The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years

Cafe Society
41

Wolfe – one of the best literary stylists in SF. His books in the 80s were breathtakingly good. The Book of the New Sun is four volumes, consisting of The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Concilator, The Sword of the Lichtor and The Citadel of the Autarch (alt title: The Castle of the Otter :wink: ). There are also a couple of other New Sun books, all set in a far future time and filled with wonders. Other fine Wolfe Books are Soldier of the Mist (which uses the same plot device as was later used in “Memento”), Free Live Free (even the NY Times considered this one of the best books of the year) and There are Doors, as well as his great short story collection The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories.

Shiras is pretty much only known for Children of the Atom a sympathetic look at mutant supermen.

John Crowley is a fantasist.

Finally, Benford is a first-class hard SF writer.

As for Cordwainer Smith – including his name on the list makes up for all other mistakes.

As far as the Terry Brooks – Ray Feist has pointed out that Shannara showed the publishing industry that non-Tolkien fantasy (yes, I know :wink: ) can sell, which opened things for many fantasy writers.

42

Good lord, no! Red mars is terrible! i went 150 pages in and cared about no character at all. And why was there only one asian total in the initial crew full of engineers and scientists? plus he uses Muslims as easily manipulated terrorists. Felt like shades of racism to me.

for the list, 10.3 (only read 1/3 of LOTR). I won’t read the rest of LOTR or Simillaron, or many of the other fantasy novels. But i need to get around to reading Ringworld, i liked Mote in God’s Eye, so if it is as good as that on.

43

About 44 or so. Top Geek! Cue the Kenny Rogers music!

I’ve read all the sf, but I’m missing a few of the fantasy/horror novels. (I think I read On the Beach about 30 or so years ago, but I honestly can’t remember now.)

The USAToday article says they tried for a balance of popular and best, which loosens the rules so that almost anything could be justified.

And they did justify almost anything. Wilmar Shiras? I know that some people say that Children of the Atom influenced the creation of the X-Men, but I think that proposition is ludicrous (like there weren’t other mutants in sf?). And have you tried reading the book lately?

The rest is a mosh of styles, types, popularity, influence, literary ambition, and importance. There are only so many truly significant books in any field, and they did hit most of the ones that would get picked in any survey of the top 50. It wouldn’t be my list or my top 10, but outside of a couple really odd choices can you quibble?

What fun would it be if I couldn’t?

Surely they could have found one book by, say, Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Bruce Sterling, or Peter S. Beagle to replace some of those that made the list. Surely they could have found a spot for award-winners like Flowers for Algernon and Hyperion.

On the negative side, the Foundation stories almost all came out in the 40s, and the books appeared in 1951, 1952 and 1953 so they shouldn’t even have been eligible. The first Okie stories that make up Blish’s Cities in Flight series are also all more than 50 years old, and they are just pulp twaddle if you read them today. (So’s Foundation for that matter.) Blish won a Hugo for A Case of Conscience. Use that instead if you have to name him.

And Delany’s proto-cyberpunk Babel-17 is far more significant than the never-imitated Dhalgren (yes, I finished it), while Dick’s The Man in the High Castle is just infinitely better than Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

I could go on.

Great list. Full of junk. Wonderful quibbling.

44

Loggins. Kenny Loggins.

45

I would have listed Speaker for the Dead before Ender’s Game. (But I would have listed them both.)

The list also contains a goodly representation of post-apocalyptic fantasy, but you can never have too much. The only really glaring omission is dystopic fiction: neither Brave New World nor 1984?

The list doesn’t stray too far from hardcore science-fiction, which I appreciate, but I wouldn’t have minded a little more borderline-fantasy. For example, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, and Replay by Ken Grimwood.

What about Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle?

46

Pre-1953. So are the first three Narnia books.

47

Ahh, I see. Thanks.

48

I’ve read 36.

I feel compelled to point out that the list appears to be in alphabetical order.

I would have included the Amber series by Zelazny, and dumped Shannara.

49

Sorry Cal, I fought to read this book, beat it with my tiny fists, and the book won. It really bugged at the time because I’d come to get the book based on recommendations by the likes of Asimov, Bova, and Clarke, not bad company for those who like the book, but it just never did it for me. I even tried the old “put-it-down-and-pick-it-up-again-in-a-few-months”, but no dice.

Of course there are those who might say that the fault is not with the book but with myself, but what do they know, I’m sticking to my guns, unreadable.

50
  1. I don’t like Fantasy, so my list was diminished to begin with.

Rendezvous with Rama should be ranked higher, IMO.

Also, why only go back 50 years? Shouldn’t the most influential Sci-Fi / Fantasy books include all books, no matter when they were written? Perhaps we should start a new thread on that? Jonathan Swift, Wells, Vogel, Asimov, hell, this thread writes itself!

51

The link’s drawing up a blank page for me (just the SFBC header). Anyone mind doing a cut’n’paste?

52

Tars Tarkas

You don’t have to like it for it to be significant. Robinson’s trilogy is the high-water mark for hard science fiction (and more specifically, the terraforming subgenre).

53

Exapno: You are correct about the dates of the Narnia books, but I think if you’re going to include the Foundation Triology (the bulk of which was written in the 1940’s) and the Okie series (much of which was written before 1950), it should be permissible to include a series which has four books appearing after 1953.

Dooku: It was probably a publicity gimmick (the most significant books from the past 50 years). I also think they should have had one list for fantasy and one for science fiction.

54

The first ten are in order, then the next 40 are alphabetical by title.

You got to love the irony that people are getting all riled up about a listing of top books, but they can’t read the list itself. :dubious:

55

Nah. With Fred Astaire.

The movie you’re thinking of is The Beach, based on a very good novell by Alex Garland.
Yes. Tolkien virtually created the whole Fantasy genre, in the way we mean it today. So of course, the origianl trilogy is ‘significant’. Why Silmarillion is there, I’ll never understand.

As for The Past through tomorrow, it’s a collection of stories, written in the 40’s, so don’t qualify. Stranger is not my favourite Heinlein, but its impact can not be neglected.

56

28, and wondering (like several others) at some omissions. Harry Harrison, and more Heinlein, esp The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and probably Job

57

The Gaspode: You’re correct, of course, about when the stories were written, but I think the original publication date for The Past Through Tomorrow was 1967. If you’re going to include the Foundation Trilogy (and I would certainly include it on any list of the best science fiction), then I think TPTW would make the list, too. The stories in it and the Foundation Trilogy were written at the same time.

58

Very true. Peyote. I just checked the library of congress, and the Foundation trilogy doesn’t qualify. The three books were published 1951, 1952 and 1953.

59

I dunno… I kinda like the idea of someone walking up to a podium to collect the Top Geek Award while “The Gambler” plays on the sound system.

60

Quote from CalMeacham way up near the top of the thread:

" I don’t think I’d put Sword of Shannara there – it seemed wayyy too derivative of Lord of the Rings, and I don’t think I’d call it influential (except to influence others to write LOTR-derived books)." - God how true! Putting a crappy pile of s*** like this on this list strains its credibility, to say the least. I work in a library and cringe every time I put one of this rip-off artist’s books away. Being influenced by someone like Tolkien is one thing; blatant rip-off is another.

Did I mention I hate this Brooks guy and his books?