The SF and Fantasy books meme...

[rushthatspeaks]

Stuff I haven't read in bold. My notes in italics.

Science fiction

Dune, Frank Herbert but not the sequels, thank the gods.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein How To Build Your Own Revolution In Six Easy Lessons. Magnificent as all get out and IMO Heinlein's best.
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin Not her best. But okay.
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov Gibbon did the Fall of Rome better.
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester Thank you, Ada, for making the inside of my head more interesting by causing me to read Bester. It is appreciated.
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr I probably should have liked this more than I did...
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke bleah
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card OH yeah. And so far all the sequels, though I keep telling myself to stop because the whole thing became ridiculous some time ago.
Hyperion, Dan Simmons I know, I know. But people keep telling me it doesn't have a real ending and all the sequels suck, so I just haven't.
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman It sounds too depressing for words.
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon Not his best. That would be Venus Plus X.
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny I started it. Three times. I don't like Zelazny.
Neuromancer, William GibsonTry to convince me they didn't shamelessly plagiarize the whole aesthetic of The Matrix from this and I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Startide Rising, David Brin
The Time Machine, H.G. Wells I felt obligated to.
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick Not his best either.
The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin Very well done, but a bit too didactic.
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner Also sounded too depressing.
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester See above. Add more thank-yous.
The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury Seriously fucked with my head when I was twelve.
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Downbelow Station, C.J. Cherryh I may have read part of this at one point or another and given up like I do with most C.J. Cherryh.
Ringworld, Larry Niven
2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke I have no excuse. Dad even owns it.
The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury Not going near it after the way the Martian Chronicles nearly destroyed my brain.
The Mote in God's Eye, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle It sucked.
Way Station, Clifford D. Simak
Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon And his others. Go read this man. Now. One of the great underread geniuses of literary history.
Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg
The City and the Stars, Arthur C. Clarke
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany I plead having read all the other Delaney I could get my hands on and also realizing on about page four that this is a pretentious piece of literary self-indulgence which could only have come out of the late sixties. No book containing S&M within the first ten pages should be that boring. Don't get me wrong. I love Delaney madly. But everyone has off days.
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke Do I have to mention not liking Arthur C. Clarke, or has it become obvious?
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
City, Clifford D. Simak Everyone lists this as his classic, but I've never been able to find a copy.
Cyteen, C.J. Cherryh See above comments on C.J. Cherryh. Maybe I read bits of this one instead of bits of Downbelow Station? Maybe both? Maybe something else of hers? I could find no way to tell the difference. That said, her fantasy novel Rusalka is a fine piece of work.
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes
Double Star, Robert A. Heinlein Only last year. Not sure how I missed it that long. Considering I'm in a club named after it and all.
Earth Abides, George R. Stewart Speaking of things that sound depressing.
The Door Into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein This may be his worst book. Except for Sixth Column and Farnham's Freehold. But this is the worst that isn't so appallingly racist that it is unworthy to be listed in a catalog of literature.
Last and First Men, Olaf Stapledon In which Stapledon transcends time, space, human imagination, and any possible notion of God. In one hundred pages. This is what they mean by 'sense of wonder'.
Ubik, Philip K. Dick
Norstrilia, Cordwainer Smith
The Witches of Karres, James H. Schmitz One of the most astonishingly *fun* books that I have ever read. Good luck finding a copy... and if you find two or three, both my father and I need them. Scare up some sign of a sequel and my worldly goods are yours.
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Have Space Suit Will Travel, Robert A. Heinlein Also amazing fun. And then, if you're good, you get to go read Three Men in a Boat.
Time Enough for Love, Robert A. Heinlein
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick I saw Blade Runner. No more can be asked of me.
The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov No excuse. I've even read most of his minor stuff. It just never happened.
"Riverworld" series, Philip Jose Farmer The first one. All that is necessary.

Fantasy Novels

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe It took three years, but it was so worth it!
"Earthsea" series, Ursula K. Le Guin Lovely, lovely, lovely. Childhood favorites. Tehanu is one of her best.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
"Gormenghast" series, Mervyn Peake One of the great masterworks of fantasy. There is nothing else like it, nor ever will be.
The Once and Future King, T.H. White I think I have bits of it memorized.
Little, Big, John Crowley And everything else he ever wrote, repeatedly. My favorite writer.
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny And the rest of the series, on momentum, before I got bored.
"The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant", Stephen R. Donaldson The protagonist is a bastard and a rapist and I couldn't make myself care.
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey One of the good things she wrote before she gave up and started writing by committee.
"The Belgariad", David EddingsWhat is this doing on this list?
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis Purr.
The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers I infinitely prefer The Drawing of the Dark.
"The Dying Earth" series, Jack Vance Finally. Took me fifteen frickin' years to track it down.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum And the others, which are more fun.
Dracula, Bram Stoker You have not experienced Dracula until you have heard it read aloud by an Irish nun. I was in eighth grade and suspect this to have been one of the formative experiences of my sexual imagination. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle Another one of my favorite writers. Everything he has ever written, with the exception of A Fine and Private Place, is wonderful.
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Stand, Stephen King In one sitting. Do not do this.
Watership Down, Richard Adams Would publishers please stop putting 'In the tradition of Watership Down' on the jacket of every new book about talking animals that isn't going to be anything like as good as the real, brilliant thing itself?
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia A. McKillip Another of my favorite writers.
The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison I cannot, repeat, cannot recommend this book highly enough. This man wrote real Elizabethan prose in the 1920s, and we will not see his like again.
Glory Road, Robert A. Heinlein
Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock
"Alvin Maker" series, Orson Scott Card One of the most interesting alternate histories out there. He promises the final volume any year now, and has been for the last ten. I can't help but hope; I want to know how it ends.
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
Witch World, Andre Norton And the umpteen and wonderful sequels.
"The Fionavar Tapestry", Guy Gavriel Kay
Deryni Rising, Katherine Kurtz What is this doing on this list?
"Discworld" series, Terry Pratchett Did you know there are now twenty-seven of these? Really. And somehow I have managed to read all of them. I do not know how that happened.
"Elric" series, Michael Moorcock Elric has a big sword. A *really* big sword. An amusing read, but laughing at the Freudian overtones may not actually be what Moorcock had in mind. Or, given the man's last name, maybe it was. If you want actual good writing, look for it elsewhere, in books like Gloriana.
Replay, Ken Grimwood Never even heard of this one! I'll have to fix that.
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury My favorite Bradbury, along with Dandelion Wine. Purr. One of the great horror novels, and yet somehow warm and happy.
"Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series, Fritz Leiber I was so aggravated when I found out how thoroughly Leiber was ripping off Eddison.
The Incomplete Enchanter, Fletcher Pratt & L. Sprague de Camp

