[The Pack]

Top 100 list

Recently posted on the Io9 blog, Malaz series only manages 81st position! Not high enough imo but 100 isn't too shabby all the same!

[Bauchelain the Evil]

Is it me, or does that list lean much more towards SF than Fantasy?

[Illuyankas]

The list has one Discworld book and FUCKING DRIZZT. People are idiots.

[Bauchelain the Evil]

And lets not forget SWORD OF TRUTH, which is quite up in the list.

[Whiskey Bass]

no Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn

This post has been edited by j2tks: 14 August 2011 - 12:50 AM

[Avatar]

Hard to take this list seriously: WOT on 12, the Stand on 25. And Hyperion should be in the top 10, imo.

[Use Of Weapons]

Remember people, that it's a top 100 for _all ages_, not for the age you currently are. When I was 15 I thought Drizzt was a god.

[Una]

I actually think this is a pretty good list. Sure, it's not MY top 100 and some of the positions are shifted around what I would like, but that's to be expected. I've read 51 of the books on the list! Woohoo! (Disclaimer: I counted it long as I had read 1 book in the series, even if I did not read all the sequels) About 16 are on my To-Read list.

But it's an awesome starting point for someone interested in SF/F. It's got a good mix of classic stuff that was groundbreaking in its time and modern stuff that is groundbreaking today. Usually books released in the last 5 years or so don't really make these kinds of lists, so it's interesting to see what people think are going to be the classics of tomorrow. There's really deep stuff that changes the way you think and just really basic stuff that would be painful to read now, but really entertained you when you read it as a kid and still gives you that nostalgia when you think about it.

A few comments:

My father pointing me towards the Foundation series is what got me into Science Fiction when I was about 13. It's probably a bit dated now, bit you have to admit it was a significant work at the time. I have read Canticle of Leibowitz about 3-4 times and it still gives me chills. Highly recommended. Dune dramatically increased my taste for "weird" in my reading and made it easier to tolerate all the weird stuff in Malazan. The Amber series and anything by Neal Stephenson are just plain, crazy fun. Out of Terry Goodkind, I only read Sword of Truth, and it was awful, but the sequels made bestseller lists too, so obviously someone liked it. I personally thought that The Mists of Avalon was a painful slog and there was way, way too much female whining for my taste. However, by a wide margin, The Crystal Cave is the best Arthurian fantasy I have ever read. Don't read Mists of Avalon. Read The Crystal Cave. The Shannara series was a birthday present I got from a friend when I was 14. I had not read much fantasy other than LOTR and Narnia and it opened up this whole genre to me. I would probably find it formulaic if I read it again, but my 14 year old self still loves it. Now, Anne McCaffrey...this is a guilty pleasure for me. As a teenager, I read all the books. All of them. From ages 14-21, I made up some kind of imaginary life where I'm an apprentice in the Healer Hall and I get in adventures and eventually, while I'm saving the world, some handsome, burly dragonrider falls in love with me because I'm just that spunky. Even now, I wear more belted tunic style outfits than I otherwise would because that's the style of clothing my character would have worn. It's nice that they're in style right now. If I had a holodeck, the first holonovel I would play is Dragonriders of Pern. I know it's fluffy. I know I'm doing nothing less than indulging in Harlequin romances for nerds, but I guess that why they call it fantasy. Last comment: If you are need an antidote to Twilight, Sunshine is a vampire novel done right.

This post has been edited by Una: 14 August 2011 - 07:17 PM

[amphibian]

I've read seventy two of the one hundred books on the list. I think a few of the remainder are on the "to read list", but I won't ever read Arthurian fantasy not written by Gene Wolfe or Mark Twain. The setting just doesn't interest me.

[dktorode]

i can understand why the malaz tale would be so low on that list.
We fall under the group of a rather niche bunch of readers.

this forum is proof of that.

if you look at the calibre/(type) of members here and compare us to your average fantasy forum there is a clear difference... trust me i have tried to integrate elsewhere... even though im not sure im integrated here, fuck how long has it been?,
Well anyways...after a good number of years this is the only place i feel at home on the web....kllkj ...god....did i jut get soppy and sentimental.....fucking vodka on a sundayu?... .

anyways, point is erikson is not for everyone....much like chemistry isnt for everyone.
some people just cant do it and have to do history....its just a pity that its the vast majority that ends up in that category.

yes....we are special...we are better than everyone else...MUCH BETTER MUHAHAHAHA


i dare you westerose twats to claim different















ok....yes i have been drinking...and yes i have after all this time got internet at home agian.....what?

