You may have seen this list making it's way around certain portions of the SFF Blogosphere including some of my compatriots (Larry and Niall) at the SFF Masterworks Reading Project (catchy name right?). As a project contributor (and accused mastermind), I figured I needed to keep it going.
This one is simple and potentially shameful. Bold the books you've read. Italicize the ones you own but haven't read.
I - Dune - Frank Herbert
II - The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
III - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
IV - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
V - A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
VI - Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
VII - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
VIII - Ringworld - Larry Niven
IX - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
X - The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
1 - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
2 - I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
3 - Cities in Flight - James Blish
4 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick
5 - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
6 - Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany
7 - Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
8 - The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe
9 - Gateway - Frederik Pohl
10 - The Rediscovery of Man - Cordwainer Smith
11 - Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon
12 - Earth Abides - George R. Stewart
13 - Martian Time-Slip - Philip K. Dick
14 - The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
15 - Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner
16 - The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
17 - The Drowned World - J. G. Ballard
18 - The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
19 - Emphyrio - Jack Vance
20 - A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick
21 - Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon
22 - Behold the Man - Michael Moorcock
23 - The Book of Skulls - Robert Silverberg
24 - The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds - H. G. Wells
25 - Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
26 - Ubik - Philip K. Dick
27 - Timescape - Gregory Benford
28 - More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon
29 - Man Plus - Frederik Pohl
30 - A Case of Conscience - James Blish
31 - The Centauri Device - M. John Harrison
32 - Dr. Bloodmoney - Philip K. Dick
33 - Non-Stop - Brian Aldiss
34 - The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C. Clarke
35 - Pavane - Keith Roberts
36 - Now Wait for Last Year - Philip K. Dick
37 - Nova - Samuel R. Delany
38 - The First Men in the Moon - H. G. Wells
39 - The City and the Stars - Arthur C. Clarke
40 - Blood Music - Greg Bear
41 - Jem - Frederik Pohl
42 - Bring the Jubilee - Ward Moore
43 - VALIS - Philip K. Dick
44 - The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin
45 - The Complete Roderick - John Sladek
46 - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said - Philip K. Dick
47 - The Invisible Man - H. G. Wells
48 - Grass - Sheri S. Tepper
49 - A Fall of Moondust - Arthur C. Clarke
50 - Eon - Greg Bear
51 - The Shrinking Man - Richard Matheson
52 - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick
53 - The Dancers at the End of Time - Michael Moorcock
54 - The Space Merchants - Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth
55 - Time Out of Joint - Philip K. Dick
56 - Downward to the Earth - Robert Silverberg
57 - The Simulacra - Philip K. Dick
58 - The Penultimate Truth - Philip K. Dick
59 - Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg
60 - Ringworld - Larry Niven
61 - The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman
62 - Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement
63 - A Maze of Death - Philip K. Dick
64 - Tau Zero - Poul Anderson
65 - Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke
66 - Life During Wartime - Lucius Shepard
67 - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm
68 - Roadside Picnic - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
69 - Dark Benediction - Walter M. Miller, Jr.
70 - Mockingbird - Walter Tevis
71 - Dune - Frank Herbert
72 - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
73 - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
74 - Inverted World - Christopher Priest
75 - Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
76 - H.G. Wells - The Island of Dr. Moreau
77 - Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End
78 - H.G. Wells - The Time Machine
79 - Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren (July 2010)
80 - Brian Aldiss - Helliconia (August 2010)
81 - H.G. Wells - Food of the Gods (Sept. 2010)
82 - Jack Finney - The Body Snatchers (Oct. 2010)
83 - Joanna Russ - The Female Man (Nov. 2010)
84 - M.J. Engh - Arslan (Dec. 2010)
In summary:
I've read 8 out of the 80 released titles
I own 79 out of 80 (all in the Masterworks format no less)
Glorious, Glorious Shame
Oh the shame. Go ahead. Say it. I deserve it.
Can anyone guess why I decided to kick off the project?
In my defense, I doubt there are too many readers out there who have read more that 50% of these books. In fact, I bet you 10 Internets that you haven't.
In true meme fashion, feel free to post this list on your own site, highlighting the book you've read or own. If you've read more that 40 of these titles feel free to make fun of me. Either way, be sure to include a link back to the SFF Masterworks site. Hopefully, this will inspire more than a few readers to finally get to that dusty tome that they've always intended to read. I know it's helping me.
I recently finished PKD's The Man in the High Castle. My review should surface over on the Masterworks blog in the near future.
Give me a couple of months and I'll be past the 50% mark, since I've read something like 31 of them and own the stories (if not in those editions) for another 10 or so ;) (For the Fantasy side, it's currently 45/50 read, all owned)
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought you kicked off the project in part because I posted a wish for 5-10 people to review all of those books over a month ago? Or was that coincidence? :P
Technically, I read your post and thought to myself I own all the Masterworks but have read so few of them. I should see if Larry is serious about that. Which you were.
ReplyDeleteSo yes you are the ultimate inspiration but if I didn't have so many unread masterworks I probably wouldn't have pushed things further.
OK, I wasn't for sure if I inspired it or if it just happened independently. All I know is that it got me interested in putting my money (or reviews) where my mouth is :P
ReplyDeleteI read 6,8,9,15,16,19,23,24,25,27,29,31,34,37,38,39,40,47,48,49,50,65,68,71,72,73,76,77,80,84 and of those most i consider dated; the ones I would recommend for someone today are the Delany novels (Babel 17 and Nova), the Wolfe novella (Cerberus), the LeGuin Left hand of Darkness (Dispossed is really dated), Grass, Roadside Picnic and maybe Rama and The Mooon is a Harsh Mistress though both are way dated but at least they explain a lot of modern sf
ReplyDeleteI am puzzled about the choice from Jack Vance since Emphyrio is a minor Vance imho and of course I am not a PK Dick fan and I was very unimpressed by the Man in the High castle which was the only readable PKD for me
I'll see your 10 internets and raise you 15. It's an admirable goal (and a beautiful collection of books, I might add) but I'm not sure I'd want to undertake such a challenge.
ReplyDeleteLiviu, I recently finished The Dispossessed and didn't find it dated at all. The capitalism vs. communism and Vietnam thing sure, but I found a host of other social issues I felt were still prevalent in today's world. Or perhaps I read more into it than there really was.