100 must-read Sci-Fi books

[AlohaDawg]

Comments, Anyone?

[V-Adore]

Most of these seem like pretty safe choices and are pretty inarguable, honestly. I was pleased to see the inclusion of Blood Music (one of my all-time favorites that I don't see discussed a lot) and the Upanishads.

I will confess that I have always found Orson Scott Card hideously overrated and have not yet managed to get through one of his books, but I figure this is a personal fault in myself, the problem with starting with Lost Boys and trying to go from there, or possibly both.

[CortJstr]

Cat's Cradle is my favorite book so it's nice to see it. Vonnegut's own displeasure with the sci-fi label aside.

And isn't it Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

[andalucia]

Good stuff:  I don't read much sci-fi but I was pleased to see Cat's Cradle and The Left Hand of Darkness, Frankenstein... less so.

[V-Adore]

Good stuff:  I don't read much sci-fi but I was pleased to see Cat's Cradle and The Left Hand of Darkness, Frankenstein... less so.

Well, note that the list also mentions historical value of the works in question. While I think Frankenstein has its problems as a work (it's very much a product of its time in terms of prose, which makes it problematic to read), there's no doubt that it was the progenitor of a lot of modern SF and debuted ideas that are still getting played with today, so I can see a place for it.

[AugustWest]

I've read somewhere between 30 and 60 on that list.  My comments:

Phillip K. Dick is overrepresented and overrated.  Also, no way that Childhood's End should be number 1.  Arthur C. Clarke had some interesting ideas, but he's pretty much a lousy writer.

Hitchhiker's Guide number 85?  Whatever.  In terms of influence it should be in the top ten.  In terms of entertainment value you could argue it's number 1.  A Canticle for Leibowitz, A Clockwork Orange and Flowers for Algernon all in the 60's?  Nnnn-kay.  Piers Anthony is represented but Harry Harrison isn't? Right.

[Asherdan]

Piers Anthony is represented but Harry Harrison isn't?

THAT is what was bugging me about that list that I couldn't quite put the mental finger on.

[CortJstr]

Hitchhiker's Guide number 85?  Whatever.  In terms of influence it should be in the top ten.  In terms of entertainment value you could argue it's number 1.

It's too funny. Comedy is always looked down upon when it comes to awards/best of lists. As if only serious material can have artistic merit.

[AugustWest]

Hitchhiker's Guide number 85?  Whatever.  In terms of influence it should be in the top ten.  In terms of entertainment value you could argue it's number 1.

It's too funny. Comedy is always looked down upon when it comes to awards/best of lists. As if only serious material can have artistic merit.

True, which is bass-ackwards in my opinion.  Quality funny is 9046 times harder to write than quality melodrama.

[slink]

And the page is slashdotted!
I would probably disagree with most of them, but then I can't decide.
I know that Diamond Age would come in the top ten for me, and might include Pashazade and maybe Idoru.

[PinkStainlessTail]

The Space Merchants is by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth.

Godamnit. The dead get no respect.

Otherwise, a very interesting list. Great to see Capek's War With the Newts on there (it's still in print BTW, not sure why there's no "buy" link) and not one but two of Olaf Stapledon's. To Your Scattered Bodies Go should definitely be there, but I would have chosen something other than Flesh for the second PJF title (The Other Log of Phileas Fogg maybe, or The Maker of Universes). And for Gene Wolfe I would have just said The Book of the New Sun, not only the first volume.

Oh, I've never read the Upanishads, so I'm curious as to why they're on this list.

[AugustWest]

To Your Scattered Bodies Go should definitely be there,

Yeppers.  Love this one, but I think the Riverworld series kinda wemt downhill thereafter.  Anybody else read PJF writing as Kilgore Trout's Venus on the Half-Shell?  Excellent.

[andalucia]

Anybody else read PJF writing as Kilgore Trout's Venus on the Half-Shell?  Excellent.

Seconded.

[Va]

Clarke and Asimov are waaaay over-represented.  John Varley is conspicuously absent.

[AugustWest]

John Varley is conspicuously absent.

I most heartily concur.