(1) ROBSON ON WORLDBUILDING. Juliette Wade interviews celebrated author Kelly Robson in her latest Dive Into Worldbuilding hangout — “Kelly Robson and ‘Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach’”. Wade has both notes on the interview and a video at the link.
This hangout looks twice as exciting now that Kelly has gone on to win a Nebula in the meantime (for her novellette, A Human Stain)! It was a pleasure to have her on the show to talk about her recent novella, Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach.
Kelly started out by telling us about how critical economics was to this story. She’s passionate about economics! (And so she should be; worldbuilding without economics is flimsy.) She calls it “the physics of worldbuilding.” She told us that when she was first writing historical fiction, she began with medieval settings because it seemed more straightforward to manage, but that since then, she’s branched out into greater challenges. In this story, the historical portion is set in Mesopotamia!
(2) RECAP. Shannon Hale, one of the principals in the story, gives her own rundown of yesterday’s FanX antiharassment news in “My FanX craziness, annotated”.
Since this has blown up and become news, I’m going to lay out here all my interactions with FanX (Salt Lake City’s Comic Con).…
(3) IN TUNE. Olga Polomoshnova shares her analysis “On Lúthien’s power of singing” at Middle-Earth Reflections.
The fairest of all Children of Ilúvatar, Lúthien is not an ordinary character. Being the daughter of an Elf and a Maia, she inherited various traits of both kindreds. Among many of her gifts and skills singing was one of the most exceptional. However, when it comes to talking about Lúthien’s singing, we should bear in mind that hers was not renowned just for being done in a beautiful voice. Lúthien’s songs possessed special power
(4) REALITY SHOW. Tom McAllister tells new writers to recalibrate their expectations in “Who Will Buy Your Book?” at The Millions.
Before I ever published anything, I’d assumed that if I ever finished a book, there would be so much demand from family and friends alone that we’d have to go into a second printing before the release date. But I am here to tell you: most people in your family will never buy your book. Most of your friends won’t either.
I have a handful of friends and family members—people I consider close to me, people I see regularly—who have never come to any of my dozens of book events. I don’t know if they own any of my books because I haven’t asked, but I have a pretty good guess. After my first book came out, I would peruse friends’ bookshelves, trying to determine their organizational system (if it’s not alphabetical, then where is my book? Maybe they have some special hidden shelf for books they truly cherish?). On a few occasions, I called them out for not having it. This accomplished nothing, besides making both of us feel bad.
The point of this piece is not to shame those people or to complain about not getting enough support. It’s just to say: whatever you think it’s like after you publish a book, it’s actually harder than that.
(5) PAYSEUR. Quick Sip Reviews’ Charles Payseur covers “Beneath Ceaseless Skies #251”, which, coincidentally has a story by Jonathan Edelstein.
It’s a rather quick issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, with two stories linked in a way by their length (neither of them over 2500 words, which is unusual for the publication). But it lends both stories a sort of impact, and a feeling of anticipation. In the first, that means having to wait for the results of a very important test. In the second, that means having to wait for the results of a very important confrontation. In both, there are certain indications that might guide readers otwards guessing what happens next, but both times it’s left up in the air what _actually_ transpires after the final stories end. What it is certain is that both look at characters struggling to solve tricky problems, ones where they have been made culpable of a misstep and are desperate to find a way forward. So yeah, to the reviews!
Stories:
“The Examination Cloth” by Jonathan Edelstein (2232 words)…
(6) LAW WEST OF THE EAST RIVER. The New York Times Magazine offers the verdict of “Judge John Hodgman on Children Watching James Bond Movies”. Here’s the problem —
Ren writes: Our children, ages 7 and 9, love James Bond movies. We’ve seen almost every one, but my wife doesn’t want them to see Casino Royale. It’s often referred to as the best Bond, but she believes it is too inappropriate for them. Can you help? I’d like to watch the movie with my kids, who are James Bond fans just like me.