Stuff that should be on one of those lists and isn't:
Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis.
Engine Summer, John Crowley.
Inferno, Larry Niven.
Conjure Wife, Fritz Leiber.
Our Lady of Darkness, Fritz Leiber.
Aegypt Trilogy, John Crowley.
The Passion of New Eve, Angela Carter.
The Darkangel Trilogy, Meredith Anne Pierce.
The Dark Tower books, Stephen King.
Black Unicorn, Tanith Lee.
A Dreamer's Tales, Lord Dunsany.
The Book of Three Dragons, Kenneth Morris.
The Ship Who Sang, Anne McCaffrey.
The Door Into books, Diane Duane.
The Thief of Always, Clive Barker.
Always Coming Home, Ursula LeGuin.
Snow Crash, Neil Stephenson.

Soon: the literature meme. Where I haven't spent any time. Should be interesting.

Comments

[breadandroses.livejournal.com]

I'm very impressed.

I do recommend Guy Gavriel Kay, though. Not so much the Fionavar Tapestry (I enjoyed it, but that's before I read Tolkien), but try Tigana.

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

Startide Rising is really rather worth checking out. It has wonderful gengineered intelligent talking dolphins, and good alien aliens, and the sequel (The Uplift War) has a species of aliens whose main feature is their sense of humor in such a way that I rather suspected I was one for several years. Mind, I haven't read it since high school, so I may have missed stuff, but I recommend.

Love.
R.

[weirdquark]

Oh, I have that one. Need to finish it. Ada's dad recommended it to us and it was picked up from somwhere. There's one before it too. Which I also have.

[wayman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a bizarre sort of trilogy: Brightness Reef, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War. Bizarre in that books two and three are widely read but no one reads book one! I've only read SR but what I've heard about the trilogy as a whole is that while set in the same universe, the books are each pretty much standalones with their own time and place within the universe. Which actually makes me wonder why, then, they're considered a trilogy at all (a term which to me implies more continuity of characters and action).

Can "trilogy" refer to any set of three books, as in, not only a three book series (the definition I assume) but also three books in a given universe?

It's also possible that Brin's books are more related than I think they are, given that I've only read one of them and the rest of my knowledge comes from reviews, hearsay, and the back cover of The Uplift War! . . .

Spoilered comment (in white on white; highlight to read):

It's a shame, too, as Startide Rising ends with a few cliffhangers and left me hoping they'd be resolved in The Uplift War, but when I picked that up, I found it was set centuries later with a different set of characters, so I put it down again and read something else and just never got around to picking it up again.

[wayman.livejournal.com]

Strange Horizons ran an interview with Ken Grimwood last year which probably makes a good introduction to him, if you (like most American readers) have never heard of him. I haven't read any of his yet, either, but the interview makes him sound intriguing.

In general, wow, you've read a lot more than I have in fantasy, and somewhat more in SF. I should go make an annotated list at some point. And then just read some stuff. After I move. . . .

two things

[earis.livejournal.com]

1. Have you ever read a book called 'To say nothing of the dog'? It's science fiction/mystery. It's about a time traveling art restorationist who is trying to find something called the bishop's bird stump and gets caught up in paradox. It's hilarious.
2. Are you familiar with the eldar futhark runes, specifically reading them or understanding their different meanings?

Re: two things

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I'm very fond of To Say Nothing Of The Dog, and I should've put Bellwether on that list of things that should've been on the list. Connie Willis is so funny! Sometimes. I also went off a Connie Willis kick after reading Passage. Brrrr.

As for runes, I know a little about several different sets, but I don't know the names of the sets. And what I do know about is highly idiosyncratic-- things like the rune that Frey's messenger threatened to curse the Joten maiden with if she wouldn't marry Frey, which means 'may you only be married by a hundred-headed troll who continuously quarrels with itself, has lousy personal habits, and has excessively bad breath'. Yes, I know that rune. I'm not sure about standard divination, but I know that rune. It comes of knowing Ada. The person to ask about runes is Tracey; she and Ada wrote a book adapting standard rune usage for a gaming company, but I don't know if it's come out yet; it was in publishing limbo last I heard.
Lila

Re: two things

[weirdquark]

And here's the link for said book:

http://www.mysticstation.com/view.php?product=msd9100

It has not, as far as I can tell, come out yet, as the release date is still TBA. Then too, the page hasn't been updated in almost a year.

Earis:

[eredien]

I've read To Say Nothing of the Dog, and would be suprised if Lila hasn't. I really like Connie Willis...although I went off my Connie Willis kick after reading Passage, which I was reading at the wrong time in my life and struck me at the moment as a brilliant, sad, and beautifully timed book.

Domesday Book is earlier than TSNOTD, but set with the same premise. Except with the Black Death. You ought to read that.