Interesting list of the "Fifty Most Significant SF&F Books

[BenG]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Where did you find the connection?

Very interesting.

(isn't the internet amazing!!)

It was on the Wikipedia page that you linked to.

[kennyc]

oops.

I searched that page you linked to and didn't find "Samuel"

Thanks. and again

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yeah, but who cares about anything before the year I was born.

Steve, could be they considered Martian Chronicles as stories ...maybe same with I Robot...2001 was a novelization based on a short story - The Sentential ..

Originally Posted by kennyc

OMG Samuel R. Delany is so good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany

I actually think Dahlgren may be my favorite above Foundation Trilogy....
The two are so different though I'll just call it a tie.

Wow....I haven't thought of Delany in forever. And he was one of my favorite writers every. I know Nova, Triton, Dhalgren and Empire Star were among the most interesting stories I read as a teen. He might just be one of those very underrated authors of his era for whatever reason.

Love this place simply because it makes me remember authors long ago forgotten or neglected.

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Well in defense of the list, I would point out that it specifies the years 1953-2002. That being said though, that means that Foundation qualifies on a technicality since with the exception of the very first story in the Trilogy, the stories were for the most part published earlier than 1953.

I would say I am annoyed that in some cases, they count a "series" as a book, and at others, they only list a single book in the series.

--
Bill

Bill, no need to "defend" the list...but I admit I completely missed the date range. Not that I would have paid any attention to it anyway...hehehehe....besides what about books still in print form the 1800's...ok, that is a weak defense.

Now as to including a series rather than a single books. The thing is, many of these series are indeed one cohesive story not unrelated stand alone novels set in a given world-space. The Gor series by John Norman are one story but published in serial form. Same for Harry Potter, which is all one story even if the books themselves are HUGE...

Taking any single book from a serial novel, when all the books in the serial are of equal significance to the quality of the work, is doing a disservice to the work itself.

[greencat]

While I won't disagree with inclusion of Harry Potter (significant for all of the reasons others have mentioned) - I'm a tad fed up that scifi and fantasy are always bundled together (I have zero interest in fantasy on the whole).

My local library's section SF & Fantasy section is massively dominated by fantasy while the scifi is often TV tie-in rubbish.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by greencat

While I won't disagree with inclusion of Harry Potter (significant for all of the reasons others have mentioned) - I'm a tad fed up that scifi and fantasy are always bundled together (I have zero interest in fantasy on the whole).

My local library's section SF & Fantasy section is massively dominated by fantasy while the scifi is often TV tie-in rubbish.

Yes, it can make it a challenge to find the good and true SF.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yeah, but who cares about anything before the year I was born.

Steve, could be they considered Martian Chronicles as stories ...maybe same with I Robot...2001 was a novelization based on a short story - The Sentential ..

Sure... but there are other short story compilations in there, like (shudder) Ellison's Deathbird stories. Nuff said.

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

I agree with your objections regarding the Martian Chronicles and I, Robot, but I don't think 2001 is more significant for the movie that accompanied it than as a book in its own right.

I personally got more out of the book than the movie... in fact, had read the book before I saw the movie, and the book was much more rich and descriptive. But these things are always subjective...

[BenG]

If I remember correctly, Clarke expanded the short story into the novel so Kubrick could make a movie of it. Kubrick changed the ending because he didn't want to have two movies ending with an exploding nuclear bomb.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by BenG

If I remember correctly, Clarke expanded the short story into the novel so Kubrick could make a movie of it. Kubrick changed the ending because he didn't want to have two movies ending with an exploding nuclear bomb.

Ummm, the short story was The Sentinal and I would say that it more suggested 2001 than was expanded into 2001. It wholly deals with the finding of an Alien Artifact on the Moon... and IIRC, the artifact did send a signal out, but not necessarily to anything in the Solar System.

If you ever find a copy of the The Lost Worlds of 2001 (IIRC), its worth a look. In it Clarke describes how the book and the movie were kind of co-developed at the same time. It also contains a number of pieces of earlier drafts of the Novel.