John Hodgman’s answer:
Of course 7-and 9-year-olds like movies with cars that fly. But they don’t love problematic gender portrayals and seventh-grade-level sex jokes. That’s why Ian Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for children and the James Bond series for man-children. But if Casino Royale (which is great!) is truly the last one you have left, why not? Why not complete your experiment and cuddle up with your kids and watch Daniel Craig be tortured in a very private area? No one can stop your mad plan now. Not even you, Mr. Bond!
(7) GOLD OBIT. Virtuoso movie poster creator Bill Gold died May 20 at the age of 97. His iconic work included Casablanca and The Exorcist.
Mr. Gold comfortably spanned the years from paperboard to the computer era, and many of his posters became nearly as famous as the movies they promoted. Some won design awards; many were coveted by film buffs, sold at auctions or collected in expensively bound art books. The best originals came to be considered rare and costly classics of the genre.
For Michael Curtiz’s “Casablanca” (1942), Mr. Gold’s second assignment, he drew Humphrey Bogart in trench coat and fedora, dominant in the foreground, with a constellation of co-stars — Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid and others — in the airport fog behind him. To raise the drama, Mr. Gold put a pistol in Bogie’s hand. And he put fear and regret, not love, in Ms. Bergman’s eyes, to avoid stepping on his last lines.
(8) COMICS SECTON.
- Chip Hitchcock sent two Bizarro entries: (1) What we’ll dub “Jurassic Park”, and (2) another about a couple of cheerful pub vampires.
(9) SHORT STUFF. Camestros Felapton walks us through his rankings in “Hugo Ballot 2018: Short Story”.
…It doesn’t feel that long ago that the talk was whether the SF short story was dead or close to death. The impact of Sad Puppy campaigns and Rabid Puppy vandalism hit the short story category hard. And what an emblematic category it had been for the Hugo Awards and science fiction! American style science fiction had grown out of the short story style and some of the greats of SF were intimately connected with shorter form fiction. Ray Bradbury especially but also Issac Asimov – The Foundation Trilogy being one of many SF classics that grew from connected shorts.
The Hugo finalists this year are a set of entertaining and varied reads. There’s not one theme or style and there are elements of fantasy and science-fiction as well as some classic twists.
(10) KATE BAKER AT WORK. The Verge’s Andrew Liptak points to Clarkesworld where people can “Listen to one of the best short science fiction podcasts right now”.
In the years since she became the full-time narrator for the podcast, Baker has become the de facto voice for the podcast, an experience that she says is “surreal.” “I view it as a huge responsibility and an honor,” she says. “because I get to go and be in someone’s ear, and I think that’s an intimate power, and I don’t ever want to abuse that.”
Baker doesn’t read or rehearse the story before recording, and while she notes this approach has burned her a couple of times, the “biggest draw to this whole job is the fact that I’m experiencing the story along with the listener for the first time, and I can experience those emotions with the listener. If you’re hearing my voice crack or if I sound stuffy because I had to walk away because I started crying, that’s all pretty genuine.”
That’s something that shines through: a recent episode featured Rich Larson’s heartbreaking short story “Carouseling”, and you can hear her voice break after she finishes reading the story. This emoting, along with Baker’s long-standing narration for the podcast, provides a familiar and consistent warmth that subtly enhances each story that the magazine produces. The result is not only a catalog of powerful short fiction, but one that’s also presented in a voice that makes them even better.
(11) CHINESE BOTS. My brethren are bound for Luna. “China launch will prep for Moon landing”.
“The launch is a key step for China to realise its goal of being the first country to send a probe to soft-land on and rove the far side of the moon,” the state news service Xinhua quoted Zhang Lihua, the satellite project’s manager, as saying.
In addition to its onboard communications equipment, Queqiao will also carry two scientific instruments and will deploy two microsatellites.
The forthcoming Chang’e 4 mission will explore the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin with a payload of scientific instruments. It is a key step in China’s long-term plan to further its ambitions as a major space power.
China previously landed a robotic lander and rover, collectively known as Chang’e 3, on the Moon in December 2014. The rover continued to transmit data until March 2015.
(12) STONY END. BBC tells about plans for “Turning carbon dioxide into rock – forever”.
With rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2, scientists have been testing “carbon capture and storage” (CCS) solutions since the 1970s.
