NPR's list of Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books

[angualupin]

I know I'm late to the party. I only actually read the whole list when John Scalzi (one of my favourite sci-fi authors) posted a link to NPR's nifty new flowchart. It's hilarious. Check it out.

Perusing it, though, made me realize a few things. I know everyone else figured these things out before, when the list first came out, but indulge me:

Comments

[cheryl_bites]

Damn you for distracting me while I'm trying to write the Napoli spam.

[angualupin]

Sorry! Only not really. :D

[cheryl_bites]

XD!! I didn't know you didn't like Napoli...

[angualupin]

I have nothing against Napoli! I just think books are more important. I think books are more important than everything.

[angualupin]

SAME HERE. And I reread it at least once a year, still. It annoyed me no end to find that Sunshine is the only one of McKinley's books to have an audiobook version -- I would kill for an audiobook version of Hero.

[angualupin]

I like it, but certainly not as much as Hero or some of her other books (Deerskin, Spindle's End, Sunshine, Beauty). I'm not too fond of the low fantasy "it's just like this world only different" trope. It was her first novel, though, so I'm inclined to be generous.

[finnygan]

I can't quite believe how few of those I've read - I'm not much of a fantasy fan after all, I suppose. I'll agree that there are a few random selections there, however.

Btw - I haven't read Brave New World, and it's been about twenty years since I read Animal Farm [though, as I recall it, it made quite the impression at the time], but I read Handmaid's Tale relatively recently and, while I don't think it's Atwood's best, I do think it's a very, very good book. Frightening and terrible to read, yes, but very good.

[cheryl_bites]

I suspect half the people who voted did not understand what "science fiction and fantasy" meant.

[angualupin]

As I said, I'm not really qualified to judge Atwood. I am not a fan of her writing style. Handmaid's Tale was terrifying, and the very thought of it still terrifies me, fifteen years after I first read it, so I suppose that is the mark of a good book. I'll give you 1984 as good writing, too, although I don't like it either. (Like with Do Androids Dream, the emotional reaction isn't pleasant, but since they succeed in provoking that emotional reaction, they're a success.)

Brave New World is just rubbish, frankly. So is -- a short list -- Animal Farm, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Contact, Farenheit 451, 2000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Stranger in a Strange Land. All influential, but not what I would call good.

And then there's ones like Watership Down and Frakenstein, where you're like, "er... I guess they qualify as "science-fiction and fantasy" because they involve some kind of fantastical element, but... not really. Sorry."

[cheryl_bites]

*Curious* You don't think Frankenstein's science fiction? Isn't it kind of the definition of science fiction to speculate on what technology might be possible in the future and the moral and philosophical questions it would pose? The only problems I can see with it are (a) if you're defining sci-fi as beginning in the 20th century it won't qualify, and (b) if Frankenstein's there where is Dracula et al?

[penguin_attie]

Small Gods, I can understand: it's the book I always hand my non-discworld-initiated friends, because it's very self-contained. (and also I love it!) I don't have the earlier books, as I started out borrowing the books from a friend, so most of what I have lacks context. Going Postal is just recent, I guess?