Top 100 Fantasy and Science Fiction books

[myrddin173]

NPR just released their Top 100 list of Fantasy and Science Fiction books. While I am not familiar with a lot of the names, I am pleased that some made it and that others did not *cough*Eragon*cough*. What do you all think?

NPR’s Top 100 Fantasy and Science Fiction Books | Lytherus

 

[Angharad]

Good list, many of my favorites. It looks like they didn't include any YA or kids' books, because Harry Potter wasn't on it, nor was the Narnia series. (Not that Eragon is in the same league as either of those, IMO.)

 

[Ravana]

Looks more like a popularity contest than a serious survey of literature. (Well, actually, it was a popularity contest, since it was a reader's poll.) While I have no quibble with around 70% of the list, apparently one of the major qualifications was whether or not the author's first name was "Neil/Neal": Gaiman and Stephenson are both on the list four times, which is about a combined five times more than they ought to be… certainly, Stephenson shouldn't appear four times on a list where Gibson only places once. (Apparently they also favor the spelling "Neil," since one of Stephenson's entries has it misspelled that way.) I'm amazed Lewis's Space series made the list at all… and more amazed Narnia did not. Even more astonishing is that The Silmarillion made it… but The Hobbit didn't. (Peake didn't make the cut, either, which wouldn't be surprising had not Lewis placed for what he did.)

The Princess Bride would never have made the list if not for the movie; probably The Last Unicorn wouldn't have, either… and no matter how many copies Contact sold, Sagan doesn't belong on a list from which Michael Crichton is missing. (I wouldn't have either one, but Crichton is the better author.) Bujold is another popularity winner: she has a devoted following, but she just isn't that good… not her earlier works, at least; I haven't been inspired to read more recent attempts. In any event, Gordon Dickson's Dorsai books are considerably better than what I've seen of hers. Brooks certainly made the list on sentimentality, not quality–as has been discussed extensively elsewhere.

In fact, if it wasn't for the presence of some of the foregoing, I'd be inclined to say that anything which might be considered "kid lit" received the kiss of death: not only did Hobbit and Narnia not make it, neither did Madeleine L'Engle, LeGuin's Earthsea books, or perhaps most surprising of all, J. K. Rowling–and her books do have movies.

Also, we apparently now have a decision on whether or not vampires are true "fantasy" characters: not only do none of the more modern treatments appear (apart from Matheson's I Am Legend, which has more in common with zombie stories than vampire ones), neither does Dracula. In fact, while older fiction is admirably represented in general, it appears that anything normally regarded as "horror" is disqualified: no Poe, no Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (No Lovecraft, either, though that's less than a century old.)

Overrepresented: Arthur C. Clarke–two of his three entries deserve to be there; 2001 does not. (Another one that's in because of the movie.) I'd argue that Larry Niven shows up more than is justified, too, but that may be personal preference.

Underrepresented: Roger Zelazny and Philip K. Dick (once each; at a minimun, Zelazny's Lord of Light ought to be present, and any number of Dick books–I'd put Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said in, though The Man in the High Castle would probably garner more votes… in fact, the number of possibilities might be what kept any individual one from racking up the needed tally). Probably Gene Wolfe (once, again, for a series).

Missing entirely: Harlan Ellison (you gotta be ßitting me!), Alfred Bester (squared!), C. J. Cherryh, David Brin, Samuel R. Delany, John Brunner, and James Blish, all of whom belong on the list, as well as Steven Brust and Glen Cook, who I'd put there but who I can see not making it past much of the competition.

Throw in Fritz Leiber, Harry Harrison, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Poul Anderson, Frederick Pohl, Philip José Farmer, Robert Silverberg, Walter Jon Williams, Norman Spinrad, Clifford D. Simak, John Varley, Keith Laumer–far from an exhaustive list: I could go on; you could make a decent "who's who" list from the names that don't appear.

Nor do translations fare well: apart from Verne, there aren't any. (And I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the poll voters don't even know he didn't write in English.) Stanislaw Lem is the big loser here; Haruki Murakami and Umberto Eco deserve at least honorable mention… and I'm quite certain there are innumerable others I'm not familiar with.

There are some odd choices regarding what gets grouped together and what doesn't–and here I do have to wonder if things didn't get "rigged" a little. Did all the people voting for Bujold cite The Vorkosigan Saga, or were some of these votes cast for individual books in it? Herbert's Dune would have made the list all by itself, entirely apart from the rest of the "Chronicles"; indeed, many fans would have been more inclined to vote for the first novel alone than for the entire series. On the other hand, Anne McCaffrey appears for Dragonflight, not for the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy, let alone the other dozen and a half books in the series. Mary Stewart got on the list for The Crystal Cave, even though this was the first book of a trilogy. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game places deservedly high: did any of the other thirteen books that followed–including Speaker for the Dead, which marked the first and to date the only time a novel and its sequel won both Hugo and Nebula Awards–receive votes that weren't counted because this wasn't handled as a "series"?

The order can be fussed over, too, though that's always the case: Hitchhiker should be on the list, but no way should it be #2. Other than that, I'm not even going to try to address this.

Closest thing to a formula for success, if you want to make this list in the future? Rewrite the King Arthur saga… without changing any of the names. It appears on the list three times–that I'm sure of; for all I know, one or more of the titles I don't recognize is Arthurian, too.…

 

[myrddin173]

So I just found this flowchart thing that acts as a companion to the aforementioned list, guiding the viewer towards potential reads.

http://lytherus.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SFSignalNPR100Flowchart.jpg

 

[Kelise]

Now that is utterly fantastic.