100 SF Books

Sunday, July 23rd, 2006

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:

  1. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
  2. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
  3. Dune by Frank Herbert
  4. Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
  5. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
  6. Valis by Philip K. Dick
  7. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  8. Gateway by Frederick Pohl
  9. Space Merchants by C.M. Kornbluth & Frederick Pohl
  10. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
  11. Cuckoo’s Egg by C.J. Cherryh
  12. Star Surgeon by James White
  13. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
  14. Radix by A.A. Attanasio
  15. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
  16. Ringworld by Larry Niven
  17. A Case of Conscience by James Blish
  18. Last and First Man by Olaf Stapledon
  19. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
  20. Way Station by Clifford Simak
  21. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
  22. Gray Lensman by E. E. “Doc” Smith
  23. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
  24. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
  25. Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
  26. Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
  27. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
  28. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
  29. Heritage of Hastur by Marion Zimmer Bradley
  30. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
  31. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
  32. Slan by A.E. Van Vogt
  33. Neuromancer by William Gibson
  34. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  35. In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman
  36. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
  37. Eon by Greg Bear
  38. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
  39. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
  40. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
  41. Cosm by Gregory Benford
  42. The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt
  43. Blood Music by Greg Bear
  44. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
  45. Omnivore by Piers Anthony
  46. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
  47. Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
  48. To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer
  49. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  50. The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
  51. 1984 by George Orwell
  52. The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  53. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
  54. Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer
  55. Cities in Flight by James Blish
  56. Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
  57. Startide Rising by David Brin
  58. Triton by Samuel R. Delany
  59. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
  60. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  61. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  62. A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller
  63. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  64. No Blade of Grass by John Christopher
  65. The Postman by David Brin
  66. Dhalgren by Samuel Delany
  67. Berserker by Fred Saberhagen
  68. Flatland by Edwin Abbot
  69. Planiverse by A.K. Dewdney
  70. Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward
  71. Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh
  72. Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
  73. Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein
  74. The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
  75. Forever War by Joe Haldeman
  76. Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
  77. Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky & Arkady Strugatsky
  78. The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge
  79. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
  80. Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
  81. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
  82. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
  83. Upanishads by Various
  84. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  85. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  86. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
  87. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
  88. Mutant by Henry Kuttner
  89. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
  90. Ralph 124C41+ by Hugo Gernsback
  91. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
  92. Timescape by Gregory Benford
  93. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
  94. War with the Newts by Karl Kapek
  95. Mars by Ben Bova
  96. Brain Wave by Poul Anderson
  97. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
  98. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
  99. Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch
  100. 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.

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