CarbFix, however, stands out among CCS experiments because the capture of carbon is said to be permanent – and fast.
The process starts with the capture of waste CO2 from the steam, which is then dissolved into large volumes of water.
“We use a giant soda-machine”, says Dr Aradottir as she points to the gas separation station, an industrial shed that stands behind the roaring turbines.
“Essentially, what happens here is similar to the process in your kitchen, when you are making yourself some sparkling water: we add fizz to the water”.
The fizzy liquid is then piped to the injection site – otherworldly, geometric igloo-shaped structure 2km away. There it is pumped 1,000m (3,200ft) beneath the surface.
In a matter of months, chemical reactions will solidify the CO2 into rock – thus preventing it from escaping back into the atmosphere for millions of years.
(13) HOW IT BECAME A KILLER. From the BBC: “Malaria genetics: study shows how disease became deadly” — relatively recently — and a warning to watch for other parasites and viruses jumping species.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 200 million people are infected with malaria every year; the disease caused the deaths of almost half a million people globally in 2016, and the majority of those deaths were children under the age of five.
By far the deadliest species of the parasite which causes this global health scourge is Plasmodium falciparum.
While this species infects and often kills people when injected through the bite of a female Anopheles mosquito, there are many other related species which infect some of our great ape cousins – chimpanzees and gorillas.
To study those, the researchers collaborated with a team caring for injured and orphaned apes in a sanctuary in Gabon. As part of the animals’ health checks, veterinary staff take blood samples from them.
“It turns out that healthy animals have a really high background level of parasites in their blood,” Dr Berriman told BBC News. “[These animals] are blissfully ignorant of the scientific value in their blood.”
The blood samples provided a series of malarial genetic codes that the scientists could use to trace its evolutionary history.
“We don’t have fossils for tracing the history of a parasite,” said Dr Berriman.
(14) WATCHMEN PITCH. ComicsBeat is less skeptical after seeing how “Damon Lindelof details new WATCHMEN television adaptation in open letter”.
But recently, reports began to spring up that the showrunner might be taking a completely different approach to the material. Instead of a mannered, straight adaptation of the 12 issues or any kind of extrapolation thereof, he was instead comparing it to what Noah Hawley has been up to with FX’s Fargo: a series whose world is informed by the original property, but not beholden to it in terms of character or plot. In short: think of it as “stories taking place in that same world, at any time period you can think of”. It’s great, with a capital “G”.
And today, Lindelof has spoken in more specific (maybe) terms, with a letter he posted on his Instagram, to give the public an opportunity to dig into his headspace a bit regarding his overall pitch for the series…if it sounds familiar, well…it should:
More at the link.
(15) ZOMBIE EMERGENCY. Not “Florida man” this time: “Florida city apologizes for alert warning of zombies”.
Officials in a Florida city apologized for an emergency alert that warned of a real power outage and a not-so-real “zombie alert.”
The alert, sent out by the city of Lake Worth early Sunday, warned of a “power outage and zombie alert for residents of Lake Worth and Terminus,” referencing a city from AMC’s The Walking Dead.
[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Xtifr. Horrible copyediting courtesy of OGH.]
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@Rob — Yeah, I think it’s a great list, just taken as a list of 100 recommended fantasy books. Was also happy to see Emma Bull, Steven Brust and Sofia Samatar, amongst others; and it reminded me of a lot of great books I have yet to read.
(Another quibble: I’m happy they included Lord Dunsany, but I think he would’ve been better represented by one of his short story collections; I know the list says “novels” but I saw at least one or two other collections in there.)
Yes! I’m missing Anne Bishop on that list, but it is a very good list otherwise.
Good to see Mary Stewart on the list.
The most striking absence, I’d say, is Nesbit, especially as she is actually mentioned in the writeup of Edward Eager, who was consciously a follower of hers.
It’s also a bit odd that while Tolkien, Jordan and Martin are each represented by their first volume, which in each case makes no sense on its own, The Once and Future King gets in as a whole, and Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are allowed to share an entry.
@P J Evans
If you haven’t read it, the book of The Smartest Guys in the Room is one of the best financial exposes I’ve read. I really need to watch the movie someday.
