NPRs top 100 Sci-Fi/Fantasy books

	A	B	C	D
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5	1	Lord of the Rings	J.R.R. Tolkien	All-Time-FAV! This series was very important in my formation as a young man! i read these books over and over again through my middle school years
6	2	The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy	Doiuglas Adams	All-Time-FAV! Another formative series, helped me hone my sense of humor and affected my worldview that caused me to question the world around me
7	3	Ender's Game	Orscon Scott Card	First one is solid, concepts actually get better as they go along but writting degrades
8	4	The Dune Chronicles	Frank Herbert	Starts out strong, slowly fades. One of the best stories of political intrigue. i like it through Lato-the-Hutt (tina does not like Lato-the-Hutt)
9	5	A Song of Fire and Ice	George R R Martin
10	6	1984	George Orwell	Another book that influenced my thoughts about authority, moreso as an older teen.
11	7	Farehgeit 451	Ray Bradbury	The first time i read this book i didn't think to classify it as a sci-fi/fantasy book, Well written!
12	8	The Foundation Trilogy	Isaac Azimov	Solid, Concepts are amazing. (should not have beaten out LOTR for the award it recieved)
13	9	Brave New World	Aldous Huxley	what we're probably falling into. Everyone worries about 1984 but Brave New World is probably closer to what we are actually headed towards. Where we willingly give up freedoms for convinence
14	10	American Gods	Neil Gaiman	All-Time-Fav! Gaiman to me represents the re-birth of fantasy to the modern world. He writes tales with a deep well of mysticism that keeps you on your toes and pushes you off the ledge and into freefall of suspension of disbelief
15	11	The Princess Bride	William Goldman	Well Written, same feel as the movie. Movie is one of my mosy beloved of all times.
16	12	The Wheel of Time Series	Robert Jordan
17	13	Animal Farm	George Orwell	Shall we say... Orwellian haha! It's a HEAVY light read!
18	14	Neuromancer	William Gibson
19	15	Watchmen	Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons	All-Time-Fav Def my allt-time favorite graphic novel. It feels like a look into superheroes if the actually existed in the real world.
20	16	I, Robot	Isaac Azimov	All-Time-Fav Hands down one of the greatest collections of short stories compiled into a book that has ever been penned. Azimov's rules of robotics have become embedded into our modern and futurist views of robots, excellent book!
21	17	Stranger in a Strange Land	Robert A Heinlein	Classic, Written in 1961 i feel like this book embraces some of the bohemian philosphies that were becoming pervasive in western culture. It does some interesting things setting those in front of us but overall just wasn't all that compelling to me. i did enjoy Jubal througought
22	18	The Kingkiller Chronicles	Patrick Rothfuss
23	19	Slaughterhouse Five	Kurt Vonnegut
24	20	Frankenstein	Mary Shelley	Solid Gold Classic! If you've never read the book READ THE BOOK! it will shatter every hollywood portraial of Frankentien's monster that is burnt into your brain. Shelley does an amazing job forcing us to look at humanity and morality on a very deep level through this entrancing tale!
25	21	Do Androids Dream of Electrick Sheep?	Philip K Dick
26	22	The Handmaid's Tale	Margaret Atwood	GUT PUNCH! So good, so frustrating! Captures the journey of an empowered woman as societty shifts underneath her leaving her powerless and alone... a warning and thought provoking
27	23	The Dark Tower Series	Stephen King	All-Time-Fav Roland is a great flawed hero! The deeper you dig through this series the more surreal it gets! You eventually reach a point where you're reading absurd things and just accepting them. i consider this series King's master-work
28	24	2001: A Space Odyssey	Arthur C Clarke
29	25	The Stand	Stephen King	possibly King's second best work. The Stand is an amazing ride down a dark and diseased trail
30	26	Snow Crash	Neal Stephenson
31	27	The Marian Chronicles	Ray Bradbury
32	28	Cat's Cradle	Kurt Vonnegut
33	29	The Sandman Series	Neil Gaiman	i'm a HUGE Gaiman fan but i'm pretty cool on the Sandman Series. It never seems to capture the depth that i see in his other works.
