NPR recently had their listeners nominate and then vote on the best 100 sceince fiction and fantasy books of all time. I am proud to say I have read many…and a little ashamed that some of the big names still have not passed in front of my eyeballs (Nich will kill me knowing that I have not read the Dune series..or in fact any Dune book at all – EDIT Nich has given me the Dune series to read YAY!.)
To rectify this I have linked all of the books on Amazon, and if you feel like sending me a present then feel free to select one at random in Kindle version (if available) or paperback and send to allisonr at bigpond dot net dot au and I shall receive it via the magic of the Whispernet. I shall also thank you profusely and link liberally to your nominate website or Google+/Twitter page…or where ever.
It works for porn stars, why wouldn’t it work for me?
| 1 | The Lord Of The Rings |
| 2 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy |
| 3 | Ender’s Game |
| 4 | The Dune Chronicles (received thanks NICH) |
| 5 | A Song Of Ice And Fire Series |
| 6 | 1984 |
| 7 | Fahrenheit 451 |
| 8 | The Foundation Triology |
| 9 | Brave New World |
| 10 | American Gods |
| 11 | The Princess Bride |
| 12 | The Wheel Of Time Series |
| 13 | Animal Farm |
| 14 | Neuromancer |
| 15 | Watchmen |
| 16 | I, Robot |
| 17 | Stranger In A Strange Land |
| 18 | The Kingkiller Chronicles |
| 19 | Slaughterhouse-Five |
| 20 | Frankenstein |
| 21 | Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? |
| 22 | The Handmaid’s Tale |
| 23 | The Dark Tower Series |
| 24 | 2001: A Space Odyssey |
| 25 | The Stand |
| 26 | Snow Crash |
| 27 | The Martian Chronicles |
| 28 | Cat’s Cradle |
| 29 | The Sandman Series |
| 30 | A Clockwork Orange |
| 31 | Starship Troopers |
| 32 | Watership Down |
| 33 | Dragonflight |
| 34 | The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress |
| 35 | A Canticle For Leibowitz |
| 36 | The Time Machine |
| 37 | 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea |
| 38 | Flowers For Algernon |
| 39 | The War Of The Worlds |
| 40 | The Amber Chronicles |
| 41 | The Belgariad |
| 42 | The Mists Of Avalon |
| 43 | Mistborn Trilogy |
| 44 | Ringworld |
| 45 | The Left Hand Of Darkness |
| 46 | The Silmarillion |
| 47 | The Once And Future King |
| 48 | Neverwhere |
| 49 | Childhood’s End |
| 50 | Contact |
| 51 | The Hyperion Cantos |
| 52 | Stardust |
| 53 | Cryptonomicon |
| 54 | World War Z |
| 55 | The Last Unicorn |
| 56 | The Forever War |
| 57 | Small Gods |
| 58 | The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever |
| 59 | The Vorkosigan Saga |
| 60 | Going Postal |
| 61 | The Mote In God’s Eye |
| 62 | The Sword Of Truth Series |
| 63 | The Road |
| 64 | Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell |
| 65 | I Am Legend |
| 66 | The Riftwar Saga |
| 67 | The Sword Of Shannara Trilogy |
| 68 | The Conan The Barbarian Series |
| 69 | The Farseer Trilogy |
| 70 | The Time Traveler’s Wife |
| 71 | The Way Of Kings |
| 72 | Journey To The Center Of The Earth |
| 73 | The Legend Of Drizzt Series |
| 74 | Old Man’s War |
| 75 | The Diamond Age |
| 76 | Rendezvous With Rama |
| 77 | The Kushiel’s Legacy Series |
| 78 | The Dispossessed |
| 79 | Something Wicked This Way Comes |
| 80 | Wicked |
| 81 | The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series |
| 82 | The Eyre Affair |
| 83 | The Culture Series |
| 84 | The Crystal Cave |
| 85 | Anathem |
| 86 | The Codex Alera Series |
| 87 | The Book Of The New Sun |
| 88 | The Thrawn Trilogy |
| 89 | The Outlander Series |
| 90 | The Elric Saga |
| 91 | The Illustrated Man |
| 92 | Sunshine |
| 93 | A Fire Upon The Deep |
| 94 | The Caves Of Steel |
| 95 | The Mars Trilogy |
| 96 | Lucifer’s Hammer |
| 97 | Doomsday Book |
| 98 | Perdido Street Station |
| 99 | The Xanth Series |
| 100 | The Space Trilogy |
Planned and executed my exit from the corporate world. Walked away with a 6 figure payment to boot.
