Not really the Top 100 SFF books ever

[kindkit]

NPR today released its list of the top 100 sff books of all time. It was chosen by poll. The results are what you might expect: some classics (and some "classics" that are well past their sell-by date), a lot of popular tripe, very few women writers and next to no writers of color.

Below the cut, I've done the meme (bold the ones you've read, italicize ones you fully intend to read, underline things you've read part of) with a good deal of editorializing.

ETA: I forgot to give credit to likeadeuce, from whom I snagged the list and the meme.



1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien (There were a lot of bits I skimmed.)
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 (I've read Dune itself.)
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin In progress! (I think I've read most or all of these but the latest one, but I lost interest and have no plans to finish it.)
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov (I think I read one or two of the Foundation books when I was a teenager. Maybe?)
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman (Does seeing the movie count?)
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan (From everything I've heard about this, this book epitomizes the problem with voting to determine the best things in a category.)
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell (Because what my life really needs is an anti-communist allegory.)
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson (I'm pretty sure I've read this. Obviously it made a great impression on me.)
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 (WTF is this doing on the list? I read the first book and thought it was okay, but absolutely nothing special and totally undeserving of the way people were flipping out over it.)
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 (Might read this someday, but I'm not really a big King fan.)
25. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke (Read it, hardly remember it.)
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 (Might read it someday. My mother loved it and I've always felt a bit guilty for not reading it.)
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 (I've started this! It is, alas, kind of boring. It was probably more exciting back when ray gun and aliens invasions were new ideas.)
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley (Alas, I have read it. *coughrepeatedlycough* It's weird and faily but Lancelot is gay. Okay, gay-ish.)
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven (Like several other "classic" sf books, I think I read this as a teenager but I'm not entirely sure.)
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 (Dan Simmons??? Really???)
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson (100 pages from the end, my loathing for this book grew so intense that I stopped reading.)
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman (Skimmed it for the bit where everyone was gay.)
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett (So not Pratchett's best. This list is stupid.)
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson (Got as far as the scene about four pages in where the protagonist commits rape. Stopped reading.)
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Maybe someday? People keep recommending it to me. But I tried to read Ethan of Athos and did not love it, and what I've read about Bujold's treatment of a bisexual character ("he used to be bisexual, now he's monogamous") skeeves me somewhat. Convince me?)
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett (A much better Pratchett. Night Watch is still the best, but you need to have read other Discworld books.)
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 (I thought it was overrated.)
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 (I actually read a couple of these as a teen. My school library was deficient, okay?)
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb (I never read the very last book in the series, which as I recall was three trilogies long, but I read all the rest.)
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 (I am somewhat ashamed to say I read the first three. The first book was pretty good, but it all went downhill from there.)
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 (I've read a few. Someday I may read more, although Banks's faults as a writer as the kind that particularly bug me--great setup, no payoff.)
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher (Again I say: really?)
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldon (There is nothing sff about these books except the Plot Deviceum. Otherwise it's pure historical romance. Have these people really heard of so few women sff authors?)
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock (Michael Moorcock is another case where I feel guilty for having read so little of his work. But what I have read I've found stilted, overblown, and generally uninteresting.)
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


So where's Samuel R. Delaney? Where's Octavia Butler, whom I confess I find too depressing to read but who is an important writer? Where are Joanna Russ, James Tiptree Jr., Kate Wilhelm? Where, for that matter, is Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man or Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (a much better book than The Dispossessed) [oops, actually on the list at #45]? Where are Jeffrey Ford, Roger Zelazny [on the list, curse my reading-comprehension fail], and other writers slightly on the experimental side?

/taking a silly list too seriously

Comments

[resonant]

Hasn't everyone started The Silmarillion and then bogged down and been unable to finish?

[kindkit]

Well, I never even started it . . .

[lilacsigil]

Small Gods is definitely one of the more first-time-reader accessible Pratchett Discworld books, which is why I suspect it's on here.

The DRIZZT SERIES?

XANTH??? *hides and whimpers*

[kindkit]

I suppose. I just really don't like Small Gods.

[vilakins]

I didn't either. I thought it and Eric the worst of the series. They weren't even funny.

[kindkit]

Eric I've never read, having figured out by that time that the lesser Discworld books are distinctly lesser. If I was picking one best Pratchett novel for a first-time reader, it would either be Guards, Guards, Witches Abroad, or possibly Hogfather.

[vilakins]

Yes, I'd say to go with the witches and the Watch and that would cover the best. Some other outliers can be surprisingly good, like Maurice and the talking rats.

[st_aurafina]

I can't get over the Drizzt books being in there. They're tie-ins for a roleplaying game. Quality aside, that's like putting Transformers on the list, something that was created specifically to merchandise. (Apologies to Transformers fans - I mean nothing about the fandom. Just the motivation behind the creation.)

Where is Vanyel on this list? If Discworld can be on here, queer pony-riding wizards can be, too.

[kindkit]

Well, I think Discworld is vastly, vastly better than the Vanyel books (YMMV, of course). But if D&D tie-ins can be on the list, then queer wizards--and I suspect that those books changed the lives of a lot of young readers--more than deserve to be.