NPR Top 100 Science Fiction/Fantasy Books

Aw, why'd you have to go and ruin such a nice happy feeling TrueMetal...

I'm still considering my votes, but I did note oddities in the list. I think the Discworld series should be considered as a series much like other series (i.e. Xanth). I think its a little odd that Brin has Earth but not Kiln People (although Earth is more noted for its predictions, which is probably why its there). His Dark Materials should probably be in there somewhere although it might be (incorrectly) classified as young adult fiction along with Twilight and Harry Potter.

I'm finding that some choices just seem automatic. Ender's Game, for example, and Lord of the Rings. But then I start wondering: is Neverwhere really a great story, or do I just like it a lot. Am I really remembering The Lathe of Heaven as a great novel, or am I just remembering the really crazy movie (the original, not the remake). Do I vote The Demolished Man on the strength of its historical importance and its very obvious trailblazing work even if I don't know if I would necessarily recommend it to the average scifi reader today? And things like the Manifold trilogy and the Night's Dawn trilogy are great works, but extremely narrowcasted towards lovers of extremely hard science fiction and space operas respectively.

Plus, I find myself thinking as much about the authors as the works. A list of the best science fiction and fantasy works that doesn't include something by Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Neal Stephenson, Phillip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, or Ray Bradbury just seems wrong, but that doesn't seem fair to the works themselves.

I don't even know what to think about works like The Time Traveller's Wife or Gravity's Rainbow.

Wow, talk about a hard list to try and compile.

In the end, I tried to strike a balance between recent and classic fiction, sci-fi and fantasy, and to choose books that I still look back at today as something that made a personal impression upon me. There are so many that qualify from a strictly affected the world standpoint that it seems like a personal list is really the more appropriate one.

Even so, ten is way too few to have to choose. As it was, I had to make decisions based on things like "I already chose that Author once - I need to expand beyond one person's works".

My final list:

A Canticle for Liebowitz - I recently re-read this as an e-book and I was blown away at just how good this old classic is even decades after it's initial publication.

I Am Legend - One of the most often filmed sci-fi stories ever and the films still have nothing on the stark story-telling of the original text.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy - A lot of stories claim they'll "blow your mind" but Illuminatus! actually accomplished it.

The Lord of the Rings - 'nuff said

The Martian Chronicles - I break my unspoken rule above and have Bradbury twice. I read this in third grade and it opened my eyes to ideas that went way beyond just rockets into space. It's literally been nearly forty years since I last read it and I still remember parts of it vividly.

Something Wicked This Way Comes - This book instilled in me, or maybe brought out in me, a love of an entire genre that rotates around summer and lost innocence and the Americana that probably never really existed except in the popular imagination. This book may be prose but it's spirit is pure poetry, exceeded only by The Halloween Tree, another Bradbury masterpiece.

The Stand - King's greatest work, IMO, and one that manages to capture the spirit of The Lord of the Rings while still telling a believable modern-day story.

The Vlad Taltos Series - If my avatar doesn't already give it away, I am a big Brust fan and consider this series to be one of the best pseudo-fantasy series around. Or maybe it's a pseudo-sci-fi series. It sort of depends on your viewpoint, and Brust makes it clear that neither classification really matters. This series embraces the idea of the "unreliable narrator" and encourages readers to make their own conclusions about what constitutes "truth", particularly when dealing with history. Pretty much like real life.

The War of the Worlds - Another story that made a big impact on me and whose message, that man could fail while the most humble creatures on the planet could ultimately save us, made a big impression on a young impressionable mind.

Watership Down - This is hands down one of the best fantasies of any kind every written. Watership Down is so much more than just a "quest fantasy" with bunnies as protagonists. The proof of this is that so many imitators tried to duplicate its success and managed to fail completely. The mythology of the rabbits is every bit as compelling as that of the peoples in Tolkein's stories. I'd rank it as one of the best novels every written, frankly.

There are so many more great books on that list. It's a bit painful to have to choose only ten.

I'm rather pleasantly surprised by the list. It was a fairly good list covering a broad range of styles and sub-genre, the quality of the stories ranging from decent to pretty darn good. I didn't see anything I would call a bad book on the list. Oh a few not the style I enjoy but even in those cases good examples of the type that doesn't do it for me.

Still I missed things like The People, and The Traveler in Black which really should have been on that list.

The Demolished Man, for the win.

Not impressed with this list at all. They really need to limit it to a single work by each author in order to eliminate flavor of the month selections as well as silly choices like half the Heinlein ones. Way too many Mieville and Gaiman books on that list, yet only one each from John Brunner and John Scalzi. None from Jack Chalker or Jack Vance. (Apparently they are biased against guys named John.) I don't get how they've designated a "series" either. I don't like the Ender books, but they're every bit as much a series as the Dune novels.

And Battlefield Earth? Really? Who outside the cult finds that even readable?

It's also way past time we separated Fantasy and Science Fiction.

I'm guessing most of the top finishers are a foregone conclusion: LotR, Song of Ice & Fire, Ender's Game, Hitchhiker's Guide, Armor by Steakley, Perdido Street Station, etc. and so yawn.