Oh! I love these lists and I’m always surprised to find things I haven’t actually read yet. You’d think after looking at these kinds of lists a lot I would have made it through but no-o-o.
What in the world is the Outlander series doing on this list, though? It’s great, yes, but other than the fact that she goes back in time through a fairy circle, there is no fantasy involved. I’d be more likely to classify it as historical fiction. Odd.
Lucifer’s Hammer is awesome-ness defined, Perdido Street Station awesomely weird, and Diamond Age is my favorite Neil Stephenson. (All of his books end like he just can’t wait to get there, but the scenarios he creates and the thoughts he provokes are what puts them on these lists.) And warning that the Xanth series is like a bajillion books long. I’d stop after book five.
Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the Pern series isn’t on the list? A reflection of the expanding definition of fantasy and/or an increase in quality over the years? First fantasy series I read, so maybe I’m emotionally attached.
Need my own book challenge to get done for this year so I can focus on reading the ones on here I haven’t read yet. Sorry I can’t loan you any of these as the ones I do own are all physical copies.
Doh. Just saw that Dragonflight was on the list. But why list just the one book when other books get the entire series (like Xanth)? Hmmmmmm.
Yeah there’s bits of the Discworld series all over it too…Beats me.. NPR listeners ARE American after all
I loved the Pern series, started reading them while I was at University (yes I was a mature age student;) and it’s one of the reason’s I named where we live now “Dragon’s Rest”… I have Weyrs here…real honest to god dragon caves! (also I loved McCaffery’s Crystal Singer series as well…but probably too wanky for many people)
These are all great books to read. I have even read some and I find it very interesting. http://www.morethemerrier.com.au
Peter you need to work more on your back linking…. your comment adds nothing to the conversation and basically you are raping my blog for your own needs…at least buy a girl a drink by adding VALUE before you jam your link down her throat!I apologise…there wasn’t even a LINk in there. Peter you are wasting your time commenting like this… see me after school
To be honest, the only sci-fi books I’ve read where adaptations of films: Return of the Jedi, Star Trek:The Wrath of Kahn, etc. Usually, book tales are better than the movies derived from those tales. But, where sci-fi and fantasy stories are concerned, there’s so much to see in the movie versions, I prefer to watch the stories unfold instead of reading about them…
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Righto. I’ve had a look through the list now and I’ve read (and I’m only putting the numbers in as it will take me an hour to write it all!) 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 13, 20, 23, 24, 30, 32, 36, 37, 39, 63 and 72.
I make that to be 16 books out of 100. That is very poor. I used to read a hell of a lot of science fiction when I was younger but the ones I read don’t appear on here. Oh well, I must have been reading something else entirely.
The Illuminatus trilogy was great (by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson). But the name of the other science fiction writer that I loved totally escapes me now. I can’t find it anywhere. I think his was a trilogy too, involving the life of a young man who grew up to become the commander of a fleet – or something like that. Anyway, I was young at the time and it was exceptionally exciting.
If anyone has any ideas about who that was then give me a shout!
Ok, this will really show my age, but my favorites are Animal Farm, 1984, Flowers for Algernon (although it seemed at bit sad as a kid), Farfenheit 451, and War of the Worlds. We had to read them in school and I was such a geek because I actually loved reading the books. Something Wicked This Way Comes was actually good in book and movie form-both really gave me that creepy feeling and made the hairs stand up on my neck! I bought Farenheit 451 for my 12 year old and he said he didn’t like it, but he liked 1984 and Animal Farm, so go figure? This is an excellent list and I’m so glad you posted it. I will now head to the library to pick up the ones I haven’t read. Thanks so much!
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A magnificent collection of books. Several of them I read and have not regretted it. In particular, “The Lord of the Rings” =)