memesheep

[rushthatspeaks]

So there's that NPR list of books going around, and it's a terrible list and I'm looking forward to the inevitable future fandom-sourced one in response, but there is one thing I have noticed about it when people I know do it as a meme: the meme is really good at telling me about people's tastes in fantasy and science fiction. It has caused me to build up a neat little winter-holiday-present mental list for just about everyone I've seen do it.

Also, I thought it might be fun to give people the opportunity to try to talk me into reading some of the ones I haven't read.



Bold if I've read it, italicized if I plan to, underlined if I've read part but not all.


1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Once a year or so since I was nine.
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. But I haven't heard the radio plays. I should really do that.
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. I should reread this, because I can't imagine it holding up, but I'd like to see exactly how it doesn't.
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert. Why is this on here as a series? I have read Dune. There I stopped.
5. A Song of Ice and Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin. I told all the people who were nagging me about this that I'd read it when A Dance With Dragons came out. I guess now I have no excuse, but I will be really very surprised if I actually enjoy it, because something about Martin is orthogonal to my brain-- I get a lot out of his stuff but it literally gives me massive headaches.
6. 1984, by George Orwell.
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. Why do that to myself?
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov. I just reread those last week. Fun times. They probably don't hold up if you didn't read them at ten and/or love The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. I should reread as I was definitely too young for it.
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman is a terrible novelist, fond as I am of the comics. I have not forgiven this book for ignoring Christianity as a cultural element in the U.S.; doing so invalidated his entire premise.
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan. Hell to the no.
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell. Most traumatic book I picked up in fifth grade because I thought it was about talking animals ever.
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore. ... before I'd read any superhero comics. Doesn't seem to have hurt me any, but I get the feeling that was not the intent.
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein. Both versions. I prefer the cut one.
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss. Quite high on my list of series where I want the next one NOW.
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. ♥
21. ~Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?~, by Philip K. Dick. The tildes are because I have no idea whether I've read this or not. I went through this month or so of reading all the Dick I could get my hands on, which was like twenty of them, but I was very, very depressed at the time, and they have melded together in my brain, except Maze of Death and Galactic Pot-Healer, which are my favorites. Did I read this? Depends on the library, I guess. I'd have to try a reread to check, which I have no immediate intention of doing.
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. HATRED. It's kind of better if you read it as an allegory of her time at Harvard, which I heard somewhere was the original intent. BUT NOT MUCH BETTER.
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King. Left intentionally unfinished because I didn't want it resolved.
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. I probably should. There is other Burgess higher on my list, though. I guess maybe eventually?
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams. I have lost track of how many times I have read this.
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey. The first book I ever read with sex in it! I was so confused.
34. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein. Still one of the better depictions of poly family structures.
35. A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne. I don't know why, it just never came up.
38. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny. I don't love these as much as most people seem to. Where should a person start on other Zelazny?
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings. NO. NO. NO. AND NO.
42. The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It is amazing how much of the course on Arthuriana I took in college we spent laughing at this book. To be fair, it was funny.
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson. Got halfway through the first. B. would like me to finish them. I would like Brandon Sanderson to go away again. I am sure we will resolve it somehow.
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I have lost track of how many times I have read this.
47. The Once and Future King, by T.H. White. I have lost track of how many times I have read this. Also, as a teenager I used to write bad sonnets to T.H. White.
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Please could he go back to the comics. Please.
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke. I think I was too young for this and should try it again.
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons. I read Hyperion, which is brilliant. Then I stopped, because sequels seemed completely unnecessary, and many people have told me that they are.
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. I fail to understand how anyone could perpetrate this novel after having read Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist, which I have proof he did. Aargh.
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks. Not my thing, but so well done that I got sucked through a fair chunk of it anyway.
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle. I have lost track of how many times I have read this.
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett. Serious contender for my favorite Discworld.
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson. Mark me down as one of those people who couldn't get past the rape scene.
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Haven't yet read Cryoburn.
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword of Truth, by Terry Goodkind. VERY VERY NO.
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson. I spent many years unable to locate a copy and then someone dissected the entire plot and its differences from the movie in a review of the movie. Might read it if I can get over my annoyance about that.
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist. JUST NO, OKAY?
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks. I read the first one of these out of sheer incredulity.
68. The Conan the Barbarian Series, by Robert E. Howard. Haven't read all of them, but I love the early short stories I have read. No one will tell me whether or when it starts to suck.
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey. Although sometimes I wonder why I keep reading them.
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury. By far my favorite Bradbury.
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire. Tried three times and said screw it.
81. The Malazan Book of the Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson. I am not inherently against this if someone gives me a good reason.
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde. HATRED. SO MUCH HATRED.
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks. I like his mainstream novels a lot better, which is odd for me, but there you go.
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart. I KNOW I KNOW I WILL I SWEAR
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. Maybe if I can forgive him for the ends of the last everything I've ever read of his?
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher. Eh.
87. The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe. Must reread. I was doing a reread with the OED, which did wonderful things for my vocabulary, but then I ran out of energy.
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldon
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock. It is possible I have read all of these, except I don't know how many there actually are? Moorcock's bibliography is large enough that I do not try to keep track of it.
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge. I KNOW I KNOW but I tried when I was way too young and the memory of the bounce has lingered. I will, though.
94. The Caves of Steel, by Isaac Asimov. By far my favorite Asimov. Would hold up for a new reader now.
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson. The way people talk about Kim Stanley Robinson makes his stuff sound like economics textbooks rather than novels. I assume this can't be the case, but it hasn't made me rush out and get any.
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. After The Mote in God's Eye, there was no way I was going anywhere near anything by those two again.
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville. AAGH GIANT TELEPORTING SPIDERS AAGH. Also this book is not as good at city as most people seem to think. But it is better on that than many books.
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony. I went through an Anthony phase as a young teen. Then I noticed the sexism and general creepiness.
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis. Perelandra is one of the books that would make a fair nomination for my favorite book of all time. If someone claimed Perelandra was my favorite, I wouldn't argue very hard against it, though there are two or three other candidates.