[worry]

Mother effer, did you just suggest that history is something people settle for if they can't do chemistry??

[Dolorous Menhir]

Only read 39, a lot of things on here I'm not familiar. Speaking in ignorance of many of the authors, there seems to be a lot of vanilla, pedestrian material here.

[The Pack]

I know it's bad, and may possibly get me beheaded for such blasphemy etc, but... when i tried to read the LOTR books, they bored me.... I understand they are the spawn of so much the fantasy genre has to offer today, but they just didn't click with me too well. I might try again soon.

[Use Of Weapons]

Whenever I tell people to read LotR, unless I already know they'll enjoy it I tell them to skip: all the poems; all the songs; everything that mentions Tom Bombadil; and finally to imagine that the female characters are really orchestrating everything behind the scenes

Tolkien was deliberately harking back to a forgotten age, with Victorian sensibilities, and sometimes, even with the best will in this world or any other, that just doesn't work for modern readers. For me, it's a classic, and I still remember the scene outside the door to Moria with great fondness. "Speak, friend!" It is to laugh.

[dktorode]

worrywort, on 14 August 2011 - 09:21 PM, said:

Mother effer, did you just suggest that history is something people settle for if they can't do chemistry??

ofcourse









edit- bah!...

ok...sorry.....ill swap physics for chemistry then...makes more sense..but in my school we did "science" wich was physics and chem together. so you got to excuse my indifference

This post has been edited by dktorode: 14 August 2011 - 10:23 PM

[dktorode]

UseOfWeapons, on 14 August 2011 - 09:52 PM, said:

Whenever I tell people to read LotR, unless I already know they'll enjoy it I tell them to skip: all the poems; all the songs; everything that mentions Tom Bombadil; and finally to imagine that the female characters are really orchestrating everything behind the scenes

Tolkien was deliberately harking back to a forgotten age, with Victorian sensibilities, and sometimes, even with the best will in this world or any other, that just doesn't work for modern readers. For me, it's a classic, and I still remember the scene outside the door to Moria with great fondness. "Speak, friend!" It is to laugh.

tom bombadil is the fuckin shit.....period





he is the reason i dont need to use cap...ever




edit ---

finally got to looking at the actual topic and teh apprent "top 100"

well...


uhmm... ok.....i dont know what to say....really.
I actually KNOW the first 20 books...in fact i have read them all!!!

its like my own personal top 100 right there...that mere fact makes me know this shit cant be right
its not the "best" top 100
its just the most "comercial" top 100.

just sayin...

This post has been edited by dktorode: 14 August 2011 - 10:34 PM

[Bonecaster]

I'm very annoyed at myself for not having brought this to the attention of this site while voting was going on. Probably coulda moved Malazan up quite a bit.

I'm annoyed about a few things.
-Earthsea was not there.
-Some series were divided into the individual books.
-Comic books were there. I don't get it.

[amphibian]

Dolorous Menhir, on 14 August 2011 - 09:31 PM, said:

Only read 39, a lot of things on here I'm not familiar. Speaking in ignorance of many of the authors, there seems to be a lot of vanilla, pedestrian material here.

Some, yes, but generally it's a pretty decent list that does an okay job combining "actually good" with "mass appeal". Obviously it could be better, but for a crowdsourced list on an NPR site, it's probably the best you're going to get there.

[TaxManATX]

Bonecaster, on 14 August 2011 - 11:28 PM, said:

I'm very annoyed at myself for not having brought this to the attention of this site while voting was going on. Probably coulda moved Malazan up quite a bit.

I'm annoyed about a few things.
-Earthsea was not there.
-Some series were divided into the individual books.
-Comic books were there. I don't get it.

No worries. There was already a thread about it, with several reminders.
Thread here.

This post has been edited by TaxManATX: 15 August 2011 - 12:49 AM

[Bauchelain the Evil]

The Pack, on 14 August 2011 - 09:44 PM, said:

I know it's bad, and may possibly get me beheaded for such blasphemy etc, but... when i tried to read the LOTR books, they bored me.... I understand they are the spawn of so much the fantasy genre has to offer today, but they just didn't click with me too well. I might try again soon.

Don't worry,you're not alone. While I admire Tolkien for the passion he put in his creation and in his wordbuilding (which is amazing) I find LotR one of the most boring books I have ever read. Recently I thought to re-read it thinking that maybe this time it would be better. I dropped it after 100 pages.