How much spec fic do you read?

18 November 2006 by Anna Schwind Published in: entertainment 2 comments

Meme, because that’s all I have energy for (so that’s how memes happen). Works thusly: you read over the Science Fiction Book Club’s “The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002” list and then you italicize and bold and mark up stuff about each one, and everything you mark up means something. Only I haven’t done enough of these to figure out what’s what, so I’m taking a page from my fellow VPer cicadabug’s book and just grouping them instead of all the crazy highlighting. Makes more sense and you know, I just cannot resist putting like items together. I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with a friend about spec fic and how much I’ve been reading of it lately and whether that’s a departure for me or not. Perhaps the list will illuminate.

Books I’ve read, loved and still love (and would read again in a heartbeat, if only there were enough heartbeats in a life to do so)

1 The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
5 A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
10 Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11 The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12 A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
26 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
27 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
29 Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30 The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
33 The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
42 Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43 Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (though I liked The Diamond Age better, to be honest)

Books I loved when I read them

2 The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3 Dune, Frank Herbert
6 Neuromancer, William Gibson
9 The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
37 On the Beach, Nevil Shute
41 The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
47 Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock

Books I’ve read

4 Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (am I the only person on the planet who really dug The Puppetmasters and not much else Heinlein?)
21 Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey

Books I read but hated

23 The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
48 The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks

Books I feel like I really ought to/want to read

8 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
20 Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
36 The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
45 The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester

Meh. Might read this some day

16 The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
19 The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
22 Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card*
28 I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
32 Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
31 Little, Big, John Crowley*

Books you will never persuade me (go on, try) I need to read

14 Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15 Cities in Flight, James Blish
17 Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18 Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison

(to be fair, I totally met my Ellison quota, because I read the mammoth retrospective tome)

24 The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25 Gateway, Frederik Pohl
34 Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35 More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
38 Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
40 Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
44 Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
49 Timescape, Gregory Benford

Did I read this?

7 Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
13 The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
39 Ringworld, Larry Niven
46 Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
50 To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

It may seem weird to you that I’m not all that sure what I’ve read. This is part of my impetus toward better record-keeping. I forget what I read. I’m also pleased to see how I’ve loved most of what I’ve read, and hated very little of it. Even the two haters were instrumental in their way to my adolescent self. Before I read them, I read anything, uncritically. It took stories I hated to make me see not all stories are worth it. So, not counting the five I may or may not have read (they look familiar, but if I did read them it was over ten years ago and I can’t exactly remember), I’ve read twenty three of the fifty. Not quite half, but close. Some of the most loved ones I’ve read multiple times.

ETA : I asterisked the books strongly recommended in the comments, in case I use this entry to pick books later.

Comments

elaine

Sun 19th Nov 2006 at 12:59 am

I really can’t recommend Little, Big highly enough. I had a hell of a time finding a copy (maybe it’s back in print now?) but I just treasured that book all the way through.

Also, Ender’s Game has much to recommend it. If I were reading it for the first time, though (and it’s one of those books I very much wish I could read for the first time again), I’d stop at the end and NOT read the rest of the series. At all.

Lanf