@ P J Evans: Same here. I find that if I’m familiar with the source song, reading the filk lyrics will pop it right up as a rule. If the words aren’t giving me any clues but it’s a common metric scheme, my brain will provide something else in the same vein.
@ Standback: I hear that. I have a friend who writes noir mysteries (quite successful ones, I should add), which are absolutely not my thing. I bought his first book out of solidarity, but was honest with him about the fact that I’d probably never read it. After that I considered my friendship duty to have been fulfilled.
@ everybody who’s riffing on “Cell Block Tango”: Bravo!
@ JJ: Boy, this Brandenburg dude seems to be clueless in all sorts of different directions.
@ Joe H: Well, I’ve read 12 1/2, which is a better ratio than I often get from lists of this type. (Why the half? Because I bogged down halfway thru Mists of Avalon and never finished it.) And, as also often happens, there were some entries where I’ve read other work by that author but not the specific one listed.
@Standback: “But I’m looking for narrators who are trying to capture the tone of the story, and I don’t see how you can do that without reading it first.”
Well put. BTW it looks like Nightmare’s podcasts are done by Skyboat Media – professional audiobook narrators! It’s run by a couple of (to me, anyway) big names in audiobooks: Stefan Rudnicki and Gabrielle de Cuir.
I only occasionally listen to short fiction from magazines or other podcasts; usually something nominated, or something linked here. I used to listen to EscapePod and PodCastle semi-regularly, some years back.
@Cassy B: Yeah, “Mark Reads” seems to be more about his performance art, which is a very different sort of thing from narrating fiction for a SFF magazine. It doesn’t do much for me, but I can understand Mark’s videos’ appeal to others.
@JJ: “He had it coming . . . [etc.]” – 😀
@Joe H.: I sent Unbound Worlds’s link to Mike for the scroll last night. They say up front it’s very much a matter of personal opinion; it looked good to me. It was nice to see a focused list from a genre web site! I’ve read a quarter, have probably a third more on a shelf (either TBR or ones my better half has read), and there are some books I’m unfamiliar with (a good thing!). I liked seeing a few things I’d heard of but think of as a bit obscure.
It’s odd they included one random recent comic book/graphic novel (“Monstress”), when clearly it was a list of prose novels. I liked “Monstress,” but including it made no sense, given what the list was. If they want to talk comics/include that, why not include others (e.g., “Sandman”). ETA: A nice top 100 fantasy comics would be interesting.
@Lee: When looking over lists like this, I count DNF’d book as one book, but that’s just me.
Hmm, wouldn’t it make sense to check the box now? Yes, it would.
Well, now I know why I was so disoriented going into Who Is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? – there are two previous books in the same universe, and those apparently define some of the key events and tech which shape the setting. Curiously, although the author felt the need to use a glossary entry to inform readers who created Wonder Woman, he felt no such compulsion to dish on the Catastrophe which has so enormous an impact on the characters.
It’s not a bad story, once the critical piece of the puzzle drops into place at about the 18% mark, but it’s not the story I was expecting. The VR element adds a novel spin to the “superhero murder mystery” plot, and the result is pretty good. It was just… I felt like I ordered a steak and baked potato and got a chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy. I’ll happily chow down on either meal, and I don’t mean to imply that either is “worse,” but the switch threw me for a loop.
(4) I circumventthis problem, by giving copies of my games as birthday gifts. At least to those friends I think, they enjoy them.
At cons I sometimes get asked by publishers to do signings and that normally shows me, that Im not one of the heavy hitters 😉 But with games I can always pitch and explain them to passersby, so its never too bad.
JJ: I like the new iteration.
Made me want to look up Maytree’s Puppy-themed version — see the last entry in this roundup.
@OGH:
Oh, my. I had completely forgotten about that. Even has the “ROT13 as Hungarian” gimmick.
In my defense, I didn’t click with Chicago the first time around and only gave it a second chance last week. (I’d come across a video of “Cell Block Tango” that used Disney characters a couple of weeks before that, and the earworm forced me into a rewatch.) It did much better the second time around; I think I was more receptive to the two-layer approach.
