Since Lil’ did it, and I was upset enough at the misspelling of my namesake, I figured I might as well do it too. So, here’s my response to the “100 Science Fiction Books You Just Have to Read.”

1 Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke (I have a soft spot for Clarke’s work. Not all of it, mind you.)
2 Foundation by Isaac Asimov (Tedious, ever so tedious.)
3 Dune by Frank Herbert (And the increasingly larger follow-ups, all the way through the massive, absurd Chapterhouse.)
4 The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
5 Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
6 Valis by Philip K. Dick
7 Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
8 Gateway by Frederik Pohl (It was a long time ago; I remember it poorly.)
9 Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl
10 Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
11 Cuckoo’s Egg by C.J. Cherryh
12 Star Surgeon by James White
13 The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
14 Radix by A. A. Attanasio
15 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (In addition: 2010 and 2061, the former being far superior to the latter.)
16 Ringworld by Larry Niven
17 A Case of Conscience by James Blish
18 Last and First Man by Olaf Stapledon
19 The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
20 Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
21 More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
22 Gray Lensman by E.E. “Doc” Smith
23 The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
24 The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (I own a copy of Lathe of Heaven… somewhere. The Earthsea books left me cold, though. Maybe I’ll get around to this one some day.)
25 Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
26 Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
27 The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (Good old fashioned moralistic Sci-Fi, baby.)
28 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
29 Heritage of Hastur by Marion Zimmer Bradley
30 The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
31 The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
32 Slan by A. E. Van Vogt
33 Neuromancer by William Gibson (I’ve got this one on my “to read” shelf. Eventually…)
34 Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (I haven’t read any of the follow-ups, though, because I really think the single tome is quite succinct and effective.)
35 In Conquest Born by C. S. Friedman
36 Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
37 Eon by Greg Bear
38 Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (If they were smart they’d have marked this as “The Dragonriders of Pern”, since you can’t read ‘flight without also reading ‘quest and The White Dragon and… and… okay, I’m a big McCaffrey fan.)
39 Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
40 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
41 Cosm by Gregory Benford
42 The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. Van Vogt
43 Blood Music by Greg Bear
44 Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
45 Omnivore by Piers Anthony
46 I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (I read Robots of Dawn first, oddly enough.)
47 Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
48 To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer
49 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
50 The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
51 1984 by George Orwell (I prefer Animal Farm. *shrug*)
52 The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
53 Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
54 Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer
55 Cities in Flight by James Blish
56 Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
57 Startide Rising by David Brin
58 Triton by Samuel R. Delany
59 Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
60 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
61 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Short and effective. Who knows, maybe it will make a fine movie.)
62 A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
63 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
64 No Blade of Grass by John Christopher
65 The Postman by David Brin (Who knows, maybe it will make a fine movie… *smirk*)
66 Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
67 Berserker by Fred Saberhagen (I went through a phase where I read every single piece of Berserker material I could find. Saberhagen’s far from a genius, but he can tell a fairly good story from time to time.)
68 Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott
69 Planiverse by A. K. Dewdney
70 Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward
71 Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh
72 Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
73 The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein
74 The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
75 Forever War by Joe Haldeman
76 Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
77 Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky
78 The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
79 The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (Weird, weird stuff.)
80 Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
81 Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
82 Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
83 Upanishads by Various
84 Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (And this is SciFi how, exactly?)
85 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Brilliant. Absurd. Essential. As are its follow-ups.)
86 The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (I should really find this and re-read it. I think this book helped me refine my vision of the universe inside my head that I keep trying to write about.)
87 The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
88 Mutant by Henry Kuttner
89 Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
90 Ralph 124C41+ by Hugo Gernsback
91 I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
92 Timescape by Gregory Benford
93 The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
94 War with the Newts by Karel Capek (Not entirely unlike his play R.U.R. in theme, this is the best-known novel by my namesake. Note: I corrected his name from the original list. Those morons.)
95 Mars by Ben Bova
96 Brain Wave by Poul Anderson
97 Hyperion by Dan Simmons
98 The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton (The only Crichton I’ve read is Sphere. Thanks, but no thanks.)
99 Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch
100 A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

So I’m less than thorough on my “required SF reading.” I’m more of a Fantasy sort of guy, anyway… bring on that next Raymond E. Feist novel!