No worse than Tapioca Dextrin’s “crammed full of dick” 
Mr. Brown: It’s all about this cooze who’s a regular fuck machine, I’m talking morning, day, night, afternoon, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.
Mr. Blue: How many dicks is that?
Mr. White: A lot.
I totally agree. Actually, make that the first three books, plus Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. There are endless references to relativity, quantum physics, evolution, et cetera. Despite the humor, Douglas deserves to be lumped in with the best of the hard SF authors.
I don’t think a canonical list of good SF would be complete without at least a mention of Harry Harrison, and it ought to include at least a few books from Steven Baxter’s Xeelee Sequence. And yeah, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is a must, even if you’re not a Heinlein fan.
Stranger
Actually, I could see that one catching on:
Did you read that last report?
Yeah, man was that crammed full of dick.
Or
How was the party?
Great, just crammed full of dick and happening!
In fact, this is a great phrase I may co-opt for a character in a script I’m working on.
It’s a UK list, which means it’s skewed towards British authors as well. I’d dump most of the Dick, Ballard, Aldiss, Delany, and Vance. Add a lot more Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Smith etc.
I’m tempted to start a separate thread on the list of Fantasy Masterworks that that page links to; but that list really suffers from this restriction, it looks like. (No Tolkien, for example, amongst other glaring omissions.)
It’s a list of very good SF, but it’s hardly definitive. More someone’s personal preferences, based on what was popular in the UK in the late '60’s early '70’s. I’d add more hard SF and ease back on the Dick. I love PKD but some of his books are hardly SF at all. (Valis, 3 Stigmata, A Scanner Darkly.)
It’s a list of very good SF, but it’s hardly definitive. More someone’s personal preferences, based on what was popular in the UK in the late '60’s early '70’s. I’d add more hard SF and ease back on the Dick. I love PKD but some of his books are hardly SF at all. (Valis, 3 Stigmata, A Scanner Darkly.)
Admit it, you did that on purpose . . .
Interesting that after I complained about how few women were on the list, more than a dozen Dopers have posted and not one mentioned a single woman’s name.
Do they just know their audience or is it a chicken and egg thing?
Name 10 great female SF writers. Good luck.
The list is biased towards males because there are, and have been more males in the field, and more great males in the field. Face it, a number of female authors make lists like this one just because the list-makers want “diversity.” It is a moot point in the end anyway because such lists are always subjective, and arguing over tastes in SF is just as stupid as arguing over tastes in music or food.
List the older Science Fiction Writers that are Female.
Anne McCaffrey and Marion Zimmer Bradley are more Fantasy then Sci-Fi.
Ursula K. Le Guin was on the list. Susan Cooper is Fantasy.
Phyllis Gottlieb is a little obscure but could have made the list. She doesn’t even have a wiki article.
For whatever reason the female authors tended to Fantasy more than Science Fiction. The newer generation has many more Female Sci-Fi authors but you are hard pressed to find major authors in the 30’s to 60’s.
Jim
Boy, how soon they forget
Catherine L. Moore and Leigh Brackett had their own “Best of…” collections. Leigh Brackett wrote the script for The Empire Strikes Back, fer cryin’ out loud!
Kate Wilhelm and le Guin are on the list.
**James Tiptree, Jr. **
You didn’t name 10 for **Silenus ** and Leigh is too recent for my criteria. 
Jim
I don’t think that this list is meant to be definitive. It’s just a publisher’s list of SF works that the publisher a) thinks should remain in print and b) that the publisher could get the right to republish. There are many books that I’d love to see reprinted, and maybe they will be. I’ve read the majority of the books on this particluar list, and most of what I read, I enjoyed. I’d say that anyone who enjoyed science fiction would probably find the list worthwhile. I’m not saying that an SF fan should buy all the books, just that the list is something to keep in mind while browsing in the library.
I think that this is a good thing for the publisher to do, not just in terms of making money, but in the sense that the publisher is reprinting some of the old classics so that young readers can have them, and so that older readers can replace old copies, or buy copies that they originally borrowed from the library. Many of these titles are rather hard to find even used.
RECENT???
Brackett started publishing in 1940. What’re your standards?
Sticking only to women not on the list who were novel finalists for the Hugo or Nebula Awards pre-1985 (for classic):
C. J. Cherryh, R. A. MacAvoy, Julian May, Joan D. Vinge, Patricia A. McKillip, Vonda M. McIntyre, James Tiptree Jr., Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton, Suzy McKee Charnas, Marta Randall, Tanith Lee, Katherine MacLean, Joanna Russ.
You could add C. L. Moore, Octavia Butler, Leigh Brackett, Wilmar Shiras, Jo Clayton, Suzette Haden Elgin, Lee Killough, Elizabeth Lynn, Doris Piserchia, Kit Reed, Lisa Tuttle, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
You can quibble about whether some of them wrote only fantasy or whatever (so did Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson), and of course the field was historically male-dominated. But 17 to 1 male?
And I gotta love the comment that females could only make the list for reasons of “diversity”. I think that answers my question better than any direct answer could. 
I would consider the bolded ones to be “great.” The others may be good (or not). Depends on taste, as I said. Personally, I think any list that has Delany on it to be suspect from the get go.
It’s pointless to complain about omissions. This is not a list of best SF novels of all time; it’s a list of classic SF books that this particular company is reprinting. Books are left off the list for many reasons:
- The book is still in print with another publisher. This is true of Heinlein, Asimov, Verne, (even though he’s PD, there are many editions of his work currently available in the UK) and Douglas Adams.
- The publisher was unable to obtain the rights to print the book.
- The author or his/her estate asked for more money than the publisher was willing to pay.
- The publisher felt that, though the book was good, it was too little known and probably wasn’t going to sell well enough to be profitable.
- The publisher is British and thus may not be aware of some of the more obscure US science fiction authors and books.
So there’s no point is complaining about omissions. It’s a pretty good list considering.
Forgive me, please consider ignorance fought. I will gladly concede Ms. Brackett to you.
So many of the authors you listed are considered Fantasy authors rather than Sci-Fi. I love many of the authors, but I would put them in a list of essential Fantasy and not Science Fiction. I bolded the authors I would consider Fantasy writers.
I underlined the ones I am ignorant of.
Most of Tanith Lee’s output has been fantasy, but her first two were quite fun little sci-fi romps.
No love for Connie Willis :)?
- Tamerlane