This seems like a pretty reasonable list. usually list makers add (or ignore) a few WTF? entries to get people buzzing about their list but I didn’t see much of that here. Then again I have probably only read or sampled about two third of the list.
Edit: Yikes! I didn’t even notice Harry Potter was absent. I guess that is the WTF choice here.
Narnia and the Hobbit are missing, too. I wonder if they excluded young adult or childrens fantasy?
No His Dark Materials by Pullman, either, which was aimed at young adults.
As spark240 posted, the Xanth series is hardly inactive. Anthony has published a new book in the series every year. (Of course, the last good books in the series were back around 1980.)
This list was nominated and voted on by the public. So it’s more a People’s Choice type list.
I agree with all of this - and would bump Dune up to the top three, and maybe Watchmen to the top 5 or 7.
Okay then. So it’s not a list of novels.
The genesis of The Princess Bride, like those, was explicitly as a story for children. Many readers first encounter many of the other titles as young adults or children.
The list is a bit weird. It’s full of the sort of shite you expect when you ask 60000 people to name their favourite SF books, but interspersed with worthy selections that don’t seem consistent. It doesn’t seem plausible that the same 60000 noobs who are placing Enders Game at #3 all time (:D) would choose something like Fahrenheit 451 at #7.
Throwing Orwell into the mix is a bit silly, although good for a laugh - it’s nice to see one of the most influential novels ever written crack the SF top 10.
Like Mahaloth above, I might include Children of Dune too. Maybe. Otherwise, you’re spot on, IMHO.
If we’re including series, I’d like for Niven’s Known Space series to be included. Or The Magic Goes Away series, including both books set in L.A. And just include the Discworld series, rather than make me pick my favorite child. If you are going to go book by book, then I’ve no problem with Small Gods making the list, but where the hell is Night Watch then? Or, and this may be a minority view, Jingo?
Other series that needed to be in there: Alastair Reynolds’s Revelation Space series. Include just the first one, or Chasm City if we must go novel by novel. Charles Stross’s Laundry series. The Jennifer Morgue if you have to go with one. And no Lovecraft? WTF? At least they included one of Fforde’s…
Ah, I was noticing that the list seemed very diverse. That would explain why.
Well, Ringworld made the cut, anyway.
The series/individual book distinction seems to be based mostly on how cohesive the series is. Small Gods and Going Postal, for instance, have very little connection, beyond being set on the same world. But the Foundation trilogy is very much all a continuation of the same story.
I personally wouldn’t have put Xanth on the list (if it absolutely must have some Piers Anthony, then make it the five Incarnations books), but something way down at #99 is necessarily going to be rather iffy.
While I have very little quibble about what made the list and what didn’t (aside from the omission of Harry Potter), I do have some complaints about the order. I can’t argue with Lord of the Rings at #1, but The Moon is a Harsh Mistress not coming in until #34? I’ve read almost everything ahead of it on the list, and it’s definitely ahead of most of them.
No David Brin surprised me. Also no Peter Hamilton. And if you’re looking for omissions of earlier authors, how about no Alfred Bester or Poul Anderson or Frederick Pohl or Theodore Sturgeon? Or no Robert Silverberg, in either fantasy or science fiction?
Ringworld’s certainly his most famous work from that series. My quibble was that if you’re going lump all of Iain Banks’s Culture books under one umbrella (where it’s a rarity for any of the characters to have any connection from one book to the next.), then why not do the same for series where the books rely on each other a bit more? Besides, the answer for Banks is Use of Weapons. Maybe throw in The Player of Games.
For Piers Anthony, I liked his Apprentice Adept series more than the one Xanth book I read. I didn’t read any of the Incarnations; worth the time?
I think it’s because they’re bringing out a separate list for YA stuff later.
Sad lack of Brin. And Cherryh. Also Stross.
The first few at least. Then they got bad, and then went downhill. But I liked On A Pale Horse, Bearing An Hourglass and With A Tangled Skein.
Too late to edit: And a best-of that doesn’t have The Stars My Destination in the top 5 is made by shitheads.
And why just Small Gods when others have series?
I’m disappointed, but not surprised, to see Zelazny’s Amber series on the list. I love Zelazny, but the Amber books are far form his best work - much better if Lord of Light were on that list.
Science fiction IS fantasy. The number of SF novels that don’t have fantasy elements is ridiculously small (I count FTL travel as fantasy, since it’s all handwaving)
It’s a reasonable list, though hardly definitive.
Huh. I had it in my brain that he had died, and that someone had co-authored some final book of his posthumously, way back a decade ago.
Guess I must have just confused him with someone else.
ETA: A Spell For Chameleon was, I think, the first book (of chapter-length variety) I ever read in one sitting. I loved it, and from what I remember, it held up pretty well on subsequent readings, years later.
Totally agree, one of my favorite works. I ended up reading Amber because everyone said I had to, but I only found it to be OK.
If your favorite book/serie is not on the list, check the finalists, maybe it’s there. On the other hand, Thank Xenu for small favors, Battlefield Earth didn’t make the cut for the final list (guess the clams weren’t able to stuff the ballot).
Just because you don’t like Padan Fain! Actually I agree with you about the list. When the WoT series is at its best it’s really good. It just drags on in to many spots for it to be among the greats.