Time's 50 significant SF Novels?
It appears not. This Page appears to be the real origin of the list. It certainly predates 2006. Looking back on the long trail of blogs it is hard to see where the attribution changed. But there you go, Time Magazine is not resonsible.

Edited by author 17-11-2006 19:03
Time's 50 significant SF Novels
Found via John Samuel's livejournal.
The most significant SF/F novels from 1953-2006 according to Time. Bold the ones you have read, strike through the ones you read and hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put a star next to the ones you love.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert *
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin *
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr *
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
16. Cities in Flight, James Blish *
17. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
18. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
19. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
20. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
21. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
22. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
23. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card *
24. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
25. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman *
26. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
27. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
28. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams *
29. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
30. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
31. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
32. Little, Big, John Crowley
33. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny *
34. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
35. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
36. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
37. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith *
38. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
39. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
40. Ringworld, Larry Niven *
41. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
42. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
43. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
44. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson *
45. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
46. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
47. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
48. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock *
49. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
50. Timescape, Gregory Benford
51. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Hmmm ... some of those I read so long ago that I can't remember If I liked them. Feh! Old age lurking by the door I guess.

Moving on
Yesterday I submitted my resignation at Unisys West. I'm off to work at DDI Health in 4 weeks time. My new position will be Config and Release Manager. This is the work I was doing back at ADI. DDI is a .NET house builing medical related systems (Radiology imaging, Practice management, etc).

The office is located in Colin St. West Perth about a kilometer down the road from Maureen 8-).

The Northbridge Hotel
Ohhh it has changed. It has now gone all upmarket. The dining room on the corner is the 201 restaurant in the evenings. The hotel back looks like a pile of architecture with multiple split levels of accomidation. Most of the people coming down to breakfast seemed to be young couples. Obviously out for a spree.

Ah, the Northbridge Hotel - scene of many a good Wednesday night drinkie and nosh. It was a gay bar in those days and they did a lot of fundraising for AIDS charities, doing food runs to people who couldn't cook for themselves any more, that sort of thing.

They also hosted the monthly leather boys soiree in the dungeon - the sight of bin liners on the walls and floors gave even my most hard-core mates pause.

Swancon XXXI - Saturday
The morning started with a trip into Northbridge to find a chemist and have breakfast. This I managed after walking all the way down to James Street. I came back via Lake Street admiring the architecture and sussing out the Northbridge Hotel.
Then a chat with Rob and Leece and off to Kaneda's Coffee panel. Kaneda is obviously passionate about his job but the 'perfect' coffee still tasted bitter to me. I wimped out of that one early and sat in a comfy chair for a while before going to "Why don't they make Australian SF films?". After that was "Trailer park: forthcoming movies". Then I had lunch with Andrew Harvey and did some catching up for 28 years of news and gossip.
After lunch ... I'm not sure if I got to Ippongi Bang's GOH speech. No wait ... I think I did. Then was the choice beteen three items that I wanted to see running simultaneously. I opted for Ian Tregonning's talk about puppeteering for the movie Labyrinth. Then I had a short visit to the games room and before heading off to the costuming panel. And finally "Fantastic Britannica" before dinner. Dinner was ... something? I chatted with various SCA people as they arrived to set up for a dance demo. Then there was the attempt to see Mirrormask. The time was shifted an hour earlier on the schedule and then another half an hour earlier un-announced. Then due to complaints they re-ran it. So I saw the second half and then the first half. Recommended. By this time the masquerade proper was over and I had missed the dance demo. So I hung around for Ippongi's concert and "Larry & Misty's Bedtime Stories". About 01:00 I staggered back to my room.

Swancon XXX1 - Friday
I packed the tailbox of the trike with my gear for the weekend and went off to work Friday morning. At the end of the day I pedalled onwards into Northbridge. My planned route down Robinson street was scotched when I found that the portion east of William street had been converted to west-bound one-way. The opposite direction to what I wanted. After touring some backstreets an negotiating a breatalyzer trap I eventually made it to the Shiralee Hostel. The single room was clean, fairly new, and somewhat spartan. I unpacked and headed off to the convention hotel. After registration and a quick check of the programme I headed up to Rob & Leece's room. Rob, Leece, and Poss were present and waiting to do their Saturday night viewing. We ordered food from room service and watched an episode of Kolchak while we waited for it to arrive. Then we watched an episode of Rah-Xephon while we waited for dessert. Then it was off to the anime panel but the panelist's voices were so quiet and the sweaty fan smell so strong that I retreated. I then sat around chatting with people until the filk panel at 23:00. I sat an listened for an hour and we were all inducted into the WOOOO game by Larry and Mercedes. At Midnight I made like a pumpkin and went back to my room to sleep.

