Con recently posted a list of top 100 books of all time and it jogged a memory of many years ago, voting via usenet on the top 100 SF books of all time..or something along those lines. In later years, I’d come across a list of the top 100 SF books and printed it out, using my dot matrix, and stuck it to my door as a reading guide. I just did a very quick search and found a list that may or may not be the current version of that list. This list is based on the votes users of the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. As per Con’s example, I’ve bolded all the books I’ve read, and added an * for books I’m keen to read:

*Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon
Lord of Light (1967) by Roger Zelazny
The Stars My Destination (1956) by Alfred Bester
A Night in the Lonesome October (1993) by Roger Zelazny
This Immortal (1966) by Roger Zelazny
*The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin
Isle of the Dead (1969) by Roger Zelazny
Fury (1950) by Henry Kuttner
Nine Princes in Amber (1970) by Roger Zelazny
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Female Man (1975) by Joanna Russ
The Dream Master (1966) by Roger Zelazny
Doorways in the Sand (1976) by Roger Zelazny
At the Mountains of Madness (1936) by H. P. Lovecraft
Ubik (1969) by Philip K. Dick
The Anubis Gates (1983) by Tim Powers
Creatures of Light and Darkness (1969) by Roger Zelazny
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) by Philip K. Dick
Jack of Shadows (1971) by Roger Zelazny
More Than Human (1953) by Theodore Sturgeon
*The Demolished Man (1952) by Alfred Bester
Eye of Cat (1982) by Roger Zelazny
We Who Are About To . . . (1977) by Joanna Russ
Roadmarks (1979) by Roger Zelazny
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) by Philip K. Dick
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury
*The Space Merchants (1953) by Frederik Pohl C. M. Kornbluth
*Forever Peace (1997) by Joe Haldeman
*Childhood’s End (1953) by Arthur C. Clarke
Up the Walls of the World (1978) by James Tiptree, Jr.
Norstrilia (1975) by Cordwainer Smith
Sarah Canary (1991) by Karen Joy Fowler
Brightness Falls from the Air (1985) by James Tiptree, Jr.
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell
*Judgment Night (1952) by C. L. Moore
The Forever War (1975) by Joe Haldeman
Gateway (1977) by Frederik Pohl
Way Station (1963) by Clifford D. Simak
Sign of the Unicorn (1975) by Roger Zelazny
The Guns of Avalon (1972) by Roger Zelazny
Damnation Alley (1969) by Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle (1962) by Philip K. Dick
Use of Weapons (1990) by Iain M. Banks
*The City and the Stars (1956) by Arthur C. Clarke
Son of Man (1971) by Robert Silverberg
Permutation City (1994) by Greg Egan
*The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974) by Ursula K. Le Guin
*I Am Legend (1954) by Richard Matheson
Ringworld (1970) by Larry Niven
Rendezvous with Rama (1973) by Arthur C. Clarke
Mission of Gravity (1954) by Hal Clement
The Algebraist (2004) by Iain M. Banks
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976) by Kate Wilhelm
*Stand on Zanzibar (1968) by John Brunner
The Snow Queen (1980) by Joan D. Vinge
Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert
Babel-17 (1966) by Samuel R. Delany
The End of Eternity (1955) by Isaac Asimov
Pandora’s Star (2004) by Peter F. Hamilton
*Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
*To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) by Philip José Farmer
The Puppet Masters (1951) by Robert A. Heinlein
Behold the Man (1969) by Michael Moorcock
The Return of the King (1955) by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams
Endymion (1996) by Dan Simmons
The Rise of Endymion (1997) by Dan Simmons
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) by Douglas Adams
The Naked Sun (1957) by Isaac Asimov
The Gods Themselves (1972) by Isaac Asimov
The Fall of Hyperion (1990) by Dan Simmons
Darwinia (1998) by Robert Charles Wilson
The Shadow of the Torturer (1980) by Gene Wolfe
The Player of Games (1988) by Iain M. Banks
Martian Time-Slip (1964) by Philip K. Dick
The Silmarillion (1977) by J. R. R. Tolkien
Deus Irae (1976) by Philip K. Dick Roger Zelazny
Spin (2005) by Robert Charles Wilson
Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) by William Gibson
The Hand of Oberon (1976) by Roger Zelazny
The Courts of Chaos (1978) by Roger Zelazny
*A Deepness in the Sky (1999) by Vernor Vinge
The Mote in God’s Eye (1974) by Larry Niven Jerry Pournelle
A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) by Vernor Vinge
The Time Machine (1895) by H. G. Wells
The War of the Worlds (1897) by H. G. Wells
*Solaris (1970) by Stanislaw Lem
Double Star (1956) by Robert A. Heinlein
The Caves of Steel (1954) by Isaac Asimov
Cat’s Cradle (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Galactic Pot-Healer (1969) by Philip K. Dick
Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson
A Maze of Death (1970) by Philip K. Dick
*Cryptonomicon (1999) by Neal Stephenson
The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) by J. R. R. Tolkien
Foundation’s Edge (1982) by Isaac Asimov
Earth Abides (1949) by George R. Stewart
Robots and Empire (1985) by Isaac Asimov
*Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell

32 read out of 100

It’s a curious list with a lot of Roger Zelazny which counts against me as I don’t think I’ve read any of his novels. I’m fairly sure I’ve read some short stories by him at least. This list looks a little different to the list I was thinking of, even with the updates. I will continue to hunt for that list, or at least for a list that better matches what I’ve read so I can achieve a better score :-)