Top 100 Sci-Fi Books of All Time.

1. PAgent
   December 30th, 2006 at 1:50 pm

   That is an excellent list.

   Which is to say, I agree with it.

2. Silky
   December 30th, 2006 at 2:02 pm

   I'd love to see what the standards were for this list... Only 6 female writers in the whole thing. Octavia Butler gets no love. James Tiptree Jr gets no love. Most of the books on the list are not studied in college level science fiction courses and are only given a nod by SF researchers... I feel this should be titled "The 100 Most Popular SF Books" list... For god's sake, how does Dune beat 1984 and Frankenstein?

   Sorry, I have a degree in this shit, and it tends to rankle.

3. Fred
   December 30th, 2006 at 2:32 pm

   That is an excellent list.

   Which is to say, I agree with some of it, disagree with some of the rest.

4. Ian
   December 30th, 2006 at 3:42 pm

   Rather a strange list, I can see the reasons behind the top 10 even if I personally feel Heinlein and Neuromancer should be much further down.

   But The gods themselves, lucifer's hammer and red mars shouldn't have made the list, and good books like The Kraken Wakes, The rest of the rama series and 2061: Oddysey 2 are missing.

   I'm surprised Consider Phlebas isn't on there either, I prefer it to use of weapons and player of games.

   Poor Stephen Baxter gets left out entirely, there's no Sunstorm, no Light of Other Days, no Raft.

5. Tyler
   December 30th, 2006 at 4:28 pm

   Thank you very much!
   here you can check my sci-fi collection:
   http://www.inblinks.com/content/blogcategory/1/5/

   Just click on the show, choose your episode, lean back and enjoy

6. Moon
   December 30th, 2006 at 7:18 pm

   Ender's Game, while a good book, doesn't belong at #2. It probably shouldn't be on this list at all, but I haven't seen the whole list yet.

7. Moon
   December 30th, 2006 at 7:29 pm

   I am SUCH a nerd. I've read about 90 of those. Ha!

   I need to read more Philip K. Dick. Except that VALIS was such a waste of time.

   /Diamond Age NEEDS to be moved up about 59 places! One of the best BOOKS I've ever read, including everything, not just Sci-Fi.

8. Moon
   December 30th, 2006 at 7:38 pm

   Hahahahahaha! D*I*C*K was deleted by the filter.

9. Eni
   December 30th, 2006 at 9:39 pm

   Dune is an amazing book.

10. ted
    December 30th, 2006 at 10:10 pm

    Frank Herbert: over-rated. The movie was so boring, I didn't want to read the book.

    Robert Heinlein - a classic, but too full of himself. Stranger in a Strange Land sucked big time. The worst of his novels.

    I'm surprised Arthur C Clarke isn't Top Ten. H.G. Wells not in the Top Ten? Who decided this list, anyways?

    You just can't beat the older classics, and, sorry, most of them were written by men. Even when women started to really break into it, they started more with fantasy, didn't they?

11. Tom
    December 31st, 2006 at 6:47 am

    What a bunch of wankers! No JG Ballard in the top 100, no recent Iain M Banks or olde Spinrad's "Iron Dream", and Harry Harrison's exquisite "Bill the Galactic Hero" is not #1 or even listed. There is no justice...

12. Silky
    December 31st, 2006 at 12:37 pm

    In response to Ted:

    First of all, Mary Shelly wrote one of the first science fiction novels. Frankenstein was not exactly fantasy, and it's taught in most college-level science fiction course I know of... Also, women started into SF a good bit earlier than you give them credit for, and they didn't "just start in fantasy." I suggest you look up Octavia Butler, James Tiptree Jr, Joanna Russ, C.L. Moore and Judith Merril before shooting your mouth off...

    The list is not just "the classics," and it includes a good number of books that have had little to no influence in the genre. I don't know why all of Neal Stephenson's books seem to be included, while nothing of Nalo Hopkinson's or JG Ballard's show up... Like I said in my previous comment, it seems to be a popularity contest more than a "best of" list. If I were to put such a list together, I would look at who's influenced changes and trends in the genre, who's being researched the most and why. In short, it wouldn't be a list of who's had movies made out of their books...

    Like I said, I have a degree in this crap.

13. Silky
    December 31st, 2006 at 12:40 pm

    And L Ron Hubbard doesn't belong in any Best Of list anywhere, ever. He was a hack, a bad hack, and he doesn't deserve any place on the list.

14. Mr. S
    December 31st, 2006 at 4:40 pm

    While it would be close to impossible to devise a 'true' top 100 list of SF books; I think it is interesting that the large majority of these books were published between 1950 and the early 1980's. I am just curious if anyone has insights as to why this was the case? The cold war perhaps? Or was it similar to how music changed from being original creations from honest instrument playing people to synthetic board room devised club 'songs'. Aka, has the publishing industry itself hindered science fiction?

15. Anton
    January 13th, 2007 at 6:12 am

    Well this list is in fact generated by web traffic votes so it is no surprise that the main names and their works come up so much.

    For example :

    Arthur C Clarke - 2001
    Herbert - Dune
    Philip K D!CK, Heinlein, etc

    NB: all of which deserve to be represented.

    People voting from a long list of great Sci Fi are just going to pick the 10 they have maybe actually heard of little though read.

    And if the great female Sci Fi writers are not part of the choice in voting then there is no surprise that they are not represented.

    I like the list for its broad appeal, however it is as silky points out a poularity contest, and not a literary merit based list.

    Obviously more Hugo etc award winning authors and works are going to appear merely for the fact they are more widespreadly known and for having won the award in the first place.

    Earlier works may not be represented as much either because they are not currently fashionable or in print recently, perhaps the newer generation are fresher in peoples minds.

    Just my thoughts...

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