The 1000 Novels of Dr. T! PART TWO
The list was too long to include in one post, so here it continues
52. Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)
53. James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) —Science Fiction? Really?
54. Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)
55. *Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932) — A book to chill the heart and open the eyes. This book transcends genre. A must-read.
56. Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)
57. Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
58. Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898) —Science Fiction? Really?
59. PD James: The Children of Men (1992)
60. Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)
61. Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)
62. Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925) — This is a maybe. Maybe I read it. Maybe not. I read something by Kafka, but all his works are so forgettable and uninteresting, that they blur together in my memory. Man turns into a cockroach, and is arrested for a crime he did not commit, and they burn his sentence into his flesh with a red-hot printing press, and he goes weeping to find someone who can read the letters to him. Call me a philistine, but I like things like plot, character, and point.
63. *Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966) — A sad little tale. Yes, by all means, read this one before you die.
64. Stephen King: The Shining (1977) — On my ‘to read’pile.
65. Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)
66. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864) —Le Fanu is on this list, but not William Hope Hodgeson? Not Hope Mirleess? Odd.
67. Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961) — Lem is not to my taste.
68. Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
69. *David Lindsay: A Voyage toArcturus (1920) — Many rereads. This is an astonishing almost hypnotic work. I am glad to see someone has read it.
70. Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)
71. Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)
72. Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)
73. Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954) — I saw OMEGA MAN starring Charlton Heston. Does that count?
74. Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
75. Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)
76. Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)
77. Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)
78. China Miéville: The Scar (2002) — China is on the same Index of Forbidden Books as Margie Atwood, as far as I am concerned. I do not deny he is skilled, but it disturbs me that he so eagerly places his God-given talents into the service of his stepfather Lucifer.
79. Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)
80. Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960) — I don’t recall being particularly impressed with this when I read it.
81. David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)
82. Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988) — I have read my fair share of Moorcock, and enjoyed his non-hippy-trippy stuff. I doubt anything could cajole me into reading the socialist-anarchist tracts and convoluted plotless messes Mr. Moorcock intends as his serious literary work.
83. William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890) — I can think offhand of three William Morris books I began without being able to finish. They are not unpleasant, but they are dirge-slow. This one I never started.
84. Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
85. Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
86. Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)
87. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003)
88. Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970) — Glad to see amid all this non-SF poppysmoke, one real SF classic.
89. Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993)
90. Flann O’Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
91. Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)
92. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996) —Science Fiction? Really?
93. Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818) —Science Fiction? Really?
94. Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946) (didn’t finish) — You have got to be kidding. This book was hogwash and humbug. It more fittingly should go on the list of book you hope you die before you read.
95. John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)
96. Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)
97. François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34) (didn’t finish)— Rabelais is an SFF writer? Oh, puh-lease. Another book I would not read if you paid me.
98. Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
99. Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)
100. Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) — I read halfway through the RED MARS trilogy, and was very impressed with the authors skill at the hardest of hard SF. I could not finish because his politics intruded into the story. However, Robinson is not on the Index: if he turns his pen to a nonpartisan topic, he will find an eager audience in me.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