Chip Hitchcock:
Movie, shmoovie. I was in “Where’s Charley?” on stage. I’m not sure I’ve seen Bolger’s version yet. I did watch a movie, but I think it was of “Charley’s Aunt” and didn’t have songs.
Re: the 100 best fantasy list, I’ve read over a dozen of those, DNF’d a few more, and have a handful on my TBR pile. Not surprised to see R.A. Salvatore or Terry Pratchett represented, but in both cases I was surprised by the book chosen. I love Discworld, but the Rincewind/Wizard books always seemed much weaker (and less fun) to me than any of the others.
That list provided a concise listing of a goodly number of books I still need to get to. Nice.
Still, one of the pleasures in seeing any “best of” list is in finding the points of personal disagreement . So, in that spirit, I have to say, “What? No mention of Little, Big by John Crowley or Curse of Chalion or The Queen’s Thief?” Or did I scroll on by?
@Joe H
Thanks for the list! Contains many favorites (especially the Dreaming Tree) and many things I mean to get to …
Disagree about Dunsany. The stories are fun, but I need novel length to find characters and events that really matter. Some years ago I treated myself to lovely early hardback copies of Dunsany’s fantasy novels: definitely worth it.
Sorry not to see Lud in the Mist, or Corn King and Spring Queen, or Islandia or The Light Princess on the list, but at least The Princess Bride was there.
Brad Torgersen wrote this on his Facebook wall: “I am old enough to remember a time when politics did not completely dominate genre product and genre business the way it does in 2018.”
A guy who ran a right-wing campaign to sabotage the Hugo Awards by forcing his right-wing buddies onto the ballot claims he’s against the politicization of SF/F.
Avilyn, I must be one of the few Rincewind fans around here. I winced hard at the Asian stereotypes, but otherwise I loved them.
@rcade: Torgersen doesn’t realize everyone is old enough to remember that time? The time before Correia, then Torgersen, politicized the Hugos! 😉
Is he really?
I read a lot at Slate, and I read Philip Roth a lot as a kid, about the same time I was reading a lot of SF. I’ve been known to say my four best friends as a teenager were four old Jewish men–Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Harlan Ellison, and Philip Roth. At least they seemed old to me. And now another one is dead.
So I enjoyed this piece by Evan Urquhart. I especially liked this sentence near the end, which gets at what one particular kind of good writing can do:
Patrick Morris Miller:
“David Kyle says you can’t stop fighting here.”
Re the list, I counted 40 that I had read or tried to read. (I count DNF’s as long as I really tried. I did not count any of the books where I read the first chapter only).
Even for those of us who like Rincewind, I don’t think the Colour of Magic is the best book in that series. My favorite Pratchett is Thud, with Going Postal a close second but YMMV. I was really surprised to have done so well, but I read a lot of the classic ones when I was a kid.
Re FanX, I’m way behind at File 770 so missed the original post. I’m an old, so his reply to her struck me somewhere between ” Quiet now, the menfolk are talking” and “Don’t worry your little head, pretty lady. I’m handling this.” As to the responding while in a passion problem, I believe that part of his non-apology. I’m skeptical about not removing her email information since he edited his own email before publishing it. If he’d done the whole thing in a fit of temper, he’d still be a clueless a*hole. I have know many men whose worst fits of temper only occur when they are challenged in some way by a woman.
Regarding the cover to the Larry Correia anthology Target-Rich Environment, is it a normal thing at Baen to depict the author on the cover as a Mary Sue?
Baen covers have depicted dinosaurs farting fire and three-legged women being molested by giant blue cabbages, so why not?
One of Italy’s most famous and celebrated cyclist, Fausto Coppi, died of it because he contracted it in Africa during a safari and by 1960 everybody in Italy had forgotten what the symptoms where. His doctors were convinced he had bronchitis.
Back when I was studying medicine, oh so many years ago, we were told it killed more people than cancer or cardio-circulatory diseases – but was not as big a priority because it was a developed countries’ malady.
@rcade I quite like that Larry C cover – I think it is intentionally funny and silly and silly is a great virtue.
@Patrick Morris Miller: LOL, that’s her dress! But yeah, I did a double-take at first.
