Is every single one of these books worth reading? Regardless of ‘personal preferences’ or how I operate the flow chart ?
I appear on this list twice, so perhaps that makes me biased. As much as I though the original poll was a little too weighted toward authors who have made a big splash recently (like myself), rather than those who have proven staying power, I see almost no misses on this list.
Now, the true answer to your question is going to be shaped by your own motives. Do you want to explore the genres and their roots? Are you as interested in investigating market trends as you are in looking at literary achievements? This list has both.
You said that this is throwing away personal preferences, so let me tell you why these books are worth your time. These are some of the most important and influential books in their respective genres. They will give you a good grasp on the foundations of modern sf/f, and they run the spectrum, offering a wide variety of writing and story types.
Looking just at the fantasy, we have everything from early sword and sorcery, to contemporary literary fantasy. Epic, quest, Arthurian, it really is a quite all-inclusive list. If you really want to understand fantasy and science fiction, this list will get you there quite well.
lol no, there is a lot of unremarkable genre pulp in there and some stuff that doesn’t even measure up to the standards of genre pulp (yes Goodkind I’m talking about you).
I looked through your history, expecting a troll, but didn’t find one. Many of your posts seem very thoughtful. That makes this post all the more baffling to me. “A Lot” of this list is “Unremarkable?” What would you consider remarkable, then?
George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Tolkien, LeGuin, Gaiman, Alan Moore, Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Clarke, Stephenson, MZB, Dan Simmons, Connie Willis, and Cormac McCarthy are “Unremarkable?”
Or are you turning your nose down at the bestsellers, like Brooks and Eddings? Can you really call books that have shaped a generation of writers and sold copies in the millions “Unremarkable?”
Snobbery is not disliking something. Disliking market fiction is just fine. It IS snobbery, however, to flippantly dismiss something that millions of others find remarkable because you either don’t understand it, or don’t take care to. Popularity is not an indication of quality, but most of these books have proven to not just be popular, but influential, genre-defining, and well worth reading.
To quote Stephen King, in his National Book Award speech: “What do you think? You get social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture?”
| I looked through your history, expecting a troll, but didn’t find one. Many of your posts seem very thoughtful. |
I never troll. People call what I do “trolling” when I don’t sufficiently coddle them with unearned respect but that’s bullshit on their part.
| Or are you turning your nose down at the bestsellers, like Brooks and Eddings? Can you really call books that have shaped a generation of writers and sold copies in the millions “Unremarkable?” |
I’ve read a fair amount of Eddings so I’m pretty comfortable in calling his work unworthy of remark.
| Popularity is not an indication of quality, but most of these books have proven to not just be popular, but influential, genre-defining, and well worth reading. |
I don’t see how the Belgariad defines anything, it looked like the sheer condense essence of derivation to me when I read it and I can’t imagine anyone being influenced by it to do anything but perpetuate cliche.
| To quote Stephen King, in his National Book Award speech: “What do you think? You get social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture? |
Keeping in touch with mainstream culture is not without value, but there is stuff both more mainstream and of higher quality than the big turds on this chart like Goodkind and Anthony. Not to mention that reading a novel is a significant time investment—taking a couple of hours out of your day to watch a popular movie is one thing, but spending time you could have been reading Vonnegut on reading licensed D&D or Star Wars novels (or Twilight, which is more popular than either) is not good prioritization.
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