In full disclosure, this list of science fiction and fantasy books would not exist without the efforts of NPR and their Your Picks: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books. So, let’s start by showing them some appreciation for their efforts. Strange, Far, and Fantastical is a huge fan of NPR. We encourage you to support NPR, or your local NPR station, with a donation by clicking or selecting this NPR donation link. The list below is slightly modified from their list, but their work was the inspiration.

Now that the niceties are done, we have a few bones to pick with NPR! Let’s start with the easy one. This article was created in 2011, and it hasn’t been updated since. There are young readers of science fiction and fantasy that weren’t even alive in 2011. Besides, tons of really good science fiction and fantasy has been published since then. So! We are starting with their list, but we will be adding to it substantially. How substantially? Well, their list was Top 100, but it included some series, and some individual books that are part of a series. By the time you finish expanding that, you are up to 444 books. Yikes! That’s a little more “ish” than we initially thought with the Top 100ish of this page.

Next, far be it from us to criticize the grammar of the illustrious NPR editors, but it is not that far so here is our critique. Science fiction is the genre. You use science-fiction as a compound adjective, for example a science-fiction writer. And seriously, would it have destroyed the ethos of NPR editors to write it as “Science Fiction and Fantasy Books” instead of using a comma? Next thing you know, we will learn that NPR editors are uncouth barbarians who don’t believe in the use of the Oxford comma.

For my final notes, I think ranking these stories is any order is an exercise in silliness. There are stories on this list that I didn’t like, even if I recognize that I am in the minority. There are stories that I loved, and would have ranked much higher than the NPR folks (be they couth or uncouth). I also didn’t include many (if any) subtitles, and I may have shortened a title to fit the formatting. And, when I selected a specific edition, out of several editions, I did so because I thought it was the nicest version or the one I would have (or actually did) select. There may be other versions at other prices that you prefer more than the one I selected. C’est la vie!

(Editor’s Note: C’est la vie is one of the few French sayings that Bill knows. Don’t think that just because he wrote that phrase that he is suddenly an erudite gentleman worthy of respect. Merde! He knows a few phrases in a few languages.)

— Bill Sawyer, CEO and co-founder, Strange, Far, and Fantastical, Inc.