Current location:	The Lair
Current mood:	bouncy
Current music:	Xenosage: Episode I OST ~ Yasunori Mitsuda
Entry tags:	books, sf

The Tensor brings my attention to this list of the 50 most influential SF novels written between 1953 and 2002.
Going over it and commenting on it seems to be the thing to do at the moment, so hey, I'll give it a go. Entries I've read are bolded.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien (I have a confession to make: I've read the appendices, but I've never actually finished RotK. Whew! Feels good to finally get that off my chest..)


2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov (I read these in middle school. I recall them being okay, but I think I skipped parts.)


3. Dune, Frank Herbert (Pure awesomeness. I've read it a couple times, and I even made it as far as the fifth book before my interest fizzled out. At one point I even had The Dune Encyclopdia checked out from the library. More than you ever wanted to know about the menstrual patterns of Fremen women.)


4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein (I think The Roads Must Roll may in fact be the only thing by Heinlein I've ever actually read. I've definitely not read any of his novels, but see here. I also have another confession to make regarding this if anybody actually cares to hear it.)


5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin (I read this and its sequals some time in elementary school and I recall next to nothing about them.)


6. Neuromancer, William Gibson (I started this but never finished it. Not for lack of interest though. Books I started while at Mudd just tended not to get finished.)


7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke (Never read it.)


8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick (Never read it, but I liked the movie.)


9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley (I thought maybe I'd read this, but it turned out to be something else that I'd read.)


10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (As a bibliophile, I found this book particularly terrifying.)


11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolf (Never read it.)


12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. (Nope.)


13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov (Not at all)


14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shira (The one I read was about the X-men.)


15. Cities in Flight, James Blish (Never even heard of it!)


16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett (I'm generally Pratchett deficient)


17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison (Heh heh. Harlan Ellison.)


18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison (It's okay. I know Ellison's cool. He's just an asshole.)


19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester (If I hadn't read this one, I doubt I'd be doing this list. At least not right now.)


20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany. (Never read it.)


21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey (I have read one or possibly more Pern novels. This may or may not actually have been one of them. It's been a long time, so I don't remember the details. Telling you there were dragons, Thread, a girl, and a smallish fire lizard probably isn't going help identify what I read.)


22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card (I read this book in middle school and absolutely loved it. I devoured the two sequels and loved them even more. My copy is signed by Card. Speaking of whom, since he has been saying some pretty stupid things of late, I've never really gotten the whole thing of dissing an author based on his political views. Certainly such things can slip into a work, but I've never really sensed that in Card's.)


23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson (I simply remember that my seventh-grade English class's TA was reading this at the same time as I was reading The Foundation Trilogy.)


24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman (I haven't read it, but it is definitely on my to-read list.)


25. Gateway, Frederick Pohl (Never read it.)


26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling (Certainly very popular, but has it really been that influential? The series isn't even finished. In any case, I liked it.)


27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (I read this in elementary school and drove my mother nuts because I couldn't stop giggling.)


28. I am Legend, Richard Matheson (Haven't read it, but saw part of The Omega Man once.)


29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice (Haven't read it, and have no interest in doing so. I've never really liked vampire stories.)


30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin (Really good.)


31. Little, Big, John Crowley (Never heard of it, which is very odd because I have.)


32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny (Haven't read it, but I knew that I had to the moment I saw this.)


33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick (Actually, I'm don't think I've read any Dick at all.)


34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement (Haven't read it.)


35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon (Yet another I haven't read.)


36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith (Bestest author ever! At least that's how I felt in high school when I contemporaneously felt that Dragonball Z was the bestest TV show ever. The combination of the two inspired swansway and myself to write reams and reams of epic poetry, but that's a story for another post...)


37. On the Beach, Nevil Schute (Never e'en seen a page.)


38. Randezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke (Sigh. Another hole in my library.)


39. Ringworld, Larry Niven (I suppose two holes right next to each other are just one big hole.)


40. Rouge Moon, Algis Budrys (Does this add much to the size of the hole?)


41. The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien (I actually like this better than LotR although I haven't finished it either. But I did read the lexicon! And there are allusions to it in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night!)


42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut (It was okay.)


43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (I feel like I've read this book, but it's actually just sitting in Phoenix with the rest of my Stephenson, waiting to


44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner (Never read it.)


45. The Stars My Destiation, Alfred Bester (Most Scientific!)


46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein (I've seen the movie, but I gather that's not relevant.)


47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock (I haven't read it but I still recognized Elrod of Melvinbone when I saw him.)


48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks (Haven't read it, but it sounds fun!)


49. Timescape, Gregory Benford (Haven't read it.)


50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Framer (Haven't read it.)


51. Xenogears (Okay, so it's not on the list, and it's not even a book, but the second disk sure felt like one, and it should be on the list. It had an entire generation scratching its collective heads and going, "I don't know what the fuck just happend, but it was awesome". No one who played that game was ever the same again. And it spawned the magnificent, rickety, Rube-Goldberg-like contraption made from scraps of Nietsche, Jung, and Gnosticism that is the Xenosaga Universe. And books don't have soundtracks by Yasunori Mitsuda, so that's one thing Xengogears has going for it over every single thing on the list.)