34	30	A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess	Immersive! From the first pages you're plunged into a Milk Bar and drowned in street lingo that transports you to the violent delinqunet world of the protaganist! Forces us to question what justice really means.
35	31	Starship Troopers	Robert A Heinlein
36	32	*Watership Down	Richard Adams
37	33	Dragonflight	Anne McCaffrey	Fresh and deep spin on dragons, Pern is a very well developed world. Grear read (pacing of the writing is slower but in a pleasnat way)
38	34	The Moon is a Harsh Mistress	Robert A Heinlein
39	35	A Canticle for Leibowitz	Walter M Miller JR
40	36	The Time Machine	HG Wells
41	37	20,000 Leages Under the Sea	Jules Verne
42	38	Flower for Algernon	Daviel Keyes	Love this book! One of the first books to make me cry, and it still gets me with every re-read! Made me question the use of intelect as a quotent for evaluation the worth of a person
43	39	The War of the Worlds	HG Wells
44	40	The Amber Chronicles	Roger Zelazny
45	41	The Belgariad	David Eddings
46	42	The Mists of Avalon	Marlon Zimmer Bradley
47	43	Mistborn Trilogy	Brandon Sanderson
48	44	Ringworld	Larry Niven
49	45	The Left Hand of Darkness	Usula K Le Guinn
50	46	The Simarillion	J R R Tolkien	Don't open this tome expecting to read LOTR. This is a reference work. i find that it's best read in smaller chunks between other books
51	47	The Once and Future King	T H White	Sooooo good! In my opinion the best of the Autharian re-tellings! If you haven't read it, read it.
52	48	Neverwhere	Neil Gaiman	Good stuff, plops you into Gaiman fantasy but without the jarring impact of some of his other work
53	49	Childhood's End	Autur C Clarke
54	50	Contact	Carl Sagan	The first 80% feel like scientific fiction, the end dives into Sci-Fi turf. Sagan does a great job writing a female protagonist and confronts some serious spiritual matters by the end of the book
55	51	The Hyperion Cantos	Dan Simmons
56	52	Stardust	Neil Gaiman	probably my least favorite Gaiman book. It was ok, not a waste of time but not as engaging as most of his writtings
57	53	Cryptonomicon	Neal Stephenson
58	54	World War Z	Max Brooks
59	55	The Last Unicorn	Peter S Beagle
60	56	The Forever War	Joe Haldeman
61	57	Small Gods *	Terry Pratchett	a definite read! Small Gods is my favorite Pratchett novel! Nothing like laughing your way into deep introspection haha!
62	58	The Chronicles of Thomas Convenant the Unbeliever	Stephen R Donaldson
63	59	The Vorkosigan Saga	Lous McMaster Bujold
64	60	Going Postal	Terry Pratchett
65	61	The Mote In God's Eye	Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
66	62	The Sword of Truth Series	Terry Goodkind
67	63	The Road*	Cormac McCarthy	Dark as black coffee in a black cup in a lightless room in a cave! it'll pull you down, but it does it in an amazing way.
68	64	Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell*	Susanna Clarke	Book was pretty well written. But something about it never pulled me in. Her treatment of magic and it’s operation was pretty compelling though, characters were wonderfully flawed too so I’m not sure how to quantify my struggle getting through this one .
69	65	I Am Legend	Richard Matheson	Written in 1954, so that has to be weighed in for me. It birthed a style of story telling so it gets mad props for that! But its not a book that i'll reread over and over again
70	66	The Riftwar Saga*	Raymone E Feist	Not bad at all but also not great either. A solid Meh for me.
71	67	The Sword of Shannara Series	Terry Brooks
72	68	The Conan the Barbarian Series	Robert E Howard & Mark Schultz
73	69	The Farseer Trilogy*	Robin Hobb	Solid concepts, great politcal intrigue, just a little too purple prose for my tastes.