So! Why should I read any of the ones I haven't?

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Ha. In my case there's a sea of bold and underscore because as an adolescent I had the local public library, full stop, and it had a bunch of what was out at that point. I wouldn't especially recommend the ones I've read that you haven't.

I liked Contact as a teen but have no idea how it'd read now, even to me. Childhood's End is quick and I did like rereading it as an adult (first read aged ten or eleven).

Apparently, I need to look up Rothfuss (though I'm not going to go back and italicize it).

[rushthatspeaks]

Rothfuss was so, so much better than I thought he was going to be.

Ah, the vagaries of libraries. Did yours do the thing where it would only have book two of a trilogy? I hate when that happens.

[eagle]

I will not tell you that you should read The Time Traveler's Wife, since it is a romance novel with a premise that is remarkably creepy if one thinks about it for more than a minute and it has several other rather serious issues. But it does also feature one of the world's greatest descriptions of the moment in which one acquires one's own space that is all one's own. I don't know if that's enough to read the book for. I liked it, but I liked it while definitely holding my nose about some things.

The Mars trilogy reads more like economics and political science textbooks than novels. I mean, there's a novel there, sort of, in the sense that things happen to people over a period of time, but mostly there are lavish, loving descriptions of Mars, of terraforming Mars, of how to set up a government, of oodles and oodles of political theory, and of how to create a self-sustaining culture on Mars. It's all very impressive while simultaneously being extremely boring.

[rushthatspeaks]

Hm. I may have to read the Mars trilogy just for the info on Mars, which might be enough to sustain it for me. Thanks.

[movingfinger]

Oh my. Just drop everything and go read The Crystal Cave soon.

The Mars books by Robinson are good airplane reading. I read the first two and haven't bothered to chase down the last. They're interestingly old-school; reading them, I could imagine them coming out in the 1960s or 1970s as a hybrid of Heinlein and Michener.

For the "Song of Ice and Fire," though, don't look to me for encouragement. The Culture Series... well... I can't think you're missing anything by skipping them. I liked Whit better than any of the ones I've read.

I bounced off Stardust and I have bounced off much of Gaiman's prose work. There is some pheromone there I don't pick up on.

