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FlickrIn Response to This Recording: The Seminal Works of Speculative Fiction
So, I write speculative fiction. That shouldn't be a shock to anyone here.
This also means I read speculative fiction, among a greater many other things. Again, not a shock.
What might shock you is twofold: first, you might be shocked by This Recording's 100 greatest sci-fi and fantasy novels; and if you like that list, you might be shocked by how much I disagree.
Top 100s are fascinating academic exercises, and This Recording is no exception. There is no doubt in my mind that much of this list is great—I've read a lot of them and I cannot doubt the writer's taste. However, I think that he misses a lot of seminal works in favor of the things that built on them—passing up the Tolkiens in favor of the Martins, as it were.
I disagree with this tack. If you want to read 100 great speculative books, read the stuff on this list—or rather, read 1-99 on this list, and then read something else instead of The Word for World is Forest (LeGuin's weakest book if you ask me). However, if you want to read the big movers and shakers, the people who will give you a grounding in the catch-all genre of spec-fic and show you where it's going, I have to recommend a slightly different set; and so, I will put my money where my mouth is, and do just that.
Tyler's List of Things You'd Better Read
The roots of modern speculative fiction
I have to start with the names everyone will quote as the fathers of speculative fiction—people who are so important I couldn't possibly categorize them with their descendants. These are J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Heinlein, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Ray Bradbury; and going back even further, you have the whole of mythology from any culture, notably Homer. The rest of these are specific to the sub-genres that splintered off of their work, or are antecedents of theirs whom you might not generally consider, or who have gotten dwarfed by later works.
If you like sword-and-sorcery books, your assigned reading is the short stories of Robert E. Howard (try the collection The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian) and Fritz Leiber (I got the collections entitled The First Book of Lankhmar and The Second Book of Lankhmar, but your area may collect the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories in different volumes). In the latter case, Leiber literally invented the term "sword and sorcery" to describe these types of stories; and in the former case, Howard actually owes more to H.P. Lovecraft than he does to Arnold Schwarzenegger—he is surprisingly literary, actually, without losing any of the machismo that attracts young geeks to the Conan movies. These men are often-imitated, but rarely equalled; Leiber, especially, will come up here in a minute.
If you like your fantasy dark, you have to check out Michael Moorcock: The Elric Saga (the first book, chronologically, is Elric of Melnibone). Moorcock didn't invent the anti-hero, but he did take it to its zenith; the Elric stories are the stories that practically every dark fantasy writer is using as their compass.
If you love weird fiction and horror, you need to read H.P. Lovecraft (widely available), but also Lord Dunsany and Robert W. Chambers. From Dunsany, pick up Wonder Tales; his sense of wonder and whimsy—and occasional chilling surrealism—was the foundation of Lovecraft and his colleagues and imitators. From Chambers, you need to read The King in Yellow; while much of the book winds up being relatively standard romantic fiction, the first few stories set the tone for the ideas of madness and something inhuman beyond our ken that form the other pillar of the Lovecraft ouevre.
If you love urban fantasy, my first pick may surprise you: Rudyard Kipling. Read "Wireless" (found in the wonderful collection of Kipling's fantasy and horror stories). I have to once more underline the name of Fritz Leiber; his two novellas "Our Lady of Darkness" and "Conjure Wife" are deeply important to the ideas of magic in the modern world. Lord Dunsany's Wonder Tales also gets a nod here, just to be thorough.
If you love cyberpunk, there is one name you need to know: William Gibson. Stephenson is great, but he built upon the platform built for him by Neuromancer. It's all here: cybernetics and their effect on how human you are, super-rich people who control the world, mercenary hackers, weird geopolitics...the book even coined the term "street samurai", fer Chrissakes!
If you like deconstructions of superheroes, this one is obvious: Alan Moore. Watchmen. He's to blame for the Dark Age of superhero comics, but so what? Tolkien is to blame for the Wheel of Time.
If you like sci-fi as social commentary, you have to start your journey with George Orwell's 1984, of course, and move from there to Kurt Vonnegut and Cat's Cradle, and from there to Philip K. Dick and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Orwell really started the ball rolling with speculative fiction being used to hold a mirror up to human behavior, and Vonnegut and Dick are the two who, in my humble opinion, ran the ball the furthest down the field.
If you like alternate history, many, many names will be thrown out there, but I come back to another one I already mentioned: Philip K. Dick, with his The Man in the High Castle. A story of the Axis winning World War II,
If you like steampunk, put down your fantasy-steampunk hybrids, and check out this now-familar name: William Gibson. The Difference Engine (co-written with Bruce Sterling, another great cyberpunk name) is the book that kicked the whole thing off, and while I'm not sure I enjoy the plot that much, its ideas underpin the entire steampunk genre.
There are so many other writers whose names I want to throw out there. Neil Gaiman is amazing, and George R.R. Martin is great; but they are more seminal in the modern canon than they are the compasses by which the meta-genre of speculative fiction sails. So, rather than babble about everything I ever loved, I will leave you with this list. I think This Recording did a pretty amazing job of writing down some great spec-fic books—but I think this list will help you see where some of those books came from.
This also means I read speculative fiction, among a greater many other things. Again, not a shock.
