NPR is asking people to vote for the best 100 science fiction & fantasy books ever written. SF&F people are encouraging everyone to go and vote; we are trying to top the 17,000 votes that thrillers got last year. I just finished posting my top 5. And just so that you don’t have to drill down into the thousands of comments to find what I voted for, I’ll list the books here, noting that NPR said it will accept well-established series as a single vote:
- Foundation series by Isaac Asimov
- Beyond Apollo by Barry N. Malzberg (why you should read this book)
- The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
- Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
- Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (my reviews are here and here)
There are some interesting choices in the comments, and of course, many of the books are more recent because readers are younger and aren’t as aware of the older stuff. I think I’ve got a pretty good mix in my list. In fact, I’d guess that you could make demographic predictions (age-based) by looking at nothing but the lists of books people posted.