The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: AlohaDawg on August 16, 2004, 09:53:38 pm
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Comments, Anyone? (http://listsofbests.com/list/29/)
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Most of these seem like pretty safe choices and are pretty inarguable, honestly. I was pleased to see the inclusion of Blood Music (one of my all-time favorites that I don't see discussed a lot) and the Upanishads.
I will confess that I have always found Orson Scott Card hideously overrated and have not yet managed to get through one of his books, but I figure this is a personal fault in myself, the problem with starting with Lost Boys and trying to go from there, or possibly both.
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Cat's Cradle is my favorite book so it's nice to see it. Vonnegut's own displeasure with the sci-fi label aside.
And isn't it Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?
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Good stuff: I don't read much sci-fi but I was pleased to see Cat's Cradle and The Left Hand of Darkness, Frankenstein... less so.
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Good stuff: I don't read much sci-fi but I was pleased to see Cat's Cradle and The Left Hand of Darkness, Frankenstein... less so.
Well, note that the list also mentions historical value of the works in question. While I think Frankenstein has its problems as a work (it's very much a product of its time in terms of prose, which makes it problematic to read), there's no doubt that it was the progenitor of a lot of modern SF and debuted ideas that are still getting played with today, so I can see a place for it.
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I've read somewhere between 30 and 60 on that list. My comments:
Phillip K. Dick is overrepresented and overrated. Also, no way that Childhood's End should be number 1. Arthur C. Clarke had some interesting ideas, but he's pretty much a lousy writer.
Hitchhiker's Guide number 85? Whatever. In terms of influence it should be in the top ten. In terms of entertainment value you could argue it's number 1. A Canticle for Leibowitz, A Clockwork Orange and Flowers for Algernon all in the 60's? Nnnn-kay. Piers Anthony is represented but Harry Harrison isn't? Right.
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Hitchhiker's Guide number 85? Whatever. In terms of influence it should be in the top ten. In terms of entertainment value you could argue it's number 1.
It's too funny. Comedy is always looked down upon when it comes to awards/best of lists. As if only serious material can have artistic merit.
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Hitchhiker's Guide number 85? Whatever. In terms of influence it should be in the top ten. In terms of entertainment value you could argue it's number 1.
It's too funny. Comedy is always looked down upon when it comes to awards/best of lists. As if only serious material can have artistic merit.
True, which is bass-ackwards in my opinion. Quality funny is 9046 times harder to write than quality melodrama.
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And the page is slashdotted!
I would probably disagree with most of them, but then I can't decide.
I know that Diamond Age would come in the top ten for me, and might include Pashazade and maybe Idoru.
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The Space Merchants is by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth.
Godamnit. The dead get no respect.
Otherwise, a very interesting list. Great to see Capek's War With the Newts on there (it's still in print (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0945774109/qid=1092778659/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-5008369-0117568?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) BTW, not sure why there's no "buy" link) and not one but two of Olaf Stapledon's. To Your Scattered Bodies Go should definitely be there, but I would have chosen something other than Flesh for the second PJF title (The Other Log of Phileas Fogg maybe, or The Maker of Universes). And for Gene Wolfe I would have just said The Book of the New Sun, not only the first volume.
Oh, I've never read the Upanishads, so I'm curious as to why they're on this list.
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To Your Scattered Bodies Go should definitely be there,
Yeppers. Love this one, but I think the Riverworld series kinda wemt downhill thereafter. Anybody else read PJF writing as Kilgore Trout's Venus on the Half-Shell? Excellent.
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Anybody else read PJF writing as Kilgore Trout's Venus on the Half-Shell? Excellent.
Seconded.
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Clarke and Asimov are waaaay over-represented. John Varley is conspicuously absent.
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John Varley is conspicuously absent.
I most heartily concur (http://achewood.plagiarist.com/viewtopic.php?t=949&highlight=varley).
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John Varley is conspicuously absent.
I most heartily concur (http://achewood.plagiarist.com/viewtopic.php?t=949&highlight=varley).
Heh, I saw that thread but it's locked so I couldn't gush over your letter and express my own love for JV in there.
Were you disappointed with Red Thunder, or was that just me? I mean, if anyone else had written that book--fine. But I expected so much more from JV.
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Clarke and Asimov are waaaay over-represented.
I tend to find one book by either is over-representation. I'm not fond...
Hey, don't get me wrong, I like some of the ideas, but the writing just doesn't do it for me.
Sadly the same tends to be true of Phillip K Dick for me. I just don't get engaged by his writing, but damn some of his ideas were good.
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Were you disappointed with Red Thunder, or was that just me? I mean, if anyone else had written that book--fine. But I expected so much more from JV.
Haven't read it. I need to seek it out.
As I said earlier, I find Phillip K. Dick highly overrated. I think he's kind of been adopted by Hollywood, so that may explain some of his acclaim. But The Man in the High Castle in the top ten SF novels? No way. It's been a while since I read it, but it seems like it was basically "What if the Japanese had won WWII?" The Three Stigmata was a little more engaging, but not strikingly so.
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Haven't read it [Red Thunder]. I need to seek it out.
