![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The *best* sci-fi?
Aug. 12th, 2004 04:16 pmI've read 38 of Phobos' Index of the 100 science fiction books you just have to read.
( And, predictably, I have some quibbles. )
I don't know about this. I've read "Mission of Gravity," and I would call it a curiosity, not a must-read. I have serious doubts that "Snow Crash" is still going to be on lists like this in fifty years. And ... would you -- would you really -- go out today and pick up a copy of "A Princess of Mars" or "Flatland" or "The Day of the Triffids" and read it just for pleasure? And if we're going to go the 'historical importance' route, where's de Bergerac's "Voyages to the Sun and Moon"?
And if we're only going to get 100 sci-fi books, do we really need three Heinleins and three Asimovs? Two Van Vogts, two Philip Jose Farmers? When we've excluded James Tiptree Jr. and Zenna Henderson and Sturgeon's short stories (it does say "books" and not "novels") and "We" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "Watership Down" and "The Gate to Women's Country" and "The Famale Man" and "The Sparrow" and "Becoming Alien" and "Riddley Walker"?!
I'd like to see the equivalent list of fantasy books. No, actually, I wouldn't, since I don't find the distinction between fantasy and sci-fi all that useful, unless you're a reader with a phobia ("Eeeek! Space ships!" "Eeeek! Dragons!"). So what I'd really like to see is a Top 200 Speculative Fiction Books. So I could quibble with that, too.
( And, predictably, I have some quibbles. )
I don't know about this. I've read "Mission of Gravity," and I would call it a curiosity, not a must-read. I have serious doubts that "Snow Crash" is still going to be on lists like this in fifty years. And ... would you -- would you really -- go out today and pick up a copy of "A Princess of Mars" or "Flatland" or "The Day of the Triffids" and read it just for pleasure? And if we're going to go the 'historical importance' route, where's de Bergerac's "Voyages to the Sun and Moon"?
And if we're only going to get 100 sci-fi books, do we really need three Heinleins and three Asimovs? Two Van Vogts, two Philip Jose Farmers? When we've excluded James Tiptree Jr. and Zenna Henderson and Sturgeon's short stories (it does say "books" and not "novels") and "We" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "Watership Down" and "The Gate to Women's Country" and "The Famale Man" and "The Sparrow" and "Becoming Alien" and "Riddley Walker"?!
I'd like to see the equivalent list of fantasy books. No, actually, I wouldn't, since I don't find the distinction between fantasy and sci-fi all that useful, unless you're a reader with a phobia ("Eeeek! Space ships!" "Eeeek! Dragons!"). So what I'd really like to see is a Top 200 Speculative Fiction Books. So I could quibble with that, too.