It has been a good while since I highlighted a hoity toity book list to see just how little of it I have read or not. This time I am looking at Esquire's "50 Best Sci-Fi Books of all Time." Saying it is "of all time" is seriously pretentious, especially for a list with a lot of very contemporary works. How can you say they are the best of all time if they have not even gotten anywhere close to the test of time? However, compared to previous lists from Esquire, such as the "80 Books A Man Should Read" which I looked at before, this list seems to making some effort at some form of representation. I will admit some of these very new books I have not heard of before and/or are not in my usual reading radar. As I have written before, I am at a stage in my reading life when I do not give a hoot about pretentious reading lists nor making an effort to read what is on them. I just read what I want when I want. Life is too short.
I am putting the books in the order they provided from 50 to 1, and I am just giving the author and title, removing any extra fluff. I will type in BOLD titles I have read. If I have read something else by the author, I will highlight the author's name in BOLD. I will add any commentary and snark in parenthesis.
50. Sarah Gailey, The Echo Wife.
49. Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash.
48. Carl Sagan, Contact. (I have not read the book, but I saw the awful movie with Jodi Foster.)
47. Walter M. Miller, Jr. A Canticle for Leibowitz.
46. Stanislaw Lem, Solaris.
45. William Gibson, Neuromancer. (I also read his Burning Chrome.)
44. Nnedi Okrafor, The Book of Phoenix.
43. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange.
42. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (One of those I keep meaning to read and never get around to it. I even have an omnibus edition with all the novels. I did see the film years back.)
41. Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, This Is How You Lose the Time War.
40. Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. (I recall not liking this particular book very much. I have read other works by Heinlein including some of his short fiction plus the novels Farnham's Freehold, Starship Troopers and Time Enough For Love.)
39. Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time. (I may have read this in younger days, but I do not recall it, so not counting it.)
38. H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.
37. Tade Thompson, Rosewater.
36. Stephen King, The Stand. (I have read some Stephen King books, but this one is not one of them...yet. I did watch the 1994 mini-series.)
35. P.D. James, The Children of Men. (The whole genre of non-functioning men, or last male, threat of extinction unless you save the last baby or find the last male with some seed, or similar just never really interested me. Same reason works like Y:The Last Man do not interest me.)
34. Catherynne M. Valente, Radiance.
33. Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars. (This is another of those that has been on my TBR list for a while, and I just do not manage to get to it.)
32. China Mieville, The City and the City.
31. Dan Simmons, Hyperion. (I have read his Children of the Night, but it was years ago. May need to revisit.)
30. Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren (I hasve read some of his short fiction.)
29. Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.
28. Lincoln Michel, The Body Scout.
27. Colson Whitehead, Zone One.
26. Haruki Murakami, 1Q84.
25. Louis Erdrich, Future Home of the Living God. (I've read her novel Tracks, and that was back in graduate school. She is one of those authors I was forced to read, and have no intention of reading anything else by them.)
24. Nicola Griffith, Ammonite.
23. Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake. (I've read Handmaid's Tale, and that was more than enough Atwood for me. Another author I am not picking up again.)
22. Gish Jen, The Resisters.
21. Doris Lessing, Shikasta. (I read The Golden Notebook in graduate school, and it was enough to last me a lifetime. Another author I am not picking up again.)
20. Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts.
19. Jeff VanDerMeer, Annihilation. (I've read his Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases and his Steampunk Bible a while back.)
18. Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan. (I read his Breakfast of Champions in graduate school, and once more, once was enough.)
17. Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End.
16. Isaac Asimov, The Complete Robot. (I've read some of his short fiction, but I have not gotten to this yet. Another of those in the TBR list).
15. Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.
14. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.
13. Olga Ravn, The Employees.
12. George Orwell, 1984.
11. Cixin Lu, The Three-Body Problem.
10. Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (oddly enough I have not read this one, but I have read other works, mainly short fiction by Philip K. Dick.)
9. Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven.
8. Ted Chiang, Exhalation.
7. Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go.
6. Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness.
5. Octavia Butler, Kindred, (I also read her two Parable novels.)
4. N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season.
3. Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles. (I've read some of his short fiction as well.)
2. Frank Herbert, Dune.
1. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.
Overall, I have read 13 of the books listed, including the top three of the list. In addition, I've read 11 other authors, i.e. read other works by them but not the one listed here. So I have covered about half of the list.
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