Monday, April 6, 2009

The Guardian SF book Meme

A meme, stolen borrowed from Biology in Science Fiction.

Bold indicates books I have read.
* means I've heard of this book
# means I've seen the movie



1. Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) - I read this within a decade of publishing, and it is still one of those that will turn my mood from 'sour and grumpy' to 'rolling on the floor laughing'.
2. Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958)
*3. Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951) - No, I haven't read it.
4. Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000)
*5. Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
6. Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987)
7. J.G. Ballard: The Drowned World (1962)
8. J.G. Ballard: Crash (1973)
9. J.G. Ballard: Millennium People (2003)
10. Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984)
11. Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987)
12. Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987)
13. Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007)
14. Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)
*15. Greg Bear: Darwin's Radio (1999)
16. William Beckford: Vathek (1786)
17. Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956)
18. Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 (1953) - I dunno if it's fair to put high school required reading books on the list
19. Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992)
20. Charles Brockden Brown: Wieland (1798)
21. Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960)
*22. Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966) I own this, from a SFBC edition way back in the day. Never finished it.
23. Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871)
*24. Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960)
25. Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982)
*26. Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912) A gazillion Tarzan books - yes. Barsoom - no.
27. William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)
28. Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979) - I would not have picked this fairly staid cross-time translocation novel to represent what Butler is capable of.
29. Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872)
30. Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957)
31. Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988)
32. Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) - parts
33. Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) ditto
34. Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984)
35. Angela Carter: The Passion of New Eve (1977)
*36. Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
37. Arthur C Clarke: Childhood's End (1953)
38. GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
*39. Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004) I own this - and have started the first chapter. Eight months ago.
40. Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)
41. Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)
42. Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000)
43. Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996)
44. Samuel R Delany: The Einstein Intersection (1967)
*45. Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
*46. Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
47. Thomas M Disch: Camp Concentration (1968)
48. Umberto Eco: Foucault's Pendulum (1988)
49. Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000)
50. John Fowles: The Magus (1966)
51. Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001) - On my rec list for, oh, *everyone*.
52. Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973)
*53. William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984)
54. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915)
55. William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)
56. Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974)
57. M John Harrison: Light (2002)
58. Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables (1851)
*59. Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
60. Frank Herbert: Dune (1965) - And I quit the series somewhere around 'God-Emperor'
61. Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943)
62. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)
63. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
64. Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)
*65. Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)
66. Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)
67. Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
*68. Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898) But you couldn't get me to read another Henry James novel for all the gold in the world, with love thrown in besides.
69. PD James: The Children of Men (1992) - Not a bad SF novel for a mystery writer who never read much SF. The movie, btw, was awesome.
70. Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)
71. Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)
72. Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925)
73. Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966) - Again with the high school required reading list.
*74. Stephen King: The Shining (1977)
75. Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)
76. CS Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56) - again on the highly reccommended list
77. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864)
*78. Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961) - Didn't see the George Clooney movie, either, which I'm still a bit surprised about
79. Ursula K Le Guin: The Earthsea series (1968-1990) - Actually, I didn't read the 1st and 3rd novels.
80. Ursula K Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) - an old favorite, a great journey novel
81. Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
82. MG Lewis: The Monk (1796)
83. David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)
84. Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)
85. Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)
86. Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)
87. Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954) - The Will Smith movie was, in many ways, much better.
88. Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
89. Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)
90. Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006) - Brillant prose, lousy science/world building, and in an alternative, hyper-politically-correct world, banned due to sucicide-inducing-tendencies.
91. Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)
92. China Miéville: The Scar (2002)
93. Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)
94. Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960) - classic, and worth the read, even if you're not into post-apoc novels
95. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)
96. Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988)
97. William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890)
*98. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987) - I slogged my way through 'Sula'. Not reading more Morrison.
99. Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
100. Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)
101. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife (2003)
*102. Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970) - I keep getting this one, Farmer's 'Riverworld' novels, and 'The Integral Trees' confused.
103. Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993)
104. Flann O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
105. Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)
#106. George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-four (1949)
107. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)
108. Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818)
*109. Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946) I own the trilogy. One day I shall use it for something other than propping up other books.
110. Frederik Pohl & CM Kornbluth: The Space Merchants (1953)
111. John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)
*112. Terry Pratchett: The Discworld series (1983- ) Everyone wants me to read these
113. Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)
*#114. Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials (1995-2000) Very iffy on this one, based on the anti-Catholism mutterings and the movie.
115. François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34)
116. Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
117. Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)
118. Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) - Extremely cool idea, that broke down into exposition at the end.
119. JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) - And I quit reading then.
120. Geoff Ryman: Air (2005)
121. Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)
122. Joanna Russ: The Female Man (1975)
123. Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943) - I have no clue why this one is on the list, but I loved that book. "It has done me good," the fox said, "because of the color of the wheat fields."
*124. José Saramago: Blindness (1995) - own. In Spanish. Trying to finish the Alf collection first.
125. Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000)
*126. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)
*127. Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989)
128. Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937)
*129. Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992) Own
*130. Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)-don't think working as crew for a small town theater adaption counts as actually reading the book
*131. Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
132. Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996)
133. JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit (1937)
134. JRR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) - yes, both. yes, before the movies came out.
135. Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889) - And if Twain wrote SF, there's dang little 'weird' about it.
136. Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959)
137. Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto (1764)
138. Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909)
139. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926)
140. Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999)
*#141. HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895) - Think I started this one, once.
#142. HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898) - The Tom Cruise movie was...disapointing.
*143. TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938)
144. Angus Wilson: The Old Men at the Zoo (1961)
*145. Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83) Started the first book.
*#146. Virginia Woolf: Orlando (1928)
147. John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951) - but so long ago I couldn't tell you anything about it.
148. John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
149. Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924)

So, out of 149, I've read 27, (and have read something by 37 of 135 authors) and have heard of other 31 novels.

The list is...odd - UK heavy, naturally, given the source, but so many are borderline SSF. Very many of the authors listed are mainstream authors represented by their one venture into spec lit. The part of me that likes things tidy and in the proper boxes is...disquieted.

...and now I want to go buy books. Botheration.

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