I found this list of “The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002″ on Movin’ Meat, who found it on Pharyngula, who was just linking to Tikistitch, who found it on the The News Blog, where the link trail ran cold and I finally wound up searching for the phrase. It appears to have originated on the SFBC site, and for all I know they made it up out of whole cloth. (I mean, who do you survey to come up with the “most significant” books?) Anyway, list:

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison Read the rest of this entry »