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001)
Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973)
William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915)
William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)
Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974)
M. John Harrison: Light (2002)
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
Frank Herbert: Dune (1965)
Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)
James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)
Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)
Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898)
PD James: The Children of Men (1992)
Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)
Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)
Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925)
Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966)
Stephen King: The Shining (1977)
Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864)
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Earthsea series (1968—1990)
Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961)
Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
CS Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia (1950—56)
MG Lewis: The Monk (1796)
David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)
Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)
Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)
Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)
Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954)
Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)
Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)
Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)
China Miéville: The Scar (2002)
Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)
Walter M. Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)
David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)
Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988)
William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890)
Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife (2003)
Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970)
Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993)
Flann O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)
George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)
Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)
Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818)
Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946)
Frederik Pohl & CM Kornbluth: The Space Merchants (1953)
John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)
Terry Pratchett: The Discworld series (1983—)
Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)
Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials (1995—2000)
François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532—34)
Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)
Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)
JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)
Joanna Russ: The Female Man (1975)
Geoff Ryman: Air (2005)
Antoine de Sainte-Expéry: The Little Prince (1943)
José Saramago: Blindness (1995)
Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000)
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)
Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989)
Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937)
Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992)
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996)
JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit (1937)
JRR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings (1954—55)
Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889)
Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959)
Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1764)
Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909)
Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926)
Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999)
HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895)
HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898)
TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938)
Angus Wilson: The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)
Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980—83)
Virginia Woolf: Orlando (1928)
John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951)
John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Both are easily remedied given time, a library, and hot tea. And a bed.

I'm sorry you're so vulnerable to Con crud... it must make going to conventions just that much more costly....

Both are easily remedied given time, a library, and hot tea. And a bed.

At the moment I'm working on chicken soup and Dan Simmons' The Terror (2007). I consider this a reasonable prescription.

I'm sorry you're so vulnerable to Con crud... it must make going to conventions just that much more costly....

My immune system hates me. (All together now: it could always be worse.)

I think you would absolutely love Orlando.

I think you would absolutely love Orlando.

I very much liked the movie . . .

I'd love to have your review.
Nine

There are some very weird gaps in that list. I believe it was compiled by an editor, or team of editors, comfortably over 55, who has not read much f/sf lately, but was willing to accept some of the staff's recommendations (e.g. Sarah Waters).

(Putting the entire "Discworld Series" in as a single item is a cop-out. If you ask people, they can come up with two or three must-reads.)

(And, come on, News from Nowhere? Fight Club?? Etc.)

I'd also tell anyone who hasn't readThe Hitch-Hiker's Guide to skip it and just listen to the first round of the radio show, which was and remains brilliantly done.

ETA: I figured out what tipped my subconscious off: it's The Glass Bead Game. Heh.

Edited 2009-01-22 23:24 (UTC)

(Putting the entire "Discworld Series" in as a single item is a cop-out. If you ask people, they can come up with two or three must-reads.)

I noticed that. I figured they couldn't get any consensus on the must-reads (even though everyone I know recommends Small Gods . . .).

ETA: I figured out what tipped my subconscious off: it's The Glass Bead Game. Heh.

Explain?

There seems to be a more detailed breakdown here.

I don't think anyone considers some of the earlier ones must-reads any more; Pratchett's skill means that almost all of the later (latest) ones can be entry points. I think. IMO almost (note almost) everything before Wyrd Sisters is pass-over-able now.

The Glass Bead Game was a formative-years must-read for bookish younger people in the late '60s and '70s. After that, it vanished, falling out of fashion and off reading lists and out of the hand-to-hand circulation that sends certain books through a population like a virus. Hesse in general had a huge vogue and then dropped off a cliff. So thinking of that as a crucial, important book dates a person, because it wasn't that crucial to f/sf's development though it may have been this cool not-our-world book that everyone was reading. You might be able to make a case for Ender's Game being descended from it, but it wasn't influential the way Elric was or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser were.

