J-Sun
⚡
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2008
- Messages
- 5,324
Sorry about the brick - it's lots and lots of quibbles, of course, but most lists like this I wouldn't even bother to quibble with but would just shake my head. Long story, short: this is an excellent list.
Is The Silkie really that good, Ian? I have about everything van Vogt wrote up to his mid-60s reboot and basically nothing after and that seems like a personal choice as I don't think it has consensus historical agreement, so I'm curious.
FE missed
> 1965 DUNE FRANK HERBERT
> 1968 DRAGONFLIGHT ANNE McCAFFREY
> 1972 DYING INSIDE ROBERT SILVERBERG
> 1977 A SCANNER DARKLY PHILIP K. DICK
> 1978 DREAMSNAKE VONDA N. McINTYRE
---
BEGIN BRICK.
I get 144 for the total count of the list. Of those, I've read 92 (still owning 66 while getting rid of 26 (though I'm fuzzy on whether I've read 4 - forget which Bujolds I've read, for instance)), and have 9 waiting to be read, accounting for 101 and leaving 43 I haven't had anything to do with, for about 70%.
Of the stuff I read and got rid of, ironically, that's probably at least as "classic looking" as the rest, even if I didn't care for them. Probably the one that strikes me as the oddest is Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand. I think most people would include most of his 60s novels and I know Doorways has its fans but it doesn't seem like it's "reputationally" on par with some others. To directly contradict that, I was very pleased to see The Void Captain's Tale on there. Contrary to chrispenycate, I think it's actually a much better book than Bug Jack Barron (though that one's great, too) but I'll readily agree that it doesn't register in the field's historical consciousness anywhere near the same way. I'd also like to see The Iron Dream on there.
In terms of works by author, Earth Is Room Enough is good but not my favorite Asimov collection - The Martian Way, Nine Tomorrows, The Bicentennial Man, etc. But I like to see any of it on the list. As I've said elsewhere, Banks' Player of Games ranks third of the three I've read for me, but I can't argue that PoG is extremely highly regarded by many. I'd probably represent Baxter with Timelike Infinity or Ring, so far, but I haven't read Time. I'd represent Bear by Blood Music and Queen of Angels and many others might pick Eon or Forge of God or Moving Mars but I haven't read Darwin's Radio. I'd pick very different Cherryhs but I can't argue that Cyteen and Foreigner are trivial, unknown Cherryh works. My personal and completely unhistorical/consensus choices would be The Faded Sun, Wave Without a Shore, and Heavy Time/Hellburner. For Delany, I like Nova much more than Einstein. For Dick, you have to have Three Stigmata and maybe Ubik and/or Martian Time-slip. Egan's Quarantine is great but Diaspora is his masterpiece to me and, if we include some collections, I'd put Axiomatic as one of them. Heinlein needs Double Star and some representative pure juvenile (say, Starman Jones or something) in addition to Starship Troopers. Again, The Past Through Tomorrow for collection. I wouldn't represent Doc Smith with Triplanetary but would just count "the Lensman" as one thing.
On the things I haven't read, just going on subjective impressions of objectivity, so to speak, I think Tucker is more Year of the Quiet Sun than Wild Talent. Foster seems to be best appreciated for Midworld but I don't think he'd make many lists at all. I wouldn't put Crichton or Noon on, but that's just my reverse-snobbish insularity
and, starting around 1996, there start to appear titles and even authors I've never heard of. And Wyndham seems over-represented.
In terms of what's missing, my list would add stuff like Brown's What Mad Universe, Octavia E. Butler's Bloodchild and Other Stories, Cadigan's Patterns or Synners if it needs to be a novel, Ellison's Alone Against Tomorrow or maybe the Essential thing, Emshwiller's The Start of the End of It All or Collected Stories if that's not cheating, Forward's Dragon's Egg, Hamilton's The Star Kings, something by Kuttner, maybe Fury, and something by Moore - almost certainly Judgment Night. Something by Rucker, maybe Spacetime Donuts. Something of Cordwainer Smith - The Best of, if that's not cheating. Sterling's Schismatrix and Crystal Express. Every Tiptree book up to '81.
