NPR+Top+100+SciFi+Fantasy+Books

Wendell alerted me to the existence of this. In a way, it is analogous to the BBC Big Read, except that it is American and it is //all// scifi/fantasy. Here is the original article and list of America's Top 100 SciFi/Fantasy Books from August of this year. I noted while reading it that my reaction is very different to this than it was to the Big Read. With the Big Read, I think of how important SciFi and Fantasy are to literature and how they get overlooked as serious literature. With the NPR Top 100, I thought two things: 1) I thought I was designing this class for exposure to less traditional elements but several of our books and all of our authors are on here (along with a few I considered and didn't use too), and 2) I wondered why Connie Willis always winds up low on the list when she wins all of the awards chosen by other SciFi/Fantasy writers. And now, for the even more fun stuff which was just released. First, there is the super huge graphic flow chart of choosing the right SciFi/Fantasy book for you called A Guide to Navigating NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books. (Click on the title or on the image below to get a bigger, zoom-able version.) And, if that is too overwhelming to you, there is also a question/answer interactive version as well: An Interactive Guide to NPR's List of Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Totally incredible on all scores...but for some reason it seems particularly appropriate after our discussion of Borges' "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "The Garden of Forking Paths"....The flow chart image above seems to merge the concepts of these stories on some level.

1 ===[|The Lord Of The Rings] === by [|J.R.R. Tolkien] Tolkien's seminal three-volume epic chronicles the War of the Ring, in which Frodo the hobbit and his companions set out to destroy the evil Ring of Power and restore peace to Middle-earth. The beloved trilogy still casts a long shadow, having established some of the most familiar and enduring tropes in fantasy literature. Literary Award Winner

 2 ===[|The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy] === by [|Douglas Adams] In the first, hilarious volume of Adams' Hitchhiker's series, reluctant galactic traveler Arthur Dent gets swept up in some literally Earth-shattering events involving aliens, sperm whales, a depressed robot, mice who are more than they seem, and some really, //really// bad poetry.

 3

[|Ender's Game]
by [|Orson Scott Card] > Young Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, bred to be a genius, is drafted to Battle School where he trains to lead the century-long fight against the alien Buggers.  4

[|The Dune Chronicles]
by [|Frank Herbert] > Follows the adventures of Paul Atreides, the son of a betrayed duke given up for dead on a treacherous desert planet and adopted by its fierce, nomadic people, who help him unravel his most unexpected destiny.  5 ===[|A Song Of Ice And Fire Series] === by [|George R.R. Martin] As the Seven Kingdoms face a generation-long winter, the royal Stark family confronts the poisonous plots of the rival Lannisters, the emergence of the Neverborn demons, the arrival of barbarian hordes, and other threats.

 6

A Novel
by [|George Orwell] Portrays life in a future time when a totalitarian government watches over all citizens and directs all activities.

 7

[|Fahrenheit 451]
by [|Ray Bradbury] A totalitarian regime has ordered all books to be destroyed, but one of the book burners suddenly realizes their merit, in a chilling novel of a frightening near-future world.

 8 ===[|The Foundation Trilogy] === by [|Isaac Asimov] > A band of psychologists, under the leadership of psychohistorian Hari Seldon, plant a colony to encourage art, science, and technology in the declining Galactic Empire and to preserve the accumulated knowledge of humankind.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">9

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Brave New World]
by [|Aldous Huxley] Huxley's classic prophetic novel describes the socialized horrors of a futuristic utopia devoid of individual freedom.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">10 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|American Gods] === by [|Neil Gaiman] > On the plane home to attend the funerals of his wife and best friend, Shadow, an ex-con, encounters an enigmatic stranger who seems to know a lot about him. When Shadow accepts the stranger's job offer, he finds himself plunged into a perilous game with the highest of stakes: the soul of America itself.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">11 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Princess Bride] ===

<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale Of True Love And High Adventure
by [|William Goldman] This tale of a handsome farm boy who, aided by a drunken swordsman and a gentle giant, rescues a beautiful princess named Buttercup comes with a slyly humorous, metafictional edge: Goldman claims to have merely abridged an earlier text by one "S. Morgenstern" (actually a pseudonym) and peppers his text with clever commentary.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">12 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Wheel Of Time Series] === by [|Robert Jordan] > At 13 volumes and counting, this sweeping — some would say sprawling – richly imagined epic chronicles the struggle between servants of the Dark One and those of the champion of light known as the Dragon Reborn.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">13 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Animal Farm] === by [|George Orwell] Farm animals overthrow their human owners and set up their own deeply (and familiarly) flawed government. Orwell's mordant satire of totalitarianism is still a mainstay of ninth-grade reading lists.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">14