I haven't actually looked at that list carefully before your post. There sure are a lot of processed extruded book product things on there.

The Conan stories have had an interestingly complicated publication history---one of those weird situations with copyright and shared universe and his buddies kind of rewriting it all after he died. With all pulp, the first one to three books are probably worth looking at and then you can skip the rest with a clean conscience unless someone you trust tells you that book 10 is really genuinely good. Similarly, the first book of any Piers Anthony series is often not utterly disgusting and creepy; in this case, A Spell for Chameleon unfortunately displays Anthony's sexism and preoccupations, but the story is still kind of cute. (Cuter if you're an eleven-year-old boy, though.)

[rushthatspeaks]

The Crystal Cave is very high on my to-be-read list.

Whit is so awesome and I love it to pieces. By far my favorite Banks. Seems to be a sadly well-kept secret, though.

Over on the LJ side this list was described as a portrait of a moment in fashion, which sounds about right to me.

[redbird]

I had fun with 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, despite the bits where I was arguing with the geology (not Verne's fault, he was writing not only before the general acceptance of plate tectonics, but before Wegener published on continental drift and was generally ignored or laughed at). You aren't missing anything terribly important, but it's available as an ebook from Project Gutenberg, and worth a try if you like reading in that format.

[ambyr]

83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks. I like his mainstream novels a lot better, which is odd for me, but there you go.

Have you read Inversions? It is very unlike the rest of the series, I gather, but I found it fascinating. I have a weakness for unreliable narrators.

[rushthatspeaks]

I have not-- I read Consider Phlebas, went gah boring, and then read The Player of Games and Use of Weapons, which everyone said were the best ones. Neither of which I particularly liked. How different is Inversions?

I do very much love his theoretically non-fantastical-but-it-is-too novel Whit, which is hilarious and adorable.

[jazzfish]

Zelazny... Lord of Light is probably his best, and for 1968 was quite progressive, but is now Good For Its Time. This Immortal had its moments, lots of them, and I adored A Night In The Lonesome October too. And you could do much worse than picking up the first two (of six) volumes of the Collected Stories from NESFA: they cover most of his good/famous short work from the late sixties, which seems to be most of what I really really liked. (The short story "24 Views of Mt Fuji by Hokusai" is also brilliant, and from much later in his career.)

Elric: THERE ARE SIX ELRIC BOOKS DAMMIT. (Plus Fortress of the Pearl, which was very good but didn't feel much like an Elric book, and then a bunch of later stuff where he tried to wrap up the multiverse into a neat tidy package, which, bleh.)

+1 to the Hitchhiker's Guide radio plays. Peter Jones *is* The Book, to the point where when I read them now I hear those sections in his voice.

[rushthatspeaks]

I will look into the NESFA collections, and thanks.

I definitely read The Fortress of the Pearl, and I agree, it felt very different.

[kore]

Someone else who hates Fforde! Awesome!

I would actually rec Fahrenheit 451, altho don't read the Afterword, because it's terrible. Some of it is very questionable but a lot of it is very good, and it has beautiful moments about reading.

DON'T read Time Traveler's Wife, the central premise is horribly squicky and it's just awful.

Everyone else will tell you to read Lord of Light, but I liked Creatures of Light and Darkness better. Zelazny's great strength is his short stories; his novels are usually expanded novellas or short stories welded together, and suffer accordingly. If you compare "He Who Shapes" to The Dream Master you will see what I mean. As a kid I liked Doorways in the Sand and Jack of Shadows, altho I haven't reread them in a long time. Avoid Deus Irae at all costs. Some good short story collections - Four for Tomorrow, The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, and Other Stories, Last Defender of Camelot, and Frost & Fire, which is maybe my favourite. Unicorn Variations has essays mixed in with the stories.

Gaiman....it's very weird. I don't like his short stories at all. I loved Sandman. I greatly enjoyed American Gods, Graveyard Book, Neverwhere, &c, on first reading, and then all kinds of terrible holes and cracks and flaws appeared and they seemed just this side of mediocre. (I grew particularly angry about how nobody mentioned Beagle's Fine and Private Place in reviews of Graveyard. It reminded me of how JK Rowling supposedly "invented" schools for wizards.) This has happened to me with very few other authors; usually I grow to appreciate a classic or author I disliked when young.

