Gardner Dozois' List of Essential SF (pre-1980)

Thanks to James Nichol on LiveJournal for pointing to this:

http://www.sfwa.org/reading/rec_dozois.htm

Dozois lists the essential novels and short story collections for someone interested in pre-1980 SF. Like any such list, it has its problems in detail (a couple - Okla Hannali, for one - aren't actually SF), but, overall it's not a bad list of the SF I grew up with. Here's GD's list of novels - books I've actually read are italicized.

Brian W. Aldiss :
The Long Afternoon of Earth
Starship
The Malacia Tapestry

Poul Anderson:
The Night Face
Tau Zero
The High Crusade
Brain Wave
Three Hearts and Three Lions

Isaac Asimov :
The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun

Gregory Benford :
Timescape

Alfred Bester:
The Stars My Destination
The Demolished Man

Michael Bishop:
A Little Knowledge
Stolen Faces

James Blish :
A Case of Conscience
Cities in Flight

Leigh Brackett:
The Long Tomorrow

Ray Bradbury:
Something Wicked This Way Comes

John Brunner:
The Shockwave Rider
Stand on Zanzibar
Polymath
Squares of the City

Algis Budrys:
Rogue Moon
Who?

Arthur C. Clarke:
Childhood's End
The City and the Stars
A Fall of Moondust
The Deep Range
The Sands of Mars

Hal Clement:
Mission of Gravity
Cycle of Fire
Needle

D.G. Compton :
Synthajoy
The Unsleeping Eye

Jack Dann:
The Man Who Melted
Junction

Avram Davidson:
Masters of the Maze
The Phoenix and the Mirror
Rork!
Rogue Dragon
Clash of Star Kings
The Enemy of My Enemy

L. Sprague de Camp:
Lest Darkness Fall
The Glory That Was
Rogue Queen
The Hand of Zei
The Tower of Zanid

L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt:
The Complete Enchanter
Land of Unreason

Samuel R. Delany:
Nova
Babel-17
The Einstein Intersection
The Fall of the Towers
Triton

Lester del Rey:
Nerves

Philip K. Dick:
Ubik
The Man in the High Castle
Martian Time-Slip
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Time Out of Joint
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Gordon R. Dickson:
Soldier, Ask Not

Thomas M. Disch :
334
Camp Concentration

G.C. Edmondson:
Blue Face (a.k.a. Chapeyeca)
The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream

George Alec Effinger:
When Gravity Fails
What Entropy Means to Me

Philip Jose Farmer:
The Lovers
Night of Light
The Fabulous Riverboat

James Gunn :
The Listeners

Joe Haldeman:
The Forever War
Mindbridge
Worlds

Charles L. Harness:
The Rose

Harry Harrison:
Make Room! Make Room!
The Deathworld Trilogy
Bill, the Galactic Hero

Robert A. Heinlein:
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Double Star
Starman Jones
Red Planet
Between Planets
Citizen of the Galaxy
Farmer in the Sky

Frank Herbert:
Under Pressure
(a.k.a. The Dragon in the Sea)
Dune
The Green Brain

Daniel Keyes:
Flowers for Algernon

Damon Knight:
The Man in the Tree
The Other Foot

C.M. Kornbluth:
The Syndic
Not This August

R.A. Lafferty:
The Reefs of Earth
The Devil Is Dead
Okla Hannali
The Fall of Rome
Past Master

Keith Laumer:
A Trace of Memory
A Plague of Demons


Ursula K. Le Guin:
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Dispossessed
Planet of Exile
City of Illusions
The Wizard of Earthsea
The Lathe of Heaven

Fritz Leiber:
The Big Time
Our Lady of Darkness
The Wanderer
Conjure Wife


George R.R. Martin:
The Dying of the Light
Fevre Dream

Walter M. Miller, Jr.:
A Canticle for Leibowitz

Ward Moore :
Bring the Jubilee

Ward Moore and Avram Davidson:
Joyleg

Larry Niven:
World of Ptavvs
A Gift From Earth
Ringworld

André Norton:
The Time Traders
The Beast Master
Galactic Derelict

Edgar Pangborn:
Davy
A Mirror for Observers
West of the Sun

Alexei Panshin:
Rite of Passage

H. Beam Piper:
Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen
Little Fuzzy
Fuzzy Sapiens

Frederik Pohl:
Gateway
Man Plus
A Plague of Pythons

Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth:
Wolfbane
Gladiator-at-Law
The Space Merchants

Keith Roberts:
Pavane
The Chalk Giants

Joanna Russ:
Picnic on Paradise
And Chaos Died
The Female Man
The Two of Them

Eric Frank Russell:
Wasp

Fred Saberhagen:
Berserker

Pamela Sargent:
Cloned Lives

James H. Schmitz:
Agent of Vega
The Witches of Karres

Robert Sheckley:
The Status Civilization

Robert Silverberg :
Dying Inside
Downward to the Earth
The Book of Skulls
Nightwings
Tower of Glass

Clifford D. Simak:
Way Station
City
Time and Again

Cordwainer Smith:
Norstrilia

Norman Spinrad:
Bug Jack Barron

Theodore Sturgeon:
More Than Human
Some of Your Blood
The Synthetic Man
(aka The Dreaming Jewels)
Venus Plus X

William Tenn:
Of Men and Monsters

James Tiptree, Jr.:
Up the Walls of the World

Wilson Tucker:
The Long Loud Silence

Jack Vance:
Emphyrio
The Star Kings
The Killing Machine
The Blue World
The Anome
Big Planet
The Dragon Masters
The Last Castle
The Dying Earth
The Eyes of the Overworld
The Languages of Pao
Trullion Alastor 2262

A.E. Van Vogt:
The War Against the Rull
The Weapon Shops of Isher
Slan
The Players of Null-A

John Varley:
Ophiuchi Hotline

Kate Wilhelm :
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
Margaret And I
Let the Fire Fall
The Clewiston Test
City of Cain

Jack Williamson:
The Humanoids

Gene Wolfe:
The Book of the New Sun
(several volumes)
The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Peace
The Devil in a Forest

Roger Zelazny:
Lord of Light
This Immortal
The Dream Master
Isle of the Dead
Doorways in the Sand

(that's 166 of 'em; about 31 unread (but those 31 titles include a trilogy and a quartet)