Speaking of Dark Clouds Outside, I bet even the arid region known as Tuart Hill got a bit of rain last night...

Dark clouds outside
Rob: It is more like the RSPCA refuge. It might be pre-loved, it might be pre-abused, or just pre-ignored.

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I went up to Swan View on Sunday for Mark's birthday party. I got trashed at both Mag-Blast and Samurai and Katana. Coming home at 8pm I found that the last busses anywhere close to my place stopped at 7:30. *sheesh* It's only Sunday guys ... no need to close everything down.

"I ordered an ISO Standard from the Standards Australia on-line shop"

Neat! I didn't know you could order new standards directly - or can you only order used ones? Either way, it must be useful, being able to just order up a standard to your own specifications. Do you suppose that Microso... Oh. I guess they do, don't they?

Sauron, ruler of the world
Freeciv finished Thursday evening. Mark's Swedish were holding their islands against all comers. And then their spaceship arrived at Alpha Centauri. Gary's Mordor had the highest points total. My Sioux nation came in third as predicted after the Swedish, and then came Richard's Canadians, Rob's Martians, and Leece's Dunedain. *whew*

Edited by author 19-01-2006 07:07
Morning has broken ...
Chrunch ... tinkle ... thud. Oh well. At Retro Betty's after work for burgers with Maureen, Rob, and Leece. Then back hom to watch the news, catch up on an ep of Dr Who from earlier in the week, into freeciv, and finally to bed.

---

I missed almost all of the Sylverster McCoy Dr Who episodes when they were first broadcast here. So now I am catching up and Ace has just appeared. Ace is good value and probably my favourite companion after Nyssa. After her ... probably Lalla Ward. 8-)

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Freeciv is almost over. Mark will win unless we can pull off a miracle. The year is currently 1697AD And I think Mark's Spaceship arrives in 1701 or not long thereafter. The Sioux are still mostly third in the demographics without much hope of ever bettering that. However the game has been a learning experience. I now know how to be more competitive at this. 8-)

Service?
I ordered an ISO Standard from the Standards Australia on-line shop a week and a bit ago. The web page indicated it was in stock and the delivery options included express delivery which I chose. The confirmation e-mail said delivery in 2-4 days. 6 working days later I ring up and enquire where is it. Oh that is coming from ISO Direct and will take another 1 - 3 weeks. Huh? Hello, this is not the way to encourage business. Although I guess you don't have to when you are a monopoly. *sheesh*

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In freeciv it is 1684AD. The brinkmanship has stopped for the moment. The Sioux have altered their strategy to try and up their population a little. Shift the production goals to maximum food and adjust the taxation until all the cities start celebrating. Use the extra trade to offset the production loss by buying units and building settlers in the largest cities to ship to the smallest. I can't say this has been an unequivocal success but it was an interesting experiment. On the Demographics sont the Sioux are first in Research Speed and Economics, 2nd in Pollution, 3rd in Population, Land Area, and Settled Area, and 4th in Production and Military Service. Mordor is first in population and size and Sweden is first in production.

Breakfast with the birds
Well not exactly with ... but a couple of TwentyEights came down and dined delicately on a couple of small Sunflower seed heads in our front garden.

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In freeciv it is now 1674AD ... Last night's play was characterised by a lot of brinkmanship on the part of Richard's Canadians. The Sioux are still third in the demographics and Mark's Swedish are mostly first. Gary's Orcs have finally discovered the manual and celebration days have been the order of the moment.

Monday?
That it is I'm afraid.The weekend was fairly pleasantly wasted . We even had sufficient sunshine to dry the washing ... something that should not be in doubt at this time of year.

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In freeciv it is now 1664AD. The Sioux are fairly solidly ensconced in third place. The shock news is that Sweden has overtaken Mordor in everything but land size.Of course Sweden is making hay as a democracy while everyone else has shifted to Communism in preparation for a global blow up. A staring match ensues. Who will blink first?