[sovay]

I greatly enjoyed American Gods, Graveyard Book, Neverwhere, &c, on first reading, and then all kinds of terrible holes and cracks and flaws appeared and they seemed just this side of mediocre.

I've discovered on re-read that I'm actually kind of fond of Neverwhere, even if it wants terribly to be The Napoleon of Notting Hill (which it credits in its epigraphs) crossbred with the great novel of London I have never read. The rest of his prose have been near-solid bounces with the exception of Anansi Boys, which is slight and fun. I didn't make it as far as The Graveyard Book.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Eh, I wouldn't give a strong recommendation on any of the ones you haven't read yet - some I like a lot, but I'm not sure you would.

My best bet for you would be The Crystal Cave, but that's based on fond memories as I haven't read it in ages.

Outlander is trashy fun if you're in the right mood. A married nurse from 1940 travels back in time and for plot reasons must marry a hot virgin Scotsman. It has tons of rape and torture and an evil bisexual (there are sympathetic gay characters later on) and is basically hurt-comfort fanfic, except it's not actually fanfic, except for the part where it kind of is because apparently the hero is based on and named after a supporting character in early Doctor Who. There are sequels of decreasing quality.

I have been bored by and unable to get more than 20 pages into every Kim Stanley Robinson novel I've ever tried to read. I would say "geology and political science textbooks" rather than "economic textbooks," though.

A Fire Upon the Deep has two plotlines. One, about pack-mind aliens, is absolutely wonderful and fascinating. The other, a satire about usenet in space, has some funny moments but mostly bored me. Read it for the Tines.

Lucifer's Hammer is racist, sexist, and awful.

I really liked the first Farseer book, an intriguing take on many cliched elements of high fantasy. The second book was a little high on angst, whining (justified, but still), and made the protagonist's passivity and stupidity stand out more by focusing more on him and less on the excellent supporting cast. The third book was largely terrible.

The Forever War starts out very strong but loses momentum quickly. In general, dated but interesting in that it gives you a snapshot of a time period.

I hate Kurt Vonnegut.

The Belgariad is terrible but entertaining.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The Crystal Cave is quite high on my to-read list, as is A Fire Upon the Deep and we'll see how that goes.

I heard about the Outlander/Doctor Who thing when Diana Gabaldon got so vocal about hating fanfic, which was when I mentally marked her down as a person whose books I probably don't want to read, because uh.

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

I have no objection to anyone hating The Eyre Affair, but I'm curious why you do.

Glad to be reminded that people other than me love Perelandra. I tend to use "gave up his/her will and reason to the bent eldil" as a version of "sold his/her soul to the devil," which has garnered me a few funny looks in mixed company.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

There are two major reasons I hate The Eyre Affair, one of which is textual and one of which is extra-textual.

The textual one is that Fforde has gone and taken some of the most complex and fascinating literature in English, misread some of it entirely, used the simplest possible interpretations of the other bits, and then made jokes about the originals based on his particular interpretations.

The extra-textual one is that he is one of those authors who spends a lot of time lecturing people about how fanfiction is, in fact, Satan. With many authors I am like whatever that's your opinion. BUT THE MAN MAKES A LIVING WRITING FANFICTION. Hypocrisy much?

[sovay]

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. Why do that to myself?

Because the language is very beautiful and it's an unusual dystopia, in that it really isn't totalitarian at all, merely market-driven and anti-intellectual in a kind of absentminded way. Also it's difficult to show people the film by Truffaut if they haven't read the novel, because it's not quite a faithful transfer and not quite a separate story, but something about the combination of source material—by whose lights the idea of a film adaptation at all falls somewhere between ridiculous and evil—and Truffaut deciding to write and direct in a language he really didn't speak resulted in a piece of cinema that actually feels like it comes from the next universe over, where nothing quite evolved the way it did here. I'm not sure it would work at all if it weren't French New Wave. A Hollywood production would have been fatal.

30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess.

Language. Just make sure to read Burgess' preferred version with twenty-one chapters, regardless of whether you feel the last scenes are character-convincing or not; it's not a revision, it's the original text.

37. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne. I don't know why, it just never came up.

Also there are translation issues with Verne. I believe there is a recent (mid-nineties) version of 20,000 Leagues that is actually good, but I haven't checked it out for myself.

Where should a person start on other Zelazny?

I haven't read it since my senior year of high school, when I found it in the same box as Cordwainer Smith's Norstrilia,* but I imprinted on his short story collection Unicorn Variations (1983).

* What is Star Wars fanfiction doing on this list and no Cordwainer Smith? Who runs NPR anyway?

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

I can't really recommend this novel in its entirety, but I like the bits with Alan Turing. You can skim for those, though.

58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson. Mark me down as one of those people who couldn't get past the rape scene.

I got past the rape scene. That meant I got the prose style. I did not finish the book.

69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb

I have absolutely no idea how these books would hold up, but I read them my freshman year at Brandeis at kraada's insistence, and what I remember is that they are very deliberately working with the material of a revionist fantasy epic—and against its conventions, which does not simply bend back into traditional epic, either—in a fashion that should not give you an orthagonal George R.R. Martin headache. There are two sequel trilogies, which I do not actually recommend; they overexplain. It will be instantly and embarrassingly obvious who my favorite character was.

84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart. I KNOW I KNOW I WILL I SWEAR

Because I can keep providing reasons if not!

85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. Maybe if I can forgive him for the ends of the last everything I've ever read of his?

No. A great number of people I respect have read and loved Anathem. I grew up with Neal dropping by the house about every six months; I am technically the kid who sits on the basement steps drinking cranberry-raspberry juice in Zodiac (1988), although I never owned a She-Ra mug. I bounced.

96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. After The Mote in God's Eye, there was no way I was going anywhere near anything by those two again.

I really loved Niven's The Integral Trees (1984) and The Smoke Ring (1987) when I was in middle and early high school, about life in a zero-g environment orbiting a neutron star with hundred-kilometer trees and edible moss and lots of archery. I bet the characterization is absolutely fucked, but you will have to deal with me unpacking my very nice Del Rey paperbacks and putting them on the shelf: I was reading those books for the first time at the air show at Hanscom, dreaming about being a pilot, about space.

[weirdquark]

53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

I can't really recommend this novel in its entirety, but I like the bits with Alan Turing. You can skim for those, though.

Seconded -- I took this to the beach a few years ago because I didn't bring enough of my own books and my dad had it lying around. Skimming the bits that didn't have Alan Turing in them was pretty much what I ended up doing.

I liked the geeky coding bits. (I may have picked this one up the year I was taking my programming class.) I found most of the other sections kind of dull, though they did grow on me a bit and I read more and skimmed less as the book went on.

[seigyoku.livejournal.com]

To be fair, NPR didn't just come up with this one, it was made with nominations and voting and polls and said nominees were taken from several fandom websites and the voting was advertised therein.

So faults there may be, but SF/F fandom contributed to them!

Also - mother has basically devoured Song of Ice and Fire and now I better read them or she will be INSUFFERABLE. (Do not know if this means you should read them.) Mist of Avalon and Darkover pretty much got me through Terrible High School. I am concluding that I am the only person who could take Handmaid's Tale? Hated Eyre Affair really? foleyartist1 gave me the whole series for my birthday one year, we love them. Heh. And oddly I dealt with the GIANT TELEPORTING SPIDERS to the point I can barely recall them. Bug ladies are burned into my brain. I read Fire in the Deep and Deepness in the Sky together one summer and can no longer recall which book is which. I have this issue at times.

I should REALLY post my list, but I think I'm supposed to be in bed!

[foleyartist1.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think I remember talking about Fforde with Rush once and the author himself was a big factor. So Rush, I will note for reference that seigyoku and I knew exactly nothing about the author when we read these.

Who are these bug ladies? I don't think I want to read about bug ladies.

[khava.livejournal.com]

The Time Traveler's Wife is one of my favorite books ever. It made me cry a lot -- once you get near the end, do not try to read it in public.

I enjoyed Anathem, though I found many of the plot elements highly repetitive from Stephenson's other novels, and I saw the big plot twist coming from practically page one.