The list-compiler misses out a lot of other books that, to the genre of f/sf, are far more important---Marion Zimmer Bradley, for example, or the Deryni books which were I think about the first big alt-history-fantasy-psi things. Or, for pete's sake, Dragonflight ("Weyr Search"), which I think predates both Kurtz and Bradley and kind of opened the way for allowing romance and relationships to drive stories in a way that was not done in fantasy and sf so much before then.

Hm, interesting that all three of the books/series I see as doing that, involve psi.

Hm, interesting that all three of the books/series I see as doing that, involve psi.

Do people still write about telepathy? As a child, I took it for granted as part of the landscape; it seems lately to have disappeared.

Ayup, the lack of Lieber and McCaffrey and Bradley (despite the fact that Mists of Avalon presses almost as many of my borderline-mediaevalist buttons as CT Yankee in King Arthur's Court does) was bothersome to me as well.

Ack, I can't believe I misspelled Leiber!

(I started thinking about having read something about it actually being pronounced Lee-ber, and it threw me off.)

No John Crowley: no Little, Big, Engine Summer, or Aegypt.

Three books by J.G. Ballard (who, as great as he is, has less range than Derek Jeter) but only one by Gene Wolfe, including no Peace or The Fifth Head of Cerberus (and, frankly, a list this big should include The Book of the Long / Short Sun, too).

Two worthy entries by Le Guin, but no The Dispossesed, her best. Two worthy by Philip K. Dick, but no Ubik, his most Phildickian.

When an authority recommends 143 titles and overlooks at least half a dozen of the top twenty, it's not worth paying attention to.

IMHO.

I love that I can tell from your writing exactly how you would sound aloud. Or possibly you model your conversation the other way round, but even so. Those are very characteristic italics.

No John Crowley: no Little, Big, Engine Summer, or Aegypt.

No Peter S. Beagle, either, which slightly blew my mind. Not everyone has to love A Fine and Private Place, but I was under the imrpression The Last Unicorn was assured of its place in the canon.

Two worthy entries by Le Guin, but no The Dispossesed, her best. Two worthy by Philip K. Dick, but no Ubik, his most Phildickian.

I don't disagree with the Le Guin—I recommend The Left Hand of Darkness or A Wizard of Earthsea before The Dispossessed, partly because I think there's less chance of bouncing off Therem or Ged than Shevek, partly because (self-centeredly) I am more interested in gender work and language than in political systems. I would not, however, have chosen either of the novels listed here to represent Angela Carter: I think her best work is her short fiction.

When an authority recommends 143 titles and overlooks at least half a dozen of the top twenty, it's not worth paying attention to.

Of course it is, otherwise what would we argue about?

I feel it's quite possible that the person who compiled this list has not read The Last Unicorn.

No Diana Wynne Jones, either, FWIW; and YA is given but a curt nod. I think that YA SF like Lucky Starr and of course the Heinlein classics were and still are (for writers who read them as children) influential, but perhaps in a "sleeping in your subconscious" way, not in an "establishing tropes that embed themselves in the genre" way.

I was under the imrpression The Last Unicorn was assured of its place in the canon.

I imagine the fact that The Last Unicorn isn't currently in print in the UK, and going by Amazon at least looks to have been that way for quite some time, doesn't help it.

Sorry to hear about the fever. I hope you're feeling better soon.

Not sure what I think of the list, but I'd expect The Grauniad and I wouldn't have quite the same notions of what to list. Glad they got Book of the New Sun and Snowcrash and The Third Policeman on there. Slightly puzzled that they list Narnia in place of the Space Trilogy, if a choice had to be made, but I suppose that's just me. Can't decide if I'm pleased that they're including stuff from mainstreamish authors like Atwood of "spaceships and talking squid" fame and Rushdie and Toni Morrison, or if I'm a bit put out that they're taking up space that might be given to "our people." Not sure why Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is included, but I suppose I can't look at that book rationally since it pressed all my borderline-mediaevalist buttons.