--
Bill

[bill_mchale]

Regarding 2001....

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I personally got more out of the book than the movie... in fact, had read the book before I saw the movie, and the book was much more rich and descriptive. But these things are always subjective...

I read the book before the movie as well. I agree the book is far easier to follow. That being said, I think as a novel, it is not Clarke's best work... maybe in part because it was written with the notion of it being filmed.

In contrast, the movie is... dense, leaves lots of stuff unexplained, but is also brilliant. The visuals are spectacular and many of them still look very realistic 40+ years later (in fact, I think the special effects hold up better than almost anything involving space made prior to the 1990s). It also went a long way to making Science Fiction something to actually be taken seriously by Hollywood.

--
Bill

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

No "Martian Chronicles"... no "2001: A Space Odyssey"... no "I, Robot"... some list.

They went with Rendezvous with Rama instead of 2001, I think.
I'm not sure if I agree with the choice.

I, Robot was just a collection of Asimov's short story robot stories. The Caves of Steel was a better choice. Seems weird to leave out the Foundation books though.

List isn't bad. I don't think Harry Potter is particularly standout, but it was significant as far as getting the masses and kids to read it.

I don't think Tolkien's The Silmarillion should be on there, though. Never found it particularly great.

[bill_mchale]

Actually, considering the impact his Robot short stories had on the people who actually started making real industrial robots, I would say I Robot might the most important book Asimov ever published.

--
Bill

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

They went with Rendezvous with Rama instead of 2001, I think.
I'm not sure if I agree with the choice.

That's what I was thinking too, Monkey. I love Arthur C Clarke's stuff generally, but I have to confess to (secretly) being mightily disappointed by the Rama books. I couldn't find in them any of the sense of awe and excitement at the cosmos that I myself felt just at the concept behind them; the novels just seemed to be a series of encounters with unexplainable things, and then more unexplainable things, and then yet more unexplainable things, and then the book stopped.

2001 may not have been all that great a novel as writing goes, but even these decades later, part of me is still out there orbiting Saturn, wanting to journey through the stargate.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Ummm, the short story was The Sentinal and I would say that it more suggested 2001 than was expanded into 2001. It wholly deals with the finding of an Alien Artifact on the Moon... and IIRC, the artifact did send a signal out, but not necessarily to anything in the Solar System.

The genesis of the movie was in Kubrick wanting to make his own science fiction movie (he originally intended to make a "conquest of the solar system" film something like "How the West Was Won"), and contacting Arthur C Clarke and asking him to collaborate on a script. Calrke suggested they read through his short stories for ideas, and of course found "The Sentinel", but perhaps more significant was a short story called "Encounter in the Dawn", about an alien biologist who lands on Earth in the African grasslands, discovers a small group of hominids with rudimentary intelligence in danger of being driven into extinction by centuries-long drought and evolutionary forces and decides to intervene.

For anyone interested in how the film itself evolved, "The Lost Worlds of 2001" reprints both those stories, plus several chapters that were originally written for the novel but were cut when Kubrick and Clarke decided not to include those ideas in the final screenplay.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

That's what I was thinking too, Monkey. I love Arthur C Clarke's stuff generally, but I have to confess to (secretly) being mightily disappointed by the Rama books. I couldn't find in them any of the sense of awe and excitement at the cosmos that I myself felt just at the concept behind them; the novels just seemed to be a series of encounters with unexplainable things, and then more unexplainable things, and then yet more unexplainable things, and then the book stopped.

2001 may not have been all that great a novel as writing goes, but even these decades later, part of me is still out there orbiting Saturn, wanting to journey through the stargate.

I would definitely separate the original Rama book from any of the Sequels. The original novel, I think does a good job of describing how an encounter with an alien artifact might go if one such artifact was making a brief visit to the solar system. The other novels... well, lets just say I am disappointed in most of Clarke's works after 2010.

--
Bill