THE BEST 105 SF BOOKS SINCE THE INVENTION OF THE FIELD IN THE TWENTIES
Here are the books that have made the SF field great. These are also the books that made deep and lasting impressions on me, books that I recall vividly, upon which I have meditated, books that I have discussed for years with other fans and editors and readers and scholars. There are no anthologies here but there are single-author collections, when I feel that the collection represents the author best. You may use this list in a number of ways. It is an excellent guide to reading. If you are a collector, it is a good checklist of books you ought to own. If you teach, you should have these authors in your background. If you want to study the field, begin here.
I have not indicated editions, since most titles exist in several, and the paperbacks pop in and out of print all the time. There are a number of authors who are so important that I have read all their novels and nearly all their stories (Robert A. Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, Arthur C. Clarke, Joanna Russ, Theodore Sturgeon, and more than a dozen others). Would that I could list more titles, but this listing game means cutting to the bone and including as many authors as I can. I have criticized the lists of others for including too high a proportion of “classics” from the five years preceeding the date of selection, so I have cut off eligibility at 1990. And if you care to compare, look back to the list in chapter 8 and see how it differs (this is a list for the initiated).
1. Brian Aldiss. Starswarm.
2. Poul Anderson. The Boat of a Million Years.
3. Isaac Asimov. The Foundation Trilogy.
4. J. G. Ballard. The Crystal World.
5. J. G. Ballard. The Atrocity Exhibition.
6. Greg Bear. Eon.
7. Gregory Benford. Timescape.
8. Alfred Bester. The Demolished Man.
9. _____. The Stars My Destination.
10. Michael Bishop. No Enemy but Time.
11. James Blish. A Case of Conscience.
12. _____. Cities in Flight.
13. Leigh Brackett. The Long Tomorrow.
14. Ray Bradbury. The Martian Chronicles.
15. _____. Fahrenheit 451.
16. David Brin. Startide Rising.
17. Fredric Brown. The Best of Fredric Brown.
18. John Brunner. Stand on Zanzibar.
19. Edward Bryant. Particle Theory.
20. Algis Budrys. Rogue Moon.
21. Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange.
22. John W. Campbell. Who Goes There?
23. Orson Scott Card. Ender’s Game.
24. C. J. Cherryh. Cyteen.
25. Arthur C. Clarke. Childhood’s End.
26. _____. The City and the Stars.
27. D. G. Compton. The Unsleeping Eye.
28. Avram Davidson. The Best of Avram Davidson.
29. L. Sprague de Camp. Lest Darkness Fall.
30. Samuel R. Delany. Nova.
31. _____. Dhalgren.
32. Philip K. Dick. The Man in the High Castle.
33. _____. The Collected Stories, Vols. 1–5.
34. Thomas M. Disch. 334.
35. Harlan Ellison. The Essential Ellison.
36. Philip José Farmer. To Your Scattered Bodies Go.
37. William Gibson. Neuromancer.
38. Joe Haldeman. The Forever War.
39. Robert A. Heinlein. The Past Through Tomorrow.
40. _____. Stranger in a Strange Land.
41. Frank Herbert. Under Pressure.
42. _____. Dune.
43. Gwyneth Jones. Divine Endurance.
44. Damon Knight. The Best of Damon Knight.
45. C. M. Kornbluth. His Share of Glory.
46. Henry Kuttner. The Best of Henry Kuttner.
47. R. A. Lafferty. Nine Hundred Grandmothers.
48. Ursula K. Le Guin. The Left Hand of Darkness.
49. _____. The Dispossessed.
50. Fritz Leiber. The Leiber Chronicles.
51. Stanislas Lem. Solaris.
52. C. S. Lewis. Out of the Silent Planet.
53. H. P. Lovecraft. At the Mountains of Madness.
54. Vonda N. McIntyre. Dreamsnake.
55. Barry N. Malzberg. Beyond Apollo.
56. Walter M. Miller, Jr. A Canticle for Leibowitz.
57. Michael Moorcock. The Cornelius Chronicles.
58. C. L. Moore. The Best of C. L. Moore.
59. Ward Moore. Bring the Jubilee.
60. Larry Niven. All the Myriad Ways.
61. _____. Neutron Star.
62. Edgar Pangborn. A Mirror for Observers.
63. Alexei Panshin. Rite of Passage.
64. Frederik Pohl. Gateway.
65. _____ and C. M. Kornbluth. The Space Merchants.
66. Keith Roberts. Pavane.
67. _____. The Passing of the Dragons.
68. Joanna Russ. Alyx.
69. _____. The Female Man.
70. Geoff Ryman. The Child Garden.
71. Hilbert Schenck. At the Eye of the Ocean.
72. Robert Sheckley. The Collected Short Stories of Robert Sheckley (5 vols.).
73. _____. Dimension of Miracles.
74. Robert Silverberg. Collected Stories (1992 ff; 4 volumes to date).
75. Clifford D. Simak. City.
76. _____. Way Station.
77. John T. Sladek. The Best of John Sladek.
78. Cordwainer Smith. The Rediscovery of Man.
79. Norman Spinrad. The Void Captain’s Tale.
80. Olaf Stapledon. Star Maker.
81. Olaf Stapledon. Odd John.
82. Bruce Sterling. Schismatrix.
83. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Roadside Picnic.
84. Theodore Sturgeon. More than Human.
85. _____. The Collected Stories, Vols. 1–8.
86. William Tenn. Of All Possible Worlds.
87. Walter Tevis. The Man Who Fell to Earth.
88. James Tiptree, Jr. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.
89. A. E. Van Vogt. Slan.
90. _____. The World of Null-A.
91. Jack Vance. The Dying Earth.
92. _____. The Best of Jack Vance.
93. John Varley. The Persistence of Vision.
94. Kurt Vonnegut. Player Piano.
95. _____. The Sirens of Titan.
96. _____. Slaughterhouse Five.
97. Stanley G. Weinbaum. A Martian Odyssey.
98. James White. The Watch Below.
99. Kate Wilhelm. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang.
100. Jack Williamson. The Humanoids.
101. Gene Wolfe. The Fifth Head of Cerberus.
102._____. The Book of the New Sun.
103. _____. The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories.
104. Roger Zelazny. This Immortal.
105. _____ The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth.