Collective Chronicles Reading Experience - Have We Read Everything?

[Extollager]

So Chrondom has read all of those books. I thought maybe not all the Stapledon. I should’ve figured they too had been read!

 

[BAYLOR]

Memoirs Found in A Bathtub By Stanislaw Lem
Liege Killer by Christopher Heinz
Doomstar by Edmond Hamilton
The Dark Chamber by Lenard Cline
The Island At the Top of the World by Ian Cameron
The Killing Star by Charles Pelligrino and George Zebrowski

 

[Extollager]

These are major works you’ve read, Baylor?

 

[BAYLOR]

These are major works you’ve read, Baylor?

Read them all , yes All terrific books Lem's book Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is an excellent read
Christopher Heinz has writer a number novels , is most famous being the Paratwa Trilogy . Not as famous as some but a superb writer none less
Edmond Hamilton needs no introduction , Captain Future . The novel Doomstar is one of lesser known works and it a quite good .
Leonard Cline is primarily known for this book The Dark Chamber of which Lovecraft greatly admired.
Ian Cameron wrote adventure novels of which this his most well known book . The Island at the top of the World is a cracking good read . the Disney movie adaptation while competently made is very lacking in comparison
Goege Zebrowski and Charles Pelligrino are both very talented writers. The is novel The Killing Star is a first science fiction adventure and its thrilling read !

 

[Extollager]

OK -- thanks, Baylor, for the clarification! I'll bet there are two or three there that nobody else has read. Now that J. D. Worthington is no longer posting here, for example, you might be the only person here who's read the Cline novel.

 

[J-Sun]

Probably no one is still concerned with this and it isn't really relevant to the point of this thread but just for anyone who might be casually using these lists:

A definitive (?) list of classic SF

I found this allegedly definitive list of classic SF on line here. The Classics of Science Fiction list, compiled by James Wallace Harris and Anthony Bernardo, is an attempt to create a definitive list of the best Science Fiction books. Harris and Bernardo collected 28 different recommended and...

www.sffchronicles.com

Classics of Science Fiction

Classics of Science Fiction identifies the books and short stories that are most remembered based on how often they are cited by awards, best-of-lists, polls, editors, scholars and other sources of recognition.

csfquery.com

...those are actually different versions of the same list (we'd already puzzled that out in the original thread, but I'd forgotten) and the newer the version, the worse the list, probably. Either way, it's not very well done for its purposes: when you take it down to a minimum of two citations, you get a list of 999 "books" but there are many omnibus items with some or all the constituents listed separately (e.g., the Dorsai books, Vorkosigan books, etc.) when, if only omnibuses or individual titles were listed, their counts would be higher and, even worse, some things are listed by variant titles (e.g. Under Pressure/The Dragon in the Sea) when those are absolutely cites of the same book. Some of the books, by date, don't even exist, though some variant does (e.g., a 1988 The Rediscovery of Man is either an alternate title for the 1975 Best of or refers to the Complete Stories from 1993). There's even a story listed ("The Machine Stops") when it's supposed to be a list of books (unless, again, doubtfully, a mis-dated collection is intended). Still, aside from its ideological weighting, it's a cool idea and generally gets the idea across, but could use some work in execution.

 

[BAYLOR]

OK -- thanks, Baylor, for the clarification! I'll bet there are two or three there that nobody else has read. Now that J. D. Worthington is no longer posting here, for example, you might be the only person here who's read the Cline novel.

I think J D. Worthington has read more books then all us put together.

 

[Parson]

I think J D. Worthington has read more books then all us put together.

I'm sure that he remembers them better than all of us combined!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

J D reads carefully and thoughtfully, and so is able to remember and discuss what he reads.
Whether this means he has read more books than the rest of us, only he could say.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

So that means we will have to have read 470 SFFH books each. And that number of books has to be books that no one else has read to fulfill your quest. That is going to be a kicker.

Oh, I am sure that I have read many times that number of SFFH books (especially if we include, as we seem to be doing, children's books and YA) and I expect there are many here who could say the same. But, as you say, the kicker is how many of those books have not been read by other members? When it comes to books that are considered major works there will undoubtedly be a large amount of overlap between us.

Another factor is how many books have we read that we actually remember reading. For those of us in our sixties and seventies (and anyone here who is even older) we may have forgotten more books than we remember. Which would actually make the possibility of Chrons members having read everything major more likely, but how could we establish that if we don't even remember if we've read some of the books on the lists that have been posted even when we see the titles right there in front of us. I know there are a few books left on the lists that I think I've read but am not sure, and what about the ones I've forgotten entirely? Surely I am not alone in that respect.

