{"id":1719,"date":"2012-11-05T21:31:19","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T02:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/?p=1719"},"modified":"2013-03-21T15:34:58","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T19:34:58","slug":"all-time-best-sf-fantasy-novels-stories-v2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/2012\/11\/all-time-best-sf-fantasy-novels-stories-v2\/","title":{"rendered":"All-time best SF & fantasy novels & stories, v2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day<\/a> I posted my first thoughts on how I would vote in the Locus<\/strong> poll, which is open until the end of the month. I’ve changed a\u00a0small number of\u00a0things and\u00a0added some runner ups. One thing that I neglected the first time was that the order of the votes matters — I tried this time, but putting these novels and stories in order is extremely difficult.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0note on two books that you might expect to find here, Dune<\/strong> and The Lord of the Rings<\/strong> — I have read these books but it was too long ago and I need to read them again to decide what I think of them (and I intend to read them again).<\/p>\n

Here are my second thoughts on my votes…<\/p>\n

1901 – 2000<\/p>\n

SF novel<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A Door Into Ocean \u2013 Joan Slonczewski<\/li>\n
  2. Ender\u2019s Game \u2013 Orson Scott Card<\/li>\n
  3. The Foundation Trilogy \u2013 Isaac Asimov<\/li>\n
  4. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy \u2013 Douglas Adams<\/li>\n
  5. The Demolished Man \u2013 Alfred Bester<\/li>\n
  6. The Left Hand of Darkness \u2013 Ursula K. Le Guin<\/li>\n
  7. The City and the Stars \u2013 Arthur C. Clarke<\/li>\n
  8. Snow Crash \u2013 Neal Stephenson<\/li>\n
  9. A Fire Upon the Deep \u2013 Vernor Vinge<\/li>\n
  10. Darwinia \u2013 Robert Charles Wilson<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    runner ups<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. City \u2013 Clifford D. Simak<\/li>\n
    2. The Martian Chronicles \u2013 Ray Bradbury<\/li>\n
    3. A Canticle for Leibowitz \u2013 Walter M. Miller, Jr.<\/li>\n
    4. Hyperion \u2013 Dan Simmons<\/li>\n
    5. Replay \u2013 Ken Grimwood<\/li>\n
    6. The Wild Shore \u2013 Kim Stanley Robinson<\/li>\n
    7. Native Tongue \u2013 Suzette Haden Elgin<\/li>\n
    8. Starplex \u2013 Robert J. Sawyer<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Fantasy novel<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Tigana \u2013 Guy Gavriel Kay<\/li>\n
      2. Watership Down \u2013 Richard Adams<\/li>\n
      3. Seventh Son \u2013 Orson Scott Card<\/li>\n
      4. Good Omens \u2013 Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett<\/li>\n
      5. The Book of Knights \u2013 Yves Meynard<\/li>\n
      6. The Witching Hour \u2013 Anne Rice<\/li>\n
      7. The Initiate Brother \u2013 Sean Russell<\/li>\n
      8. Nobody\u2019s Son \u2013 Sean Stewart<\/li>\n
      9. A Wizard of Earthsea \u2013 Ursula K. Le Guin<\/li>\n
      10. A Game of Thrones \u2013 George R.R. Martin<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        runner ups<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Assassin’s Apprentice \u2013 Robin Hobb<\/li>\n
        2. Someplace to Be Flying \u2013 Charles de Lint<\/li>\n
        3. The Hobbit \u2013 J.R.R. Tolkien<\/li>\n
        4. Dragonsbane \u2013 Barbara Hambly<\/li>\n
        5. The Last Unicorn \u2013 Peter S. Beagle<\/li>\n
        6. The Anubis Gates \u2013 Tim Powers<\/li>\n
        7. The Dragonbone Chair \u2013 Tad Williams<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          novella<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. \u2026And Then There Were None \u2013 Eric Frank Russell<\/li>\n
          2. The Big Front Yard \u2013 Clifford D. Simak<\/li>\n
          3. Spice Pogrom \u2013 Connie Willis<\/li>\n
          4. Story of Your Life \u2013 Ted Chiang<\/li>\n
          5. A Boy and His Dog \u2013 Harlan Ellison<\/li>\n
          6. Eye for Eye \u2013 Orson Scott Card<\/li>\n
          7. A Meeting with Medusa \u2013 Arthur C. Clarke<\/li>\n
          8. Ill Met in Lankhmar \u2013 Fritz Leiber<\/li>\n
          9. The Last of the Winnebagos \u2013 Connie Willis<\/li>\n
          10. Stardance \u2013 Spider & Jeanne Robinson<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            novelette<\/p>\n

              \n
            1. Tower of Babylon \u2013 Ted Chiang<\/li>\n
            2. The Minority Report \u2013 Philip K. Dick<\/li>\n
            3. Flowers for Algernon \u2013 Daniel Keyes<\/li>\n
            4. Mountain Ways \u2013 Ursula K. Le Guin<\/li>\n
            5. The Bicentennial Man \u2013 Isaac Asimov<\/li>\n
            6. The Moon Moth \u2013 Jack Vance<\/li>\n
            7. Changeling \u2013 Barbara Hambly<\/li>\n
            8. Sandkings \u2013 George R. R. Martin<\/li>\n
            9. Tableau \u2013 James White<\/li>\n
            10. Bluesberry Jam \u2013 Gene Wolfe<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              runner ups<\/p>\n

