perfidy

I would agree to items #a, III and four of Johnny's list. I've already explained why Snow Crash didn't make it to my list, and the same applies to Brin's Postman. I thought I, Robot sucked, three stupid suggestions for automata notwithstanding. Never read Pynchon, so can't say. However, his list reminded me of a couple other books:

• Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner
• Voice of the Whirlwind, by Walter Jon Williams If I could establish a precedence in my list, Brunner's book would be near the top. An ur-cyberpunk novel that prefigures most of the concepts later abused by Gibson and Sterling. Whirlwind is a better novel than Neuromancer. On to fantasy - my top five fantasy novels/series:
• Lord of the Rings, by some guy, think his name begins with "D"
• Freedom and Necessity, by Emma Bull and Steven Brust
• Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
• Age of Unreason, by J. Gregory Keyes
• The Earthsea Trilogy, by Ursula K. Le Guin (and I do mean trilogy) 
   

I also enjoyed The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, by Stephen Donaldson; the Belgariad by David Eddings, Riftwar, by Raymond Feist; The Silmarillion, by Tolkien; and little else. American Gods would be on this list, were it not on the other one.