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Neuromancer]
by [|William Gibson] > Gibson's groundbreaking debut novel follows Case, a burned-out computer whiz, who is asked to steal a security code that is locked in the most heavily guarded databank in the solar system. A seminal work in the genre that would come to be known as cyberpunk.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">15

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Watchmen]
by [|Alan Moore] and [|Dave Gibbons] As former members of a disbanded group of superheroes called the Crimebusters start turning up dead, the remaining members of the group try to discover the identity of the murderer before they, too, are killed. //A graphic novel//.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">16

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|I, Robot]
by [|Isaac Asimov] Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when he formulated the laws governing their behavior. In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot through a series of interlinked stories: from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future — a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">17 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Stranger In A Strange Land] === by [|Robert A. Heinlein] Valentine Michael Smith, born and raised on Mars, arrives on Earth stunning Western culture with his superhuman abilities.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">18 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Kingkiller Chronicles] === by [|Patrick Rothfuss] > This suspenseful coming-of-age story folllows Kvothe as he recounts his transformation from a magically gifted young man into the most notorious wizard, musician, thief and assassin in his world.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">19 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Slaughterhouse-Five] === by [|Kurt Vonnegut] Billy Pilgrim returns home from World War II only to be kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who teach him that time is an eternal present.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">20

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Frankenstein]
by [|Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley] Mary Shelley's chilling portrait of a scientist obsessed with creating life (whose eventual success comes at too great a cost) was among the first works of science fiction ever produced. Its potent allegorical power, compelling ethical and philosophical themes, and its sheer creepiness have ensured it remains one of the most enduring and influential as well.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">21 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?] === by [|Philip K. Dick] Dick's trippy novel tells of sophisticated off-world androids who turn against their creators, slip back to a post-apocalyptic Earth, and must be hunted down by bounty hunter Rick Deckard. The book inspired — albeit very loosely — the 1982 Ridley Scott film //Blade Runner//.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">22 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Handmaid's Tale] === by [|Margaret Atwood] A chilling look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">23 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Dark Tower Series] === by [|Stephen King] > Roland, the world's last gunslinger, tracks an enigmatic Man in Black toward a forbidding dark tower, fighting forces both mortal and other worldly on his quest.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">24 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|2001: A Space Odyssey] === by [|Arthur C. Clarke] Two astronauts find their journey into space and their very lives jeopardized by the jealousy of an extraordinary computer named HAL.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">25

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Stand]
by [|Stephen King] A monumentally devastating plague leaves only a few survivors who, while experiencing dreams of a battle between good and evil, move toward an actual confrontation as they migrate to Boulder, Colo.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">26

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Snow Crash]
by [|Neal Stephenson] Weaving contemporary imagery with Sumerian myths, Stephenson's third novel revolves around a mysterious "pseudo-narcotic" Snow Crash that is capable of affecting people both within — and without — the alternate-reality Internet called the "Metaverse."

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">27 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Martian Chronicles] === by [|Ray Bradbury] The tranquillity of Mars is disrupted by the earthmen who have come to conquer space, colonize the planet, and escape a doomed Earth.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">28

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Cat's Cradle]
by [|Kurt Vonnegut] A young writer decides to interview the children of a scientist primarily responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">29 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Sandman Series] === by [|Neil Gaiman] > Gaiman originally told his tale of Morpheus, the Dream King, whose interactions with mortals rarely end well, and whose fractious extended family includes the personifications of Death, Despair, Desire and Destiny, in a 75-issue comic book series over several years; the hugely influential series is now collected in ten trade volumes.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">30 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|A Clockwork Orange] === by [|Anthony Burgess] Burgess created his own youth slang for this acid satire of contemporary culture which follows young Alex as he makes his merry way through a dystopia of drugs, sex and ruthless violence, only to be chosen for a psychological experiment meant to mend his ways.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">31 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Starship Troopers] === by [|Robert A. Heinlein] In one of Robert A. Heinlein's most controversial novels, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the universe and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against humankind's most frightening enemy.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">32

