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: Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958) Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951) Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000) Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987) Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984) Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987) Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987) Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007) Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995) Greg Bear: Darwin’s Radio (1999) Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956) Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992) Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960) Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966) Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871) Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960) Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982) Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912) William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959) Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979) Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872) Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957) Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988) Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984) Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000) Arthur C Clarke: Childhood’s End (1953) GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004) Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975) Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998) Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000) Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996) Samuel R Delaney: The Einstein Intersection (1967) Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962) Umberto Eco: Foucault’s Pendulum (1988) Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000) John Fowles: The Magus (1966) Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001) Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973) William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984) Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915) William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954) Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974) M John Harrison: Light (2002) Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) Frank Herbert: Dune (1965) Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943) Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980) James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998) Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932) Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995) Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959) Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898) PD James: The Children of Men (1992) Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885) Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001) Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925) Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966) Stephen King: The Shining (1977) Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953) Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864) Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961) Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920) Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008) Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005) Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994) Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954) Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992) Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006) Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007) China Miéville: The Scar (2002) Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997) Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960) David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004) Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988) William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890) Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987) Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995) Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969) Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003) Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970) Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993) Flann O’Brien: The Third Policeman (1967) Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991) Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996) Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818) Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946) John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932) Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995) François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34) Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000) Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988) Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943) José Saramago: Blindness (1995) Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000) Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818) Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989) Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937) Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992) Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897) Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996) Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court (1889) Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959) Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909) Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926) Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999) HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895) HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898) TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938) Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83) John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951) John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924) Well, I have read a pathetically small amount of these novels–seventeen. I apparently don’t read enough. How did you do?