[khava.livejournal.com]

I should also mention, I never thought of Time Traveler's Wife as being sci-fi. It's more like a non-genre novel that happens to have time travel in it.

[q10.livejournal.com]

i was annoyed by Anathem for reasons that my professional life and the professional lives of a lot of people i know touch on the kind of philosophy he thinks he's writing about, and he completely butchers it. people i've known who weren't attuned to that issue mostly had a lot of fun with it. if your objections to the endings of the earlier things involved the abruptness, you should know that Anathem winds itself down in a more conventional manner, so i suspect it won't cause that particular annoyance.

i had the plot of I am Legend ruined for me by Wikipedia, and I still enjoyed it. it's not a profoundly great piece of writing, but it's a really interesting moment in the evolution of vampire and zombie fiction, and what's interesting about it has a lot less to do with the large-scale plot than with the details.

i'm interested to hear more about the reasons for your hatred of The Handmaid's Tale, although i haven't read it (i've seen the flick, which i found pretty underwhelming, but which is a poor basis for judging the book).

and you haven't read Cat's Cradle? really?

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have not, in fact, read Cat's Cradle. Should I?

The Handmaid's Tale has terrible worldbuilding. Like, there are some apocalypses and dystopias that you look at and go yeah, okay, if xyz happens that follows, but that particular dystopia was not going to just appear out of the woodwork, and she gives no hints at all about what made this happen. Which would be reasonable if the book were entirely and only from her heroine's perspective, because her heroine has very limited access to education and things in general, but the entire novel purports to be diaries and papers discovered by the post-dystopian future, which means that the future scholars who are publishing the thing have no reason not to include historical notes and analysis.

And people behave pretty damn implausibly in nasty ways, leading one to wonder how the dystopia ever ended if people are like this, how it started if they are, and the whole thing smacks of Authorial Because I Said So, which means that people are nasty in it entirely and completely so she can make her ideological point and not because it is realistic, thereby undermining her ideological point.

Also, terrible prose, cardboard characters, wants to be a tract when it grows up but has its logical premises muddled and I say this as a person who reads feminist dystopias.

[nipernaadiagain.livejournal.com]

Your list reminds me that, for long time, I have meant to check up "A Clockwork Orange" in Russian.

My problem is that while I DO write in English (and some people say not too badly for a foreigner), I still cannot pronounce it. And to figure out Russian way to write names, one HAS to know how to say them.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

You write very comprehensibly in English.

I would be utterly fascinated to hear how A Clockwork Orange is in Russian.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

Robinson writes about the historical process. That means in some ways his fiction is by turns ponderous and indelible. I love his fiction. The Mars Trilogy is great stuff, but not for everyone. still, there's a set piece in the first book where the space elevator is sabotaged and comes down that is awesome. Also sex, death, betrayal, rivalry, and terraforming.

That list is pretty hard to take seriously as anything except a snapshot of a moment of fashion.

[seigyoku.livejournal.com]

The orbital elevator piece is amazing and years later still vivid in my mind. The rest of that trilogy can DIAF. I wanted to strangle the cast (and they kept NOT DYING), the bit with Hiroko (was that her name) was like crack fic brought to life and I'll stop now before I go nuts.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

It's nice to see that I'm not the only person who isn't in love with Gaiman's work. American Gods not only ignores Christianity, it has a computer god who's actually a marketing god. I'd like to see an actual god of programming.

Possibly of interest: Not In Kansas Anymore: Dark Arts, Sex Spells, Money Magic, and Other Things Your Neighbors Aren't Telling You (http://www.amazon.com/Not-Kansas-Anymore-Neighbors-Telling/dp/B0046LUCPW/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313487184&sr=1-2)-- the sorts of magic Americans actually do.

I don't know whether you should read Cat's Cradle, but it's an amazing job of complex plot construction.

Cryoburn has some good stuff in it, but it's not major Bujold.

Lucifer's Hammer. I'm grateful I read a lot of sf before I'd heard of sexism. No matter what there was that I didn't notice about women, there was an exceedingly cool giant comet. Hot fudge sundae falls on Tuesday!