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Watership Down]
by [|Richard Adams] An allegorical tale of survival about a band of wild rabbits who leave their ancestral home to build a more humane society chronicles their adventures as they search for a safe place to establish a new warren where they can live in peace.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">33

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Dragonflight]
by [|Anne McCaffrey] > At a time when the number of Dragonriders has fallen too low for safety and only one Weyr trains the creatures and their riders, the Red Star approaches Pern, threatening the planet with disaster.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">34 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress] === by [|Robert A. Heinlein] A one-armed computer technician, a radical blond bombshell, an aging academic and a sentient all-knowing computer lead the lunar population in a revolution against Earth's colonial rule.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">35 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|A Canticle For Leibowitz] === by [|Walter M. Miller Jr.] Miller's 1959 novel follows the Monks of the Order of St. Leibowitz as they attempt to preserve the remnants of civilization after a nuclear war.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">36 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Time Machine] === by [|H.G. Wells] Wells' classic 1895 story of an unassuming British inventor who creates a device that sends him hurtling into the far future – A.D. 802,701, to be precise – where subterranean Morlocks prey upon the childlike Eloi.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">37 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|20,000 Leagues Under The Sea] === by [|Jules Verne] Professor Arronax and his two companions, trapped aboard a fantastic submarine as prisoners of the deranged Captain Nemo, come face to face with exotic ocean creatures and strange sights hidden from the world above.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">38 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Flowers For Algernon] === by [|Daniel Keyes] When brain surgery makes a mouse into a genius, dull-witted Charlie Gordon wonders if it might also work for him.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">39 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The War Of The Worlds] === by [|H.G. Wells] With advanced machines of destruction, aliens from another planet swoop down on planet Earth and begin their conquest, in the classic sci-fi work by the author of //The Time Machine.//

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">40 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Amber Chronicles] === by [|Roger Zelazny] > Zelazny's tales of Corwin, prince of the "true world" of Amber (of which our Earth is merely a shadow) and his son Merlin, a magic-user/computer hacker, have spanned several decades. Amid the eternal struggle between Order and Chaos, Zelazny delights in tossing in allusions to Shakespeare, the Tarot and quantum mechanics.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">41 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Belgariad] === by [|David Eddings] > Edding's five-volume epic fantasy follows young farmboy Garion as he is drawn into a quest for a stolen mystical orb, and the rich world of prophecy and power that surrounds it.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">42 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Mists Of Avalon] === by [|Marion Zimmer Bradley] Retells the legend of King Arthur as perceived by the women central to the tale, from the zealous Morgaine, sworn to uphold her goddess at any cost, to the devout Gwenhwyfar, pledged to the king but drawn to another.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">43 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Mistborn Trilogy] === by [|Brandon Sanderson] > In a world where special magic users called Allomancers can employ metals to enhance their physical and mental abilities, a young thief discovers her destiny and sets out to overthrow the Lord Ruler.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">44

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Ringworld]
by [|Larry Niven] Niven's hugely influential 1970 novel of an outer space expedition to a mysterious object – a vast artificial world in the shape of a ring – that goes horribly wrong.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">45 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Left Hand Of Darkness] === by [|Ursula K. Le Guin] > While on a mission to the planet Gethen — a world whose inhabitants can change their gender — earthling Genly Ai is sent by leaders of the nation of Orgoreyn to a concentration camp. The exiled prime minister of the nation of Karhide tries to rescue him.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">46 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Silmarillion] === by [|J.R.R. Tolkien] These creation myths of Tolkien's Middle-earth, for those who found The Lord of the Rings too breezy and slight: In the author's characteristic Beowulfian prose, he recounts the legends of the world's beginnings, the downfall of its gods and men, and the events that changed the face of Middle-earth forever.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">47 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Once And Future King] === by [|T.H. White] Describes King Arthur's life from his childhood to the coronation, creation of the Round Table, and search for the Holy Grail.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">48

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Neverwhere]
by [|Neil Gaiman] Gaiman's wry, darkly whimsical tale of an average young businessman who stops to help a girl bleeding on a London sidewalk and finds himself pulled into a bizarre subterranean world.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">49

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Childhood's End]
by [|Arthur C. Clarke] The author questions the survival of mankind in this science-fiction tale about Overlords from outer space who dominate the world.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">50

