The SF and Fantasy Masterworks Reading Project is a group blog “dedicated to reading and reviewing Gollancz’s series of genre classics in its entirety.” The site has inspired a few people to list the SF books in the series that they’ve read (in bold) and/or own (in italics). Play along! It’s fun!
The original list broke out ten special hardback editions, seven of which were also published in paperback. I’ve omitted the duplicates, hence the wonky numbering.
Between Shadow and me we own almost all of these titles, so I’m not going to italicize; I’m clearly well behind in actually reading them, though. I suck.
II — The Left Hand of Darkness — Ursula K. Le Guin
V — A Canticle for Leibowitz — Walter M. Miller, Jr.
X — The Day of the Triffids — John Wyndham
1 — The Forever War — Joe Haldeman
2 — I Am Legend — Richard Matheson
3 — Cities in Flight — James Blish
4 — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — Philip K. Dick
5 — The Stars My Destination — Alfred Bester
6 — Babel-17 — Samuel R. Delany
7 — Lord of Light — Roger Zelazny
8 — The Fifth Head of Cerberus — Gene Wolfe
9 — Gateway — Frederik Pohl
10 — The Rediscovery of Man — Cordwainer Smith
11 — Last and First Men — Olaf Stapledon
12 — Earth Abides — George R. Stewart
13 — Martian Time-Slip — Philip K. Dick
14 — The Demolished Man — Alfred Bester
15 — Stand on Zanzibar — John Brunner
16 — The Dispossessed — Ursula K. Le Guin
17 — The Drowned World — J. G. Ballard
18 — The Sirens of Titan — Kurt Vonnegut
19 — Emphyrio — Jack Vance
20 — A Scanner Darkly — Philip K. Dick
21 — Star Maker — Olaf Stapledon
22 — Behold the Man — Michael Moorcock
23 — The Book of Skulls — Robert Silverberg
24 — The War of the Worlds — H. G. Wells
25 — Flowers for Algernon — Daniel Keyes
26 — Ubik — Philip K. Dick
27 — Timescape — Gregory Benford
28 — More Than Human — Theodore Sturgeon
29 — Man Plus — Frederik Pohl
30 — A Case of Conscience — James Blish
31 — The Centauri Device — M. John Harrison
32 — Dr. Bloodmoney — Philip K. Dick
33 — Non-Stop — Brian Aldiss
34 — The Fountains of Paradise — Arthur C. Clarke
35 — Pavane — Keith Roberts
36 — Now Wait for Last Year — Philip K. Dick
37 — Nova — Samuel R. Delany
38 — The First Men in the Moon — H. G. Wells
39 — The City and the Stars — Arthur C. Clarke
40 — Blood Music — Greg Bear
41 — Jem — Frederik Pohl
42 — Bring the Jubilee — Ward Moore
43 — VALIS — Philip K. Dick
44 — The Lathe of Heaven — Ursula K. Le Guin
45 — The Complete Roderick — John Sladek
46 — Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said — Philip K. Dick
47 — The Invisible Man — H. G. Wells
48 — Grass — Sheri S. Tepper
49 — A Fall of Moondust — Arthur C. Clarke
50 — Eon — Greg Bear
51 — The Shrinking Man — Richard Matheson
52 — The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch — Philip K. Dick
53 — The Dancers at the End of Time — Michael Moorcock
54 — The Space Merchants — Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
55 — Time Out of Joint — Philip K. Dick
56 — Downward to the Earth — Robert Silverberg
57 — The Simulacra — Philip K. Dick
58 — The Penultimate Truth — Philip K. Dick
59 — Dying Inside — Robert Silverberg
60 — Ringworld — Larry Niven
61 — The Child Garden — Geoff Ryman
62 — Mission of Gravity — Hal Clement
63 — A Maze of Death — Philip K. Dick
64 — Tau Zero — Poul Anderson
65 — Rendezvous with Rama — Arthur C. Clarke
66 — Life During Wartime — Lucius Shepard
67 — Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang — Kate Wilhelm
68 — Roadside Picnic — Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
69 — Dark Benediction — Walter M. Miller, Jr.
70 — Mockingbird — Walter Tevis
71 — Dune — Frank Herbert
72 — The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress — Robert A. Heinlein
73 — The Man in the High Castle — Philip K. Dick
74 — Inverted World — Christopher Priest
75 — Cat’s Cradle — Kurt Vonnegut
76 — The Island of Dr. Moreau — H.G. Wells
77 — Childhood’s End — Arthur C. Clarke
78 — The Time Machine — H.G. Wells
79 — Dhalgren — Samuel R. Delany
80 — Helliconia — Brian Aldiss
81 — Food of the Gods — H.G. Wells
82 — The Body Snatchers — Jack Finney
83 — The Female Man — Joanna Russ
84 — Arslan — M.J. Engh
(via Big Dumb Object))
3 responses to “The SFF Masterworks Meme”
Books on the list I have not read:
10 — The Rediscovery of Man — Cordwainer Smith
33 — Non-Stop — Brian Aldiss
45 — The Complete Roderick — John Sladek*
47 — The Invisible Man — H. G. Well (eh – just
never got around to it)
49 — A Fall of Moondust — Arthur C. Clarke
61 — The Child Garden — Geoff Ryman
84 — Arslan — M.J. Engh
* I’ve read the Timescape pocket books edition of RODERICK – VOL. 1 but not all the Roderick stories.
Things that surprised me about the list:
Only one Heinlein title, albeit that title is tMiaHM, which is generally considered his best novel, overall.
Cyberpunk was completely frozen out of the list. No Sterling, Gibson, Cadigan, Shirley, Stephenson etc.
The over-representation of PKD. Granted, he may deserve to have the most titles of any author on this list, but, although his output was prodigious, it wasn’t uniformly excpetional. There are some marginal PKD titles on this list.
The total absence of titles by Asimov, Van Vogt, Kornbluth (solo), Pangborn, Farmer, Bradbury, Card, and Vernor Vinge.
I’m pleasantly surprised to find Shepard’s LIFE DURING WARTIME and Tevis’ MOCKINGBIRD on the list, since these are the kind of outstanding titles that generally get excluded in this kind of popularity contest.
Titles I’d add to the list:
On The Beach – Nevil Shute
Davy – Edgar Pangborn
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
The Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson
On Wings Of Song – Thomas Disch
A Fire Upon The Deep – Vernor Vinge
Venus Plus X – Theodore Sturgeon
Hyperion – Dan Simmons
The Lovers – Philip Jose Farmer
The Einstein Intersection – Samuel Delany
Desolation Road – Ian McDonald
Red Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson
Shadow
Books on the list that I have not read/do not own:
19 — Emphyrio — Jack Vance
35 — Pavane — Keith Roberts
61 — The Child Garden — Geoff Ryman
69 — Dark Benediction — Walter M. Miller, Jr.
70 — Mockingbird — Walter Tevis
84 — Arslan — M.J. Engh
Note that PKD dominates the list.
What this world needs now is more psychotic SF authors.
…build a robot out of chocolate that doesn’t wear socks.
Where’s the challenge in that? Most chocolates don’t wear socks, anyway. :)