What? Only three Heinlein books? Where is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? There should be at least two or three more Heinleins on that list.
Other notable omissions:
The Mote in God’s Eye
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
And here I keep trying to read A Fire Upon the Deep because of the, like, two or three good ideas in it, but I keep getting a headache for rolling my eyes too much at the wasted freaking potential. What a frustrating piece of crap! (So far, that is, I suppose.)
Oh well, different strokes for different folks. I still stick by the idea that the intent of the list was to say “these are some of the best of the genre”, and in the process of making the list the author couldn’t help but semiapologetically put in some dutifully “important” books.
Hell, Ringworld is a great, fun example of the art and science of worldbuilding, but is it a good book? Er… no. No, it isn’t. It’s a good collection-of-ideas that once come up with, to display them Niven realized that there had to be a plot and characters and things. Oh well.
Oops. I’ve even read it. More than once. Every word.
OK, Miller, maybe he thought it was a good book, an influential book. But he’s got some awfully odd definition of influential then.
I agree in general, but the problem is that there is some gold among the dross there. I’m not inclined to go immediately read the 56 I haven’t because among what I have read is some junk. But I may be missing out on something, and with luck I’ll find it again someday on another list I trust more.
Can’t argue with that.
The novel 2001 was written simultaneously with the script for the movie with some inspiration from a short story Clarke had written called “The Sentinel”. Originally the plan was that the novel would be published as being by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, but eventually they decided to publish it as being by just Clarke. It came out just before the movie opened.
The creator of the list already has other questionable choices.
Normally, Alice In Wonderland is thought of as either Fantasy or a Children’s book.
Normally, the Upanishads are thought of as sacred writings.
Normally, 1984 and *A Clockwork Orange * are thought of as mainstream literature. You won’t find them shelved with SF at Borders.
Okay, the guy has a history of putting books on the SF list that wouldn’t normally go there. He has his reasons, but we don’t know them. We can only speculate.
Normally, 2001 is thought of as a movie. If the list were the top 100 SF Films, of course it should be there, without a doubt. But #15 of the top 100 books? Odd, very, very damn odd that the novelization would make it that high.
Sure, maybe the guy really did like the book and thinks it is that great; however, given the creator’s predilection for included other written genres on the list, having him include a film in the guise of a book as not completely irrational.
I would find it difficult to believe there are many readers of movie\TV noveliztions who don’t watch the source material. Could there be readers of Star Trek, Star Wars, or Buffy novels who don’t follow the TV show or movies? Sure, anything is possible. But aren’t the books mainly a written subsidiary to the shows? Maybe I’m just a literary purest and snob, but I think that lowers overall quality. Too truly enjoy the books fully, you have to watch the shows.
That Clarke and Kubrick worked in collaboration during the filming and writing, I think, has been established. To what degree the novelization of 2001 is solely subsidiary to the movie could be a matter of debate. Likewise, its independence from the stigma of tie-in is not wholly confirmed.
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One does not have to assume the literal meaning of “swarm” as if they were bees or ants. One can use “swarm” in the metaphorical sense, the same way that “thundering” does not, I think, mean the sound that follows a lightning bolt.
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It’s not clear that Mercotans eat neutronium. They can simply use their zymolosely polydactile tongues to erode it.
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Since there is a Ms. Mercotan and at least 1 little Mercotan, one might be tempted to say there is already a swarm. Not that I would (since I have 7 kids and 2 former spouses/spice), but someone might.
Nobody has anything to say about “Postman” being on the list? WTF? I haven’t read it–is it actually good? Did it influence anyone???
Note: if you find someone who can define what “zymosose” is/was/means, you can write that person off as a blowhard. If they define “zymolyase,” on the other hand, you’ve got a totally different discussion. I’d be willing to bet that QtM can define zymolyase without looking it up.
My score: 75 out of 100–a guess because after you turn 50 your memory ain’t what it used to be and while I did finish Dhalgren I couldn’t get to the end of Solaris (maybe something is lost in translation). There are some books I’ve never heard of on the darned list–I guess I’ll be hitting the library soon.
David Brin is pretty well respected in the genre, although he’s not really to my personal taste. That said, The Postman was an entertaining little book. I wouldn’t put it on my Top 100, but it’s significantly better than the crappy Costner movie.
I’ve read 50 or so for sure, and there are a few more I think I have, but so long ago I might be mistaken.
