Amazon's Top SciFi & Fantasy books 2007

[TadW]

For all you SciFi and Fantasy nerds out there... here are the top ten books chosen by Amazon editors for 2007:

• The Terror: A Novel by Dan Simmons
• Brasyl by Ian McDonald
• Territory by Emma Bull
• The Traitor by Michael Cisco
• Spaceman Blues: A Love Song by Brian Francis Slattery
• Shelter by Susan Palwick
• The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) by Patrick Rothfuss
• Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan
• Tin House: Fantastic Women by Aimee Bender
• The Coyote Road by Ellen Datlow

[link, via SF Signal]

[JSWolf]

Other then Dan Simmons, I have not heard of the rest of the authors. Amazon picks are something I don't trust.

[tompe]

At least Ian McDonald, Emma Bull, Richard Morgan and Ellen Datlow are very well known names in the science fiction field.

[Alexander Turcic]

I haven't heard about most of them either, but I don't consider myself a SciFi expert. Of course it's always great to discover new authors.

[tompe]

I haven't read Brasyl yet but Ian McDonalds River of Gods is a fantastic book and it won the British Science Fiction Associations (BSFA) vote for best novel 2004.

[AnemicOak]

The Name of the Wind is getting a lot of play in fantasy circles. I haven't read it yet myself, but a lot of folks really like it.

[nekokami]

It's nice to have a list like this, but I like the recommendations Amazon makes based on my past purchases, wishlist, ratings, etc. better.

[astra]

Originally Posted by TadW

[*]The Terror: A Novel by Dan Simmons [*]Brasyl by Ian McDonald [*]The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, Day 1) by Patrick Rothfuss [*]Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan

Are very popular on Fantasy/Sci-fi forums.

Although I would not put The Terror on this list. It is more like a real life expedition. There is almost next to nothing "unrealistic" in the book. Very gritty one...

[slayda]

I read mostly SciFi & have never heard of any of these authors. Have heard of two of the titles, The Coyote Road & Thirteen (if it is the same one). I also don't trust such "universal" lists. I have found that many (most?) of the "best seller list" are books that I don't care for.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by slayda

I read mostly SciFi & have never heard of any of these authors. Have heard of two of the titles, The Coyote Road & Thirteen (if it is the same one). I also don't trust such "universal" lists. I have found that many (most?) of the "best seller list" are books that I don't care for.

Hi slayda!
Surely you've heard of Dan Simmons! His "Hyperion" series?
You've got to read that!
He's been discussed here, punch it up in the search bar.

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Hi slayda!
Surely you've heard of Dan Simmons! His "Hyperion" series?
You've got to read that!
He's been discussed here, punch it up in the search bar.

... one of my favorites!

[iamcanadian]

I just finished reading the Rothfuss book. It's a VERY solid debut novel. I'm eagerly looking forward to the next books in the series.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by nekokami

It's nice to have a list like this, but I like the recommendations Amazon makes based on my past purchases, wishlist, ratings, etc. better.

I quite like these lists because they suggest new authors. From this list for example, I've read 5 of the novels (the most I enjoyed Brasyl and The Name of the Wind, while Thirteen was the biggest disappointment - if you did not read any Richard Morgan you may be impressed, but if you've read his previous 4 novels you will see that this one is a rehash of those 4, with the least interesting protagonist and with the most psycho-babble of all, while The Terror and Shelter are ok but not my favorite kind of books).

Four others are not my type of books, but I took a look at M. Cisco's The Traitor (there is an excerpt on the author's home page) and I ordered that, The Tyrant, and I am getting The Divinity Student from the library and I intend to order it and its sequel if I am impressed by it.

[nekokami]

There's always a tricky balance between wanting to read something like what we already enjoy, and wanting to be able to expand our reading into new areas, isn't there? Amazon has recommended several new authors to me whom I've really enjoyed (Charles de Lint and Jonathan Stroud being the strongest examples). Librarything does something similar. But perhaps I ought to really stretch outside my "comfort zone" more and try something new.

Several people have recommended Hyperion to me recently. Based on descriptions, I think I should probably wait until I'm not taking classes to read it (winter break or next summer). It's hard to say if I'd choose to read it if it hadn't been so highly recommended, by people who are pretty familiar with my reading tastes.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Hi slayda!
Surely you've heard of Dan Simmons! His "Hyperion" series?
You've got to read that!
He's been discussed here, punch it up in the search bar.

Based on you comment, I went to Amazon to get an idea of what I might be missing. This was the first review & it convinced me not to go any further.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Got about 6 pages into it. That was more than enough., October 23, 2007
By halda (World Wide Interweb Network Machine System) - See all my reviews
Thankfully, I wasted only a very brief part of my life with this horribly pretentious book. I should have known right on the first page -- any sci-fi novel that starts off with a reference to an obscure piece of classical music is a deal breaker right there.

From the get-go, there was too much of Simmons's overwrought style and self-indulgent jargon. I got about as far as this bit of prose-fapping:

"If the fleet did construct a farcaster in time and the Hegemony committed the total resources of FORCE to defending a single, distant, colonial world of Hyperion, the Worldweb ran the terrible risk of suffering an Ouster attack on the elsewhere...

Before I said "WHAT?! The hell with this!" And resisted the urge to farcast the book into the trash.