The classics of science fiction

[pokerfan]

How many have you read?

The Long Afternoon Of Earth by Brian Aldiss
A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
The City And The Stars by Arther C. Clark
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Mission Of Gravity by Hal Clement
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth
Stand On Zanzibar by John Brunner
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
The War Of The Worlds by H. G. Wells

Source: http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Essays/Classics_of_SF.html

[TroglodyteScholar]

1. Where the hell is your Dick??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick

[pokerfan]

3. *my* Dick?

It's not my list...

[TroglodyteScholar]

5. Fine

"Where is their Dick?" didn't have the same impact.

[Dappleganger]

8. ha, I missed this...

and completely AGREE!

[petronius]

2. I've read all but three - and I think I've read "Against the Fall of Night"

so perhaps I deserve credit for "The City and the Stars"...

[pokerfan]

4. I've read them all

We didn't have the Internets in the eighties so we read books. :)

[petronius]

6. Real books, grampa? Like on a Kindle, but made of plastic or something?

Wow, you're old! :)

(But yeah, I got a lot more reading done before this stupid internet fad came along...)

[pokerfan]

11. Actually

we used these...

[tigereye]

32. ha ha!

:rofl: Not cuneiform?

[Dappleganger]

7. No Philip K. Dick?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is about as classic as you can get.

[pokerfan]

9. I agree

However, the author is using awards and citations to boil down his list. I consider Androids to be a classic but unfortunately, it didn't win either a Hugo or a Nebula.

[Swede]

10. This looks like a well thought out way to classify them.

Thanks for posting this.

[pokerfan]

12. obviously any list like this is going to be subjective and opionated

which makes it perfect for the Lounge. I'm bummed that Haldeman's Forever War didn't make the list. And more than a little surprised as it won the Nebula, Hugo and Locus awards. But, this livened my spirits:

On October 12, 2008, Ridley Scott confirmed that after a 25 year wait for the rights to become available, he is making a return to science fiction with a film adaptation of the book. He is currently looking for a script writer.

In March 2009, Scott confirmed that the film would be in 3D citing James Cameron's Avatar as an inspiration for doing so. "I'm filming a book by Joe Haldeman called Forever War. I've got a good writer doing it. I've seen some of James Cameron's work, and I've got to go 3D. It's going to be phenomenal."

In the summer of 2010, it was later revealed by Scott that the writer, which was revealed to be the State of Play scribe Matthew Michael Carnahan, is currently on the fourth draft of the screenplay that was originally written by Blade Runner scribe David Peoples.

[Swede]

14. Actually,it made #25 on his list.

http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/ByRank.php

[pokerfan]

16. not as high as I would have thought

I note that Androids checks in at 48.

[baldguy]

13. 12

Plus:

City
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Rendezvous With Rama

[pokerfan]

17. see post #14 for the entire list

I just grabbed the ones most frequently mentioned on his methodology page.

From the big list...

17. City
24. Rendezvous With Rama
32. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
51. Neuromancer
193. Islands in the Net

[tigereye]

33. hmm, I could add 3 more to my 10 then! How long is the full list?

[XemaSab]

15. No William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, or Neal Stephenson?

:shrug:

[krispos42]

18. Six, I think

I think I read both the HG Wells books, but only once and a long time ago. Same for "Foundation".


:shrug:

[csziggy]

19. I've read most of the list; I have NOT read the following

That I can remember, though I could easily have read them years ago and not liked them enough to keep:

The Long Afternoon Of Earth by Brian Aldiss
Mission Of Gravity by Hal Clement
City by Clifford D. Simak
The Forever War by Joe Halderman

I have a huge collection of science fiction, including a respectable collection of short story and novella anthologies and hubby goal is to have a complete set of Avon Doubles. I've read all of them and many, many others.

[sarge43]

20. Read most of them.

I am surprised Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men and Star Maker weren't on the cut - seminal and highly influential.

Yes, I know. Not well known and didn't win any prizes.

We also need a list of important short stories. The shorts are how a lot of us got hooked. For starters:

Weinbaum: The Martian Odyssey
Clark: The Star
Asimov: Nightfall

[Dr Morbius]

21. See below.

A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
The City And The Stars by Arther C. Clarke
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
The War Of The Worlds by H. G. Wells

All the above.

