Top 100 Sci-Fi Novels according to Dave Pringle

1. George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four
2. George R. Stewart - Earth Abides
3. Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles
4. Robert A. Heinlein - The Puppet Masters
5. John Wyndham - The Day of the Triffids
6. Bernard Wolfe - Limbo
7. Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man
8. Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
9. Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End
10. Charles L. Harness - The Paradox men
11. Ward Moore - Bring the Jubilee
12. Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth - The Space Merchants
13. Clifford D. Simak - Ring Around the Sun
14. Theodore Sturgeon - More than Human
15. Hal Clement - Mission of Gravity
16. Edgar Pangborn - A Mirror for Observers
17. Isaac Asimov - The End of Eternity
18. Leigh Brackett - The Long Tomorrow
19. William Golding - The Inheritors
20. Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination
21. John Christopher - The Death of Grass
22. Arthur C. Clarke - The City and the Stars
23. Robert A. Heinlein - The Door Into Summer
24. John Wyndham - The Midwich cuckoos
25. Brian W. Aldiss - Non-Stop
26. James Blish - A Case of Conscience
27. Robert A. Heinlein - Have Space-Suit -- Will Travel
28. Philip K. Dick - Time Out of Joint
29. Pat Frank - Alas, Babylon
30. Walter M. Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz
31. Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan
32. Algis Budrys - Rogue Moon
33. Theodore Sturgeon - Venus Plus X
34. Brian W. Aldiss - Hothouse
35. J.G. Ballard - The Drowned World
36. Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
37. Philip K. Dick - The Man in the High Castle
38. Robert Sheckley - Journey Beyond Tomorrow
39. Clifford D. Simak - Way Station
40. Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
41. Brian W. Aldiss - Greybeard
42. William S. Burroughs - Nova Express
43. Philip K. Dick - Martian Time-Slip
44. Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
45. Fritz Leiber - The Wanderer
46. Cordwainer Smith - Nostrilia
47. Philip K. Dick - Dr Bloodmoney
48. Frank Herbert - Dune
49. J.G. Ballard - The Crystal World
50. Harry Harrison - Make Room! Make Room!
51. Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon
52. Roger Zelazny - The Dream Master
53. John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar
54. Samuel R. Delany - Nova
55. Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
56. Thomas M. Disch - Camp Concentration
57. Michael Moorcock - The Final Programme
58. Keith Roberts - Pavane
59. Angela Carter - Heroes and Villains
60. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness
61. Bob Shaw - The Palace of Eternity
62. Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron
63. Poul Anderson - Tau Zero
64. Robert Silverberg - Downward to the Earth
65. Wilson Tucker - The Year of the Quiet Sun
66. Thomas M. Disch - 334
67. Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus
68. Michael Moorcock - The Dancers at the End of Time
69. J.G. Ballard - Crash
70. Mack Reynolds - Looking Backward from the Year 2000
71. Ian Watson - The Embedding
72. Suzy McKee Charnas - Walk to the End of the World
73. M. John Harrison - The Centauri Device
74. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed
75. Christopher Priest - Inverted World
76. J.G. Ballard - High-Rise
77. Barry N. Malzberg - Galaxies
78. Joanna Russ - The Female Man
79. Bob Shaw - Orbitsville
80. Kingsley Amis - The Alteration
81. Marge Piercy - Woman on the Edge of Time
82. Frederik Pohl - Man Plus
83. Algis Budrys - Michaelmas
84. John Varley - The Ophiuchi Hotline
85. Ian Watson - Miracle Visitors
86. John Crowley - Engine Summer
87. Thomas M. Disch - On Wings of Song
88. Brian Stableford - The Walking Shadow
89. Kate Wilhelm - Juniper Time
90. Gregory Benford - Timescape
91. Damien Broderick - The Dreaming Dragons
92. Octavia Butler - Wild Seed
93. Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker
94. John Sladek - Roderick and Roderick at Random
95. Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun
96. Philip Jose Farmer - The Unreasoning Mask
97. Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - Oath of Fealty
98. Michael Bishop - No Enemy but Time
99. John Calvin Batchelor - The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica
100. William Gibson - Neuromancer

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Permalink Reply by BlaqJeff on August 5, 2009 at 8:26pm

My favorite was Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, which is #3 on his list.I think I read Fahrenheit 451, but I don't remember.

OK, who did he leave out. I didn't see HG Wells on there.

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Permalink Reply by Chococat on August 18, 2009 at 5:07pm

No Asimov? and i dunno if this counts but Franz Kafka's The metamorphosis is one of my all time favorites. hmmm let me see.......Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow was awesome. And i have to say i am not a big fan of Octavia Butler's Wild Seed it was good but the Parable series is my favorite from her and second to that would have to be lilith's brood.

Oh and the Dune hahahaha so middle school but that's what started my love of sci-fi

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Permalink Reply by SaintGermaine on August 23, 2009 at 1:43pm

Great list, though of course it's arbitrary, I'd add Samuel Delany's Dhalgren and Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy as personal favorites.

And Harlan Ellison is conspicuously absent because he writes short stories almost exclusively, but he's been a major force in Sci Fi for years and years. Check out his Angry Candy, Deathbird Stories or Essential Ellison collections.

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Permalink Reply by PFunkJAzz on November 9, 2009 at 2:51pm

I'm a huge fan of Philip K Dick (imagine a headline proclaiming "I LIKE DICK!!!"). HIMAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, A SCANNER DARKLY and DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? are faves. Post "new wave" writers like Sam DelanyY and Roger Zelazny are cool.

Heinlein was an original fave, but his later works (like I WILL FEAR NO EVIL and TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE got too preachy).

For sword & sorcery fantasy. I'm a sucker for Robert E Howard. HIs Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane are great yarns, despite some troubling bouts of racism.

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Permalink Reply by Rashni on November 12, 2009 at 2:42am

i looove this thread. I'd add The Tommyknockers and The Stand by Stephen King and Kindred by Octavia Butler. Oooh, and speaking of middle school, The Giver and Gathering Blue and anything written by Madeleine L'Engle. Such beautiful, expansive sci-fi.

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Permalink Reply by Chococat on November 12, 2009 at 11:51pm

i just started reading Nalo Hopkins brown girl in the ring. I like what i'm reading so far. I need to find more black woman sci-fi writers

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Permalink Reply by warrant+sanction on November 30, 2009 at 8:56am

i'm curious, how did you like brown girl in the ring??

Chococat said:

i just started reading Nalo Hopkins brown girl in the ring. I like what i'm reading so far. I need to find more black woman sci-fi writers

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Permalink Reply by Chococat on December 7, 2009 at 11:37am

I loved it. i actually just finished reading it last week (school gets in the way) I love the way she writes. If your into post apocalyptic worlds, Caribbean folklore and strong female leads i think you'll like it too.