78/100. I need to get out a lot more. Either that, or stay in a lot more, and work towards that perfect score.
Plenty on that list to disagree with, I think … the Upanishads being, to my mind, the most obvious place to say “WTF???” Several of the others are, well, books I’ve read, mostly painless, but not ones which would figure in a “Top 100” list I was composing. (Also, Biffy, if your wife happens to write to Delany again, perhaps she could mention a reader in England who’s read Dhalgren and would like those hours of his life back, please? Damn book was about as much fun as groin surgery.)
This would be nice, since most of the other works by Lem have been directly translated in English by Michael Kandel. Kandel is a book editor by trade, but has also written several terrific sf novels. He has the skills and dexterity to do a proper translation.
But every edition of Solaris I can find on Amazon still has the old Kilmartin/Cox translation.
And Kandel himself has lamented the lack of a new translation of Solaris.
Admittedly, that was in 2002. Do you have any details on a later translation?
I’d be interested to know where this is available. The official Lem web site states answers that no such translation exists:
The web site could be out of date, but I was unable to find it at Amazon. So if it exists, please let me know where to get it.
So what do you want to call it then? ToMAto or tomatO? The collaboration between author and movie director runs deep here. Very deep. That fact that the planet changed is irrelevant. The two versions were created in tandem.
The relivent definiation of Novelizationfrom Dictionary.com:
To write a novel based on: novelize a popular movie.
Now the question is: Was the book 2001 based on the script?
Have you read this book? It’s great! Thus, since this is a list of best books, and since 2001 is, in my opinion, one of the bests books (regardless of whether or not you saw the movie), it definitely has a place on this list. In fact, it makes it even more unique because of the interesting way it was written alongside the production of the movie & influenced by the big K, and thus a must read for all. Whether or not the movie is cool is a separate issue.
You could throw in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake into the mix as well, but mainstream publishers wouldn’t want to market her as SF, even if it is.
On the other side of the knife, Neal Stpehenson’s most recent books, * Cryptonomicon* and * The Baroque Cycle* could only loosely be called SF, if at all. But sure enough, they’re called SF.
Stephenson discusses whether the appropriate description for his most recent novels is “science fiction” in the August Locus Magazine. In fact, an excerpt of it appears on the cover.
There are a number of books that describe the creation of 2001, including Clarke’s Lost Worlds of 2001 and his biography. I’ll look it up, but IIRC Clarke and Kubrick discussed it, Clarke wrote chapters, and they revised. I’m not sure when the actual script was written (Clarke has credit) but the final script was clearly written after the novel - which is the point of my bringing up Saturn. The Star Wars novelization has some parts cut from the movie, but is clearly based on the actual script. 2001 wasn’t.
Not that script means much in the traditional sense for the movie. The first words aren’t spoken until half an hour in, after the Pan Am docking scene. The novel is very verbal, the movie very visual.
I’m not sure I’d trust that definition anyhow - I’ve seen novelizations of some very unpopular movies.
The line between science fiction and fantasy has never been very clear, sf is a convenient abbreviation because you can make the “f” fantasy if you wish. As for Atwood, that’s marketing, and the poor reputation of sf as a genre - which was what Amis meant. Amis, if you don’t know him, was a mainstream novelist who happened to be an sf fan, and who wrote an early book on sf, New Maps of Hell, and edited a very good series of anthologies.
I haven’t read a fanzine in years, but the desire of certain writers not to be considered as sf writers used to be a big issue. Vonnegut, who started as an sf writer (publishing in F&SF) utterly rejected the field when he hit it big. Not that long ago sf books never made the best seller lists - I think one of the Dune sequels was the first. When Childhood’s End was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review it was earth-shattering. I haven’t read Atwood, but a lot of mainstream writers sf is abyssmal. But it is still sf by any reasonable definition.
Pity me, for I have only read five of the books on the list… I meant to read a bunch, though, just have never gotten around to it.
And for those who are wondering why Frankenstein is on the list, think about this: it was basically the first science fiction book published. Without it, a good portion of those books might not exist.
I’m sorry. I could have sworn that Solaris was now available in a direct Polish-to-English translation. You’re right that the only translation is Polish-to-French-to-English.
I’ve read approximately 20 on the list (well, 19, and I couldn’t finish The Martian Chronicles or Stranger in a Strange Land, so I’m counting them for a half each). I’d say that the most serious omission is A Wrinkle in Time, though I could understand not classing that as science fiction (though it’s certainly more SF than Alice in Wonderland!). I’m also puzzled by their choice of Heinleins: Certainly, Stranger is influential enough to belong on the list, and Starship Troopers and The Puppet Masters weren’t bad. But The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is much better than Puppet, and there should probably be one of his juvies on there, as well.
I’ve never read Frankenstein, but I’d say that its position as the first SF novel (though probably not the first SF literature) should be enough to secure it a place on the list. And as for 2001, both the movie and the book are good, and neither is really completely based on the other. I’d say that the book can stand on its own merits quite comfortably.
On my home from the office tonight, I stopped at a used book store and bought an old signet paperback edition of 2001 for $.0.45. At that price, it was hard too resist. Maybe one day I’ll actually read it.
Here is an approximate reproduction of the book’s cover:
2001 a space odyssey
A NOVEL BY ATHUR C. CLARKE
BASED ON THE SCREENPLAY OF THE MGM FILM BY
STANLEY KUBRICK and ARTHUR C. CLARKE
[Indent] 2001 a space odyssey
is the history-making motion picture
produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick,
In Cinerama®
[/indent]
No wonder I was under the impression it was a novelization.
I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.
Quick question - my son will be 13 this fall and loves science fiction. I’m not a fan and have always been unsure which books to buy him. Would this list be considered a good choice in helping him build his library? Are there any books that might be too mature that I should stay clear of until he’s older? He’s pretty mature for his age, and I’ve never really limited his reading except to rule out books with really raunchy love scenes.
8 I’ve read for sure; two I’ve read part of then given up on(2001: A Space Odyssey/Fahrenheit 451); then there’s several I don’t know if I’ve read or not. I know the stories - Alice in Wonderland; 20,000 leagues; the time machine; war of the worlds- but I don’t know why I know them. Maybe I read them when I was young, or maybe I just know them because of the movies.
Some don’t belong on the list. The Upanishads? As others have already pointed out, religious texts don’t belong here.
Historical importance shouldn’t put things on the list. Frankenstein is important, and it’s oo – it can stay on the list. Ralph 124C41+ is historically important, and awful. It shouldn’t be here (no offense to Doper ralph124C41)
I like seeing Dewdney’s Planiverse here – great and underappreciated follow-up to Abbot’s Flatland.
I’ve read 26 of the boos, with another half dozen sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. Most of the SF that I read these days comes from Orion’s SF Masterworks series: a projected hundred of te best SF books. It’s highly subjective of course, but it means I read books I otherwise wouldn’t, and I’ve yet to read anything I haven’t enjoyed.
I meant to read a bunch, though, just have never gotten around to it.