twenty-eight books I'd try to lend to you

[ursula]

I found one of those bold-the-books-you've-read memes floating around and remembered that a while back, I composed a list of science-fiction and fantasy books I would recommend to any casual observer, either for genuine quality of writing or for their qualities as junk fiction of a particularly satisfying variety.

Mirror Dance, Lois Bujold
War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
Heavy Time, C.J. Cherryh
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart

The Lives of Christopher Chant, Diana Wynne Jones
Bold as Love, Gwyneth Jones
Divine Endurance, Gwyneth Jones
Beggars in Spain, Nancy Kress
The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Tehanu, Ursula K. Le Guin
Perelandra, C.S. Lewis
Lens of the World, R.A. MacAvoy
The Third Eagle, R.A. MacAvoy

Arachne, Lisa Mason
Five Children and It, E. Nesbit
N-Space, Larry Niven
Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson

The Laughing Sutra, Mark Salzman
Burning Bright, Melissa Scott
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge

The Weird Colonial Boy, Paul Voermans
Enchanter's Glass, Susan Whitcher
Doomsday Book, Connie Willis

Comments

Not worthy! Not Worthy!

[reasie.livejournal.com]

I feel unworthy to be in the presence of one so intensely well-read.

I'm going to have to take some time this winter while the weather sucks and catch some of these titles. I'm ashamed to say that the only ones on the list I've read are The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, and The Left Hand of Darkness. I've read a lot of Cherryh, but not Heavy Time.

I was supposed to read Snow Crash for a class, for a CLASS! And I didn't.

Re: Not worthy! Not Worthy!

[ursula]

If you had to read three, that's a good set :)

If I were going to lend a book to you in particular, it would probably be Lens of the World.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

V. interesting. Esp. Lives of Christopher Chant as the DWJ pick. 13 out of 28 for me and Anubis Gates is On My List - perhaps I should add some of the rest of this as the 13 are pretty much all good picks.

[ursula]

Which DWJ book would you pick?

And have you read Weird Colonial Boy? It's one of the harder-to-find books on the list, but it's well worth the effort. (It's very dark, very funny fantasy about an alternative Australia. Think Phantom Tollbooth abuses Ritalin.)

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

I'm curious what your reasons are for including Snow Crash.

(Have otherwise added some of the books here I haven't read to The List.)

(I have read Snow Crash.)

[ursula]

It's representing cyberpunk (this list is, in part, Things I Would Use to Educate Someone About Science Fiction) and it's also my favorite of Stephenson's novels (that I've read), in that it's one of his most successful endings. I prefer Stephenson to Gibson for reasons I haven't entirely unravelled; it's something to do with characterization, though enough of the characters in Cryptonomicon drive me up the wall that I can't just say flat-out I like his characters better. Arachne is also cyberpunk, but it's sufficiently obscure that it doesn't satisfy literacy requirements, and it's not as fun a read.

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Endings! I think The Diamond Age is a stronger book for its first two-thirds, but it becomes tangled up by its final pages. Isn't SC postcyberpunk in its parodic aspects? I'd agree that it makes a decent subgenre representative, partly because of the tendency to metacommentary. If your list weren't all novels, though, I'd nominate Zelazny's "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai." :)

I taught SC in a themed comp class--sf texts that react to specific instances of the past in how they imagine their futures, with a folkloric undercurrent--alongside Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber and some short stories. Most students wanted to take it seriously as a novel and couldn't figure out how to reconcile that with the quirky tone. I admired SC more after having to run discussions on it but liked it less.

Haven't read much of Gibson's cyberpunk (time rather than inclination), and couldn't find it in me to finish Cryptonomicon.

[ursula]

Social satire is such a core part of cyberpunk that more blatant parody blends right in.

Is "24 Views" the story about the various models that are let loose in space, eventually to hurtle into the sun? (I did list one short-story collection-- N-Space-- but that's because Niven is fundamentally better at short stories than long ones.)

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to see Niven at all, but I haven't read N-Space. Good to know.

"24 Views" is novella-length. It's a pilgrimage of sorts, with each stop neatly matched to one of Hokusai's thirty-six prints (http://www.theprices.com/view1.htm). No hurtling models, but a strong, unconventional protagonist and digital ghosts that escape machines and a good dose of intertextuality. Beautifully done.

[ursula]

Yeah, Niven short stories are nifty and physics-y, and he's done some good aliens. Novels invariably degenerate into "Then I traveled around, met strange people, and had sex with them-- fade to black."

Don't think I've read "24 Views" then. Will keep it in mind.

[nobu.livejournal.com]

i have read about half of that. does this make me well read? or just having tastes coinciding with yours? or perhaps having NO LIFE WHATSOEVER!
hmm... my list would be slightly different.
little anecdote about Doomsday Book: my mother gave it to me when i flew to Ireland to read on the plane and with the idea that i should just abandon it in a hostel along the way. only, it was so good i flew home with it. heh. i am so bad at leaving books behind :)

[ursula]

If you hadn't read a decent chunk, I would be failing in my quest to lend books ; )