Posted on 08/11/2011 5:46:33 PM PDT by Tanniker Smith
More than 5,000 of you nominated. More than 60,000 of you voted. And now the results are in. The winners of NPR's Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy survey are an intriguing mix of classic and contemporary titles.
A quick word about what's here, and what's not: Our panel of experts reviewed hundreds of the most popular nominations and tossed out those that didn't fit the survey's criteria (after — we assure you — much passionate, thoughtful, gleefully nerdy discussion). You'll notice there are no young adult or horror books on this list, but sit tight, dear reader, we're saving those genres for summers yet to come.
So, at last, here are your favorite science-fiction and fantasy novels. (And a printable version, to take with you to the bookstore.)
I already self-corrected, Donaldson around Post #63, but thanks. The list’s still a disgrace.
Always liked The Left Hand of Darkness. I wish someone clever would tackle a film version of it.
I'd have thought a Satanist's fantasy trilogy would have made the list. Pullman denies he is one, of course [it would be bad for sales] although he does call himself "the anti-CS Lewis."
Everything?
His hammering on a "world government" as a solution to all the world's woes and the assumption that it would cure all the ills of human nature by some sort of magic, mimics Socialism without explicitly asserting the obvious.
It's all collected by Heinlein himself, in Expanded Universe.
I couldn't agree more. Proof, if any more were needed, that most NPR listeners don't read, and those that do, don't think.
No Eddison, for one. Predated Tolkien by a quarter-century. No Doc Smith. No Laumer. No Poul Anderson, no Piers Anthony, no Harlan Ellison. Neil Gaiman fully 20% of the list? I don't think so. And Wicked, for the love of God? Next to Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein, Tolkien, Gibson, and Stephenson, that piece of fatuous, derivative fluff sits like a monkey turd in a bowl of emeralds?
Let us consider the source.
Yah. People can say what they want about Asimov, but that was some serious SF stuff.
The Mule is now our President, as far as I can tell. But this time around it is the ears instead of the probiscus.
“No matter, I have decided to apply the Charm of Forlorn Encystment, which constricts the subject in a pore some forty-five miles below the surface of the earth.”
- from The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
“Cordwainer Smith is not as well known as his talent deserved.”
You might appreciate this. One of the nicknames of my little female cat (an adorable brown tabby with intense green eyes — all my friends keep offering to adopt her) is “Peerless C’mell — the most beautiful girly-girl in all the known worlds.”
;o)
Where is Fritz Leiber on that list? Where is Lois McMaster Bujold? For goodness’ sake, where is Gordon R. Dickson?
Harrumph!
(Glad to see Connie Willis on there, though. “Doomsday Book” is excellent, though not cheerful.)
Where the hell is L Ron Hubbard?
Yes, I read “Expanded Universe” 30 years ago. The themes didn’t jump out at me as socialist when I was 15, and I haven’t re-read it because short stories can’t hold my interest anymore. I remember more of the characters rebelling against those world governments, as in “Methusaleh’s Children”, “Beyond This Horizon”, “Citizen of the Galaxy”, etc. Those world governments were not portrayed as perfect societies. “Door Into Summer” is pure capitalism, as is “Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. Read the pithy sayings of Lazarus Long in the middle of “Time Enough for Love” and they are pretty much all anti-government.
His FIRST novel, which was rejected back in ‘37, but was found by his biographer and published after his death was what shocked me with its socialist themes having created a utopian future. “For US the Living” I think it was called. It was more a laundry list of ideas than a well plotted novel, some of which were very libertarian, but economically pure socialism. Everybody is on the dole, nobody has any logical incentive to work, and the government just prints however much money it needs to hand out to the people.
Bujold is on the list as a single entry for all the “Vorkosigan” books. I thought her fantasy novel “Curse of Chalion” was classic, though. One of my favorite fantasy novels.
Gordon R. Dickson’s “Dorsai” series or at least a single entry for “Final Encyclopedia” belongs on the list. It’s a shame he didn’t live to finish the storyline.
I was reading that in 1978, when my DI took it (and all of my other civvie stuff).
It took me several years before I found it again and read it. Definitely worth the wait.
Ever since he told that convention that if he wanted to make a million dollars he wouldn’t be an author, he’d start a religion, then started Scientology, he lost his street cred as an author. I thought the novel “Battlefield Earth” was pretty good ... and the movie the absolute worst adaptation of a novel ever made. Or maybe the 80’s movie of “Dune” has that honor.
Marines in space taking on a vestly more advanced, and deadly, civilitzation. All 3 books were excellent!
Star Corps
Battlespace
Star Marines
I don’t think a book being controversial is a bad thing at all. People are still whining about what Heinlein was saying in STARSHIP TROOPERS, but who the heck reads the dreadful HANDMAID’S TALE today?
Kind of an expected list. I’ve tried to read Tolkien 3 times and while I can appreciate theeffort involved, it’s just dull. Ditto the GRRMartin—a fine writer, but I just cannot get into these stories of kings and royalty and dozens of characters at all. Robert Jordan? Give me a flippin break.
As I scroll through the list from top to bottom I see some things I appreciate but that don’t make me jump up and down, with the first, “Now THERE’S a book I like” selection being DO ANDROIDS DREAM...? I have been struggling with THE DARK TOWER and am starting to think the emperor has no clothes.
MARTIAN CHRONICLES—reread this a few weeks ago and it’s still great.
A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOVITZ is the one SF novel of the past 50-60 years I’d say is literature. The cyberpunk and post-cyber stuff on this list that I’ve read was boring.
Man, why was all this fantasy quest garbage allowed on this list?
THE TIME MACHINE is great.HYPERION, FOREVER WAR, both great. I AM LEGEND, BOOK OF THE NEW SUN and ELRIC too.
I’ve never gotten the appeal of Lois Bujold, the one I read was a soap opera in space.
Out of this 100 list, I’d say about 20 are good, maybe 10 are worthy of being on a Best list.
What else could one expect from the wusses of NPR who read all this elf garbage when they’re not worshipping trees and Obama?
Xanth? That’s a travesty.
Fantastic stuff.
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