Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010

It’s been a while since we’ve done a booklist meme, but the recent publication of Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010, as determined by Damien Broderick and Paul DiFilipo gives a good excuse. Which one of those below have you read (italics), do you own bold or dislike (struck through)?

• The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
• Ender’s Game (1985)
• Radio Free Albemuth (1985)
• Always Coming Home (1985)
• This Is the Way the World Ends (1985)
• Galápagos (1985)
• The Falling Woman (1986)
• The Shore of Women (1986)
• A Door Into Ocean (1986)
• Soldiers of Paradise (1987)
• Life During Wartime (1987)
• The Sea and Summer (1987)
• Cyteen (1988)
• Neverness (1988)
• The Steerswoman (1989)
• Grass (1989)
• Use of Weapons (1990)
• Queen of Angels (1990)
• Barrayar (1991)
• Synners (1991)
• Sarah Canary (1991)
• White Queen (1991)
• Eternal Light (1991)
• Stations of the Tide (1991)
• Timelike Infinity (1992)
• Dead Girls (1992)
• Jumper (1992)
• China Mountain Zhang (1992)
• Red Mars (1992)
• A Fire Upon the Deep (1992)
• Aristoi (1992)
• Doomsday Book (1992)
• Parable of the Sower (1993)
• Ammonite (1993)
• Chimera (1993)
• Nightside the Long Sun (1993)
• Brittle Innings (1994)
• Permutation City (1994)
• Blood (1994)
• Mother of Storms (1995)
• Sailing Bright Eternity (1995)
• Galatea 2.2 (1995)
• The Diamond Age (1995)
• The Transmigration of Souls (1996)
• The Fortunate Fall (1996)
• The Sparrow/Children of God (1996/1998)
• Holy Fire (1996)
• Night Lamp (1996)
• In the Garden of Iden (1997)
• Forever Peace (1997)
• Glimmering (1997)
• As She Climbed Across the Table (1997)
• The Cassini Division (1998)
• Bloom (1998)
• Vast (1998)
• The Golden Globe (1998)
• Headlong (1999)
• Cave of Stars (1999)
• Genesis (2000)
• Super-Cannes (2000)
• Under the Skin (2000)
• Perdido Street Station (2000)
• Distance Haze (2000)
• Revelation Space trilogy (2000)
• Salt (2000)
• Ventus (2001)
• The Cassandra Complex (2001)
• Light (2002)
• Altered Carbon (2002)
• The Separation (2002)
• The Golden Age (2002)
• The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003)
• Natural History (2003)
• The Labyrinth Key / Spears of God
• River of Gods (2004)
• The Plot Against America (2004)
• Never Let Me Go (2005)
• The House of Storms (2005)
• Counting Heads (2005)
• Air (Or, Have Not Have) (2005)
• Accelerando (2005)
• Spin (2005)
• My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (2006)
• The Road (2006)
• Temeraire /His Majesty’s Dragon (2006)
• Blindsight (2006)
• HARM (2007)
• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)
• The Secret City (2007)
• In War Times (2007)
• Postsingular (2007)
• Shadow of the Scorpion (2008)
• The Hunger Games trilogy (2008-2010)
• Little Brother (2008)
• The Alchemy of Stone (2008)
• The Windup Girl (2009)
• Steal Across the Sky(2009)
• Boneshaker (2009)
• Zoo City (2010)
• Zero History (2010)
• The Quantum Thief (2010)

A decent enough list, with only two books I hate. There are the usual sort of problems with any such list, in that the more recent choices are also more debatable as not enough time has passed since they were published. The Quantum Thief was enjoyable, but one of the best books of the last twentyfive years, or even one of the best books of 2010, I’m not sure. It also overrates decent efforts by mainstream novelists when similar efforts by science fiction writers would not have been included. Some choices are also strange: Barrayar instead of e.g. Komarr or A Civil Campaign? But still, a decent enough list on the whole.