essentialism

[calimac]

Here's a list of 50 essential SF books that I consider rather depressing, as I've only read half of them, and, of those, only about five of them did I really enjoy, and, of those five, two are sufficiently old and quaint that I'd be reluctant to recommend them, and two are not my favorites by their authors. That leaves The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Also, at least one of my favorite SF novelists isn't on the list, not to mention several favorite short-story writers who aren't at their best in novels (a circumstance also true of several writers who are on the list). Also, I've only read two of the books published in the last 30 years, and one of those I purely hated.

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

A quick count got me to 31. Most of them, around forty years ago. With a few oddities: I've read all the sequels to Old Man's War, but not the first one (when Scalzi was GoH at Minicon, I just got what Uncle Hugo's had on the shelves). If seeing the movie counts, add a few more.

As with any list, some that I would have placed on top without hesitation are missing: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (and not Starship Troopers), Davy, Babel-17 or Nova?, etc. Some seem a bit arbitrary: Why War of the Worlds and not The Time Machine? Why Make Room, Make Room and Logan's Run just because the movies were good?

Anyway, I think this is a good start. While not my favorite Sturgeon, I taught Venus Plus X as part of my Utopia class at the U. Pretty much all of these are at least "good" by my reckoning. I could make a good syllabus from these.