[amphibian]

http://thisrecording...ction-or-f.html

As usual, there is much room for individual tastes when constructing a list like this. However, I believe this guy's taste is seriously skewed in a SF hipster's hipster fashion. He seems to shoot for the unloved books or overlook some glaringly obvious "must includes".

I admit to liking his obvious crush on Gene Wolfe, but he's got the order wrong. The Short Sun books are even better than the Long Sun books.

[Jusentantaka]

amphibian, on 28 January 2010 - 11:30 PM, said:

I believe this guy's taste is seriously skewed in a SF hipster's hipster fashion.

Definitely.

But, toss chriton & ditch the numbers and it's a solid list.

Also, Lolita is better than Pale Fire.

PS: old cover art is delicious like two lesbabes covered in chocolate.

This post has been edited by Jusentantaka: 29 January 2010 - 12:34 AM

[Thelomen Toblerone]

No SE, and Ayn Rand included on the list - clearly this guy is a nutjob.

Plus, WoT all the way up at 60 and no trace of a Riverworld book confirms this.

[MTS]

Overall, it's a fairly crap list, as I do take issue with some absentees. No Reynolds, no Banks, no Pratchett, no Mieville, no Verne, no Hamilton, no Moorcock, no Gaiman, no PJ Farmer, no Cherryh, and in a list of the best SF books he doesn't include Neuromancer? Total and utter fail. There are probably many more that I haven't read that deserve representation in a list like this as well.

I did like the amount of Dick (hah), Wolfe and Stephenson in the list, though, but GRRM better than pretty much everyone except those he has a hard on for (Vance, Wolfe, Le Guin, Heinlein), and some obvious choices? Please.

But clearly, no SE makes this a ridiculous listing of the greatest speculative fiction.

This post has been edited by Mappo's Travelling Sack: 29 January 2010 - 02:25 AM

[Binder of Demons]

Ok, I have a few major issues with this list and i think they are even independent of my biases.

How in the hell are there no entries by either Alfred Bester or Roger Zelazny?

And yet that steaming pile of shite, SPHERE gets on the list. I was never so furious as the time i finished "Sphere". A pretty decent set up and then it felt like he passed the book over to a 10 year old to finish it. For it to be even considered for a top 100 list makes his entire section questionable.

[Use Of Weapons]

I'll forgive him anything else on the list just for mentioning _Sorceror's Son_ by Phyllis Eisenstein. Great book, fully deserving of its place.

[Salt-Man Z]

Looks like a good list to me. There's a lot of stuff missing, true, but there's also a lot of great stuff in there.

[The Dark Wanderer]

I have issue with this list being 100 books long as WoT is there as a series as is the Hyperion Cantos while most are just individual books!

Other than that, it seems like a fairly useful list and will be used by me to determine which 'classics' to read as I am shamefully lacking in that regard.

[Abyss]

Mappo, on 29 January 2010 - 02:23 AM, said:

...he doesn't include Neuromancer?...

= near complete sci-fail.

- Abyss, cyberpunk'd.

[Paran]

Interesting list, not very broad and favouring SF. Also a lot of repetition with regards to authors. No Glen Cook, William Gibson, Steven Erikson, Stephen Donaldson, Roger Zelazney, Terry Pratchett, Kim Stanley Robinson, Alistair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Graham Joyce... yeah, not worth much.

[amphibian]

Paran, on 01 February 2010 - 04:17 AM, said:

Interesting list, not very broad and favouring SF. Also a lot of repetition with regards to authors. No Glen Cook, William Gibson, Steven Erikson, Stephen Donaldson, Roger Zelazney, Terry Pratchett, Kim Stanley Robinson, Alistair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Graham Joyce... yeah, not worth much.

I don't know about "not worth much". The guy did a great job putting together a list. With really awesome and ancient cover art included. Its value may not lie so much in the list itself, but prompting others to say "needs this, needs that and what the heck are you doing liking that? Maybe it's worth a try."

That being said, I think this person has not read most of the authors we've mentioned in this thread. I'll say this: a good chunk of the people on this forum for some reason, are among the most widely read (within SF) that I have ever come across. I hope we're not all pale, flabby creatures because of such.

