I haven’t done one of these posts for a while, so I thought it was about time. I came across this post of the Top 100 Sci-Fi Books
. Apparently it’s “A statistical survey of the all-time Top 100 sci-fi books”. Whatever that means. There’s a link on the post where you can click to take part in the poll and it takes you to a massive list of SF titles and you’re asked to select ten of them. So by “statistical” I think they mean “voted”. Anyway, it struck me as an interesting list, so I thought I’d see how many of this alleged top 100 books I’ve read. The list is below. Sometimes you’ll see [S1], which means the first book in a series, or [C], which means it’s a single author collection. I’ve bolded all the titles I’ve read. The ones all in italics are books I have, but have yet to get around to reading.
1 Orson Scott Card Ender’s Game [S1] 1985
2 Frank Herbert Dune [S1] 1965
3 Isaac Asimov Foundation [S1-3] 1951
4 Douglas Adams Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy [S1] 1979
5 Robert A Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land 1961
6 George Orwell 1984 1949
7 Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 1954
8 Arthur C Clarke 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
9 Isaac Asimov [C] I, Robot 1950
10 Philip K Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968
11 Robert A Heinlein Starship Troopers 1959
12 William Gibson Neuromancer 1984
13 Larry Niven Ringworld 1970
14 Arthur C Clarke Rendezvous With Rama 1973
15 Dan Simmons Hyperion [S1] 1989
16 H G Wells The Time Machine 1895
17 Aldous Huxley Brave New World 1932
18 Arthur C Clarke Childhood’s End 1954
19 H G Wells The War of the Worlds 1898
20 Joe Haldeman The Forever War 1974
21 Robert A Heinlein The Moon is a Harsh Mistress 1966
22 Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles 1950
23 Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five 1969
24 Neal Stephenson Snow Crash 1992
25 Niven & Pournelle The Mote in God’s Eye 1975
26 Ursula K Le Guin The Left Hand of Darkness 1969
27 Orson Scott Card Speaker for the Dead [S2] 1986
28 Michael Crichton Jurassic Park 1990
29 Philip K Dick The Man in the High Castle 1962
30 Isaac Asimov The Caves of Steel 1954
31 Jules Verne 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 1870
32 Alfred Bester The Stars My Destination 1956
33 Roger Zelazny Lord of Light 1967
34 Frederik Pohl Gateway 1977
35 Michael Crichton The Andromeda Strain 1969
36 Madeleine L’Engle A Wrinkle In Time 1962
37 Stanislaw Lem Solaris 1961
38 Kurt Vonnegut Cat’s Cradle 1963
39 Carl Sagan Contact 1985
40 Isaac Asimov The Gods Themselves 1972
41 Philip K Dick Ubik 1969
42 Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon the Deep 1991
43 Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange 1962
44 John Wyndham The Day of the Triffids 1951
45 Robert A Heinlein Time Enough For Love 1973
46 Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon 1999
47 Kim Stanley Robinson Red Mars [S1] 1992
48 Mary Shelley Frankenstein 1818
49 Walter M Miller A Canticle for Leibowitz 1959
50 Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon 1966
51 Isaac Asimov The End Of Eternity 1955
52 Jules Verne Journey to the Center of the Earth 1864
53 Iain M Banks Player Of Games [S2] 1988
54 L Ron Hubbard Battlefield Earth 1982 < Seriously!?
55 Peter F Hamilton The Reality Dysfunction [S1] 1996
56 Orson Scott Card Ender’s Shadow [S1] 1999
57 Ursula K Le Guin The Dispossessed 1974
58 Neal Stephenson The Diamond Age 1995
59 Greg Bear Eon 1985
60 Philip Jose Farmer To Your Scattered Bodies Go 1971
61 Kurt Vonnegut The Sirens of Titan 1959
62 David Brin Startide Rising [S2] 1983
63 Philip K Dick A Scanner Darkly 1977
64 Niven & Pournelle Lucifer’s Hammer 1977
65 Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale 1985
66 Arthur C Clarke The City and the Stars 1956
67 Michael Crichton Sphere 1987
68 Harry Harrison The Stainless Steel Rat [S1] 1961
69 Robert A Heinlein The Door Into Summer 1956
70 Alfred Bester The Demolished Man 1953
71 Gene Wolfe The Fifth Head of Cerberus 1972
72 Alastair Reynolds Revelation Space [S1] 2000
73 H G Wells The Invisible Man 1897
74 Robert A Heinlein Citizen Of the Galaxy 1957
75 Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars [S1] 1912
76 Robert A Heinlein The Puppet Masters 1951
77 Dan Simmons Ilium 2003
78 Connie Willis Doomsday Book 1992
79 C S Lewis Out of the Silent Planet [S1] 1938
80 Robert A Heinlein Have Space-Suit – Will Travel 1958
81 Edwin A Abbott Flatland 1884
82 Cormac McCarthy The Road 2006
83 Richard Morgan Altered Carbon [S1] 2002
84 John Scalzi Old Man’s War 2005 < I can honestly say this is one of the worst SF books I've ever read. 85 Philip K Dick The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch 1964
86 Iain M Banks Use of Weapons [S3] 1990
87 John Wyndham The Chrysalids 1955
88 Ursula K Le Guin The Lathe of Heaven 1971
89 Clifford Simak Way Station 1963
90 Stanislaw Lem [C] The Cyberiad 1974
91 John Brunner Stand on Zanzibar 1969
92 Philip K Dick VALIS 1981
93 David Brin The Postman 1985
94 Robert Louis Stevenson Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde 1886
95 Julian May The Many-Colored Land [S1] 1981
96 Arkady & Boris Strugatsky Roadside Picnic 1972
97 Greg Bear The Forge of God 1987
98 Richard Matheson I Am Legend 1954
99 James Blish [C] Cities in Flight 1955
100 Arthur Conan Doyle The Lost World 1912
There are a few on there that I can’t remember for sure if I’ve read or not. I think I might have, many years ago, but it’s equally possible I just thought I should read them but never got around it it. So I’ve left them. The bolded ones I know I’ve read – it’s not a bad showing, though how some of them have made it onto the best 100 list mystifies me. It has also, however, served to remind me of a hell of a lot of books that I haven’t read yet but really want to!
So I’ve read 41 out of that 100. How about you?
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