Don't pay too much for it--you'll be pissed.
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I thought the Upanishads were some kind of Indian Bible. What is the story with their inclusion?
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I thought the Upanishads were some kind of Indian Bible. What is the story with their inclusion?
As I learned by rote in high-school philosophy, the Upanishads are "the first recorded human attempt to understand the universe metaphysically rather than just temporally"-- so I'd imagine they're trying to be uber-inclusive with their definition of science fiction as, basically, imaginative writing.
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I thought the Upanishads were some kind of Indian Bible. What is the story with their inclusion?
As I learned by rote in high-school philosophy, the Upanishads are "the first recorded human attempt to understand the universe metaphysically rather than just temporally"-- so I'd imagine they're trying to be uber-inclusive with their definition of science fiction as, basically, imaginative writing.
Yeah, this is basically it. The Upanishads are not precisely science fiction per se, but they're the earliest evidence of some of the big science-fiction tropes. They integrate significant discussion of the nature of the universe into the narrative, and one of their biggest themes is "man vs. destiny" and "man vs. (meta)physics," which show up in SF work a lot. I would hesitate to call them "science fiction," but they're clearly one of the earliest works of speculative fiction ever written.
(And they said Religion 101 would never be useful! Ha!)
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Was happy to see one of my fav's - Red Mars - included on the list, slightly disapointed that none of Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution books were included.
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I thought the Upanishads were some kind of Indian Bible. What is the story with their inclusion?
As I learned by rote in high-school philosophy, the Upanishads are "the first recorded human attempt to understand the universe metaphysically rather than just temporally"-- so I'd imagine they're trying to be uber-inclusive with their definition of science fiction as, basically, imaginative writing.
Yeah, this is basically it. The Upanishads are not precisely science fiction per se, but they're the earliest evidence of some of the big science-fiction tropes. They integrate significant discussion of the nature of the universe into the narrative, and one of their biggest themes is "man vs. destiny" and "man vs. (meta)physics," which show up in SF work a lot. I would hesitate to call them "science fiction," but they're clearly one of the earliest works of speculative fiction ever written.
(And they said Religion 101 would never be useful! Ha!)
Thanks to both of you. That's sort of what I'd figured, I guess. Although I do remember a couple of years ago a friend who's really into various flaky stuff showing me some website that tried to prove that ancient Hindus had space travel based on some holy texts, probably the Upanishads.
Oh dear, this won't do, will it :-) I'd better get to Googling and not leave everyone hanging.
Ah, that's right. Vimanas (http://www.atributetohinduism.com/Vimanas.htm). Fascinating reading, doubt any of it is true but who knows? It just seems like they're stretching a lot to make their point. But allegedly the Hindus of the Rama Empire had antigravity technology and flew around in these Vimanas. And supposedly what ended their civilization was nuclear warfare, with the effects of it described in lots of detail and sounding much like what the aftermath of a nuke is like. And then there's Oppenheimer quoting Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgita at the first nuclear test detonation: I am become death, destroyer of worlds.
So, I don't know. If I'm in a credulous state of mind baked out of my mind I can believe it but it's hard to when mostly sober-minded.
I just went and counted which ones I'd read. For shame. Only 21 of the 100. I was quite surprised. I guess I haven't read as much sci fi as I'd thought.
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I just went and counted which ones I'd read. For shame. Only 21 of the 100. I was quite surprised. I guess I haven't read as much sci fi as I'd thought.
Forgot to do the count test. 47 for me.
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I just went and counted which ones I'd read. For shame. Only 21 of the 100. I was quite surprised. I guess I haven't read as much sci fi as I'd thought.
Yeah, I thought I was a pretty big nerd until I started hanging around here. These people absolutely SCHOOL me, man. It's like some a bunch of English majors at a Red Dwarf convention.
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For shame. Only 21 of the 100. I was quite surprised. I guess I haven't read as much sci fi as I'd thought.
Only 22 for me, and I've never even heard of many of these people, not to mention all the names I know whose works I've never touched (Card and LeGuin, for example).
But I'm discussing this on the intarweb, so I must still be pretty nerdy.
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It's like some a bunch of English majors at a Red Dwarf convention.
Bozack, if I haven't mentioned lately that I love you, I apologize for the oversight.
I have also only read 21 of these, at least that I am positive about. But this number is misleading about how many hours of my youth were spent reading science fiction, because while I wasn't reading the other books on this list I was reading every other book by Harlan Ellison, every other book by Ray Bradbury, Phillip K Dick, Ursula LeGuin... not to mention poor snubbed John Varley. I guess I figured once you found someone you liked you should stick with a proven thing. Too bad, since there's a lot of stuff there I should have read and now probably never will.
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34 for me.
Why is Dragon's Egg on this list? It is not a very good book.
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I counted 35. Odd in that I consider myself an SF fan. However, I've read a lot more short SF than novels. Also, I tend to concentrate my reading on works from the 50's to the 70's.
Bozack, you're young yet. Have no fear, in ten years or so you'll be just as dorky as the rest of us.
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What the FUCK? I read sci-fi ALL THE TIME. I just counted, and apparently I read mostly shitty sci-fi, because I've only got 8 on the damned list. EIGHT? ?