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Contact]
by [|Carl Sagan] In 1999, a multinational team of astronauts ventures deep into outer space, where they come face to face with an advanced alien civilization.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">51

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Hyperion Cantos]
by [|Dan Simmons] > Seven pilgrims undertake a voyage to the world of Hyperion — dominated by a fearsome and mysterious creature called the Shrike — where they hope to learn the secret that will save humanity.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">52

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Stardust]
by [|Neil Gaiman] In the quiet English hamlet of Wall, Tristran Thorn embarks on a remarkable journey through the world of Faerie to recover a fallen star for his lover, the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">53

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Cryptonomicon]
by [|Neal Stephenson] More than 50 years after Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse and Sergeant Bobby Shaftoe are assigned to Detachment 2702, a secret cryptographic mission, their grandchildren — Randy and Amy — join forces to create a "data haven" in the South Pacific, only to uncover a massive conspiracy with roots in Detachment 2702.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">54 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|World War Z] ===

<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">An Oral History Of The Zombie War
by [|Max Brooks] An account of the decade-long conflict between humankind and hordes of the predatory undead is told from the perspective of dozens of survivors — soldiers, politicians, civilians and others — who describe in their own words the epic human battle for survival.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">55 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Last Unicorn] === by [|Peter S. Beagle] Recounts the quest of the last unicorn, who leaves the protection of the enchanted forest to search for her own kind, and who is joined by Schmedrick the Magician and Molly Grue in her search.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">56

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Forever War]
by [|Joe Haldeman] > Drafted into the ranks of Earth's interstellar warriors, private William Mandella finds his fight against the Taurans secondary to the side-effects of faster-than-light space travel, which affects the rate at which he ages.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">57 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Small Gods] ===

<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">A Novel Of Discworld
by [|Terry Pratchett] Brutha, a simple man leading a quiet life tending his garden, finds his life irrevocably changed when his god, speaking to him through a tortoise, sends him on a mission of peace.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">58 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever] === by [|Stephen R. Donaldson] > In this first trilogy, reclusive, guilt-ridden writer Thomas Covenant finds himself transported to a magical realm where he is hailed as a hero who wields powerful magic — and where he finds his leprosy miraculously cured. Ultimately, he must defeat the malevolent Lord Foul to save the Land — and his own sanity.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">59 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Vorkosigan Saga] === by [|Lois McMaster Bujold] > In a human colony on one of a series of planets connected by wormholes, a young man who suffers from a series of physical disabilities (the result of an assassination attempt on his royal parents) grows up to become a powerful military leader.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">60

<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">A Novel Of Discworld
by [|Terry Pratchett] Sentenced to death for forgery and swindling, Moist von Lipwig accepts an offer of a pardon in exchange for revamping an ancient post office, but his efforts are thwarted by tons of undelivered mail, an 18,000-year-old ghost postman, his shoe-wielding new girlfriend, and murderous characters who want the post office shut down.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">61 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Mote In God's Eye] === by [|Larry Niven] and [|Jerry Pournelle] The accidental killing of a group of emissaries to Earth threatens man's survival.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">62 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Sword Of Truth Series] === by [|Terry Goodkind] > Young Richard Cypher gradually embraces his destiny as the Seeker of Truth, and sets out to stop the evil that others would unleash.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">63

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Road]
by [|Cormac McCarthy] > In a novel set in an indefinite, futuristic, post-apocalyptic world, a father and his young son make their way through the ruins of a devastated American landscape, struggling to survive and preserve the last remnants of their own humanity.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">64 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell] === by [|Susanna Clarke] In nineteenth century England, all is going well for rich, reclusive Mr Norrell, who has regained some of the power of England's magicians from the past, until a rival magician, Jonathan Strange, appears and becomes Mr Norrell's pupil.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">65

