'Genre fiction' book meme

[philmophlegm]

Rather than repost the same book meme that everyone else has (which to my mind is dominated by lit crit 'classics' at the expense of what lit crit types would deride as 'genre fiction'), here's a list of 100 important books, each of which fits into a 'genre' other than 'arty-farty literature'. These books may have been well-reviewed, but probably only by critics from within that genre. They are probably looked down upon by literary critics. They might be fantasy, SF, crime, thrillers, comedies but they probably all tell a good story.

Indicate which ones you've read if you like by reposting on your own journal. I should stress that these aren't all books that I have read or books that I like. I have attempted to assemble a list of 100 important* genre fiction books. I will admit that the list is somewhat biased to the SF and fantasy genres, which does reflect my own tastes.

I have tended to include a series of books as a single entry, but unrelated works by the same author are listed separately. There are exceptions to this where the works in the same series are very different in style (e.g. The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are listed separately). I have sometimes named the series of books (e.g. 'Discworld' or 'Miss Marple') rather than an individual book.

* 'Important' defined mostly by critics within that genre, or popular acclaim.

The list itself is


For those of you who would like to repost the meme, feel free to use these instructions when you copy and paste:

Genre fiction book meme -
1) Look at the list, copy and paste it into your own journal.
2) Mark those you have read however you want.
3) Feel free to tell your friends what you thought of them.


In no particular order:

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
4. Foundation series, Isaac Asimov
5. Robot series, Isaac Asimov
6. Dune, Frank Herbert
7. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
8. Earthsea series, Ursula le Guin
9. Neuromancer, William Gibson
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
12. A Book of the New Sun series, Gene Wolfe
13. Discworld series, Terry Pratchett
14. Sandman series, Neil Gaiman
15. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
16. Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McAffery
17. Interview with the Vampire series, Anne Rice
18. The Shining, Stephen King
19. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula le Guin
20. The Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny
21. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
22. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
23. Ringworld, Larry Niven
24. Elric of Melnibone series, Michael Moorcock
25. The Dying Earth series, Jack Vance
26. Lyonesse series, Jack Vance
27. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
28. A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R.R. Martin
29. The Worm Ourobouros, E.R. Eddison
30. Conan series, Robert E. Howard
31. Lankhmar series, Fritz Leiber
32. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
33. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
34. The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells
35. The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
36. Eon, Greg Bear
37. Book of the First Law series, Joe Abercrombie
38. Miss Marple stories, Agatha Christie
39. Hercule Poirot stories, Agatha Christie
40. Lord Peter Wimsey stories, Dorothy L. Sayers
41. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
42. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
43. Sherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
44. Cthulhu Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft
45. Inspector Wexford stories, Ruth Rendell
46. Adam Dalgliesh stories, P.D. James
47. Philip Marlowe stories, Raymond Chandler
48. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
49. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
50. The Fourth Protocol, Frederick Forsyth
51. Smiley series, John le Carre
52. Gentleman Bastard series, Scott Lynch
53. The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson
54. Watchmen series, Alan Moore
55. Maus, Art Spiegelman
56. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Miller
57. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
58. Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
59. Chrestomanci series, Diana Wynne-Jones
60. Ryhope Wood series, Robert Holdstock
61. Wilt series, Tom Sharpe
62. Riftwar Cycle, Raymond E. Feist
63. Temeraire series, Naomi Novik
64. Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
65. His Dark Materials series, Phillip Pullman
66. Dragonlance series, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
67. Twilight saga, Stephanie Meyer
68. The Night's Dawn trilogy, Peter F. Hamilton
69. Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer
70. Honor Harrington series, David Weber
71. Hannibal Lecter series, Thomas Harris
72. The Dark Tower series, Stephen King
73. It, Stephen King
74. The Rats series, James Herbert
75. Dirk Gently series, Douglas Adams
76. Jeeves and Wooster stories, P.G. Wodehouse
77. The da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
78. The Culture Series, Iain M. Banks
79. The Duncton series, William Horwood
80. The Illuminatus! trilogy, Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
81. The Aberystwyth series, Malcom Pryce
82. Morse stories, Colin Dexter
83. Navajo Tribal Police stories, Tony Hillerman
84. The Ipcress File, Len Deighton
85. Enigma, Robert Harris
86. Fatherland, Robert Harris
87. The Constant Gardener, John le Carre
88. The House of Cards trilogy, Michael Dobbs
89. The Dark is Rising saga, Susan Cooper
90. Psychotechnic League and Polesotechnic League series, Poul Anderson
91. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
92. Star Wars: Thrawn trilogy, Timothy Zahn
93. Ender's Game series, Orson Scott Card
94. Gormenghast series, Meryvn Peake
95. Miles Vorkosigan saga, Lois McMaster Bujold
96. The Once and Future King, T.H. White
97. Fighting Fantasy books, Ian Livingston & Steve Jackson
98. The Stainless Steel Rat series, Harry Harrison
99. The Lensman series, E.E. 'Doc' Smith
100. The Cadfael stories, Ellis Peters

Comments

[purplecat]

Lots of these series I have read the first and loved it and then experienced diminishing returns until I gave up somewhere around book four. Except for Dragonlance - the mind boggles - even the first book wasn't all that great I would say...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Never read Dragonlance so I couldn't comment. Certainly a popular series though, and one of Amazon's top 5 fantasy books in terms of average customer review score. I was put off by Dave Langford's review in White Dwarf magazine which pointed out that White Dwarf's own guidelines for submitting fiction included the clause "No campaign write-ups!"

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember that one!

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Gyrfalcon?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed. But this one isn't ;-)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Fastest bird on the planet according to the falconer who gave me and bunn a falconry lesson, "whatever that prat Bill Oddie says, but then there's lots that Bill Oddie doesn't know..."

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The Guinness Book of Records was founded after an argument as to which was the fastest game-bird.

[purplecat]

I've only read one other blatant Campaign write up and, it has to be said, Dragonlance is far superior. It is probably a good example, therefore, of that particular sub-genre but I'd have thought some of its oddities (e.g. sometimes whole tracts of action occur off-stage - so you had to buy the accompanying modules to discover the details - and then are simply reported on return in a very cursory fashion almost at the level of "Oh, by the way, we popped off and recovered this artefact for you and fell in love while we were about it") would have prevented it getting rated as particularly good "chunky fantasy" in its own right.

Mind you I didn't read all of the Dragonlance books either so its possible they improved.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I think there is a certain amount of snobbishness even among fantasy and SF critics against RPG designers who also write fiction. Raymond Feist would fall into this category too.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. A much better list, even if it doesn't particularly intersect with my actual reading. http://sigisgrim.livejournal.com/41905.html

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed doing this meme myself, but on reflection there are a few odd choices. In terms of "important genre books", why Twilight rather than Dracula? Is Abercrombie really more important than Bester? Three Stephen King books, and none of them is The Stand? Indeed, three Stephen King books, and only one Philip K Dick? A Canticle for Liebowitz is notably absent, and what genre is Persepolis?

I appreciate that any list like this is bound to be idiosyncratic, and this is a lot better than other attempts I've seen along similar lines, but there are still some perplexing choices in there.