---
title: "Now That's Significant"
date: '2003-03-25T17:07:57-05:00'
permalink: /now-thats-significant/
tags:
    - novels
---

Anybody who knows me (or who’s been bored enough to [peruse](/hey_wheres_the_joy_of_cooking/) the [archives](/influence_part_ii/) of [obsolescence](/because_you_didnt_ask/)) knows that I’m a sucker for the book list. Some of those same folks know that I’m teaching a [class](http://pages.pomona.edu/~kf004747/55/) this semester on science fiction.

You can imagine my excitement, then, to discover this list of [the Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years](http://www.sfbc.com/doc/content/sitelets/FSE_Sitelet_Theme_2.jhtml?SID=nmsfctop50&_requestid=461 "The Science Fiction Book Club") (a moniker then qualified by the years 1953-2002, which is good to know), put together by the good folks at the Science Fiction Book Club. Note that the top ten seem to be, in fact, the Top Ten; 11-50 are in alphabetical order by title, which would be a mighty coincidence, if these were actual rankings.

Of these 50, however, I’ve read very, very few. My interests run a bit more to the cyberpunk, on the one hand, and to the feminist/”minority”/queer, on the other, than do the interests of the SFBC. But I’ve thus far this semester taught 6, 8, 30 and 43, and we just today finished up 20 (whew). I suppose I’ll have to spend some of the summer filling in some of my listy gaps. Any advice about the list from the more knowledgable — which books on the list are vastly overrated; which books have been criminally forgotten — would be greatly appreciated. (Link via [defective yeti](http://www.defectiveyeti.com "defective yeti").)