If you want a good parts version of Niven, I recommend N-Space, a compendium of his best stuff, including excerpts from novels.

[issen4.livejournal.com]

The only Gaiman I can get excited about is Good Omens, and that had Prachett. I've read a couple of Gaiman's novels (compelled by hype, I'm afraid) and have been ehh about them.

I think I can guess why you hate The Eyre Affair, but perhaps you could elaborate?

[earis.livejournal.com]

I would suggest giving Cat's Cradle a try, if only because it's Vonnegut's MA thesis.

It's kind of an anthropology grad school horror story/legend. Kurt Vonnegut was a student in the anth department at UChicago in the 1940s, but in order to support himself he also worked the the Chicago News Bureau. His professors all thought he would amount to nothing and when he submitted his MA thesis, it was outright rejected. So Vonnegut moved on. Cat's Cradle was published in the early 60s, after the Sirens of Titan. Slaughterhouse-Five was published in 1969, which basically made Vonnegut a permanent literary figure in America. In 1971, some administrators were going through records at UChicago and realized that Vonnegut had fulfilled all requirements for a MA, except for the thesis. And because Cat's Cradle was written after talking to a bunch of scientists at GE in a moderately scientific manner, they figured that Vonnegut had done fieldwork and written a thesis. So they called him up and gave him his MA.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

That is fascinating. I should read the book. Thanks.

[occultatio.livejournal.com]

I think I've mentioned this to you, but Anathem comes closest out of any book I've heard of to doing, on a philosophical level, what Thrud does with Bridger, and for that reason if no other I suspect you would get a lot out of it, if perhaps not actively enjoy it.

I also read not only the Farseer trilogy, but the other two trilogies which, collectively, form a meta-trilogy, and although each sub-trilogy starts out with about 100 pages too many of exposition, once they get rolling I really, really like them. It's only around book 9 or so that they started getting weaker. Also, she writes seriously the best dragons ever.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It's not just leaving out Christianity that sinks American Gods, nor is it what he does with Wotan; it's having modern gods that can't begin to compare in terms of reality with the old ones.

How do you feel about Bruce Sterling ? Because I felt what he did with Zeitgeist was everything the modern gods bit of American Gods thought it was being.

Other Zelazny ? I would recommend This Immortal and Lord of Light for you, and yay, I finally remembered Knight Moves is not actually Zelazny, just WJW doing Zelazny very well indeed.

My considered opinion of Brandon Sanderson is that he's doing neat little rational magic systems in worlds with characters who don't appeal to me, and a prose style that does not appeal to me, and thinking about them fills me with an urge to work on The Third Ether some more. Unless I hear that he has moved in a drastically different direction I think I can safely pass on any more of his.

Childhood's End is kind of formative on me, and I should be interested in your response, but I cannot tell whether you would like it. (It has an ending I see as happy and many people do not.) I'm right with you on Hyperion, and while I am still reading Covenant, I would not recommend them to you.

If you are going to read Robinson, I would highly recommmend Icehenge, which has a lot of the same virtues as his later work, plus some extra virtues, and is very much more focused. (In the event that you have not come across spoilers for this, this is one to be particularly chary of, as it's doing odd clever things where even premise description is a spoiler.)

There are copies of everything I recommend here in my apartment, and you are welcome to read any of them at Farthing.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Should I talk to you about Sanderson at random moments so you can write more of your own book? Since I'm convinced I'd be more interested by yours. (Mind you, I barely know you (more "see you occasionally around the internet"), so that may be a useless offer.)

[foleyartist1.livejournal.com]

This is extremely useful information on Neil Gaiman, thank you!!!

I remembered you and Sei reccing him, and hence read Neverwhere (which luckily was mostly just an "I don't really see the genius, but okay" book rather than a book I actively disliked or was upset/confused by). But the interwebs tell me American Gods was published AFTER that conversation, and therefore wasn't part of the equation at the time. Your description leads me to believe that I would probably try to set American Gods on fire, and now I'm going to go back and write myself a note that it was emphatically NOT what you meant and also I would set it on fire, to remind myself to stick with the comics I plan on reading and not read AG. I think you just saved me from accidentally screwing myself.