74	70	The Time Travelers Wife	Audrey Niffenegger
75	71	The Way of Kings*	Brandon Sanderson	A tome of a read... but for a reason. The pool of this tale just gets deeper and deeper the longer you swim in it . Great read!
76	72	*Journey to the Center of the Earth	Jules Verne
77	73	The Legend of Drizzt Series	R A Salvatore	D&D classic series, read some of them. It was good as source material for ideas but the story-telling wasn't as compelling as i'd hoped it would be.
78	74	Old Man's War*	John Scalzi	What a ride! just a smidge of irreverance, a scoop of graphic violence, a cup of thoughful material. Easy read to blow through!
79	75	The Diamond Age*	Neal Stephenson	Another gem from the pen of Stephenson! a tale of the power of education? a tale of the power of love and nurture!
80	76	Rendevous with Rama*	Arthur C Clarke	Masterfully done I very much so enjoyed that Clarke left the mystery locked up inside Rama instead of spoon-feeding the readers an easily digestible package like modern SF often does
81	77	The Kushiel's Legacy Series	Jacqueline Carey
82	78	The Dispossessed*	Usula K Le Guinn	Digs into some heavy ideas, like the characters and the writing but for some reason i can't pin down the book did drag a little for me.
83	79	Something Wicked This Way Comes*	Ray Bradbury
84	80	Wicked*	Gregory Maguire	Elphaba's character development arc is one of the best ever written! Didn't expect to love this one... but man do i!
85	81	The Malazon Book of the Fallen Series	Steven Erikson
86	82	The Eyre Affair*	Jasper Fforde	Tons of fun, si-fi buffet set in the 80s has everything from advanced tech, time travel, super powerful “demonic-esque” villains, to blurred lines between reality and fiction!
87	83	The Culture Series*	Iain Banks	Fast Paced Space-Opera style Sci-Fi. Only read the opener to the series but it was interesting througout and the characters were interesting and likeable
88	84	The Crystal Cave*	Mary Stewart	Fun, well written, great and refreshing view of Merlin before he was MERLIN!
89	85	Anathem*	Neal Stephenson	A tour from simple monastic life to space travel. A vehicle to discuss philosophical ideas. Concludes with an interesting thought experiment on multi-verses and the potential that they are interconnected
90	86	The Codex Alera Series*	Jim Butcher	So.... I pulled the eject lever on this one. Some neat concepts but the style it’s written in made it a brain numbing slog for me
91	87	The Book of the New Sun*	Gene Wolfe
92	88	The Thrawn Trilogy*	Timothy Zahn	Fan Fic from back in the day! (but he did get paid to write it!)
93	89	The Outlander Series*	Diana Gabaldon
94	90	The Elric Saga	Micheal Moorcock
95	91	The Illistrated Man*	Ray Bradbury	Bradbury is (of course) a very competent sci-fi writer. A collection of short stories assembled in 1951 they ranged from very engaging and profound to just meh for me. i loved when he looked forward and went after things like racism and technology addiction. i do like seeing the expectations of a great sci-fi writter of a by-gone era. Decent read but not earth moving
96	92	Sunshine *	Robin McKinley	Had some potential but wound up feeling like the forerunner to the twighlight series to me. Bland heroine who is both repulsed and infatuated with vampire... it's a pass for me, i survived it once, that's enough for me (published 2003, twighlight published 2005)
97	93	A Fire Upon the Deep *	Vernor Vinge
98	94	The Caves of Steel	Isaac Azimov	Much loved Azimov book... for me it's a pass. Read it, finished it....
99	95	The Mars Trilogy *	Kim Stanley Robinson	Loooooooong.... interesting thought experiment about settling mars and how that effects society and people it all comes back around to interpersonal relationships. Not bad but aLSO NOT SUPER COMPELLING
100	96	Lucifers Hammer	Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle	Fun little ride through asteroid disaster! It's what we wished all those bad 90's asteroid movies would have been.