Theordore Sturgeon once defended science fiction, a genre that includes some truly awful works, by noting that “Ninety percent of everything is crud.” This instance of the Pareto principle is known as Sturgeon’s Law or Sturgeon’s Revelation.
Phobos Entertainment presents a list of 100 SF Books that fall into the non-cruddy 10 percent:
- Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
- Foundation by Isaac Asimov
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
- Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
- Valis by Philip K. Dick
- Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- Gateway by Frederick Pohl
- Space Merchants by C.M. Kornbluth & Frederick Pohl
- Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
- Cuckoo’s Egg by C.J. Cherryh
- Star Surgeon by James White
- The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
- Radix by A.A. Attanasio
- 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
- Ringworld by Larry Niven
- A Case of Conscience by James Blish
- Last and First Man by Olaf Stapledon
- The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
- Way Station by Clifford Simak
- More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
- Gray Lensman by E. E. “Doc” Smith
- The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
- Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
- The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
- Heritage of Hastur by Marion Zimmer Bradley
- The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
- The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
- Slan by A.E. Van Vogt
- Neuromancer by William Gibson
- Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
- In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman
- Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
- Eon by Greg Bear
- Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
- Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
- Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
- Cosm by Gregory Benford
- The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt
- Blood Music by Greg Bear
- Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
- Omnivore by Piers Anthony
- I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
- Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
- 1984 by George Orwell
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer
- Cities in Flight by James Blish
- Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
- Startide Rising by David Brin
- Triton by Samuel R. Delany
- Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller
- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
- No Blade of Grass by John Christopher
- The Postman by David Brin
- Dhalgren by Samuel Delany
- Berserker by Fred Saberhagen
- Flatland by Edwin Abbot
- Planiverse by A.K. Dewdney
- Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward
- Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh
- Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
- Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein
- The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
- Forever War by Joe Haldeman
- Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
- Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky & Arkady Strugatsky
- The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge
- The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
- Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
- Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
- Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
- Upanishads by Various
- Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
- Mutant by Henry Kuttner
- Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
- Ralph 124C41+ by Hugo Gernsback
- I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
- Timescape by Gregory Benford
- The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
- War with the Newts by Karl Kapek
- Mars by Ben Bova
- Brain Wave by Poul Anderson
- Hyperion by Dan Simmons
- The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
- Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch
- A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
I haven’t read the entire list — not by a long shot — but I can second many of the lists recommendations — and I can disagree with a few as well: Frankenstein and Snow Crash may be influential works, but they’re not necessarily good.