The original version of this page can be found at : http://forum.sfreader.com/default.aspx?f=43&m=71817
| Posted By : Nathan Jerpe - 3/5/2008 12:21 AM | | We could select a range of 100 years, say 1900-1999, or 1908-2007, or whatever. Your Top 100 list would then be a list of all 100 years, with your favorite work of speculative fiction that was published during that year. You would only be permitted to name one book for each year, which could lead to some tough decisions.
Now if you are like me, you will probably have a lot of empty years. Besides, whose read that many horror novels that were published in 1908? But that's the point! If you want to fill in some of your holes, you can consult somebody else's favorites, and try out a couple they have listed.
What does everybody think? We could make this a sticky thread like we did for the Member Reading Lists. We could each take our time filling in our lists, as slowly or as quickly as we liked.
Of course we could make the list smaller or larger, but one hundred seemed a good round number. Daunting perhaps, but not ridiculous.
http://roguelikefiction.com |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 3/7/2008 10:34 PM | the silence here is deafening . . . . I'm mildly interested. On the surface it seems a bit of work for not much benefit . . . .
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| Posted By : Nathan Jerpe - 3/8/2008 9:10 AM | |
Decades would be fine, heck you could even let people pick the granularity they wish...
I think if we build on top of a) our current reading lists, and b) Wikipedia, the amount of work is fairly minimal. Consider also you can fill in the years as slowly as you like: if it takes a couple of years and you still have only 30 entries, no worries.
One thing I thought we could produce out of all of this is a timeline, a set of maps if you will, of the spec. fic. world that doesn't exist anywhere else on the Internet.
For example, here's a list I've been working on, subject to change...
- 1908-: The Wind in the Willows: Grahame
- 1922-: The Worm Ouroboros: Eddison
- 1927-: The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath: Lovecraft
- 1940s: Titus Groan: Peake
- 1951-: The Puppet Masters: Heinlein
- 1953-: Fahrenheit 451: Bradbury
- 1961-: The Phantom Tollbooth: Juster
- 1969-: Slaughterhouse Five: Vonnegut
- 1972-: Watership Down: Adams
- 1977-: The Shining: King
- 1984-: Dragons of Autumn Twilight: Weis/Hickman
- 1990s: Snow Crash: Stephenson
You guys oughtta throw up a couple of faves, too...
http://roguelikefiction.com |
| Posted By : Bill Ward - 3/8/2008 1:05 PM | An interesting idea, but too arbitrary for me. You'll end up having a weird list: books that are on there because they are the only book you read published in that year, alongside books that had to beat out five other favorites to get the year slot.
I'm not sure how you'd get all the info. It's easy to think of a favorite book and go look up the date, but it isn't easy to pick a date and look at all the relevant books published in that year (at least, I wouldn't know where to find that info, or want to look through it).
I do think it would be instructive to see books laid out like that, you get a better sense of what was influencing writers and readers at certain times.
billwardwriter.com |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 3/8/2008 7:21 PM | hey, cool links, Nathan. I wouldn't mind playing around with this - I'll add it to the long list of things I do . . .
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| Posted By : Bill Ward - 3/8/2008 8:53 PM | I just wonder what isn't on that wiki list.
And, already, I couldn't decide on a single book in 1980. Shadow of the Torturer or Name of the Rose? Impossible choice.
billwardwriter.com |
| Posted By : von Darkmoor - 3/8/2008 8:57 PM | Impossible?! Psshhaw! Come now, Bill, choose. On point of death, which book means more to you, personally?
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| Posted By : Nathan Jerpe - 3/8/2008 9:26 PM | Yeah Wardwriter...suck it up! 
Think of it as stranded on a desert island, one hundred books, coconut radio, etc.
For '61 I had to choose between Stranger in a Strange Land and The Phantom Tollbooth. How will I ever rest?!?!
You can always go with '83 for Rose since that was the year of English translation, of course then it'll be going up against Citadel of the Autarch...ouch...
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| Posted By : Bill Ward - 3/8/2008 10:19 PM | See what I mean? Even cheating yields no succor.
I cannot choose between them, and you can't make me!
Unless I can go with Umberto Wolfe's Shadow of the Rose.
billwardwriter.com |
| Posted By : Nathan Jerpe - 3/8/2008 10:44 PM | I prefer some of his earlier, more racy work, e.g. The Fifth Head of Focault's Pendulum...
http://roguelikefiction.com |
| Posted By : Bill Ward - 3/9/2008 12:11 AM | Didn't the DaVinci Clone steal a lot from that book?
billwardwriter.com |
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