{"id":3347,"date":"2009-01-24T21:37:10","date_gmt":"2009-01-24T21:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2009\/01\/24\/must-read-sf-novels\/"},"modified":"2009-01-24T21:37:10","modified_gmt":"2009-01-24T21:37:10","slug":"must-read-sf-novels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2009\/01\/24\/must-read-sf-novels\/","title":{"rendered":"“Must-Read” SF Novels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Via a bunch of people, but most directly Matt Ruff<\/a>, the Guardian<\/cite> has published a list of “1000 Novels Everyone Must Read<\/a>“. Which has triggered the usual flurry of procrastinatory blog posts indicating which books from the science fiction and fantasy sub-list one has and hasn’t read.<\/p>\n

I have other things I really ought to be doing, so of course, I had to follow suit. Below the fold is my list, following Matt’s convention of marking in bold face<\/b> those books that I’ve read all the way through, and putting an asterisk (*) after books I’ve started or skimmed, but never fully read.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams<\/b><\/li>\n
  2. Non-Stop by Brian W Aldiss<\/li>\n
  3. Foundation by Isaac Asimov<\/b><\/li>\n
  4. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood<\/li>\n
  5. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood<\/li>\n
  6. In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster<\/li>\n
  7. The Drowned World by JG Ballard<\/li>\n
  8. Crash by JG Ballard<\/li>\n
  9. Millennium People by JG Ballard<\/li>\n
  10. The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks<\/b><\/li>\n
  11. Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks<\/b><\/li>\n
  12. Weaveworld by Clive Barker<\/li>\n
  13. Darkmans by Nicola Barker <\/li>\n
  14. The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter<\/li>\n
  15. Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear<\/b><\/li>\n
  16. Vathek by William Beckford<\/li>\n
  17. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester<\/b><\/li>\n
  18. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury<\/b><\/li>\n
  19. Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite<\/li>\n
  20. Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown<\/li>\n
  21. Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys<\/b><\/li>\n
  22. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov* (I got about halfway through it on a plane flight, and then never finished it)<\/li>\n
  23. The Coming Race by EGEL Bulwer-Lytton<\/li>\n
  24. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess<\/li>\n
  25. The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess<\/li>\n
  26. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs<\/li>\n
  27. Naked Lunch by William Burroughs<\/b><\/li>\n
  28. Kindred by Octavia Butler<\/li>\n
  29. Erewhon by Samuel Butler<\/li>\n
  30. The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino (What, no If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler<\/cite>?)<\/li>\n
  31. The Influence by Ramsey Campbell<\/li>\n
  32. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll<\/b><\/li>\n
  33. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll<\/b><\/li>\n
  34. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter <\/li>\n
  35. The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter<\/li>\n
  36. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon<\/b><\/li>\n
  37. The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton<\/b><\/li>\n
  38. Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke<\/b><\/li>\n
  39. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke<\/b><\/li>\n
  40. Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney<\/li>\n
  41. Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland<\/li>\n
  42. House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski<\/li>\n
  43. Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq<\/li>\n
  44. The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delaney<\/li>\n
  45. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick<\/b><\/li>\n
  46. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick<\/b><\/li>\n
  47. Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch<\/li>\n
  48. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco<\/b><\/li>\n
  49. Under the Skin by Michel Faber<\/li>\n
  50. The Magus by John Fowles<\/li>\n
  51. American Gods by Neil Gaiman<\/b><\/li>\n
  52. Red Shift by Alan Garner<\/li>\n
  53. Neuromancer by William Gibson<\/b><\/li>\n
  54. Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman<\/li>\n
  55. Lord of the Flies by William Golding<\/b><\/li>\n
  56. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman<\/b><\/li>\n
  57. Light by M John Harrison<\/b><\/li>\n
  58. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne<\/li>\n
  59. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein<\/b><\/li>\n
  60. Dune by Frank L Herbert<\/b><\/li>\n
  61. The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse<\/li>\n
  62. Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban <\/li>\n
  63. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg<\/li>\n
  64. Atomised by Michel Houellebecq<\/li>\n
  65. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley<\/li>\n
  66. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro<\/li>\n
  67. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson<\/li>\n
  68. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James<\/li>\n
  69. The Children of Men by PD James<\/li>\n
  70. After London; or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies<\/li>\n
  71. Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones<\/li>\n
  72. The Trial by Franz Kafka<\/li>\n
  73. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes<\/b><\/li>\n
  74. The Shining by Stephen King<\/b><\/li>\n
  75. The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski<\/li>\n
  76. Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu<\/li>\n
