Discworld fans, I finally finished reading the Watch books.

IO9 posits a sci fi reading list for novices.

I'm much better at TV than I am at books, but I have read at least one book from each of their categories.

I've read a lot of those, but not all (not even all of one category). It's interesting to me that none of the books that I read in my Sci Fi Lit class in college are on it. Of course, that was over 20 years ago and was not meant as an intro to SF.

I don't think of myself as a sci fi reader at all, and I've read at least one book per category except for space travel. Weird. Dystopians, one of my favorite subgenres, are not what I think of when I think of sci fi!

Dystopians, one of my favorite subgenres, are not what I think of when I think of sci fi!

Well, all the dystopias they list but one I think are sci fi, because they involve advanced science in some way. Are alternate histories sci fi? I think that's up for debate. I'm pretty inclusive myself.

I do consider myself a sci fi reader. Space travel is my weakest category. I've read more than one book they list, but I don't remember them in any detail. I'm attached to at least one book in each of their others, pretty much.

I explicitly include dystopias (and utopias) and alternate histories in sci fi, but I accept that not everyone would.

Space Travel is definitely my weakes category. I've only read Downbelow Station, and I only read that fairly recently. I find Doc Smith unreadable. I could have sworn I'd read The Sparrow but that plot summary is not familiar to me at all. I've only read a little Banks, and it didn't make me want to read more of his stuff, and it wasn't the book on the list. I don't think. I don't remember that well.

My other weakness is, surprisingly, Aliens. i love a good alien story, but I've only read one of those the short story. I've known for ages that I need to read Octavia Butler and the other novel sounds good, too. Which is why I like these lists, they give me things to look for (or remind me that I meant to look for something).

I explicitly include dystopias (and utopias) and alternate histories in sci fi, but I accept that not everyone would.

Me too. I could see them as a sub-genre but not a separate genre.

I've read all but 4 1/2, the half being my complete inability to finish Dhalgren. I wouldn't visit Dhalgren on a beginner. I wouldn't include Orlando, because I don't consider it sf. I'd include Clifford Simak's City under robots and any number of other books for aliens, including Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity, Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy and LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness rather than The Dispossessed in dystopias. I don't think you can really have a complete list without another category: post-apocalyptic. I can't buy into a list that doesn't manage to include Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut or A Canticle for Leibowitz .

Buffistas, I have discovered your newest desire: Postertext.

of course I desperately covet Moby Dick. Now I realize a lot of the credit for my finally reading that book goes to you, P-C for introducing me to "Ahab" by MC Lars.

Everything Ginger said, except I don't think I even made it halfway through Dhalgren.