Discuss: Amazon's 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy novels to read in a lifetime

Photo from http://www.curiositykilledthebookworm.net/p/2012-sci-fi-challenge.html

Karen: Amazon published a list of 100 science fiction and fantasy books you should read in your life. I checked it out. I have read 36 of them. It's not a bad list, as these things go. It includes many of the usual suspects -Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Herbert, McCaffrey, LeGuin, Tolkien - along with some more recent selections (including Richard Kadrey, a personal favorite of mine). 

However, there are also some omissions -for me, the most glaring is that of Roger Zelazny, author of the Amber series and Lord of Light. Also, not a single novel by the prolific Andre Norton?

If you can muster the time, take a look at the list and share your thoughts about it. No list like this is perfect and all are subjective, but I do feel that some more worthy titles were overlooked for perhaps trendier ones.

And if you don't have the time to peruse the list, what is your own personal handful of indispensable science fiction and fantasy novels?

Discuss: Isaac Asimov

Karen: It's been some time since we ran any posts on science fiction and/or fantasy authors, so I thought I'd pull the subject back out of the mothballs to see if we have any interest. In the past we've discussed Andre Norton, Robert Heinlein, John Christopher, Michael Moorcock, Harlan Ellison, Phillip Jose Farmer, Frank Herbert, and J.R.R. Tolkien. If you go to the tag cloud on the left-hand side of the screen and click on "author," they should all come up. If we've somehow missed tagging a post, somebody please feel free to speak up.

Today let's talk about one of the grand old men, Isaac Asimov. Although I can't say he is a favorite of mine, he was my big brother's favorite for many years, so I have some familiarity with his work. I did read some of his robot stories, but never the Foundation books, I'm afraid. By the time I began getting into SF, I was gravitating towards Roger Zelazny, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. LeGuin, and the like, and not so much the 'hard SF' types like Asimov. But he certainly is a giant in the literature, and his Three Laws of Robotics have had tremendous impact on not only SF but society as a whole. He also took on the role of science ambassador, perhaps less than Carl Sagan, but he still was a witty guest on talk shows. Let us also not forget the magazine that bears his name and has published some wonderful short fiction for many years.

The floor is open...