  77. The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin<\/b><\/li>\n
  78. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin<\/b><\/li>\n
  79. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem <\/li>\n
  80. Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing<\/li>\n
  81. The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis<\/b><\/li>\n
  82. The Monk by Matthew Lewis<\/li>\n
  83. A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay<\/li>\n
  84. The Night Sessions by Ken Macleod<\/li>\n
  85. Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel<\/li>\n
  86. Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith<\/b><\/li>\n
  87. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson<\/li>\n
  88. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin<\/li>\n
  89. The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe<\/li>\n
  90. The Road by Cormac McCarthy<\/li>\n
  91. Ascent by Jed Mercurio<\/li>\n
  92. The Scar by China Mieville<\/li>\n
  93. Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller<\/li>\n
  94. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr<\/b><\/li>\n
  95. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell<\/li>\n
  96. Mother London by Michael Moorcock<\/li>\n
  97. News from Nowhere by William Morris<\/li>\n
  98. Beloved by Toni Morrison<\/li>\n
  99. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami<\/li>\n
  100. Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov<\/li>\n
  101. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger<\/li>\n
  102. Ringworld by Larry Niven<\/b><\/li>\n
  103. Vurt by Jeff Noon*<\/li>\n
  104. The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien<\/li>\n
  105. The Famished Road by Ben Okri<\/b><\/li>\n
  106. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell<\/b><\/li>\n
  107. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk<\/li>\n
  108. Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock<\/li>\n
  109. Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake*<\/li>\n
  110. The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth<\/b><\/li>\n
  111. A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys<\/li>\n
  112. The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett<\/b><\/li>\n
  113. The Prestige by Christopher Priest<\/b><\/li>\n
  114. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman<\/b> <\/li>\n
  115. Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais* (I read bits of it for a class on comedy in college)<\/li>\n
  116. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe<\/li>\n
  117. Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds<\/b><\/li>\n
  118. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson<\/b><\/li>\n
  119. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling<\/b><\/li>\n
  120. Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie<\/li>\n
  121. The Female Man by Joanna Russ<\/li>\n
  122. Air by Geoff Ryman* (I got maybe a hundred pages in, but needed something lighter to read, and never got back to it)<\/li>\n
  123. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery<\/b><\/li>\n
  124. Blindness by Jose Saramago<\/li>\n
  125. How the Dead Live by Will Self<\/li>\n
  126. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley<\/b><\/li>\n
  127. Hyperion by Dan Simmons<\/b><\/li>\n
  128. Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon<\/li>\n
  129. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson<\/b><\/li>\n
  130. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson<\/li>\n
  131. Dracula by Bram Stoker<\/li>\n
  132. The Insult by Rupert Thomson<\/li>\n
  133. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien<\/b><\/li>\n
  134. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien<\/b><\/li>\n
  135. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain<\/b><\/li>\n
  136. Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut<\/b><\/li>\n
  137. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole<\/li>\n
  138. Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser<\/li>\n
  139. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner <\/li>\n
  140. Affinity by Sarah Waters <\/li>\n
  141. The Time Machine by HG Wells<\/b><\/li>\n
  142. The War of the Worlds by HG Wells<\/b><\/li>\n
  143. The Sword in the Stone by TH White<\/li>\n
  144. The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson<\/li>\n
  145. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe<\/b><\/li>\n
  146. Orlando by Virginia Woolf<\/li>\n
  147. Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham<\/li>\n
  148. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham<\/li>\n
  149. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The original “meme” called for italicizing books that you intend to read, but I was surprised to find that there aren’t any of those, other than the ones marked with an asterisk. It also suggested striking through books you wouldn’t be caught dead with, but there aren’t a lot of those, either.<\/p>\n

    I make it 53 out of 149 read, which isn’t as high as it might be. I blame the excessive Britishness of the list, which includes a number of books I’ve never even heard of, while slighting some American authors (no The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress<\/cite>? No I, Robot<\/cite>?).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Via a bunch of people, but most directly Matt Ruff, the Guardian has published a list of “1000 Novels Everyone Must Read“. Which has triggered the usual flurry of procrastinatory blog posts indicating which books from the science fiction and fantasy sub-list one has and hasn’t read. I have other things I really ought to… Continue reading “Must-Read” SF Novels<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,37,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-pop_culture","category-sf","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}