{"id":208,"date":"2007-03-12T11:43:12","date_gmt":"2007-03-12T16:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/?p=208"},"modified":"2007-03-12T11:44:20","modified_gmt":"2007-03-12T16:44:20","slug":"most-significant-sffantasy-of-the-past-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/?p=208","title":{"rendered":"“Most Significant” SF\/Fantasy of the Past 50 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found this list of “The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002” on Movin’ Meat<\/A>, who found it on Pharyngula<\/A>, who was just linking to Tikistitch<\/A>, who found it on the The News Blog<\/A>, where the link trail ran cold and I finally wound up searching for the phrase. It appears to have originated on the SFBC<\/A> 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
    \n
  2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
    \n
  3. Dune, Frank Herbert
    \n
  4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
    \n
  5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
    \n
  6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
    \n
  7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
    \n
  8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
    \n
  9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
    \n
  10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
    \n
  11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
    \n
  12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
    \n
  13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
    \n
  14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
    \n
  15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
    \n
  16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
    \n
  17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
    \n
  18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
    \n
  19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
    \n
  20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
    \n
  21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
    \n
  22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
    \n
  23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
    \n
  24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
    \n
  25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
    \n
  26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
    \n
  27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
    \n
  28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
    \n
  29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
    \n
  30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
    \n
  31. Little, Big, John Crowley
    \n
  32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
    \n
  33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
    \n
  34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
    \n
  35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
    \n
  36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
    \n
  37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
    \n
  38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
    \n
  39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
    \n
  40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
    \n
  41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
    \n
  42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
    \n
  43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
    \n
  44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
    \n
  45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
    \n
  46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
    \n
  47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
    \n
  48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
    \n
  49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
    \n
  50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
    \n<\/OL><\/p>\n

    I dunno if I agree with some of the choices (with Stephen Donaldson being Exhibit A), but it looks like a pretty decent cross-section and might be handy as a newbie guide to the genre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/other-worlds-cafe.com\/news\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}