The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

Taking the liberty of posting the composite top 100 SF book list I compiled several years ago. We had some discussion of this list in the sister group (Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels), but some comments from recently new members made me think to post it here.

This list is built from top 100 SF lists from several different web sites. Each list was scored, #1 = 100 points, #2 =99, etc., then combined & ranked. The result is a composite list that was intended to be a reading guide for SF classics. A number of these will fall onto the list of Hugo & Nebula nominees, but not all of them do. Note that the source lists excluded fantasy titles, so those are not included. I've done some work on a similar fantasy list but that is a much bigger undertaking.

1 - Dune - Frank Herbert
2 - The Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov
3 - 1984 - George Orwell
4 - Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
5 - Neuromancer - William Gibson
6 - Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein
7 - Childhood's End - Arthur C Clarke
8 - Ringworld - Larry Niven
9 - Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
10 - The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin
11 - The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
12 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
13 - Hyperion - Dan Simmons
14 - Rendezvous With Rama - Arthur C Clarke
15 - The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
16 - The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester
17 - The Time Machine - H G Wells
18 - Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
19 - The Man in the High Castle - Philip K Dick
20 - A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M Miller
21 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K Dick
22 - The War of the Worlds - H G Wells
23 - Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
24 - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A Heinlein
25 - Gateway - Frederik Pohl
26 - The Dispossessed - Ursula K Le Guin
27 - Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
28 - Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
29 - Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
30 - 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C Clarke
31 - Solaris - Stanislaw Lem
32 - A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge
33 - The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
34 - A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
35 - Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
36 - Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
37 - Ubik - Philip K Dick
38 - The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
39 - Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
40 - Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
41 - Starship Troopers - Robert A Heinlein
42 - The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
43 - The Road - Cormac McCarthy
44 - Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
45 - The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
46 - The Caves of Steel - Isaac Asimov
47 - The Mote in God's Eye - Niven & Pournelle
48 - The Gods Themselves - Isaac Asimov
49 - Old Man's War - John Scalzi
50 - Startide Rising - David Brin
51 - To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer
52 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
53 - Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner
54 - The City and the Stars - Arthur C Clarke
55 - A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle
56 - The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut
57 - The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
58 - More Than Human - Theodore Sturgeon
59 - Way Station - Clifford Simak
60 - A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
61 - City - Clifford Simak
62 - Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
63 - Altered Carbon - Richard K Morgan
64 - This Immortal - Roger Zelazny
65 - A Scanner Darkly - Philip K Dick
66 - Earth Abides - George R Stewart
67 - The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi
68 - Out of the Silent Planet - C S Lewis
69 - Roadside Picnic - Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
70 - The End of Eternity - Isaac Asimov
71 - The Door Into Summer - Robert A Heinlein
72 - Timescape - Gregory Benford
73 - Blood Music - Greg Bear
74 - The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
75 - Consider Phlebas - Iain M Banks
76 - I Am Legend - Richard Matheson
77 - The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
78 - Dhalgren - Samuel R Delany
79 - Mission of Gravity - Hal Clement
80 - The Fifth Head of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe
81 - The Space Merchants - Pohl & Kornbluth
82 - Last and First Men - Olaf Stapledon
83 - Downbelow Station - C J Cherryh
84 - Tau Zero - Poul Anderson
85 - The Fountains of Paradise - Arthur C Clarke
86 - Cyteen - C J Cherryh
87 - Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon
88 - Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg
89 - Double Star - Robert A Heinlein
90 - The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K Le Guin
91 - We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
92 - Cities in Flight - James Blish
93 - The Drowned World - J G Ballard
94 - To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
95 - Barrayar - Lois McMaster Bujold
96 - Babel-17 - Samuel R Delany
97 - A Connecticut Yankee in KA's Court - Mark Twain
98 - Helliconia Spring - Brian Aldiss
99 - Grass - Sheri S Tepper
100 - Parable of the Sower - Octavia Butler

A bit of descriptive statistics:
70 authors (incl. duos)
5 novels - 2 authors, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke
4 novels - Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick

Thanks, Allan. Pleased to see a lot that I've read (and mostly liked!) in the top 50. Plenty in the second half for me to catch up on.

Do you happen to know/remember how many source lists were used in the aggregation?

I think it was 6 different lists.