What's on your SF/fantasy "desert island" list?

[thatcrazycajun]

Courtesy of StumbleUpon.com, I just found an interesting little British website called WhatShallIReadNext.com, wherein you register (a very brief and painless process) and compile a list of your favorite reads from their vast database of published works and their authors. Then it generates a list of similar books to those on your list that you might also enjoy. You can also view lists similar in content to yours posted by others for comparison purposes and to find other titles you wish to add to your own. (Yeah, yeah, I know, lots of you already have a pile by the bed you have yet to get to; but just in case you don't and need help picking one...)

(One minor technical issue: the system seems to have a number of titles listed more than once, due to variances in spelling of both titles and authors' names; frex, two listings of Time Enough for Love, one by Robert Heinlein and one by Robert A. Heinlein. Some books that are part of a series are also listed both individually and as part of their series; and in the case of LeGuin's Earthsea books, the series itself is listed twice, once as a trilogy and once as a "quartet." All this can result in some books already on your list appearing in the suggestions list under slightly different titles or author names. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to fix this without greatly reducing the system's ability to recognize a book from different users' mis-typing.)

This gave me an idea for a collaborative thing to do here on my page: List at least one but no more than three of the books you consider the best SF and/or fantasy books you have ever read, the ones that abso-frakkin'-lutely MUST be on everyone's shelf. If the one you assign that status has already been listed by someone else, choose the next-best one(s) down your list. Let's see how poorly-read I am compared to the rest of my readers.

Comments

Favorite novels

[markiv1111.livejournal.com]

I'm going to start this list with stuff that I think should be far, far more widely read by far more people; I don't expect most of your and my mutual friends would pick the two at my top. But I most emphatically do recommend these for anybody who likes science fiction more than fantasy. *Transit,* by Edmund Cooper. *Space Prison,* by Tom Godwin. And for a third, I would pick *The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,* by Robert A. Heinlein.

Nate B.

Re: Favorite novels

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Haven't heard of the first two, all right, but Mistress is already on my faves list, along with several other Heinlein selections. Thanks!

[filkferengi]

Isaac Asimov edited an anthology called "Tomorrow's Children." It's long out of print, but introduced me to several major [and favorite] authors. I recommend ILL & a copier.

There's a lovely collection of most of Zenna Henderson's short stories called "Ingathering." Nesfa published it, but it later went book club, so affordable used copies should be findable.

You know I'm a rabid Lois McMaster Bujold fan [see the ears? ;)]. Everything she has written is very good, but, for a pure distillation of what she has to say about choices and prices, there's nothing like _Curse Of Chalion_. Now might be a good time for you to read it [or even to share it with your lark-in-residence].