I'm a little puzzled that Discworld and Earthsea are reduced to series, whereas Harry Potter isn't.

That's one reduction I agree with; the first book is the best in that series.

I question whether Rowling should be on the list at all, when The Last Unicorn is not.

I question whether Rowling should be on the list at all, when The Last Unicorn is not.

I would say the same thing about the absence of Engine Summer (or Little, Big; YMMV) and . . . well, every other book on the list.

In terms of unity of narrative arc, Harry Potter needs to be included in its entirety more than Earthsea and (as I understand it) way more than Discworld. I would also opine that the third volume is easily the best (intersection of increasing skill and decreasing editorial control).

The list has strong UK bias for two non-UK-biased genres. That is, a lot of the most influential f/sf works are from the US and those are mostly missing. It's a very university-English-professor list and doesn't appear to relate, structurally, to the genres' internal developmental. (It also blends horror in.) No Jurgen? No Golden Age space opera? No Marion Zimmer Bradley? No Leiber?

Skipping about, I note that the Michael Moorcock choice is Mother London, a good book but easily his least influential in f/sf; however, the most likely for a non-f/sf-reader to have read. Possibly the Guardian cannot send readers to Elric with a straight face.

The list has strong UK bias for two non-UK-biased genres. That is, a lot of the most influential f/sf works are from the US and those are mostly missing.

Has anyone ever compiled a reasonably comprehensive list of British science fiction and fantasy novels everyone must read?

Well, you kinda got it right there from the Guardian. I'd still put Elric on it though. And a Jerry Cornelius book, because he went on to become as much of a mythotype, a trope, as Elric.

Well, you kinda got it right there from the Guardian.

With Heinlein and Haldeman and Bradbury mixed in: I was really asking if you narrowed it to writers in/from the UK, what kind of list would you get?

And a Jerry Cornelius book, because he went on to become as much of a mythotype, a trope, as Elric.

I haven't actually read any: Elric, yes; Cornelius, no. I imagine Dancers at the End of Time doesn't count.

I'd still put Elric on it though. And a Jerry Cornelius book, because he went on to become as much of a mythotype, a trope, as Elric.

Word. I'd call both Elric and Jerry Cornelius the necessary examples for Moorcock; it seems almost like listing Farmer Giles of Ham for Tolkien and leaving off Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. (Admittedly, I've never read Mother London.)

Yes, though I think speaking of 'The Guardian' as a monolithic entity in this instance is incorrect; if I had time, I would break out the main list by contributor. It's my strong impression that not only were the large majority of the genre-published titles nominated by the three genre-published writers, but the large majority of works published after about 1980 were nominated by them as well; it could easily be that they were assigned to cover "contemporary sf". (That said, Jon Courtenay Grimwood picks The Years of Rice and Salt as the essential KSR, which is clearly crackers.)

I question whether Rowling should be on the list at all, when The Last Unicorn is not.

As they say: word.

Hmm... to me, the third one was the best. But I suppose the first is the one that needs to be read, if one's only going to read one.

I question whether Rowling should be on the list at all, when The Last Unicorn is not.

This is true. And I'd like to see Hughart's The Bridge of Birds on the list. But I suppose for sheer impact in the wider world Rowling belongs there.

Not sure what I think of the list, but I'd expect The Grauniad and I wouldn't have quite the same notions of what to list.

Speak to me of The Grauniad?

Can't decide if I'm pleased that they're including stuff from mainstreamish authors like Atwood of "spaceships and talking squid" fame and Rushdie and Toni Morrison, or if I'm a bit put out that they're taking up space that might be given to "our people."

I don't have that kind of tribal loyalty: if you worry too much over "literary" versus "speculative," you may feel compelled to throw out Bulgakov or Nabokov or Sylvia Townsend Warner, and then I may feel compelled to hit you repeatedly with Charles Dickens.

(Seriously, where was A Christmas Carol on this list? Where do they think children learn about possible futures and causality, anyway?)