Huh, I didn’t know Baen did a collected Lord Darcy. (I already have the SFBC edition and audiobooks for that stuff + the other guy’s sequels, or at least most of that.)
@rcade: That’s a hilarious cover. With that cover and the title, I’m wondering if it’s a short story collection or an anti-SJW essay collection, though. 😉
::checks::
I am disappoint. It’s stories, not unhinged anti-SJW essays. Darn! 😛
@Camestros Felapton
He might be playing both sides here. Hipsters will consider it humorous, and his fans will treat it as documentary evidence.
I thought it was pretty amusing too.
(1) Great worldbuilding; bad story. Or, it was a good story till I hit the what I thought as the penultimate page, swiped for the next one and… bwuh? That was it? I swiped back and forth several times, checked the ToC and all, thinking I had a defective Kindle download. Nope. It just quit, abruptly, and not in a good ambiguous way.
(2) Brandenburg is a complete idiot and should step down immediately for the good of the con. Failing that, let him run the boring parts of it this year, then fire him, and FFS immediately take away his email to anyone outside the concom/volunteers/vendors. He should NOT be allowed to talk to the guests, the public, or the media.
(4) I am a friend to many authors. Thankfully, they do not insist nor inquire if I’ve bought/read their books. Not even the ones I beta-read for. I also don’t pester them for freebies. Same goes with the musicians I know. Apparently I’m lucky in my choice of creative friends, ones with no grandiose ideas.
(14) Who’s more of a hack, Snyder or Lindelof? While the opening credits of the “Watchmen” movie are some of the best 5 minutes evar, and tell the backstory so elegantly, the rest of it… eh. (And he’s only gotten worse)
The whole thing needs re-imagining a LOT to work today. Sounds like he’s going to do that, as seen here.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-cast-of-hbos-watchmen-has-been-revealed-and-the-fan-1826269382
And everyone’s tired of Alan Moore’s (hypocritical) whining. Anything that pisses him off is a good thing, regardless of quality IMO.
@PJ Evans: Good luck with that DNA thing, Kiwi dude. It’s gonna be fish, sheep, people, and microorganisms. Still, Scotland’s nice in summer, and getting someone else to pay for the holiday is clever.
@rcade: It happens pretty often. Jim Baen used to put himself on covers, and they put the Giant Floating Head of RAH on too. James Doohan was on his. Bujold’s been on one of hers (AFAIK, the only woman to make it). So, yes. And Gary Stu-ness abounds there.
For a collection of bad Baen covers (is that redundant?) see here:
http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?tag=baen-books
My favorite author insert on a cover remains C.J. Cherryh’s Visible Light.
https://www.amazon.com/Visible-Light-Daw-science-fiction/dp/0886771293
@Lurkertype, I LOL’ed when I read your comment regarding Alan Moore and totally agree… 🙂
@lurkertype
I think the Kiwi dude doesn’t expect to find anything unusual. (I’ve seen that loch. It’s peat-colored. And cold, even at the end of summer.)
Has anyone else read Melissa Scott’s new Astreiant novel, Point of Sighs? I have a question & don’t feel quite right asking on Patreon.
I don’t know if I missed a clue, or if she dropped a plate (of the ones spinning on sticks), or if it’s set-up for the next book, but — qb jr rire ernyyl trg na rkcynangvba sbe jul gur qbpx srrf unq tbar hc fb dhvpxyl naq sbe pnfu bayl? Jub arrqrq gur zbarl sbe jung?
I have read 49 of those 100 and at least started around 2 dozen of the rest. I know a lot of people like that it has newer books on it but I never do. For the simple reason that it really takes years to see if a book is a flash in the pan or has staying power.
Lurkertype:
re 1), I just *assume* that there’s a part 2 to come, because wow, talk about that feeling where you think the staircase is n+1 steps … (what’s the word for that? If there isn’t one in English, it’s pocket-rifling time!)
If I’m counting correctly, I’ve read 56 of that 100, with 6 more that I own and plan to get to in the near future. And yeah: there’s a Dragonlance novel but not Little, Big (or insert several others that people have already mentioned)? Sheesh.