I mean, ???
?????!
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Bozack, you're young yet. Have no fear, in ten years or so you'll be just as dorky as the rest of us.
Ha, yeah, I haven't even opened up the list yet. I'm afraid I'll click on it, and my screen will go black. Then, a giant stone head will appear and shout, "HAIL ZARDOZ!!!!"
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I like Phillip K. Dick, but i wasn't top 5 impressed with Man in a High Castle. maybe because i'd already read a lot of zelazny at the time. His short stories are prolly the best ever, though.
Starship troopers isn't that good of a book. i love heinlein, my adolescence would never have been the same without him, and he definitely deserves to be on a "best" list, but, um, not at the top? i mean, if you want to make a list of "combined importance of total works in regards to making you feel good" then, ya, maybe he'd be number one.
(addendum: let me make this clear: i _heart_ heinlein. due to reading him incessantly in my "formative" years, i think of him in an almost grandfatherly way. he is RAD.)
where the fuck is tolkein? they put the Upinshads in. they say
"and most have inspired profound trends in science fiction. ". so, uh, What The Fuck?
Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight? Sure, i tried to make "klah" or whatever it was called, from the recipe they published. But, no Moorcock and Elric? um, ok...
(oops, he's number 25. apparently that book was quite important. i don't have it, i haven't read it. oops.)
I would definitely put Diamond Age in over Snow Crash.
Andromeda Strain? what?
25.
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What the FUCK? I read sci-fi ALL THE TIME. I just counted, and apparently I read mostly shitty sci-fi, because I've only got 8 on the damned list. EIGHT? ?
Well, only 5 for me.
Ringworld
1984
Fahrenheit 451 (for school)
Cat's Cradle
Hitchhiker's Guide
I really enjoyed all of them, at least to a certain degree.
Is something wrong with me? I read all the time. I guess science fiction hasn't really done it for me.
Brave New World will probably be eternally unfinished. I think it still has a bookmark in it, probably around page 30.
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Tolkein surely isn't SF. But are the McCaffrey dragon books SF? I never read them because they sounded like dopey sword and sorcery stuff (with apologies to any fans of dopey sword and sorcery stuff).
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McCaffrey at least had SF ambitions in the early books (the humans on Pern were colonists from Earth and did various SFly things before they decided to ride dragons to destroy the space fungus) but sort of forgot about it quickly, and at no point in the later Pern books is one ever given a reason to think that they don't all happen in some dorky fantasy universe.
I can buy Tolkien on here, because for all of his influence (and quality), he shaped the face of fantasy, not SF as much. It sort of depends how much of a genre uniter/divider you are.
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Finally did the count test. 19.
ZARDOZ!
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Tolkein surely isn't SF. But are the McCaffrey dragon books SF? I never read them because they sounded like dopey sword and sorcery stuff (with apologies to any fans of dopey sword and sorcery stuff).
are the upanishads SF? plus, they were written by multiple persons. the Silmarillion was writed by just one guy. and etc ad nauseum.
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Holy Cow, usually I can't compete with you guys on books or music but I have 13 kills on that list.
If you haven't read A Canticle for Leibowitz, go get it. It's really good.
It is a little weird to consider Hitchhikers Guide a serious work of Science Fiction, and Alice in Wonderland?? Come on...it is cool to me that HG Wells and Robert Lewis Stevenson are in there, though, that's really where it all began. Many of the books I read on that list are the classic literature ones.
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It is a little weird to consider Hitchhikers Guide a serious work of Science Fiction
Just because it isn't serious doesn't make it unimportant or take away its influence.
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It is a little weird to consider Hitchhikers Guide a serious work of Science Fiction
Just because it isn't serious doesn't make it unimportant or take away its influence.
Comparing it to the other titles on this list is weird. In terms of literal pop culture reference (and the importance geeky people assign to their towels) there is no other book (series) like it. I'm not sure I can think of examples of influence or importance to the literary genre, though.
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I think both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman owe a lot to Douglas Adams.
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I think both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman owe a lot to Douglas Adams.
Indeed. Plus it's kind of a gateway sci-fi for people who would otherwise consider the genre too geeky.
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Conceded....thinking in those terms gives it sense.
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Alice in Wonderland I can see, too. It dealt with some remarkably complex stuff, and as a speculative "thought-work" it's really quite staggering. Some of its prestige is no doubt because of its eary publishing date, but for pure speculative force it really is in a category of its own, just because it's a front-row seat on a brilliant and confusing mind.
(Now I'm reminded of the paper I wrote for AP English Language comparing and contrasting the treatment of gender roles in Frankenstein and Alice. Curiouser and curiouser...)
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I always considered Alice in Wonderland a flight of opium-induced fantasy. Were Lewis Carroll also not a relatively noted math whiz with a lot of work in other geeky areas, do you think 'Alice' would have gotten this sort of attention? Also, I think the illustration work of Sir Joh Tenniel (himself a prominent illustrator and satirist of the time) would the book have received or maintained it's popularity?
I am not asking rhetorically; I really do wonder. It does belong on the list.