[hobbit709]

22. All of them and thousands more.

[PVnRT]

23. I wonder - do dystopian novels qualify as "science fiction"?

If so, I would say that "A Handmaid's Tale" belongs on that list. Since "A Clockwork Orange" is there, I think it would be justified. Personally, I also liked "Oryx and Crake," but I'm not upset with it not being there.

Based on post 14, I've read 20.5 of them. I just couldn't get through "Ubik."

[CBGLuthier]

24. Without Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny this list is sadly incomplete

Otherwise have read most of them. Particularly the older ones.

[Swede]

25. Four of Zelazny's stories made the complete list.

http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/ByRank.php

[KamaAina]

26. Five

and where the hell is Stranger in a Strange Land?! :grr:

[kentauros]

27. The ones I've read the most didn't make that "list".

No John W. Campbell, no A.E. van Vogt, no James Blish, no Roger Zelazny, no Harry Harrison (that's all I can remember at the moment, without seeing my collection at home.)

The ones that did make it are usually writers whose style is difficult for me to enjoy. Some of them I've read, but not most. Maybe y'all just read more of the "high brow" stuff and not so much the ones other writers and readers call "classics"...

[pokerfan]

29. They're all represented in the complete list

http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/ByRank.php

[kentauros]

30. Okay, but that link wasn't in your OP

I didn't read that page (I'm a slower reader than most) so I didn't know it didn't represent the "complete list" ;)

[tigereye]

34. I've read about 42 on the list- unless I just can't remember some titles

Good to see Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time on there (loved her books back in the day), Herland, lots of Ursula K. Leguin (but not Grass?), as well as Hyperion, which I think is simply an amazing book/saga.

[Dr Morbius]

41. Michael Moorcock is underrepresented, as is Cyril Kornbluth.

I don't agree with some of the stuff on the list and some stuff which belongs ain't there. A little too much attention to the works which have been adapted into films, especially regarding Philip K. Dick.

But lots of good stuff there anyway.

[Tikki]

28. Reading all these titles, here, got me into looking around...

the internets and I found this story (on-line) from the book "The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins" (1751) by Robert Paltock.

This is supposed to be an early example of Science Fiction. Well into the story, I would say it is clever enough to be called Science Fiction.

Tikki

[tigereye]

31. about 10, I think...

[FloridaJudy]

35. No Silverberg?

No Stephenson? No Mieville? No Vinge? No KS Robinson?

Okay, I'll accept that the author of this list hasn't read any SF since the eighties, bur Dick and Silverberg have been around forever. It would have been nice to mention them instead of giving Wells and Clarke two spaces.

[pitohui]

40. since the 80s? more like since the early 60s

it's stretching it to give this list maker credit for having read anything in the 80s, pkd passed in 1982...

[dimbear]

36. Way too many. With the time I have spent reading SF I could

have built a small pyramid.

[FloridaJudy]

37. Holy Sh.......!

My ex was mentioned as one of the sources for that list. Okay. Now I understand. He used to use me to recommend which SF novels he should read: I read everything, even crap. I guess whoever he's sharing his bed with now no longer offers that service.

[Odin2005]

38. I've read the majority of them. I'm almost all of those I'm current reading Clarke's "Rama" series.

AMAZING books!

I get a kick about how in the second book, published in 1989, the Soviet Union is still around in 2199. :rofl:

[pitohui]

39. read all of them but must be an old list

there are a great many SF books i would recommend to the reader before i would bother with "mission of gravity"

[Flaxbee]

42. I've only read one of them, but I knew Arthur C. Clarke

Does that count? :D

And I read H.G. Wells history trilogy.

[pokerfan]

43. How did you know him?

Tell us more.

[Flaxbee]

44. he and my husband

worked together on projects in the 1990s; ACC was very interested in the science and technology emerging from Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and my husband had worked in Russia right as the USSR was collapsing; they were good friends up until ACC's death, so I knew him through my husband. We were actually planning a trip to Sri Lanka to visit Arthur, but he fell ill and died.

[pokerfan]

45. Cool

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood%27s_End">Childhood's End was one of the first adult SF I ever read back in grade school.