Also I agree with the person who thinks that Dunsany should have been represented by a collection. I’d vote for The Gods of Pegāna.
Late to the party, but my count, for what it’s worth, is 66. There are about ten on the list that I keep meaning to get to but haven’t yet. I’m a little surprised that neither Narnia nor Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland are represented, given that both of these are somewhat foundational to the portal-fantasy branch of the literature. Also agree that Little, Big is unaccountably missing. And I’d’ve liked to see Anderson’s Three Hearts And Three Lions on the list, too. And it’s very sad that John M. Ford didn’t make it with The Last Hot Time or The Dragon Waiting. But I’m actually rather glad that no Piers Anthony made the cut.
I haven’t read Little, Big, so it would never make a list of mine, though several people have mentioned it. 😉 I suppose I should read it, eh?
And having now gone through the list and counted, I believe I’ve read 57 of them; plus there were several others where I’d read the author but not the specific book.
I’ve read Little, Big, but I admit I’m still not quite sure what to make of it.
My own list would probably include things like Elizabeth Bear’s Range of Ghosts, Frederic Durbin’s Dragonfly and Darrell Schweitzer’s Mask of the Sorcerer.
And, of course, Godstalk.
@Cassy B: Alice is there. It’s #3 on that alphabeical-by-title list.
@Joe H. – Wow! I always thought that image looked strange, now it makes sense.
@Cassy B and P J: So is Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is #58.
@microtherion
I think if I’d read it in print, it would have been a DNF for me. But I’ve gotten in habits such that the majority of short fiction I consume is via audio magazines, and that’s how I encountered Clearly Lettered… Perhaps especially because it was a first person narration, it worked for me that way.
I will also confess that listing to audio short stories means I tend to stick with stories that don’t immediately grab me simply because it’s me and the podcast and the car and a long commute and the consequences of DNFing are generally not having anything to listen to for the rest of the drive. And yet I do DNF an occasional podcast.
I’ve read 18, and have four or so on Mt Tsundoku. Plus other books by some of the authors, though not books on this list.
Argh. I skimmed and counted, and when I wrote the above post I simply didn’t remember seeing Narnia or Alice. And then I was foolish enough NOT to go back and check before making my pronouncement. <wiping egg off face>
re @Joe H.: “Problematic” doesn’t begin to describe that list. The Belgariad? The Colour of Magic? (I love Pratchett — which is why I never recommend the first two books. Fragmentary, feeble satires, …) The Dreaming Tree instead of more mature work (e.g., Fortress in the Eye of Time)? Thomas Covenant (the founder of clench racing)? And that’s only dissing the ones I’ve read — there are several so unimpressively spoken of that I’ve never bothered. ISTM there are way too many first novels in a list that is supposed to be “best” rather than entry points; that alone makes me reluctant to try any of ~45 I haven’t read. I also call cheating, as there are at least six omnibuses (omnibi? Eddings, Jones, Vance, Carroll, White, Brust) in a list that says it’s novels (yes, the added text just says “books” — which might excuse recommending 3/5 of a novel and 1/3 of another).
@Kip W: and I was assistant head carpenter and incumbent stage manager for the Loesser (after not passing the auditions) and stagehand for a visiting pro production of the Thomas. I guess we’re just a bunch of oldpharts….
@Lenore Jones: I don’t mind Rincewind in a group, but I’ve never found a bumbler amusing alone — and tCoM is just a weak book (see above).
@various, re insertions: then there’s Whelan putting himself and his wife on the cover of With Friends Like These. I suppose an artist using cheap models isn’t quite the same….
@Chip Hitchcock
I’m pretty sure, after reading that list, that the first book in a given series was always preferred over any other. That poorly serves the works it discusses, for sure. Discworld in particular. Not that there’s anything wrong with The Colour of Magic – any kid who loves sword & sorcery will think it’s hilarious – but how ridiculous to use that as the sample!
@Chip Hitchcock
I’m mostly in agreement with you, but The Dreamstone ( the first half of what merged to become The Dreaming Tree) is a much better story than Fortress in the Eye of Time. Planting my flag on this hill 😛