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|I Am Legend]
by [|Richard Matheson] A lone human survivor in a world that is overrun by vampires, Robert Neville leads a desperate life in which he must barricade himself in his home every night and hunt down the starving undead by day.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">66 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Riftwar Saga] === by [|Raymond E. Feist] > Evil entities have opened a rift in the fabric of space-time, plunging the world of Medkemia into peril. As the battle between Order and Chaos threatens to engulf everything, reluctant wizard Pug is the only hope of a thousand worlds.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">67 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Sword Of Shannara Trilogy] === by [|Terry Brooks] > Over the course of three novels, several generations of the Ohmsford family find themselves retrieving magical artifacts in the desperate hope to fight evil.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">68 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Conan The Barbarian Series] === by [|Robert E. Howard] and [|Mark Schultz] > Howard's original set of interlinked stories featuring his muscle-bound warrior represents a classic kind of sword-and-sorcery fantasy adventure in all its pulpy, richly imaginative glory.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">69 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Farseer Trilogy] === by [|Robin Hobb] > An wily assassin plies his trade while his uncle the Prince confronts attackers who are turning people into emotionless, zombie-like "Forged ones."  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">70 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Time Traveler's Wife] === by [|Audrey Niffenegger] Passionately in love, Clare and Henry vow to hold onto each other and their marriage as they struggle with the effects of Chrono-Displacement Disorder, a condition that casts Henry involuntarily into the world of time travel.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">71 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Way Of Kings] === by [|Brandon Sanderson] Introduces the world of Roshar through the experiences of a war-weary royal compelled by visions, a high-born youth condemned to military slavery, and a woman who is desperate to save her impoverished house.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">72 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Journey To The Center Of The Earth] === by [|Jules Verne] Follows Professor Lidenbrock, his nephew Axel and their guide Hans as they venture deep into a volcanic crater in Iceland on a journey that leads them to the center of the earth and to incredible and horrifying discoveries.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">73 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Legend Of Drizzt Series] === by [|R. A. Salvatore] > Drizzt Do'Urden, a Dark Elf, finds adventure, peril and awesome magical power as he confronts the underground civilization of the evil and treacherous matriarchal race of Drow elves.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">74

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Old Man's War]
by [|John Scalzi] Enlisting in the Army on his 75th birthday, John Perry joins an interstellar war between Earth and alien enemies who would stake claims on the few existing inhabitable planets, unaware that the conflict involves much more than he understands.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">75

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Diamond Age]
by [|Neal Stephenson] The story of an engineer who creates a device to raise a girl capable of thinking for herself reveals what happens when a young girl of the poor underclass obtains the device. Literary Award Winner

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">76 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Rendezvous With Rama] === by [|Arthur C. Clarke] During the 22nd century, a space probe's investigation of a mysterious, cylindrical asteroid brings man into contact with an extra-galactic civilization.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">77 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Kushiel's Legacy Series] === by [|Jacqueline Carey] > Sold into indentured servitude at the exotic Night Court as a child, Phedre faces a difficult choice between honor and duty as she deals with a world of glittering luxury, conspiracy, sacrifice, and betrayal. Two subsequent trilogies chronicle the adventures of her adopted son and her distant descendant.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">78 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Dispossessed] ===

<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">An Ambiguous Utopia
by [|Ursula K. Le Guin] Unwilling to accept that his anarchist world must be separated from the rest of the civilized universe, Shevek, a brilliant physicist, risks his life by traveling to the utopian mother planet of Urras.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">79 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Something Wicked This Way Comes] === by [|Ray Bradbury] > When the carnival comes to town, two boys unearth the terrifying and horrible secrets that lurk within Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show and learn the consequences of wishes, as a sinister and evil force is at work in Green Town, Ill.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">80 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Wicked] ===

<span style="color: #111111; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West
by [|Gregory Maguire] Set in an Oz where a morose Wizard battles suicidal thoughts, the story of the green-skinned Elphaba, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the West, profiles her as an animal-rights activist striving to avenge her dear sister's death.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">81 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series] === by [|Steven Erikson] > Erickson's densely plotted series jumps around in time to chronicle the vicissitudes of the sprawling Malazan Empire, a place of shifting alliances, mysterious mage guilds, assassin gods and military uprisings.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">82 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Eyre Affair] === by [|Jasper Fforde] In a world where you can actually get lost (literally) in literature, Thursday Next, a notorious Special Operative in literary detection, races against time to stop the world's Third Most Wanted criminal from kidnapping characters, including Jane Eyre, from works of literature, forcing her to dive into the pages of a novel to stop literary homicide, in a wildly imaginative, mesmerizing thriller.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">83 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Culture Series] === by [|Iain Banks] > A science-fiction series by the author of //the Wasp Factory//features a symbiotic human and machine society that is engaged in a galaxy-wide battle to the death between the Idrians, who fight for their faith, and the Culture, which defends its right to exist.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">84 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Crystal Cave] === by [|Mary Stewart] Stewart's first chapter in her five-volume take on the Arthurian legend is told from the point of view of young Merlin, who reluctantly engineers the birth of Arthur.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">85

