There’s been a list going around as of late of the top 100 SF books chosen by a teacher. Seeing how I plan to be a teacher one day and also have hopes to see SF become more common in public schools, I’m going to turn this one into a meme.
Here are the rules:
- Bold the titles you’ve read.
- Italicize the titles you want to read (and I mean REALLY want to read).
- Mark titles you’ve never heard of with strikeouts, underlines, or (NH) for “never heard”.
- Tag people.
I’m tagging SQT, John of Grasping For the Wind, Tia Nevitt of Fantasy Debut, and Carraka.
Here goes:
# George R. Stewart – Earth Abides
# Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles
# Robert A. Heinlein – The Puppet Masters
# John Wyndham – The Day of the Triffids
# Bernard Wolfe – Limbo (NH)
# Alfred Bester – The Demolished Man
# Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451
# Arthur C. Clarke – Childhood’s End
# Charles L. Harness – The Paradox men (NH)
# Ward Moore – Bring the Jubilee (NH)
# Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth – The Space Merchants
# Clifford D. Simak – Ring Around the Sun
# Theodore Sturgeon – More than Human
# Hal Clement – Mission of Gravity
# Edgar Pangborn – A Mirror for Observers (NH)
# Isaac Asimov – The End of Eternity
# Leigh Brackett – The Long Tomorrow (NH)
# William Golding – The Inheritors (NH)
# Alfred Bester – The Stars My Destination
# John Christopher – The Death of Grass (NH)
# Arthur C. Clarke – The City and the Stars
# Robert A. Heinlein – The Door Into Summer
# John Wyndham – The Midwich cuckoos
# Brian W. Aldiss – Non-Stop
# James Blish – A Case of Conscience
# Robert A. Heinlein – Have Space-Suit — Will Travel
# Philip K. Dick – Time Out of Joint
# Pat Frank – Alas, Babylon
# Walter M. Miller – A Canticle for Leibowitz
# Kurt Vonnegut – The Sirens of Titan
# Algis Budrys – Rogue Moon
# Theodore Sturgeon – Venus Plus X
# Brian W. Aldiss – Hothouse (NH)
# J.G. Ballard – The Drowned World
# Anthony Burgess – A Clockwork Orange
# Philip K. Dick – The Man in the High Castle
# Robert Sheckley – Journey Beyond Tomorrow (NH)
# Clifford D. Simak – Way Station (NH)
# Kurt Vonnegut – Cat’s Cradle
# Brian W. Aldiss – Greybeard (NH)
# William S. Burroughs – Nova Express
# Philip K. Dick – Martian Time-Slip
# Philip K. Dick – The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
# Fritz Leiber – The Wanderer
# Cordwainer Smith – Nostrilia (NH)
# Philip K. Dick – Dr Bloodmoney
# Frank Herbert – Dune
# J.G. Ballard – The Crystal World
# Harry Harrison – Make Room! Make Room!
# Daniel Keyes – Flowers for Algernon
# Roger Zelazny – The Dream Master
# John Brunner – Stand on Zanzibar
# Samuel R. Delany – Nova
# Philip K. Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
# Thomas M. Disch – Camp Concentration
# Michael Moorcock – The Final Programme (NH)
# Keith Roberts – Pavane (NH)
# Angela Carter – Heroes and Villains
# Ursula K. Le Guin – The Left Hand of Darkness
# Bob Shaw – The Palace of Eternity (NH)
# Norman Spinrad – Bug Jack Barron (NH)
# Poul Anderson – Tau Zero
# Robert Silverberg – Downward to the Earth
# Wilson Tucker – The Year of the Quiet Sun (NH)
# Thomas M. Disch – 334
# Gene Wolfe – The Fifth Head of Cerberus
# Michael Moorcock – The Dancers at the End of Time (NH)
# J.G. Ballard – Crash
# Mack Reynolds – Looking Backward from the Year 2000 (NH)
# Ian Watson – The Embedding (NH)
# Suzy McKee Charnas – Walk to the End of the World (NH)
# M. John Harrison – The Centauri Device
# Ursula K. Le Guin – The Dispossessed
# Christopher Priest – Inverted World (NH)
# J.G. Ballard – High-Rise
# Barry N. Malzberg – Galaxies (NH)
# Joanna Russ – The Female Man
# Bob Shaw – Orbitsville (NH)
# Kingsley Amis – The Alteration (NH)
# Marge Piercy – Woman on the Edge of Time (NH)
# Frederik Pohl – Man Plus
# Algis Budrys – Michaelmas (NH)
# John Varley – The Ophiuchi Hotline
# Ian Watson – Miracle Visitors (NH)
# John Crowley – Engine Summer
# Thomas M. Disch – On Wings of Song
# Brian Stableford – The Walking Shadow (NH)
# Kate Wilhelm – Juniper Time (NH)
# Gregory Benford – Timescape
# Damien Broderick – The Dreaming Dragons
# Octavia Butler – Wild Seed
# Russell Hoban – Riddley Walker (NH)
# John Sladek – Roderick and Roderick at Random (NH)
# Gene Wolfe – The Book of the New Sun
# Philip Jose Farmer – The Unreasoning Mask
# Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle – Oath of Fealty
# Michael Bishop – No Enemy but Time (NH)
# John Calvin Batchelor – The Birth of the People’s Republic of Antarctica
# William Gibson – Neuromancer
Well, I have read a total of seven books on this list, which further proves that I am not as well read as I think I am. And that makes me sad…
How well did you do?
2 Responses
Dang, well I got five. How disappointing. And I used to consider myself a sci-fi fan
I think you could have done with adding: Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, 2001, and Ender’s Game.
Ender’s Game for sure, and perhaps Stranger in a Strange Land, but I’m not sure about those other two. I think Starship Troopers and 2001 would be hard reads for kids these days, the former because of it’s heavy political bend, which might tick students off, and 2001 because it might be a bit much for their brains…the movie itself was confusing as hell :P.
But there certainly are other books that belong on this list, but I imagine the teacher who made it has his reasons for not listing them (perhaps he hasn’t read them?).