Top 100 Sci-Fi Books Meta-List

A recent post on Twitter by MancLibraries questioned the list of the 100 top Sci-Fi books by Peter Sykes at Austarnet. After a few tweets back and forth about the legitamacy of the list I got to thinking whether there was a better and/or more scientific list available. After a lot of searching I found there wasn't. So... with a couple of hours spare at the weekend, I created my own. Instead of making a list based on my own favourite sci-fi books, I trawled the Internet to find other people's top 100 books, scored the books dependant on their postion in the list then compiled the results, which are as follows:

*EDIT: an updated list is available here*

1. Dune by Frank Herbert


2. 1984 by George Orwell


3. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card


4. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury


5. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick


6. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin


7. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.


8. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess


9. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester


10. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke


11. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein


12. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley


13. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley


14. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein


15. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein


16. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes


17. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury


18. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams


19. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick


20. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells


21. Foundation by Isaac Asimov


22. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson


23. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham


24. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut


25. Ringworld by Larry Niven


26. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke


27. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon


28. Neuromancer by William Gibson


29. A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge


30. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle


31. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov


32. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells


33. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut


34. Hyperion by Dan Simmons


35. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin


36. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson


37. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny


38. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart


39. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester


40. Way Station by Clifford D Simak


41. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien


42. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman


43. Tigana by Guy G. Kay


44. A Song of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin


45. Gateway by Frederik Pohl


46. The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov


47. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick


48. Ubik by Philip K. Dick


49. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke


50. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card


51. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov


52. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons


53. A Case of Conscience by James Blish


54. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut


55. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton


56. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson


57. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne


58. The Puppet Masters by Robert A Heinlein


59. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson


60. Flatland by Edwin A Abbott


61. The Road by Cormac McCarthy


62. Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement


63. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne


64. Startide Rising by David Brin


65. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe


66. The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov


67. Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky


68. Contact by Carl Sagan


69. The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle


70. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien


71. True Names by Vernor Vinge


72. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey


73. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson


74. Animal Farm by George Orwell


75. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood


76. The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe


77. Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick


78. The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke


79. To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer


80. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick


81. Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison


82. The Door Into Summer by Robert A Heinlein


83. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton


84. Eon by Greg Bear


85. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem


86. The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy G. Kay


87. VALIS by Philip K Dick


88. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll


89. Caine Black Knife (Acts of Caine, Book 3) by Matthew Woodring Stover


90. Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith


91. The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe


92. A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2) by George R.R. Martin


93. Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card


94. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner


95. The Dying Earth by Jack Vance


96. The Vorkosigan Series by Lois M. Bujold


97. A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) by George R.R. Martin


98. Player of Games by Iain M. Banks


99. Have Space-Suit Will Travel by Robert A Heinlein


100. Krew Elfow by A. Sapkowski

Some caveats and explanations behind my list:

• This list is based on lists of top 100 sci fi novels to make point scoring and comparison easy for me. I will start to include list of varying lengths now. If you know of any sci-fi lists let me know.


• I didn't include Amazon bestselling sci-fi novels.


• All the lists are qualatative (some to a lesser extent than others).


• All anaylsis is based on my own preferences.


• Some fantasy books are in the list, sorry.


• Books from trilogies and the triolgies themselves are in the list.


• Order is based only on score, some books appear on all lists but if they score low they are below ones that score higher but are only on one list.


• If you notice any mistakes in my calculations please let me know.


• Some of the lists are, I think, compiled by fanboys of particular authors.


• Finally, and the biggest caveat of all, there is nothing scientific about this list, sorry.

Here are the lists I collated the information from:

• http://thisrecording.com/today/2010/1/18/in-which-we-count-down-the-100-greatest-science-fiction-or-f.html"


• http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3.Best_science_fiction_books


• http://www.listology.com/list/david-pringles-best-100-science-fiction-novels


• http://sffmeta.com/listBooks?list=alltimehigh&genreDefaultNo=0"


• http://www.hcpl.net/read/phobos-100-best-science-fiction-books


• http://gurge.com/amd/top100/


• http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html