Not sure why Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is included, but I suppose I can't look at that book rationally since it pressed all my borderline-mediaevalist buttons.

Because it's fantasy (or science fiction: although mostly what it is is bitterly black satire) and not much else of Twain's work is?

I'm a little puzzled that Discworld and Earthsea are reduced to series, whereas Harry Potter isn't.

As a series, Harry Potter is wildly inconsistent in quality; and if impact on the wider world is a factor, the first book is what really kicked off the phenomenon. They probably should have picked a couple of Discworlds, but at least the Earthsea books can be read all as a cycle (before some of us go off into corners and fight about Tehanu).

Popping into someone else's thread to note that "Grauniad" is a humorous rearrangement of "Guardian," to point up that newspaper's habit (so it is said) of misspelling things. They did put a second "e" in "Delany," e.g.

And for my part, though I'm interested to see what

ap_aelfwine will say as well, Connecticut Yankee pushes buttons because it is terrible medievalism. Like, there's reshaping and remastering (in the music-recording sense as well as the literal one), as William Morris did, and then there's being smugly convinced that one's own era is Right and writing from that position, as Mark Twain did. Morris offers a lofty bar, but he's the first example coming to mind. Even Wordsworth's dabblings in medievalism are okay compared to Mark Twain's, and Wordsworth dripped gory druids and ruins all over a few pages....

Popping into someone else's thread to note that "Grauniad" is a humorous rearrangement of "Guardian," to point up that newspaper's habit (so it is said) of misspelling things.

Gah. I shouldn't even try to interact with people when I'm sick.

Even Wordsworth's dabblings in medievalism are okay compared to Mark Twain's, and Wordsworth dripped gory druids and ruins all over a few pages....

I will, however, point out that I love the image of needing to mop Wordsworth off a mythos.

Speak to me of The Grauniad?

thistleingrey's explained it already. Sorry for that.

They strike me as being self-consciously intellectual, perhaps a little bit like the New York Times. I might agree with about a fair number of things, but when they start talking about sf/f I prepare myself for... well, stuff like the above. ;-)

I don't have that kind of tribal loyalty: if you worry too much over "literary" versus "speculative," you may feel compelled to throw out Bulgakov or Nabokov or Sylvia Townsend Warner, and then I may feel compelled to hit you repeatedly with Charles Dickens.

No worries, I'd not put them out--I don't want you to hit me with Dickens. ;-)

I try not to be too tribal, but it's very deep in my wiring.

Besides, as I said, the fact that some of the writers--and definitely a substantial part of their fans*--would be disconcerted by their inclusion on an sf/f list makes it all good. I want to see the whole lot of them reprinted with Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo covers, me. ;-)

(Seriously, where was A Christmas Carol on this list? Where do they think children learn about possible futures and causality, anyway?)

A very good point.

Because it's fantasy (or science fiction: although mostly what it is is bitterly black satire) and not much else of Twain's work is?

I suppose so. Me, I'd rather see Tom Sawyer and the Airship here, even though it was mediocre even from the perspective of a ten-year-old who was obsessed with dirigibles and read paperbacks of both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to pieces.

The sheer cultural arrogance of CT Yankee and the massive case of Did Not Do the Research is hard for me to forgive. I suppose what Twain was really targeting was mediaeval-setting fiction, of the Sir Walter Scott variety, but still...

As a series, Harry Potter is wildly inconsistent in quality;

This is all too true. The last couple of books, in particular... well, I think Rowling's a casualty of too much fame, too quickly. Or at least that's the charitable explanation.

and if impact on the wider world is a factor, the first book is what really kicked off the phenomenon.

True. I thought Prisoner of Azkaban was the best of the lot, myself, but Philosopher's Stone is probably the most necessary one, if they're being read as examples.

They probably should have picked a couple of Discworlds, but at least the Earthsea books can be read all as a cycle (before some of us go off into corners and fight about Tehanu).

