This list is bullshit because Philip Pullman appears nowhere on it. The Dark Materials trilogy is as least as good as anything Terry Brooks crapped out or, come on, World War Z.

Snow Crash should be in the top five or ten.

Animal Farm is neither sci-fi nor fantasy.

URGH, the nerd in me is going to rage over this all day.

Oh, I missed that Sandman was on there.

They're putting together a YA list at some point, I'm sure Pullman will be on that one. And yeah Animal Farm and Watership Down both gave me me pause. Animal Farm seems too purely allegorical to count as fantasy. And Watership Down... I don't know how to classify that one, really.

I'm just glad that local heroine and really-great-human-being Ursula Le Guin made the list.

Dune is better than Lord of the Rings. Nerd fight, anyone?

Charles Stross is here tonight? Holy heck, I gots to go. That's gonna be crazy crowded, though. Any tips? I haven't been to see any authors at Powells before.

I feel like this list was designed purely to troll nerds. It's not even worth arguing over.

Bring a book and a snack, get there no later than 7 and earlier if you can stand it.

. no alfred bester and only one PKD?

What tags said.

Also: A Canticle For Leibowitz, Perdio Street Station, Last Unicorn = Yes

No Lethem or Chabon? = Boooooo.

@Graham: Classic Graham!

Yeah, glad to see A Canticle for Leibowitz, I love that book. Surprised that Riddley Walker wasn't on there, though.

@Alison: Bring a book to Powells?

Oh no. Star Wars expanded universe trash. I'm tempted to say a lot of Good Omens would still hold up, but I haven't read it in a long time, either. Heinlein and Zelazny, yeah!

Eh.... attempts to qualify shit on a continuum like this are always silly, but people seem to get a kick out of it.

@Reymon Yeah dude. Otherwise you're just gonna get involved in a book and then end up having to buy it. COME ON.

Watership Down does have psychic rabbits, though that's a huge stretch. Animal Farm is a fable, and not really fantasy or SF. I'm amused that Margaret Atwood is on the list, given how much she resents being called a SF author.

I find the presence of anything relating to Drzzt Do'Urden on that list utterly and horribly distasteful, especially since R.A. Salvatore's dark-elf Mary Sue powerfantasy scimitar bullshit is ranked higher than the Elric series or the Illustrated Man. Fuck that. And and where the fresh hell are Fritz Leiber and H.P. Lovecraft?

Otherwise, though, a pretty good survey of the SF/fantasy canon.

I'm still surprised at Orson Scott Card's continued popularity among NPR types, him being a crazed right winger and all.

@seanpdx: Yeah, what's up with all those Card-carrying communists?

No Mervyn Peake? I call bullshit on this list.