500 Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Books You Should Read Before You Die - Members' Version

[Extollager]

I'd nominate Charles Williams's The Place of the Lion (fantasy) and All Hallows' Eve (horror).

Phyllis Paul's Twice Lost ("horror").

Those certainly are novels.

Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw" (horror). That is a novella. But (for the purposes of this list) not some entire collection of James's stories. However, "Turn" has been published as standalone book by Dover, so it can squeak in here as A Book. Same with Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." It's a novella. But Dover published it as a book.

 

[Extollager]

David Williams's When the English Fall (sf).

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Would you number them, Extollager?

 

[Extollager]

Not until we see if listing stories rather than books is acceptable to the original poster. I mean, sure, we can stick with books if that's what is desired. If it is, then one good thing is that we should see some outstanding sf anthologies, as well as single-author collections, listed here....

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

At least number the books!

 

[Extollager]

101, 102. Charles Williams's The Place of the Lion (fantasy) and All Hallows' Eve (horror).
103.Phyllis Paul's Twice Lost ("horror").
104.Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw" (horror) -- published as a book by Dover.
105.Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" -- published as a book by Dover.
106.David Williams's When the English Fall (sf).

 

[Extollager]

107.Algis Budrys's "Rogue Moon" -- I'm thinking of the novella, but there is a version, which I am not sure hasn't been expanded, published as a book.
108.Swift, Gulliver's Travels

I can think of a lot of other books I like very much, but which I would hesitate to belong in a "bucket list" compilation. I'll mention a few, and perhaps someone else will be convinced they really do belong on this list of works that sffh readers owe it to themselves to try...

David Lindsay, A Voyage to Arcturus (sf) and The Haunted Woman ("horror").
Algis Budrys, Who? (sf).
PKD, A Scanner Darkly (sf).
George R. Stewart, Earth Abides (sf)

I thought of the Kalevala, but quite a bit of it is extraneous for this purpose -- charms for stopping the flow of blood from a wound, for making beer, whatnot. The core of Malory's Morte d'Arthur, but it is burdened by the tedium of Arthur's war with Rome and so on, which I do not think belongs on a bucket list. There is could be an abridgment of Tales from Malory that might fit the bill. But I don't nominate these and other old masterpieces -- I'm not sure they would be regarded as belonging on this type of list, by me or others (ditto for Saga of the Volsungs or even Plato's Timaeus...).

 

[Extollager]

108-110.The Cosmic Trilogy by C. S. Lewis: (1) Out of the Silent Planet (2) Perelandra (3) That Hideous Strength (sf)
111.E. Nesbit, The Five Children and It
112.George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin
113.George MacDonald, Lilith
114.Tolkien, Smith of Wootton Major
115.Tolkien, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
116.Rider Haggard, She
117.William Morris, The Water of the Wondrous Isles or one of his other romances
118.Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven (sf)

Nos. 111-117 are fantasy.

I don't think these were mentioned earlier.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

114. T.H. White, The Once and Future King

 

[Extollager]

92-94 were:
The Owl Service, by Alan Garner
Laurus, by Eugene Vodolazkin
The Man Who Was Thursday, by G. K. Chesterton

I think The Once and Future King is #118 -- ?*

119.Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James (horror)

*I wish t-C had nominated White's Arthurian books separately. Some people like The Sword in the Stone quite a bit, as originally published, but not so much the other three books of that omnibus. But the omnibus was published as a book -- I'm not suggesting it should be withdrawn!

 

[Extollager]

121,122. Shakespeare’s Macbeth and The Tempest (fantasy).

 

[Extollager]

123. Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black (horror)
124. Jack Finney’s Time and Again (fantasy)

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

I think The Once and Future King is #118 -- ?

I think you edited your post and added numbers while I posted? In any case, it would be 119.

 

[Extollager]

125.Rachel Maddux, The Green Kingdom (fantasy or sf)

 

[Parson]

126. David Webber, On Basilisk Station
127. David Weber, The Short Victorious War
128. David Weber, For the Honor of the Queen
129. David Weber, On the Field of Dishonor
130. Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
131. Orson Scott Card, Songmaster

 

[Extollager]

132.Wu Ch'eng-En, a free 20th-century version by Arthur Waley, Monkey
133.Amos Tutuola, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Both are fantasy.

 

[Extollager]

134.Poul Anderson, The Enemy Stars (sf)
135.Richard Adams, Watership Down (fantasy)

 

[Extollager]

136.S.T. Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, perhaps illustrated by Dore or Peake. This masterpiece of weird fantasy is by no means a "classic" to be left to college students.

 

[dask]

137. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Excellent low key darkish fantasy that for me at least packed a good punch.

 

[dask]

138. To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer. The whole Riverworld series is worth reading but don’t really add anything to this mind-blowing novel that won the Hugo Award in 1972. An undiluted masterpiece of science fiction and a must read if there ever was one.