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Top 100 Science Fiction/Fantasy books
NPR ^ | 8/11/11 | NPR

Posted on 08/11/2011 5:46:33 PM PDT by Tanniker Smith

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To: Tanniker Smith
The Dark Tower series could have made the top ten. But by the sixth book, it became clear that King just wanted to finish it for the sake of finishing it. It completely fell apart by book seven.

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

-Robert Browning-

201 posted on 08/12/2011 6:56:32 PM PDT by Hoodat (Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. - (Rom 8:37))
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To: Tanniker Smith

I would have included the following authors:

Andre Norton for the Time Traders or her Solar Queen series.
Keith Laumer for Retief of the CDT
A. Bertram Chandler for John Grimes of the Survey Service.


202 posted on 08/12/2011 8:01:09 PM PDT by yuleeyahoo (Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty. - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: Paradox

I also prefer SF to fantasy. I’ve read 41 of these entries and of the remainder I recognize, most are fantasy.


203 posted on 08/12/2011 8:30:16 PM PDT by FrogMom (There is no such thing as an honest democrat!)
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To: patton

“My mother, I, and both of my brothers, all without prior coordination, gave each other copies of “A Canticle” for Christmas one year.”

Now that is a very cosmic story!

You all must be very linked in with one another.

That makes me think of another book on the list “Cat’s Cradle” which again I don’t remember well, but I do remember the concept of the “duprass” and whatever the other word was. Groups of people who are very connected on a metaphysical plane. Or however Vonnegut put it. I actually think the duprass were couples, such as those who live together their whole lives and then die within a short time of each other, there was another “_prass” for larger groups, iirc.

I read pretty much all of Vonnegut, right up through breakfast of champions. He was a good writer, but as I’ve said about many of these books I’m not sure what I’d really think of him today.

I’ll say one thing I could NEVER get through “Stranger in a Strange Land”. We tried reading this as a class when I was in, I can’t remember, I think it must have been Jr. High. And we were ALL bored to death with it, we actually voted to stop reading it. I tried it once after that, since I still had the book. Couldn’t do it.

That and “Emma” by Jane Austen. They say if you can get to the end of Chapter 3, or something like that, Emma is then a great book.

Couldn’t just ever get there.


204 posted on 08/13/2011 12:26:49 AM PDT by jocon307
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To: dangerdoc

Bump


205 posted on 08/13/2011 7:35:38 AM PDT by dangerdoc (see post #6)
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To: jocon307

A book less than a thousand pages is a novella for teenagers.

Literally, I would take a two-hundred-page book to school every morning, and finish it before school let out.

“Stranger in a Strange Land” may be strange, but is an easy read.


206 posted on 08/14/2011 4:57:14 PM PDT by patton (I am sure that I have done dumber things in my life, but at the moment, I am unable to recall them.)
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To: patton

“Stranger in a Strange Land” may be strange, but is an easy read.”

Like “Emma” I think I’ve given up on that one.

I’m a fast reader too, I remember reading “The Great Gatsby” one afternoon while I babysat.

That was one of my big problems when I was commuting by bus/train years ago, staying in reading material.

And it’s a big part of the reason why I love the internet, and my kindle, so very much.


207 posted on 08/14/2011 7:30:07 PM PDT by jocon307
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To: CrazyIvan

“Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. One of the funniest books I’ve ever read.”

YES!!! My copy is dog-eared. (AND signed by both Pratchett & Gaiman! Woohoo!)


208 posted on 08/15/2011 8:08:17 PM PDT by Hetty_Fauxvert ("And I'm actually happy to be, for us to be the moat with alligators party." -- Mark Steyn)
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To: Hetty_Fauxvert
YES!!! My copy is dog-eared. (AND signed by both Pratchett & Gaiman! Woohoo!)

Green with envy here. Not sure where my copy is, but
wherever it is someone is laughing!

209 posted on 08/16/2011 6:05:54 PM PDT by CrazyIvan (Obama's birth certificate was found stapled to Soros's receipt.)
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To: CrazyIvan

Your copy is probably still traveling from hand to hand! That’s what happened to my first copy. I had to get a second copy for signing.

I’ll make you still more envious .... My husband and I actually had lunch with Sir Terry once! Back in 1997 at the Worldcon in Austin. We offered to buy him a banana daquiri and he asked for lunch instead. :) It was the day after Princess Diana bought the farm, and Pratchett was quite sure the Royals had finally done her in. An interesting perspective from him.


210 posted on 08/16/2011 8:36:58 PM PDT by Hetty_Fauxvert ("And I'm actually happy to be, for us to be the moat with alligators party." -- Mark Steyn)
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To: CrazyIvan

Your copy is probably still traveling from hand to hand! That’s what happened to my first copy. I had to get a second copy for signing.

I’ll make you still more envious .... My husband and I actually had lunch with Sir Terry once! Back in 1997 at the Worldcon in Austin. We offered to buy him a banana daquiri and he asked for lunch instead. :) It was the day after Princess Diana bought the farm, and Pratchett was quite sure the Royals had finally done her in. An interesting perspective from him.


211 posted on 08/16/2011 8:36:58 PM PDT by Hetty_Fauxvert ("And I'm actually happy to be, for us to be the moat with alligators party." -- Mark Steyn)
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To: Immerito

I’m confused. Aren’t NPR listeners total lib morons? They clearly don’t see the obvious conservative tomes in the novels.

I’d think in there version they’d be happier if Frodo had just have negotitated an agreement.

And why did they have to change the ending? The Shire was wiped out.


212 posted on 08/16/2011 8:45:24 PM PDT by Fledermaus (I'm done with political parties. The GOP is useless. Anarchy is perferable to this CRAP!)
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To: Fledermaus

I mean in the movies, not the novels.


213 posted on 08/16/2011 8:46:45 PM PDT by Fledermaus (I'm done with political parties. The GOP is useless. Anarchy is perferable to this CRAP!)
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