Lou Anders' 'Most Significant SF' meme

Filed by: Darren Turpin on December 4, 2006 at 8:18
Filed under: Books

Bowing to the FutureVia Lou Anders of Pyr Books, writing on his (always worth reading) Bowing to the Future blog, a list-meme based on the Science Fiction Book Club's list of the fifty most significant science fiction / fantasy novels published between 1953 and 2002.

The Key:

Bold the ones you've read.
Strike-out the ones you hated.
Italicize those you started but never finished.
Put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien [*]
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett [*]
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams [*]
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson [*]
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip José Farmer

So I've read, what, fourteen of the top 50? Hated one of them - sorry, but Thomas Covenant just pushed all the wrong buttons, although I absolutely loved Donaldson's The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through - and yes, I also loved the (probably predictable) formative teenage-reads: LOTR, HHGTTG, The Colour of Magic... oh, and Snowcrash, which is the novel that switched me on to the idea of SF being about so much more than robots and spaceships... and perhaps that attitude is why I haven't been anywhere near some of the titles on the rest of the list.

And no, I didn't finish The Forever War; don't think I was in the right frame of mind at the time. But I have got a copy of the new Gollancz omnibus edition of Forever War, Forever Free and Forever Peace [Amazon], so at some point I'll sit down and read all three.

Also in my defence, the selection does have rather a US-flavoured slant to it, albeit as you'd expect from the US SF Book Club; and there are a few titles in there that have been out of print in the UK for years, so I can probably claim lack of exposure to quite a few of them (although as an excuse it's a pretty poor one; sf transcending mere geographical boundaries etc. and seeing as we have, like, the Interweb and stuff these days).

And I have read other stuff by Clarke, Moorcock, Dick, Matheson, Bradbury, Asmiov and Gibson. Oh, and I do have a copy of John Crowley's Little, Big [Amazon] on my 'to be read' shelf, in fact it's been there for the past six years (I know, I know, but I'm saving it for a special occasion and besides, the print in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks edition that I've got is really small...)

And of course it's tricky without knowing the original criteria for assessing their 'significance' (I did find the original list, but there's no mention of the process it's based on), so I'm obviously in danger of straying into the realms of purely subjective opinion, but there are a few titles that I'd argue were ripe for inclusion on the basis of their importance to the UK market, starting with:

Legend, David Gemmell [*]
Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock [*]
Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks

And there would be more if I put my mind to it, I'm sure. But it's Monday morning, I've just spent most of the weekend decorating, and my head is full of paint fumes, dammit...

[edit December 4th-7th] And here they are...

Use of Weapons, Iain M. Banks [nominated by Ed Ashby]
Midwich Cuckoos, John Wyndham [nominated by Joe Gordon]
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, Alan Garner
Hyperion, Dan Simmons [nominated by Ed Ashby]
The Malazan Books of the Fallen, Steven Erikson [*]
Drowned World, J.G. Ballard [nominated by Brian Ruckley]
Swords and Deviltry, Fritz Leiber [nominated by Brian Ruckley, seconded and fact-checked by silvereel]

Feel free to make your own nominations in the comments there, folks.

Filed on: December 4, 2006
Filed under: Books
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Comments

10 Responses to 'Lou Anders' 'Most Significant SF' meme'

  1. Joe on December 4th, 2006 5:57 pm

    Only just read this - been shut up all day with a blinder of a migraine and can only now bear to look at a computer screen again. Hmmm, I can tick off a lot of those, but like you I think with ones I haven't read I have read other books by those authors and I am wondering about the selection criteria too. Not to mention the lack of UK authors, as you pointed out (no John Wyndham? Midwhich Cuckoos is 1957, it should be in there. So, as you say, should a Banksie book and others). Now my vision is no longer obscured by strange patterns and zig-zags (I was reminded of Stephen Baxter's description of a hunter-gatherer woman in Evolution who suffers migraines and believes the visual distortions are messages from the ancestors) I need to sit down and go through this. And toss in a couple of "why aren't these in here" partly because it needs it and partly because I'm an opiononated smegger.

  2. Ariel on December 4th, 2006 9:51 pm

    Wyndham! Of course, that's who I was trying to remember all morning... and hey, let's throw in an Alan Garner or two as well, while we're at it... okay, I'll start adding to the list at the bottom there.

  3. Ed on December 4th, 2006 10:26 pm

    Well, if it makes you feel any better I've only read 10 off that list. But then there's quite a few fantasy orientated titles there, a genre I haven't read much in. And missing we have
    Dan Simmons - Hyperion/Fall of ...
    Iain M Banks - Use of Weapons
    Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon (just about qualifies)
    Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair
    George RR Martin - A Game of Thrones
    Michael Marshall Smith - Spares
    That should go some way to redressing the lack of UK based authors.