What might shock you is twofold: first, you might be shocked by This Recording's 100 greatest sci-fi and fantasy novels; and if you like that list, you might be shocked by how much I disagree.
Top 100s are fascinating academic exercises, and This Recording is no exception. There is no doubt in my mind that much of this list is great—I've read a lot of them and I cannot doubt the writer's taste. However, I think that he misses a lot of seminal works in favor of the things that built on them—passing up the Tolkiens in favor of the Martins, as it were.
I disagree with this tack. If you want to read 100 great speculative books, read the stuff on this list—or rather, read 1-99 on this list, and then read something else instead of The Word for World is Forest (LeGuin's weakest book if you ask me). However, if you want to read the big movers and shakers, the people who will give you a grounding in the catch-all genre of spec-fic and show you where it's going, I have to recommend a slightly different set; and so, I will put my money where my mouth is, and do just that.
The roots of modern speculative fiction
I have to start with the names everyone will quote as the fathers of speculative fiction—people who are so important I couldn't possibly categorize them with their descendants. These are J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Heinlein, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, and Ray Bradbury; and going back even further, you have the whole of mythology from any culture, notably Homer. The rest of these are specific to the sub-genres that splintered off of their work, or are antecedents of theirs whom you might not generally consider, or who have gotten dwarfed by later works.
If you like sword-and-sorcery books, your assigned reading is the short stories of Robert E. Howard (try the collection The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian) and Fritz Leiber (I got the collections entitled The First Book of Lankhmar and The Second Book of Lankhmar, but your area may collect the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories in different volumes). In the latter case, Leiber literally invented the term "sword and sorcery" to describe these types of stories; and in the former case, Howard actually owes more to H.P. Lovecraft than he does to Arnold Schwarzenegger—he is surprisingly literary, actually, without losing any of the machismo that attracts young geeks to the Conan movies. These men are often-imitated, but rarely equalled; Leiber, especially, will come up here in a minute.
If you like your fantasy dark, you have to check out Michael Moorcock: The Elric Saga (the first book, chronologically, is Elric of Melnibone). Moorcock didn't invent the anti-hero, but he did take it to its zenith; the Elric stories are the stories that practically every dark fantasy writer is using as their compass.
If you love weird fiction and horror, you need to read H.P. Lovecraft (widely available), but also Lord Dunsany and Robert W. Chambers. From Dunsany, pick up Wonder Tales; his sense of wonder and whimsy—and occasional chilling surrealism—was the foundation of Lovecraft and his colleagues and imitators. From Chambers, you need to read The King in Yellow; while much of the book winds up being relatively standard romantic fiction, the first few stories set the tone for the ideas of madness and something inhuman beyond our ken that form the other pillar of the Lovecraft ouevre.
If you love urban fantasy, my first pick may surprise you: Rudyard Kipling. Read "Wireless" (found in the wonderful collection of Kipling's fantasy and horror stories). I have to once more underline the name of Fritz Leiber; his two novellas "Our Lady of Darkness" and "Conjure Wife" are deeply important to the ideas of magic in the modern world. Lord Dunsany's Wonder Tales also gets a nod here, just to be thorough.
If you love cyberpunk, there is one name you need to know: William Gibson. Stephenson is great, but he built upon the platform built for him by Neuromancer. It's all here: cybernetics and their effect on how human you are, super-rich people who control the world, mercenary hackers, weird geopolitics...the book even coined the term "street samurai", fer Chrissakes!
If you like deconstructions of superheroes, this one is obvious: Alan Moore. Watchmen. He's to blame for the Dark Age of superhero comics, but so what? Tolkien is to blame for the Wheel of Time.
If you like sci-fi as social commentary, you have to start your journey with George Orwell's 1984, of course, and move from there to Kurt Vonnegut and Cat's Cradle, and from there to Philip K. Dick and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Orwell really started the ball rolling with speculative fiction being used to hold a mirror up to human behavior, and Vonnegut and Dick are the two who, in my humble opinion, ran the ball the furthest down the field.
If you like alternate history, many, many names will be thrown out there, but I come back to another one I already mentioned: Philip K. Dick, with his The Man in the High Castle. A story of the Axis winning World War II,
If you like steampunk, put down your fantasy-steampunk hybrids, and check out this now-familar name: William Gibson. The Difference Engine (co-written with Bruce Sterling, another great cyberpunk name) is the book that kicked the whole thing off, and while I'm not sure I enjoy the plot that much, its ideas underpin the entire steampunk genre.
There are so many other writers whose names I want to throw out there. Neil Gaiman is amazing, and George R.R. Martin is great; but they are more seminal in the modern canon than they are the compasses by which the meta-genre of speculative fiction sails. So, rather than babble about everything I ever loved, I will leave you with this list. I think This Recording did a pretty amazing job of writing down some great spec-fic books—but I think this list will help you see where some of those books came from.
posted by Tyler at
10:28 AM
1 Comments:
I'm FINALLY starting to read more again. Maybe it's the time away from college... maybe it's the Kindle ;) But anyway, I think this will be a great reference for me when I'm at a loss for what to read next, because I respect your taste.
Oh! I meant to tell you but I never ended up seeing you since. Your rants about Sherlock Holmes (plus the movie) sparked my interest and I picked up is Complete Collection. I've read a couple of the books and a couple of the stories so far.
So anyway... thanks :)
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