This is true.

*I once got into a borderline-argument over whether or not The Road was science fiction, with a friend whose criterion for not calling it science fiction seemed to boil down to the fact that he thought it was worth reading and therefore it couldn't be science fiction. ;-)

Here are the 18 sf novels that placed in the top 50 in the last Locus reader's poll and were also included in separate lists of the c. 100 greatest sf novels of all time by John Clute, David G. Hartwell, and David Pringle. Bold titles were omitted from the Guardian list:

Bester, Alfred: The Demolished Man
Bester, Alfred: The Stars My Destination
Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451
Brunner, John: Stand on Zanzibar
Clarke, Arthur C.: Childhood's End
Dick, Philip K.: The Man in the High Castle
Gibson, William: Neuromancer
Herbert, Frank: Dune
Le Guin, Ursula K.: The Dispossessed
Le Guin, Ursula K.: The Left Hand of Darkness
Miller, Walter M., Jr.: A Canticle for Leibowitz
Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein
Stapledon, Olaf: Last and First Men
Stapledon, Olaf: Star Maker
Sturgeon, Theodore: More Than Human
Wells, H. G.: The Time Machine
Wells, H. G.: The War of the Worlds
Wolfe, Gene: The Book of the New Sun

And here are the 32 novels named by three of the above four authorities. They missed 19 of them:

Asimov, Isaac: The Foundation Trilogy
Benford, Gregory: Timescape
Blish, James: A Case of Conscience
Bradbury, Ray: The Martian Chronicles
Brin, David: Startide Rising
Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange
Card, Orson Scott: Ender's Game
Cherryh, C. J.: Cyteen
Clarke, Arthur C.: The City and the Stars
Clement, Hal: Mission of Gravity
Dick, Philip K.: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick, Philip K.: Ubik
Disch, Thomas M.: 334
Farmer, Philip José: To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Haldeman, Joe: The Forever War
Heinlein, Robert A.: Starship Troopers
Heinlein, Robert A.: Stranger in a Strange Land
Huxley, Aldous: Brave New Word
Keyes, Daniel: Flowers for Algernon
Moorcock, Michael: The Cornelius Chronicles
Niven, Larry: Ringworld
Orwell, George: Nineteen Eighty-Four
Pohl, Frederik: Gateway
Pohl, Frederik & Kornbluth, C. M.: The Space Merchants
Russ, Joanna: The Female Man
Simak, Clifford D.: City
Simak, Clifford D.: Way Station
Simmons, Dan: Hyperion
Smith, Cordwainer: Norstrilia
Stewart, George R.: Earth Abides
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr.: The Sirens of Titan
Wyndham, John: The Day of the Triffids
Zelazny, Roger: Lord of Light

And finally, here are the 42 novels named by two of the four authorities, of which they inlcude a whopping eight:

Aldiss, Brian W.: Hothouse
Asimov, Isaac: The Gods Themselves
Ballard, J. G.: The Crystal World
Bishop, Michael: No Enemy But Time
Brackett, Leigh: The Long Tomorrow
Budrys, Algis: Rogue Moon
Burroughs, Edgar Rice: A Princess of Mars
Capek, Karel: R.U.R.
Cherryh, C. J.: Downbelow Station
Clarke, Arthur C.: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Clarke, Arthur C.: Rendezvous with Rama
Crowley, John: Engine Summer
Delany, Samuel R.: Dhalgren
Delany, Samuel R.: Nova
Dick, Philip K.: Martian Time-Slip
Dick, Philip K.: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Disch, Thomas M.: Camp Concentration
Heinlein, Robert A.: Double Star
Heinlein, Robert A.: Have Space Suit -- Will Travel
Heinlein, Robert A.: The Door Into Summer
Heinlein, Robert A.: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Heinlein, Robert A.: Time Enough for Love
Hoban, Russell: Riddley Walker
Lassswitz, Kurt: Two Planets
Lem, Stanisalw: Solaris
Lewis, C. S.: Out of the Silent Planet
Niven, Larry & Pournelle, Jerry: The Mote in God's Eye
Pangborn, Edgar: A Mirror for Observers
Panshin, Alexi: Rite of Passage
Pohl, Frederik: Man Plus
Roberts, Keith: Pavane
Schmitz, James H.: The Witches of Karres
Silverberg, Robert: Dying Inside
Twain, Mark: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Van Vogt, A. E.: Slan
Van Vogt, A. E.: The World of Null-A
Verne, Jules: From the Earth to the Moon
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr.: Slaughterhouse-Five
Watson, Ian: The Embedding
Wolfe, Gene: The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Wyndham, John: The Day of the Triffids
Zamiatain, Yevgeny: We

