Thursday, August 11, 2011

Riches update

NPR has posted its voted list of best SF/Fantasy books here. Buckle down as the Internet shouts in mass "I can't believe you chose THIS and not THAT".

[Update: Further Thoughts]

- I've read just over half of the books on the list. Did not count stuff I bailed on or just saw the movie.
- I am struck by how much of the list is "Old Stuff" - things I first read as a child. Their placement may reflect the shared experience that comes from so many people reading Wells and Verne and Tolkien in their youth.
 - I am delighted to see shared world/media tie-in books on the list  (Forgotten Realms and Star Wars series). Usually these books are shunted off to one side as being "not REAL books."
- That said - no Dragonlance? And for that matter no Harry Potter?
- The topmost Book I've Never Heard Of is the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss. Hidden gem or Spamming the vote?
- Would love to have been at the ethereal version of The Eagle & Child where Tolkien breezes in and points out to Lewis that his Space trilogy (which is a bad name, to be honest) only pegged in at 100.

More later,