First Read Notes.

The Ministry of the Future - Instant classic. KSR has been a great writer since the 80's. His Three California's Trilogy, the Mars trilogy, and the stunningly wonderful Years of Rice and Salt all fantastic. This is another jewel in a great writers crown.

The Road - Read the book, saw the movie. For me this is the rare case where I liked the movie more than the book. Vigo is just so dammed good as an actor. Plus the movie has a more focused storyline. However, the movie is not the book.

Octavia Butler - Amazing writer. First came across her in 1980 with Wild Seed. Her Parable books come across as prophetic in retrospect. Much like Phillip K. Dick, Butler's books have more interesting ideas in a single chapter than many other authors have in their whole books.

The Plague - Camus is really good, SUPRISE! ;-) I had the same reaction when I was forced to read this in HS.

Oryx and Crake Trilogy - "There is weirdness, too". Oh brilliant, understatement. I LOVED the first book. I had a friend who could pass for "Snowman" in his attitude towards life. Personally, I don't like the other two books. I thought the first was a "perfect" story of COLLAPSE and what might be CREATED from that. If we got to create our successors, what kind of "G-d' would we be?

Termination Shock - Totally agree with your review. However, William Gibson invented the cyberpunk genre in 1984 with Neuromancer. Snow Crash was published in 1992 and was an amazing extension of the cyberpunk genre, but it's not the foundational works.

Daniel Quinn - Don't know but will find.

You have great taste Lani.

Kudos on a good list.