One of these days I’ll have to get Flowers For Algernon the novel, but I’ll bet it doesn’t have half the impact the original short does. I can still tear up just thinking of that last line.
Most books lose something in translation, but Solaris was hit with a double whammy. The author wrote it in Polish, then it was translated into French by someone else, and then translated from the French translation into English. I read it, every word, but couldn’t shake that clunky feeling. To survive as well as it has must indicate it is one hell of a book in Polish.
27/100 good thing I’ve got several business trips coming up. Lots of time to read on airplanes.
Is the numbering system he used on his list meant to be from best to worst? I have no indication that it is so. I tried to link to “find out more” but it was not working. Maybe it’s just a random list.
I guess it’s kinda hard for him to list favorites and not give a mention to most influential in passing, seeing as his list was written to be published.
I thought Starship Troopers was Young Adult?
what? no Star Trek “novels”? 
I’ve read about 35 of these.
A few years ago, some online friends and I put a list group together to read and discuss Hugo- and Nebula-winning novels. It fell apart after a few months, when people got behind in their reading or couldn’t locate some of the older books–and eventually died when two people got into an ugly personal fight–but it was a lot of fun while it lasted. It made me finally get around to reading classics like Ringworld, Canticle for Lebowitz, Demolished Man, and the Foundation trilogy.
What’s the deal with including The Shadow of the Torturer as opposed to the whole Book of the New Sun tetralogy? Shadow isn’t really a stand-alone work.
And I have too read Dhalgren all the way through. Twice. Can’t say it was one of my favorite books, though. It was my wife’s favorite book. She not only read it over and over again, she even communicated with Delany and sent him lists of errata which he incorporated into later editions.
Seeing as how this is my namesake, I can’t resist. Here is the ending from the short story.
For those who have never read the short story, Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. (though the formating is a little strange, all quote marks appear as question marks).
As a further hijack, for those who are interested, here is a great site: Short Story Classics From The Masters Of The Genre.
Here is a site that lists [url=http://www.explorers.whyte.com/sf/nebhug.htm]The novels, novellas, and short stories that have won both the Hugo and Nebula awards (with links to the complete list of winners).
:smack:
Fixed link: The novels, novellas, and short stories that have won both the Hugo and Nebula awards
Pyrrhonist writes:
> Most books lose something in translation, but Solaris was hit with a double
> whammy. The author wrote it in Polish, then it was translated into French by
> someone else, and then translated from the French translation into English. I
> read it, every word, but couldn’t shake that clunky feeling. To survive as well
> as it has must indicate it is one hell of a book in Polish.
This isn’t true anymore. The first translation of the book was from Polish to French to English, but that’s no longer in print. The current translation is directly from Polish to English.
27/100
With several already on my to-read list. Though some of the books I have read I thought were terrible and shouldn’t be on the list.
Omnivore wasn’t that good and most books by Piers Anthony aren’t either.
The Man Who Folded Himself was nearly unreadably bad.
I just read Brave New World and found it pretty bad. I slogged through it out of a sense of some sort of duty. Or something.
Ender’s Game really should be higher on the list.
Oh, and I’ll never read anything by C. J. Cherryh again–she single-handedly ruined Thieves’ World, and I won’t waste any more of my time on her.
It seems like the author of the list picked books by how “new” the central idea was, or how much of an impact they seem to have had.
To quote Kingsley Amis
SF’s no good, they say until we’re deaf.
But this is good. Well then it’s not sf.
*
Both are clearly science fiction, and influential too.
It is not a novelization!!! (I almost wrote that in all caps.) If you read the book (which I think is quite good, by the way) you will notice that they go to Saturn, not Jupiter. That is because that is how the script was originally written, but Kubrick couldn’t get Saturn right. In fact the book was finished long before the movie, but it could not be released until the movie was, something that caused Clarke quite a few problems, since he was low on money at the time. He made out okay. 
Especially with 2001, movies are not books! I was one of the few people who understood it when it first came out, but that was from having read all of Clarke (and reading the Life Magazine story.) Try it, and you will be shocked at the treatment of Heywood Floyd in the book - he is an entirely different person. I think Clarke made him the hero of 2010 to apologize for Kubrick’s treatment.
I’ve read 77, and I think have all, and have 4 - 5 more I haven’t gotten around to yet. I don’t understand how he put Brainwave, which is okay but not great, before The High Crusade. I haven’t had the time or stomach to read Dhalgren yet, but I’d think I’d put The Einstein Intersection first. But the list in general is not too bad.