[Tif the Barber Boy]

amphibian, on 01 February 2010 - 05:20 AM, said:

Paran, on 01 February 2010 - 04:17 AM, said:

Interesting list, not very broad and favouring SF. Also a lot of repetition with regards to authors. No Glen Cook, William Gibson, Steven Erikson, Stephen Donaldson, Roger Zelazney, Terry Pratchett, Kim Stanley Robinson, Alistair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Graham Joyce... yeah, not worth much.

I don't know about "not worth much". The guy did a great job putting together a list. With really awesome and ancient cover art included. Its value may not lie so much in the list itself, but prompting others to say "needs this, needs that and what the heck are you doing liking that? Maybe it's worth a try."

That being said, I think this person has not read most of the authors we've mentioned in this thread. I'll say this: a good chunk of the people on this forum for some reason, are among the most widely read (within SF) that I have ever come across. I hope we're not all pale, flabby creatures because of such.

I enjoy reading these kinds of lists when made by people well-read in the genre. Firstly because it gets me thinking about the books there that I have read and thinking about their relative merits and demerits as compared to other books I've read. Secondly because it also gives suggestions for books to read, particular amongst those that I own and havent read yet - for example I'll be bumping Phyllis Eisentein's 'Sorcerer's Son' up the reading queue now that I've seen this recommendation. I'll probably be making it a point to check out a few Heinlein and Vance novels at some point.

But it would be interesting to see such lists from people on this forum. Perhaps 100 books is too much (especially if we count a series as 1 book), but a top 50 or something would be interesting to read.

[alestar]

meh...list is full of omissions already mentioned, but if your going to lean toward SF, how can you leave out AA Attanasio's Radix or Greg Bear's Blood Music (or Eon, or Forge of God...)

[Use Of Weapons]

I think it should be noted that the list is clearly his top 100 books that he has read.

[Abyss]

jitsukerr, on 10 February 2010 - 12:24 PM, said:

I think it should be noted that the list is clearly his top 100 books that he has read.

You're absolutely right but that isn't how the lister frames it.

These sort of lists are subjective by definition, because no one has read EVERYTHING, EVER. I find that when a person puts forward such a list without that qualifier in it tho, it loses credibility imnsho.

- Abyss, blacklisted.

[amphibian]

Abyss, on 11 February 2010 - 07:19 AM, said:

You're absolutely right but that isn't how the lister frames it.

These sort of lists are subjective by definition, because no one has read EVERYTHING, EVER. I find that when a person puts forward such a list without that qualifier in it tho, it loses credibility imnsho.

- Abyss, blacklisted.

I'd disagree that the lists are subjective because nobody has read everything. For one thing, there are likely a few people who have read pretty much everything of note in the field though. It's vast, but it is doable, especially for the very dedicated. The crucial element though is that people generally have different tastes - we assign different significances to different things. That's why the lists are subjective - not because we've not read all the books out there in SF.

This guy's list is so frequently old school and obscure that I feel like he's in a different hipster realm or something. Kurald Hipster!

[Use Of Weapons]

Yeah -- the only work that even approaches a complete survey of the genre is the Encyclopaedia of Fantasy, and that's terribly out of date now. The last edition was IIRC in 1999! So our beloved SE is entirely missing from it.

http://en.wikipedia....edia_of_Fantasy

[Salt-Man Z]

In 2008, one of the groups at LibraryThing compiled a list of "1001 Fantasy Books You Must Read Before You Are Turned Into A Newt". It's already out of date, but there's a lot of good stuff on it.

[Arielas]

No Glen Cook is clearly a horrid omission. I also definitely think Dune is top 5, not the 11th spot he has it in. It redefined the genre and renergized it for years to come.


r/s
Arielas

[globish rip]

the most lol thing is the dude's attempt to include highbrow works itl which puts things in the worst part of if you're rating x than why not y country. i think its better to just limit oneself to accepted genre writers than trying to stan for nabokov and then putting him in the middle of your list. i mean i doubt grrm himself is gonna rate himself better @ anything than nabokov. maybe @ growing a neckbeard...

cant really say much more than this dude's taste in spec fic is much, much different than mine. also 2nd lol @ tyrna front like pseud trash like wolfe rates higher than nabokov. also lol @ liking bestselling 70s sci-fi and mike chrichton making sum1 a "hipster"?????? there isnt a single obscure book on this list unless u r like 14