Via TexasBestGrok:
Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card [This made a good short story in a 1977 Analog. It made a less impressive book.]
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling *
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven *
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Phillip Jose Farmer
So, nothing I hated, a couple I started and never finished [considering how many books I read, and how few this happens to, I think means something].
The list looks like something you might read in a class called Important Authors in Science Fiction, or even The History of Science Fiction. And there are several books that start trilogies or longer, that I don't love the first book but love others [Dragonflight as the prime example].
Posted by Owlish at February 1, 2007 08:18 PM | TrackBackAgree with you 100% on Ender's Game. My grandfather (who really got me into SF) was a subscriber to Analog. In the early 80's, when I was into Missile Command and Asteroids, he told me about this story he read a few years earlier where the kid thought he was playing a video game, but was really fighting the enemy. He dug up the back issue, and I read it. Many years later (early 1990s), all of the sudden, it seemed that many of my friends (and family, i.e., in-laws) were raving about this great "new" book -- Ender's Game. I didn't like the novel version (and its follow-ons) as much as the simple short story.
Larry Niven's Rammer, on the other hand, was nicely expanded into the novel-length A World Out of Time, imnsho.
Remember getting Douglas Adams' signature at the Prestonwood Borders? I still have my inscribed copy of So Long And Thanks For All the Fish.
Hasta.