Dr. Shaun Duke, Professional Nerd

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Guardian’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels Everyone Must Read: The Meme

I stole this from Neth Space, though apparently SF Signal has done it as well (or they started it, or something of that nature). Here’s how it works:

  • Bold the books you’ve read.
  • Spread this list like a virus, only be nicer about it, because being mean isn’t nice, and you wouldn’t want to be not-nice, would you?

Here is the list:

  1. Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
  2. Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958)
  3. Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951)
  4. Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000)
  5. Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987)
  6. Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984)
  7. Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987)
  8. Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987)
  9. Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007)
  10. Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)
  11. Greg Bear: Darwin’s Radio (1999)
  12. Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956)
  13. Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992)
  14. Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960)
  15. Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966)
  16. Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871)
  17. Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960)
  18. Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982)
  19. Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912)
  20. William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)
  21. Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979)
  22. Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872)
  23. Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957)
  24. Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988)
  25. Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
  26. Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)
  27. Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984)
  28. Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
  29. Arthur C Clarke: Childhood’s End (1953)
  30. GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
  31. Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)
  32. Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)
  33. Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)
  34. Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000)
  35. Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996)
  36. Samuel R Delaney: The Einstein Intersection (1967)
  37. Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
  38. Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
  39. Umberto Eco: Foucault’s Pendulum (1988)
  40. Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000)
  41. John Fowles: The Magus (1966)
  42. Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001)
  43. Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973)
  44. William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984)
  45. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915)
  46. William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)
  47. Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974)
  48. M John Harrison: Light (2002)
  49. Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
  50. Frank Herbert: Dune (1965)
  51. Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943)
  52. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)
  53. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
  54. Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)
  55. Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)
  56. Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)
  57. Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
  58. Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898)
  59. PD James: The Children of Men (1992)
  60. Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)
  61. Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)
  62. Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925)
  63. Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966)
  64. Stephen King: The Shining (1977)
  65. Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)
  66. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864)
  67. Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961)
  68. Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
  69. David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)
  70. Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)
  71. Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)
  72. Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)
  73. Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954)
  74. Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
  75. Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)
  76. Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)
  77. Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)
  78. China Miéville: The Scar (2002)
  79. Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)
  80. Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)
  81. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)
  82. Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988)
  83. William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890)
  84. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
  85. Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
  86. Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)
  87. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003)
  88. Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970)
  89. Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993)
  90. Flann O’Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
  91. Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)
  92. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)
  93. Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818)
  94. Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946)
  95. John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)
  96. Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)
  97. François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34)
  98. Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
  99. Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)
  100. Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)
  101. JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997)
  102. Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)
  103. Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943)
  104. José Saramago: Blindness (1995)
  105. Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000)
  106. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)
  107. Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989)
  108. Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937)
  109. Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992)
  110. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
  111. Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
  112. Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996)
  113. Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court (1889)
  114. Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959)
  115. Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909)
  116. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926)
  117. Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999)
  118. HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895)
  119. HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898)
  120. TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938)
  121. Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83)
  122. John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951)
  123. John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
  124. Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924)

Well, I have read a pathetically small amount of these novels–seventeen. I apparently don’t read enough.

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