Is The Silkie really that good, Ian? I have about everything van Vogt wrote up to his mid-60s reboot and basically nothing after and that seems like a personal choice as I don't think it has consensus historical agreement, so I'm curious.
Hah! Spot the folk who haven't actually looked at the post but are simply going by FE's list! (And have thereby missed out on my illuminating comments about each title
Dune very much is included, Chris; FE simply missed it out somehow when compiling the otherwise excellent summary.
FE missed
> 1965 DUNE FRANK HERBERT
> 1968 DRAGONFLIGHT ANNE McCAFFREY
> 1972 DYING INSIDE ROBERT SILVERBERG
> 1977 A SCANNER DARKLY PHILIP K. DICK
> 1978 DREAMSNAKE VONDA N. McINTYRE
---
BEGIN BRICK.
I get 144 for the total count of the list. Of those, I've read 92 (still owning 66 while getting rid of 26 (though I'm fuzzy on whether I've read 4 - forget which Bujolds I've read, for instance)), and have 9 waiting to be read, accounting for 101 and leaving 43 I haven't had anything to do with, for about 70%.
Of the stuff I read and got rid of, ironically, that's probably at least as "classic looking" as the rest, even if I didn't care for them. Probably the one that strikes me as the oddest is Zelazny's Doorways in the Sand. I think most people would include most of his 60s novels and I know Doorways has its fans but it doesn't seem like it's "reputationally" on par with some others. To directly contradict that, I was very pleased to see The Void Captain's Tale on there. Contrary to chrispenycate, I think it's actually a much better book than Bug Jack Barron (though that one's great, too) but I'll readily agree that it doesn't register in the field's historical consciousness anywhere near the same way. I'd also like to see The Iron Dream on there.
In terms of works by author, Earth Is Room Enough is good but not my favorite Asimov collection - The Martian Way, Nine Tomorrows, The Bicentennial Man, etc. But I like to see any of it on the list. As I've said elsewhere, Banks' Player of Games ranks third of the three I've read for me, but I can't argue that PoG is extremely highly regarded by many. I'd probably represent Baxter with Timelike Infinity or Ring, so far, but I haven't read Time. I'd represent Bear by Blood Music and Queen of Angels and many others might pick Eon or Forge of God or Moving Mars but I haven't read Darwin's Radio. I'd pick very different Cherryhs but I can't argue that Cyteen and Foreigner are trivial, unknown Cherryh works. My personal and completely unhistorical/consensus choices would be The Faded Sun, Wave Without a Shore, and Heavy Time/Hellburner. For Delany, I like Nova much more than Einstein. For Dick, you have to have Three Stigmata and maybe Ubik and/or Martian Time-slip. Egan's Quarantine is great but Diaspora is his masterpiece to me and, if we include some collections, I'd put Axiomatic as one of them. Heinlein needs Double Star and some representative pure juvenile (say, Starman Jones or something) in addition to Starship Troopers. Again, The Past Through Tomorrow for collection. I wouldn't represent Doc Smith with Triplanetary but would just count "the Lensman" as one thing.
On the things I haven't read, just going on subjective impressions of objectivity, so to speak, I think Tucker is more Year of the Quiet Sun than Wild Talent. Foster seems to be best appreciated for Midworld but I don't think he'd make many lists at all. I wouldn't put Crichton or Noon on, but that's just my reverse-snobbish insularity
and, starting around 1996, there start to appear titles and even authors I've never heard of. And Wyndham seems over-represented.In terms of what's missing, my list would add stuff like Brown's What Mad Universe, Octavia E. Butler's Bloodchild and Other Stories, Cadigan's Patterns or Synners if it needs to be a novel, Ellison's Alone Against Tomorrow or maybe the Essential thing, Emshwiller's The Start of the End of It All or Collected Stories if that's not cheating, Forward's Dragon's Egg, Hamilton's The Star Kings, something by Kuttner, maybe Fury, and something by Moore - almost certainly Judgment Night. Something by Rucker, maybe Spacetime Donuts. Something of Cordwainer Smith - The Best of, if that's not cheating. Sterling's Schismatrix and Crystal Express. Every Tiptree book up to '81.