While they have an obvious (thought not consistent) bias against hard sf whose qualities are not the traditional "literary," they also have huge holes in the literary end. It's just a massively uninformed list.

While they have an obvious (thought not consistent) bias against hard sf whose qualities are not the traditional "literary," they also have huge holes in the literary end. It's just a massively uninformed list.

It made me curious to read some of its choices I had either barely or never heard of: in that sense, it is not a failure. But as a comprehensive guide, I think we have all agreed it needs work.

Something this highlights is that if you concentrate on novels in looking at influential f/sf works, you miss out on short stories and novellas that never got fixed up into novels. For a long time zines drove the genre and keystone ideas were shaped there, not in novels.

Seeing your list has reminded me that I have read considerably more than three long works by Asimov. *fixes*

Hope you feel well soon!

Seeing your list has reminded me that I have read considerably more than three long works by Asimov.

I'm not necessarily sure that I want to have, but I have . . .

Hope you feel well soon!

Much appreciated!

No Crowley and no Last Unicorn? That's just--wrong. And yes, Angela Carter's short fiction should be on there. Though I'm happy to see Warner.

Nine

Though I'm happy to see Warner.

Yeah, but it should be Kingdoms of Elfin.

Absolutely.

Nine

Yes! Love that book.

Ok, it is a fantasy and sf list.
Any ideas why Lord Dunsany doesn't feature anywhere, given the apparent UK bias of the list?

Any ideas why Lord Dunsany doesn't feature anywhere, given the apparent UK bias of the list?

None, but I haven't been much help with this list in general.

movingfinger and

coalescent might have a better idea.

Nor no Hope Mirrlees neither!

Nor no Hope Mirrlees neither!

No Hope Mirrlees! Oh, is this a list made of fail!

Let's start over from scratch.

Mirrlees is essential.

Nine

And what about Tanith Lee, for heaven's sake?

Hilary Mantel? Oh, my. I must move her up the list, I've been meaning to read her for dogs' years.

(And you must read The Castle of Otranto, which is all sorts of good clean fun.)

I will not do this because I am embarrassed of the much larger weird gaps in my reading. (I have just tracked down a copy of Zamyatin on Worldcat-- meant to read it in '08-- and it's going to be part of the first whack of stuff I put on hold in '09; I've read just about everything Simmons has ever written but the Hyperion books; ditto Moorcock and Mother London, which has been sitting on my shelf staring accusingly at me for twenty years; etc.)

I find it interesting that very few of these memes have a "strikethrough if you absolutely loathed it" option, as if no one could ever possibly hate anything on MY list!!!one!.

I am finally giving in and doing The Satanic Verses-- which has also been sitting accusingly on my shelf staring at me for twenty years-- in audio. It's one of four Rushdies I've tried (The Jaguar Hunter, Midnight's Children, and Shame being the others) that I simply can't get through. I don't know whether it's Rushdie's style or the translators' that gets me, but it does. Every time. It's all kind of loose and gangly and thwacks me in the side of the head while I'm trying to serve the soup all too many times.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mrs. Watson, all your children have been certified insane

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Completely Made of Fail

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In Contrast

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Re: In Contrast

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