Also, you have such a way with words. Your comments are love. <3

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, American Gods is in fact a book you would set on fire. It's pretty much a book I MYSELF would like to set on fire.

And thank you!

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

I am very fond of the Farseer books (although I do tend to think of them as a guilty pleasure, on the same continuum of guilt and pleasure as Jacqueline Carey's Terre d'Ange books). They do tend towards the angst, but the dragons are prime, and the characters rang my chimes.

My feelings about Time Traveler's Wife are mixed. For me, it's more a head book than a heart book, despite the desperate romantic nature of the premise. It's VERY well done, and I loved watching her work everything out. But, in the final analysis, it didn't move me. That kind of reaction being so very subjective a phenomenon, I'd be fascinated to find out what you make of the book.

I, too, hate Jaspar Fforde. And I have a relatively high tolerance for twee. It's a cool premise, it just doesn't end up making any sense.

As for Kim Stanley Robinson, for my money, Years of Rice and Salt is worth a dozen Mars trilogies. And The Memory of Whiteness, which came out in 1985, is wonderful, mystical, rich stuff, much messier than his later work, but a lot more emotionally satisfying. Granted, it's been a while since I re-read it, and it might not hold up, or my memory might be faulty, but it might be worth a try.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I love Years of Rice and Salt, too. But to a fair degree, I'm Robinson's target audience in one of those odd ways that is impossible to explain.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

For Zelazny I would recommend reading stories instead of novels - I have yet to read a novel of his I am really impressed with, although in fairness there are plenty I haven't tried. In particular I didn't like Lord of Light nearly as much as most people. (I haven't read Amber at all.)

I think his novellas are his strongest work, generally speaking. sovay's recommendation of Unicorn Variations has "Home is the Hangman," which is good. I also highly recommend "He Who Shapes" and "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai." (Where to find these is hard to say since some of his collections have the same title but different contents - check ISFDB, I guess.) There is a novel expansion of "He Who Shapes" (The Dream Master) which doesn't ruin it, but doesn't help it either.

I agree with rachelmanija about the Farseer trilogy and Lucifer's Hammer.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't like Gaiman's novels.

Thought Fahrenheit 451 beautiful, though our tastes could just be different (I couldn't get past Kvothe's 800 ton Gary Stuness to take those novels as seriously as you and Jo do, much fun as they are to read.)

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

I thought I was the only person in the world who didn't like Gaiman's novels.

You are not alone.

I've spent a lot of time thinking, "Mildly fun, but what's all the fuss about?" Mind you, I don't even like Sandman.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Yay, thank you for pimping my meme out further. :)

Stephenson does have a problem with endings. However, I would still suggest you try Cryptonomicon. I haven't read Anathem to make any comments on it. Oh, and the one time that Stephenson has *properly* done an ending is in the Baroque Cycle, which is a trilogy-prequel to Cryptonomicon. If you like Cryptonomicon, I *definitely* recommend those.

[occultatio.livejournal.com]

Anathem is the best book Stephenson has ever written, and easily in my top 5 Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books.

Also, I cannot in good faith recommend the Baroque Cycle to anybody without the warning, "don't read this unless you really like watching Stephenson talk aimlessly about topics that interest him. You know the 5-page description of how to eat Cap'n Crunch from Cryptonomicon? Imagine 3,000 pages of that." That said, I myself read the entire thing and loved it.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Anathem is the only Stephenson book I have ever enjoyed, or indeed finished. The cognitive science is full of crap, but in a way that causes me to enjoy arguing with it. ("This is trying to explain why humans are so good at a thing they actually do terribly!) The worldbuilding is fun, and the infodumps have more appropriate context than in his other work. I do recommend saving it for some point at which Running Out of Book feels like it would be terribly stressful.

American Gods is my least favorite Gaiman. Neverwhere is fun, but the story wasn't intended as a novel, and that shows. Anansi Boys is my favorite and actually does work as a novel.

Cat's Cradle was my favorite book ever in high school, but there is no point in reading him once you learn to like people.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Anansi Boys does work, mostly because it is trying to be enjoyable fluff, and succeeds.

I am not sure I have yet learned to like people, so I may well read Cat's Cradle.