  4. Ariel on December 5th, 2006 7:35 am

    Well, I'd agree with the Simmons on the strength of the recommendations I've had from everywhere on the Hyperion series and the Banks Use of Weapons is arguably stronger than Consider Phlebas (although Player of Games is my personal fave), but I'm not sure that Martin, Morgan, Smith and Fforde would get in on 'significance'?

    A Song of Ice and Fire is fantastic (well, so far, I still haven't read the latest instalment) but there have been big, fat, political fantasies before, and I'd argue that for sheer, mind-bending world-building, Steve Erikson's Malazan Books of the Fallen wins hands-down every day. And I've not read the Fforde, so I can't say what it's strengths are.

    And whilst both Altered Carbon and Spares are dead-certs for any list based on sheer readability, explosive narrative and pure entertainment value, they do both explore themes and tropes - albeit in highly original ways - that are as old as the hills, so again, we might need a stronger 'significance' argument there...

    Just going by the non-existent criteria as I see them, mate ;)

  5. briruc on December 5th, 2006 3:48 pm

    Aren't lists fun?

    Seems a bit odd that J G Ballard's not on there as far as I can see, given that you sometimes see 'Ballardian' used as an adjective - surely he must get some significance kudos for that, if nothing else? (he might be just too British for the compilers of the list, though ...). Drowned World possibly the one to consider for addition.

    Plus, the whole list actually seems slightly light on fantasy to me, given the scale of the genre these days. Fritz Leiber is a particularly odd omission - I've seen/heard heaps of authors citing him as an influence. It looks like (says he having done a quick wikipedia check) Swords of Lankhmar is the only actual novel of his that could be included, the rest being short stories or collections - but then, they've included 'Dangerous Visions', so presumably any collection of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories would qualify ... unless they're excluding stuff first published in magazines ... oh, whatever.

    And how about Raymond E. Feist and Magician. If nothing else, it was and is of considerable commercial significance.

    And personally I'd nominate China Mieville's Perdido Street Station - not only is a jolly good book, it's already led to him being labelled as one of the founding fathers of the whole New Weird/urban fantasy thing that's going on these days.

    Nice new blog, by the way. Very fetching colour palette you've got round here ...

  6. Ariel on December 5th, 2006 6:45 pm

    Ballard! Good point. Must admit I've not read much of his stuff, and he tends to be considered more of a mainstream author, but taking individual novels into consideration, then I'm happy to go with that...

    Perdido Street Station could go in there, definitely, but I think it's still a bit too recent for its significance to have fully matured, perhaps? You're right about the general bias towards sf as opposed to fantasy though.

    Magician? Yeah, another big fat best-selling fantasy, but then so was The Sword of Shannara, which actually came first, and neither one of them are particularly significant from a literary point of view. Don't get me wrong, good adventure reads, both of 'em, but I'm going to have to leave Feist out. On general principle if nothing else... ;)

    And I think Leiber's disqualified on account of being pre-1953...

    Glad you like the colour-scheme. Jo has since pointed out that it's pretty much an online extsention of my home office, only with less aubergine...

  7. thesilvereel on December 6th, 2006 10:20 pm

    Re: Leiber. It's true that Faf and the Mouser first appeared in magazines in the 1930s, but the majority of the stories were published in the 1950s and '60s, which puts them well within the criteria set by the list compilers. See http://www.lankhmar.demon.co.uk. I'd guess he's the third most "significant" fantasy author, after JRRT and Robert E. Howard (who can be excluded on grounds of having published too early).

    Yeah, Ballard tends to be considered more a mainstream, or slipstream, author now, but it wasn't until Empire of the Sun came along in 1984 that the mainstream took any notice of him. Any time he gets interviewed on TV or radio these days, you won't hear him being asked about his stories in New Worlds, or The Atrocity Exhibition, including the charmingly-titled "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan", which was the subject of an obscenity suit.

  8. Ariel on December 7th, 2006 7:41 am

    Ah, thank you for the info Mr / Mrs / Ms silvereel. And on those grounds I'll reinstate Leiber to the 'additionals' list forthwith. I've gone for the Swords and Deviltry anthology on a chronological basis, and because it contains the Nebula-winning 'Ill-Met in Lankhmar'.

    [memo to self: of course, with all these additions at some point we'll have to work out which titles to drop from the original list...]

    Funny how Ballard never mentions that earlier story title. You'd think he'd mellowed with age or something... ;)

  9. Joe on December 11th, 2006 8:45 pm

    And coming next we need to make a list of influential graphic novels :-)

  10. Ariel on December 11th, 2006 8:56 pm

    Sounds like your department mate. Coming soon to a Woolamaloo near you..?

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