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Anathem]
by [|Neal Stephenson] Raz, who has lived in a monastery since childhood, away from the violent upheavals of the outside world, becomes one of a group of formerly cloistered scholars who are appointed by a higher power to avert an impending disaster.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">86 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Codex Alera Series] === by [|Jim Butcher] > In the land of Alera, where people bond with the furies — elementals of earth, air, fire, water, and metal — young Tavi struggles to cope with his lack of magical talent, until his homeland erupts into conflict between rebels and loyalists and Tavi discovers that he holds the key to his realm's survival.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">87 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Book Of The New Sun] === by [|Gene Wolfe] > In the distant future, after the sun has cooled and dimmed, the disgraced torturer Sevarian recounts his hard-fought rise to absolute power.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">88 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Thrawn Trilogy] === by [|Timothy Zahn] Five years after the fall of the Empire, a dying part of the Empire all the more dangerous near death has just discovered something that could bring it back, the last of the Emperor's warlords, Admiral Thrawn.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">89

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Outlander Series]
by [|Diana Gabaldon] > Hurtled back through time more than 200 hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself in the midst of a world torn apart by violence, pestilence and revolution, and haunted by her feelings for a young soldier.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">90 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Elric Saga] === by [|Michael Moorcock] > Elric of Melnibone, an albino prince, travels in the Ship Which Sails Over Land and Sea to the city of Dhoz-Kam, through the Shade Gate to the Pulsing Cavern where the magic swords Stormbringer and Mournblade await him.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">91 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Illustrated Man] === by [|Ray Bradbury] Eighteen science fiction stories deal with love, madness and death on Mars, Venus and in space.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">92

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Sunshine]
by [|Robin McKinley] All hope for stopping the vampiric elite from controlling Earth depends on human SOFs (Special Other Forces) and the success of their attempt to recruit Sunshine, the daughter of legendary sorcerer Onyx Blaise.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">93 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|A Fire Upon The Deep] === by [|Vernor Vinge] Set in a far-future where space has been portioned into "regions of thought," a human expedition to an ancient data archive unleashes the Blight, a superintelligent entity capable of destroying thousands of worlds.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">94 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Caves Of Steel] === by [|Isaac Asimov] Fearing a violent confrontation between Earthmen and Spacers, Detective Baley and his new partner, a robot, investigate the murder of a Spacetown scientist

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">95

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Mars Trilogy]
by [|Kim Stanley Robinson] > On a mission to provide Mars with an Earth-like atmosphere, John Boone, Maya Toitovna, Frank Chalmers and Arkady Bogdanov meet stiff resistance from those who will fight to the death to prevent Mars from being changed.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">96 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Lucifer's Hammer] === by [|Larry Niven] and [|Jerry Pournelle] As the great Hamner-Brown comet, dubbed Lucifer's Hammer by the press, approaches Earth, various business executives, politicians, criminals, journalists and scientists await the impending cataclysm and its general and personal effects with decidedly differing feelings

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">97

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Doomsday Book]
by [|Connie Willis] Stranded in the 14th century — a time of superstition and fear — time traveler Kivrin becomes an unlikely angel of hope during history's darkest hour and awaits rescue by her comrades. Literary Award Winner

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">98 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|Perdido Street Station] === by [|China Mieville] In the squalid, Gothic city of New Crobuzon, a mysterious half-human, half-bird stranger comes to Isaac, a gifted but eccentric scientist, with a request to help him fly, but Isaac's obsessive experiments and attempts to grant the request unleash a terrifying dark force on the entire city.

 <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">99 ===<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Xanth Series] === by [|Piers Anthony] > In Anthony's pun-besotted magical realm (which is shaped a lot like Florida), every human is born with a unique magical ability, which they use navigate a landscape full of dragons, goblins, harpies, centaurs and all manner of eldritch creatures.  <span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 32px;">100

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none;">[|The Space Trilogy]
by [|C.S. Lewis] > Philologist Edwin Ransom travels to Mars and Venus, and makes a series of dramatic discoveries about Earth's place in the solar system – and the nature of a threat it unwittingly faces.