This Recording proposes a list of the one hundred greatest science fiction and fantasy novels. Here are the first ten:100. The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin
99. Sorcerer's Son by Phyllis Eisenstein
98. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
97. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
96. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
95. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
94. The Company by K.J. Parker
93. An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe
92. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
91. Danny, The Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
I've actually read very few of these, as I prefer to stare at flickering electronic screens most of the day. But some of these are intriguing picks. And I had no idea that Vladimir Nabokov had written science fiction.
What titles would you place on such a list?
Link via Marginal Revolution
9 comments:
I would add Clifford Simak's City and Piers Anthony's Xanth series.
What appealed to you about Xanth?
I've been looking over the list, and there are a lot of authors not represented for some to be represented more than once.
You know that's a good question. It's been quite a while since I read the Xanth series and I'm sure I missed some of them they go on forever. Mostly I remember them as escapist fare but they were well written not too cartoonish.
I enjoyed it up until about the tenth book, when it got too ridiculous for my taste -- just strings of puns. But some of the early ones were good, and I remember Night Mare as riveting.
I wonder if my favs Hyperion or Nightfall are on the list, or Splinter of the Mind's Eye. Watership Down was sci-fi? Hmm, news to me.
Now that I've read the list, I've got some reading to do. But I do like this bit about Heinlein:
"Science fiction and fantasy have played roughly equal part in this list, but there is a fantasy element to Heinlein's ultimate masterpiece that rises above the rest. Heinlein imagines a world both breaktakingly real and manifestly impossible. He makes us care more deeply about unliving things that never existed than the people in our own lives."
Can't help but think of Avatar, which became the highest grossing film ever today, and those depressives that love Pandora too much.
Stranger in a Strange Land...The number One, hands down.
I've tried to read Stranger in a Strange Land a couple of times, but gotten bored and put it aside.
Starship Troopers, however, was awesome. Both the book and the movie.
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