                \n
              1. The Birthday of the World \u2013 Ursula K. Le Guin<\/li>\n
              2. Adjustment Team \u2013 Philip K. Dick<\/li>\n
              3. The Perseids \u2013 Robert Charles Wilson<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                short story<\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. Nightfall \u2013 Isaac Asimov<\/li>\n
                2. Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large \u2013 James Alan Gardner<\/li>\n
                3. Expedition to Earth (aka History Lesson) \u2013 Arthur C. Clarke<\/li>\n
                4. Unaccompanied Sonata \u2013 Orson Scott Card<\/li>\n
                5. Fondly Fahrenheit \u2013 Alfred Bester<\/li>\n
                6. \u2018Repent, Harlequin!\u2019 Said the Ticktockman \u2013 Harlan Ellison<\/li>\n
                7. Mythological Beast \u2013 Stephen R. Donaldson<\/li>\n
                8. The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas \u2013 Ursula K. Le Guin<\/li>\n
                9. Just Like Old Times \u2013 Robert J. Sawyer<\/li>\n
                10. The Nine Billion Names of God \u2013 Arthur C. Clarke<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  runner ups<\/p>\n

                    \n
                  1. The Last Question \u2013 Isaac Asimov<\/li>\n
                  2. The Star \u2013 Arthur C. Clarke<\/li>\n
                  3. The Pedestrian \u2013 Ray Bradbury<\/li>\n
                  4. A Sound of Thunder \u2013 Ray Bradbury<\/li>\n
                  5. The Dance of the Changer and the Three \u2013 Terry Carr<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                    2001 – 2010<\/p>\n

                    SF novel<\/p>\n

                      \n
                    1. Evolution \u2013 Stephen Baxter<\/li>\n
                    2. Hominids \u2013 Robert J. Sawyer<\/li>\n
                    3. Passage \u2013 Connie Willis<\/li>\n
                    4. The Time Traveler\u2019s Wife \u2013 Audrey Niffenegger<\/li>\n
                    5. Warchild \u2013 Karin Lowachee<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                      runner ups<\/p>\n

                        \n
                      1. The Chronoliths \u2013 Robert Charles Wilson<\/li>\n
                      2. Survival \u2013 Julie E. Czerneda<\/li>\n
                      3. Radiant \u2013 James Alan Gardner<\/li>\n
                      4. Brain Plague \u2013 Joan Slonczewski<\/li>\n
                      5. The Android’s Dream \u2013 John Scalzi<\/li>\n
                      6. Pattern Recognition \u2013 William Gibson<\/li>\n
                      7. Soft Apocalypse \u2013 Will McIntosh (published in 2011, will have to wait for the next poll)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                        Fantasy novel<\/p>\n

                          \n
                        1. The Other Wind \u2013 Ursula K. Le Guin<\/li>\n
                        2. The Crystal City \u2013 Orson Scott Card<\/li>\n
                        3. Magic Street \u2013 Orson Scott Card<\/li>\n
                        4. The Eyre Affair \u2013 Jasper Fforde<\/li>\n
                        5. The Historian \u2013 Elizabeth Kostova<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                          novella<\/p>\n

                            \n
                          1. Thousandth Night \u2013 Alastair Reynolds<\/li>\n
                          2. Atlantis \u2013 Orson Scott Card<\/li>\n
                          3. The Lifecycle of Software Objects \u2013 Ted Chiang<\/li>\n
                          4. Identity Theft \u2013 Robert J. Sawyer<\/li>\n
                          5. A Piece of the Great World \u2013 Robert Silverberg<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                            novelette<\/p>\n

                              \n
                            1. Hell is the Absence of God \u2013 Ted Chiang<\/li>\n
                            2. I, Robot \u2013 Cory Doctorow<\/li>\n
                            3. Counting Tadpoles \u2013 Uncle River<\/li>\n
                            4. Abigail & Chang \u2013 Harvey Welles & Philip Raines<\/li>\n
                            5. The Trial of Edgar Allan Poe \u2013 Hugh Cook<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                              short story<\/p>\n

                                \n
                              1. Shed Skin \u2013 Robert J. Sawyer<\/li>\n
                              2. An End to All Things \u2013 Karina Sumner-Smith<\/li>\n
                              3. Benedice Te \u2013 Jay Lake<\/li>\n
                              4. Faller \u2013 Will McIntosh<\/li>\n
                              5. The Anabe Girls \u2013 A. R. Morlan<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                                The other day I posted my first thoughts on how I would vote in the Locus poll, which is open until the end of the month. I’ve changed a\u00a0small number of\u00a0things and\u00a0added some runner ups. One thing that I neglected the first time was that the order of the votes matters — I tried this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[7,9,42,28,8,44],"class_list":["post-1719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-thoughts","tag-book","tag-fantasy","tag-lists","tag-novels","tag-science-fiction","tag-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1719"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2502,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1719\/revisions\/2502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmswitzer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}