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The Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

By Gregon

A few weeks back I pointed out NPR’s reader poll of the top 100 science fiction and fantasy titles. Well, after more than 60,000 votes, the results are now in – here’s the top ten as voted by the public:

  1. The Lord Of The Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
  2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
  3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
  4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
  5. A Song Of Ice And Fire series, by George R.R. Martin
  6. 1984: A Novel, by George Orwell
  7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
  8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
  9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
  10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

View the entire top 100 at NPR

Not a lot of surprises at the top of the list, although I was rather shocked that one of my personal picks, The Day of the Triffids, didn’t even make the top 100. Any other notable inclusions or omissions that caught your eye (remembering that Young Adult and horror were left out, as they will get their own poll…so, no Harry Potter by default)?

Also at NPR: Parsing the results.

Greg
Editor
Greg is the owner-editor of The Daily Grail, as well as the author of a number of books including 'Stop Worrying, There Probably is an Afterlife'.
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7 Comments

  2. Polls, polls, polls
    Anyone who expects daring, unusual or brave books to get to the top of these polls has never watched The Eurovision Song Contest. You can pretty much guarantee that the song that will win is the one that offends the majority least. Just look at this list

    1984, Fahrenheit 451, A Brave New World and the Foundation Trilogy are officially classics so no big fuss there

    The Lord of the Rings has been made into a blockbuster film so everyone thinks of that one

    Hitchhikers guide also a film, and a radio and TV series

    The Song of Ice and Fire series, is a soap opera in book form

    So what’s left? Ender’s Game which is being made into a film so everyone has heard of it

    And last but not least American Gods because Neil Gaiman has a huuuuge fan following that bumps his books up every list (Oh and HBO are going to make a series of it)

    I suppose that leave Song of Ice and Fire as the odd one out – it isn’t officially a classic (though it was started ion 1991), and it isn’t being filmed (yet). Well, I expect there are so many copies of it out there that everyone remembers it (I don’t know why).

    I could come up with 10 (or 100) books I think are better, but since my taste doesn’t match the average none of my books would eb at the top either. Oh well….

  3. the classics
    i wish the classics like 1984 were a little higher on the charts. the only reason any of these youngsters know what Tolkien’s saga is is because of Hollywood. Also, no PKD? *sigh*

  4. anglophones
    Huh. It seems to ignore books not written in English. It’s nice that they remembered Jules Verne, even though his books were originally marketed as YA. But it’s sad to see no Raymond Roussel, Boris Vian, or Gustav Meyrink. Oh well…

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