Sci-Fi Meme
Okay, I’ve taken this from a Very True Place but am going to bend the rules slightly. Well, not so much bend them as break them, to be honest. The meme lists what are considered to be the 50 most significant SF & F books (by either Time Magazine or the Science Fiction Book Club — or quite possibly both) from 1953. The rules tell me to:
Bold the ones you’ve read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.
And I just can’t be doing with that. It’s hardly a semantic use of HTML, now is it?
I know this is really rather sad: it’s a nice simple way to mark up a list of books, but it just felt wrong. I’m sorry. The only real question was whether to go for a table or a definition list…
But then, salvation! If I could just find a way to mark them up semantically, using the styles to add meaning as well as formatting effects, that would satisfy me. It might not work in every browser, but it works according the the HTML spec, it retains the meme rules, but it allows me feel happy I’m applying semantic meaning as well as just formatting effects.
Introducing the debut of the read, not-finished, hated and loved classes that work in combination with the “booksmeme” id, here’s the 50 most significant SF & F books…
- The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
- Dune, Frank Herbert
- Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
- A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
- Neuromancer, William Gibson
- Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
- The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Braliey
- Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
- The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
- A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
- The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
- Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
- Cities in Flight, James Blish
- The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
- Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
- Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
- The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
- Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
- Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
- Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
- The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
- The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
- Gateway, Frederik Pohl
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
- I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
- Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
- The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
- Little, Big, John Crowley
- Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
- The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
- Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
- More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
- The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
- On the Beach, Nevil Shute
- Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
- Ringworld, Larry Niven
- Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
- The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
- Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
- Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
- The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
- Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
- Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
- The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Dan says:
November 21st, 2006 at 9:40 am
Interesting, we’ve got an almost exact match on what we’ve read and not read.
Of those you’ve not read, the only one I have read is A Canticle for Leibowitz. I think you’d enjoy it, it’s much more philosophical than your average SF&F work, and has an enduring (if slightly depressing) message.
Stephen says:
November 21st, 2006 at 10:23 am
I’m going to pass on this one – I just haven’t read enough sci-fi.
Although I have just finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, so I’m making amends.
Katie says:
November 27th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I’ve only read 5 of them… I’m really going to have to add some of them to my Christmas list
Samatha says:
November 28th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
A clear indication that I need to read more sci-fi books as I’ve only heard of a handful of these books!
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