So this is an entertaining thread, but I don't think we are ever going to reach a definite conclusion. (And even if we did, it might be wrong, considering the number of failing memories.) Which is not to say that we shouldn't keep trying. I think we will at least establish that Chrons readers have read a very broad range of speculative fiction.

 

[Margaret Note Spelling]

I don't think Brandon Sanderson's fantasies have been mentioned yet...I've read all of Mistborn plus a couple of the standalones, but not gotten into The Stormlight Archive yet. Anybody read all those three hulking behemoths?

Also, are we including graphic novels and comics? (Don't tell me Superman isn't fantasy!) Have we collectively read all the Superman (and similar) comics? I've only flipped through a few myself, so sorry.

This is fun. But yeah, it would be hard to be sure. Maybe if someone was willing to do a lot of work getting the data. Not me!

Or, why don't we just define the "major works of fantasy and sf" as the ones that, collectively, we've all read? Anything that we haven't read, isn't a major work of fantasy and sf. Hypothesis proven!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

That would be one approach. But I doubt all the active Chrons members have posted in this thread. One or two members might turn up at any time and clear away all the listed stories no one has yet claimed to have read.

I think we would be better off leaving off graphic novels and comics. Just limiting ourselves to novels and collections, if we compiled everything that all of us have read, I'm thinking the list would be of monstrous length.

 

[BAYLOR]

J D reads carefully and thoughtfully, and so is able to remember and discuss what he reads.
Whether this means he has read more books than the rest of us, only he could say.

I miss J D. I wish he would come back.

 

[Extollager]

Yep. But he's been very busy.

I agree with Teresa about omitting graphic novels and comics. Apples and oranges, for one thing. If Chrons adds them to this discussion, then I'll just go ahead and suggest while we're at it that we thrown in lyrics for music. "In the Year 2525" anyone? No. Let's please not go there. The original poster was, I'm pretty sure, thinking solely of regular books.

 

[Bick]

Yep. But he's been very busy.

I agree with Teresa about omitting graphic novels and comics. Apples and oranges, for one thing. If Chrons adds them to this discussion, then I'll just go ahead and suggest while we're at it that we thrown in lyrics for music. "In the Year 2525" anyone? No. Let's please not go there. The original poster was, I'm pretty sure, thinking solely of regular books.

Yes, agreed, and yes, I was.

 

[Skeeve]

Aren't we simply fortunate? We are always in a hunt for a good book to read, and look... there is so much to discover. Sometimes after finishing a great book I've thought that now I'm done, read all the worthy ones. Boy am I wrong. Here we are - having all the books of the world like stars in the sky just waiting. Today I started "The Three-Body Problem" by Liu Cixin and the beginning was a little odd or perhaps slow. But I thought - give it time, continue reading, it has to get better. And then it suddenly opens like a blossom, a fascinating page-turner. So, in my humble opinion, we who enjoy wandering in wonderworlds, are blessed with a never-ending fairy tale. Thank you, mom, for all the books we had at home. They ignited a flame that is still flashing. Well, I became too solemn, I'm just an ordinary fellow who likes to read. Here are some little bit less known great authors from me, too. Mostly time-travelers. Victor Zugg, Michael Mammay, Mark J. Rose.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Collective Chronicles Reading Experience - Have We Read Everything?

Ignoring all the criteria set out out in the original post, here's a rather glib answer to the question that has just occurred to me...

No, because if we had there would be no unfound books in the Book Search forum

 

[Alex The G and T]

Well, for my part. I'm just as good at forgetting titles and authors as anyone posting a query in book search.

 

[Extollager]

Bick's first posting asked, "Have we read close to all major SF and F works? I'm not talking all short stories published, as there are way too many thousand insignificant works by forgotten authors, but let's say "books" as in collections, anthologies or novels."

Is it looking like we have?

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

Oh, and has anyone actually read Reza Negarestani's Cyclonopedia (2008), praised to the heavens by Jeff Vandermeer? Cyclonopedia: Best Horror Novel You've Never Heard Of - Jeff VanderMeer
I've tried. It reads like crap. And I don't mean the supposedly "theoretical" parts. I mean the narrative exposition, which reads like the most cliché-ridden airport novel you've ever laid eyes on. But it's supposed to be a classic in some circles...

i was interested in "Cyclonopedia" from various rabbit-holes I went down during lockdown. Read some extracts and it was as you say. Maybe I would have thought the same about "Naked Lunch" tho... Negarestani did a comic that looks interesting but it's out of print, always about to be reissued.
I listened to one of his podcasts in Ye Olde Lockdown and he seemed to be advocating some sort of Stalinist/Chinese Communist Party state, I may have misunderstood.
I believe he was in the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU) at Warwick University with the likes of Mark Fisher and Hari Kunzru, and Nick Land.
Perhaps that gives "Cyclonopedia" an intellectual sheen which outshines the actual book.