50 SF/fantasy books meme

[petronia]

I'm incapable of parsing the whole bold/italicize/asterisk/strike thing - my eyes glaze over when I look at other people's lists, and I skip to the comments section where they talk about their actual opinions - so I've taken the liberty of organizing in a way that makes sense. :P

SCI FI BOOK CLUB TOP 50 MOST INFLUENTIAL

Read and loved:

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
Dune, Frank Herbert
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice

--I nearly put Dragonflight but then I realised Dragonsong was on the other list. Ender's Game is the only OSC I'm likely ever to reread. The rest are honest favorites. I'm constantly surprised that it's possible for people to dislike Neuromancer (or anything else on this list) and still, uh, like my writing. XD

Read and thought was all right:

Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks

--Opinions range from "thought it was pretty cool in my teens, cannot remember a word now" (Asimov, Bradbury, Brooks), to "good book, no burning love" (Rowling, Stephenson), to "borderline irritating" (Bradley, Clarke).

Didn't finish:

The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester

--I'm not hardcore enough for The Silmarillion. When I was a kid I owned a graphic novel adaptation of The Stars My Destination that I found traumatizing, although I wanted to know what happened afterward (only had the one volume).

Not read:

Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

--See, I'm not kidding when I said I'm ignorant when it comes to SF. In fact I should take this and use it as a reading list.



SOMEWHAT LESS THAN 50 MOST INFLUENTIAL FANTASY

Read, loved, and will defend:

George MacDonald, Phantastes, 1858
C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe, 1950
Lloyd Alexander, The Black Cauldron, 1965
Peter Beagle, The Last Unicorn, 1968
Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising, 1973
Patricia McKillip, The Riddle-Master of Hed, 1976
Anne McCaffrey, Dragonsong, 1976
David Eddings, The Belgariad, 1982
Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint, 1987
Susannah Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, 2004

--I loved MacDonald a whole lot when I was a kid and subsequently came across very few people who'd read his books at all. I'm glad I'm not the only person who doesn't remember what happened in The Riddle-Master of Hed, though, despite the emotional pinging that tells one it was tremenjously important. Ahahaha.

Read, loved, but probably won't defend:

Piers Anthony, A Spell for Chameleon, 1977
Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World, 1990

--I used to steal change from my parents to buy secondhand Piers Anthony paperbacks, it was like crack rocks. Trent was hot though, amirite?

Read and thought was all right:

T.H. White, The Once & Future King, 1958
William Goldman, The Princess Bride, 1973
C.S. Friedman, Black Sun Rising, 1991
Neil Gaiman, The Season of Mists, 1991
China Mieville, Perdido Street Station, 2000
Philip Pullman, Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, 1995

--The bar for "all right" is very, very high on this list.

Didn't finish:

Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan, 1946
Tim Powers, Last Call, 1992

--In both cases, no less than three tries.

Not read:

William Morris, The Well at the World’s End, 1896
E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros, 1922
H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu, 1928
Robert E. Howard, Conan the Barbarian, 1950
Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, 1962
Alan Garner, Elidor, 1965
Fritz Leiber, Ill Met in Lankhmar, 1970
Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber, 1970
Richard Adams, Watership Down, 1972
Walter Wangerin, The Book of the Dun Cow, 1978
Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun, 1980
Robert Holdstock, Mythago Wood, 1984
Margarert Weis & Tracy Hickman, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, 1984
Orson Scott Card, Seventh Son, 1987
Mercedes Lackey, The Last Herald-Mage, 1990
Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana, 1990
Tad Williams, Stone of Farewell, 1990
Stephen King, The Waste Lands, 1991
George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones, 1996
Sean Stewart, Mockingbird, 1998

--I've read other Lovecraft, Kay, and Weis & Hickman, just not those.

Comments

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Heh, it would be a good idea to use either as a reading list, but then you would have to eliminate the books that everyone seems to hate. XD (Or, well, at least I would: am not masochist enough to read fantasy books simply based on their lit-historical value). BTW, did you ever get around to reading Iain Banks?

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

Everyone should organize lists like this, it's so much easier to read.

I was positive you'd read Heinlein. Positive. In fact I didn't grab the extra copy of Stranger in a Strange land we had at home just because I was so sure you had already read it, because firstly, you don't seem like you'd be put off by Heinlein's sexism, and secondly, that's the book that invented "grok".

Trent! I always wondered about his dead wife and kid -- you know, what kind of woman must she have been for Trent to have loved her.

I'm constantly surprised that it's possible for people to dislike Neuromancer and still, uh, like my writing. XD

I don't like Gibson but I love Neal Stephanson, so there's you answer. XD; Gibson just always seemed too much into objects over ideas. By the way, have you read any other books by Gibson? (Ulterior motives, what ulterior motives XD.)

I really admired Patricia McKillip for writing a story where the main character was genuinely smart and heroic, but not a product of elitist aristocratic culture. As for actual events...there was an immortal wizard? And some kind of guessing game? For the fate of the world? UM.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Trent was totally hot.

If Gibson was the father of cyberpunk then Bester was the great-grandfather. Or proto-father. Or something. Being from the '50s he doesn't have the computers so much, but the corporations, the anti-heroes, the surreal societies, all familiar. Though I'm the one person who doesn't really care for The Stars My Destination but adores The Demolished Man. I even forgive it for going frighteningly Freudian for having my favorite cat-and-mouse killer-vs-police match until Light vs L.

[dipping_sauce]

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones, 1996

Didn't I get you this for Christmas or something a few years ago?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I didn't answer any of the comments on this post? FAILURE AT LIVEJOURNAL.

I wondered that about Trent's dead wife too. It is one of Those Questions (see: Jotaro). XD

I don't love Neal Stephanson, that's the thing. XD I enjoyed those of his books that I read but there are structural aspects of his writing that grew to irritate me more and more at the same time as I recognized they were a fundamental component of his style, so I gave up. And being into objects is why I love Gibson. XD

I've read nearly all of Gibson (not Burning Chrome, for reasons unknown) but I don't, uh, actually own any of his books apart from Virtual Light. In case that's relevant. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yes, but my sister ended up reading it not me. I couldn't get into it somehow. ^^;

[petronia.livejournal.com]

You make a good case for me finishing the book, finally. XD

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I forgot about this comment XD.

I ended up not including any Gibson, to be safe, and even though I could have I also forgot to include Heinlein. I love Starship Troopers, though. I love the high-tech battle suits and the orderliness, the idea that all of society's problems can be solved in a way that doesn't involve human beings turning into Spock-like super rational beings. Just disciplined ones ^^; or in the case of Stranger in a Strange land, sexually liberated ones. I recognize that Heinlein's ideas don't work and I'd hate actually living in his world, but they're fun to read about, or maybe I was just impressionable back then.

I haven't read Stephanson's newest series because the length scares me, and you know he'll rush through the ending forcing plot threads into an outlandish and abrupt ending. He has that problem with the oneshots, how is going to tie off a series? Plus steampunk doesn't really interest me.

Did you get the package?

[petronia.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't! ^^; I was actually going to ask you about that. When did you send it?

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

In a way, today. ^^; When I realized it wouldn't reach you in time for Christmas, I brought it home with me thinking I'd at least get the timing right for New Year's. Then it occurred to me that there was no sense paying $14 for shipping when I knew someone who would be in Montreal on the 2nd...actually, my brother was the one who suggested it. I wasn't going to ask him to do something crazy like hand-deliver a sealed package to a complete stranger but my brother hates waste, he likes things to be efficient.

So uh, look for a really tall 18 year old Slavic-looking guy some time in the next few days, possibly over the weekend.