OK, fair enough...I should've read her explication rather than skimmed the selections alone. The outrage in comments, including in her defense, is expectable.
Should have been title Ann Leckie's Ten Favorite... But as Bill says that's PW's fault. I don't see a single book there that would appear on a 10 favorites list I made.
I've read 7 of those, and would call only The Left Hand of Darkness and Neuromancer great books (I'm odd, in that I appreciate, but do not like, Frankenstein.). The other 6 were good, solid SF. But tastes vary, and mine are somewhat idiosyncratic. (My 10 favorites would mostly end in the early 1970s--which is when I mostly quit reading SF, with a couple of exceptions--thank you, William Gibson.) (I would include, in the 10 best SF BOOKS, as distinct from novels, the volumes edited by Harlan Ellison, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions.)
I still read SF but mostly older books and stories. Like you, I appreciate Frankenstein but don't care for it much. Read it so long ago that maybe now I'd like it better, but I'm not going to find out.
In the 80's and 90's about half or more of the books I were speculative fiction. I read probably 85 percent of LEFT HAND... and I think I have read NEUROMANCER about three times. A real achievement. Later I read and do recommend SNOW CRASH by N. Stephenson. BLADE RUNNER (movie) and Neuromancer are some of the very first of the cyberpunk and virtual reality tales, is that right?
14 comments:
No, but it's not even terribly eccentric or ignorant so much as perhaps due to more limited reading in the field than one might hope.
I liked the Brackett and Vance inclusions.
Me, too. Think the Stugatskys and the Cherryh are more special pleading than measured judgment.
OK, fair enough...I should've read her explication rather than skimmed the selections alone. The outrage in comments, including in her defense, is expectable.
Yes, PW is at fault here.
I would've included Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe (Actually, I would have been tempted to list just ten Gene Wolfe books.)
I'm glad she included a Brackett, but I would have probably chosen Sword of Rhiannon myself. And maybe Dying Earth instead of the Vance.
Any list that doesn't include Fredric Brown's MARTIANS GO HOME is essentially meaningless.
A few good books on there--and some you'd have to pay me to read. (Actually I'd probably lie and claim I'd read them, just to get the money.)
Should have been title Ann Leckie's Ten Favorite... But as Bill says that's PW's fault. I don't see a single book there that would appear on a 10 favorites list I made.
I've read 7 of those, and would call only The Left Hand of Darkness and Neuromancer great books (I'm odd, in that I appreciate, but do not like, Frankenstein.). The other 6 were good, solid SF. But tastes vary, and mine are somewhat idiosyncratic. (My 10 favorites would mostly end in the early 1970s--which is when I mostly quit reading SF, with a couple of exceptions--thank you, William Gibson.) (I would include, in the 10 best SF BOOKS, as distinct from novels, the volumes edited by Harlan Ellison, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions.)
I still read SF but mostly older books and stories. Like you, I appreciate Frankenstein but don't care for it much. Read it so long ago that maybe now I'd like it better, but I'm not going to find out.
In the 80's and 90's about half or more of the books I were speculative fiction. I read probably 85 percent of LEFT HAND... and I think I have read NEUROMANCER about three times. A real achievement. Later I read and do recommend SNOW CRASH by N. Stephenson. BLADE RUNNER (movie) and Neuromancer are some of the very first of the cyberpunk and virtual reality tales, is that right?
Sounds right to me. I liked Snow Crash quite a bit.
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