Over in LiveJournal Land, James Nicoll (SF reviewer and walking True Lab Story) is discussing the best novels of the 1990's. He doesn't have the "SF" in there, but it's sort of implicit, because that's what James does.
Keeping up the literary/ pop culture bent of the last couple of weeks (there'll be science stuff soon, but it's the end of the term, and I don't even want to think about physics right at the moment-- it reminds me of the grading I should be doing), I'll post some suggestions after the cut. The list will mostly be SF, because that's the bulk of my reading, but I'll mix in a few other things. I'm really not well-read enough to claim to be able to identify the best novels of the 1990's, so a more accurate term might be "favorite," but here are some thoughts:
- Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks. Banks's best work to date, a dark and twisted non-linear Space Opera.
- Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley. Fabulous political satire, now a major motion picture.
- The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter. I'm not sure what to call this, because it's not really like anything else. Post-cyberpunk, maybe.
- Underworld by Don DeLillo. The opening baseball scene alone merits inclusion.
- Blackburn by Bradley Denton. A Serial killer you can root for.
- Growing Up Weightless by John M. Ford. The Lunar society is realistic enough to be Hard SF, the interactions between parents and children are real enough to be mainstream Literature.
- Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Just squeaks in, with a copyright date of 1990 (we'll define the decade as 1990-1999). Not his most polished book, but maybe the best of his alternate-world historical fantasies.
- A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. A sequel of sorts to A Fire Upon the Deep, but much better, and it probably stands alone.
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Yeah, it's 1000 pages long, and yeah, it has footnotes, but it's absolutely brilliant.
- What's the Worst That Could Happen? by Donald E. Westlake. It's not great literature by any stretch, but it's the best of the Dortmunder books by far. Too bad nobody has ever made a movie of it.
That's a fairly idiosyncratic list, and if you asked me to start fresh tomorrow in a different room (it's no coincidence that we own all of these in hardcover, and the hardcover shelves are in my office at home...), you might get a substantially different list. But those are ten of my favorite books from the 1990's.
If you've got a problem with those, you know where the comments are.
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Here's my list from the current rasfw thread (the list is 8 because it's a response to Andrew Wheeler's request):
The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Michael Swanwick
The Sorceress and the Cygnet, Patricia McKillip
The Lions of al-Rassan (narrowly over Tigana), GG Kay
A Deepness in the Sky (narrowly over AFutD), Vernor Vinge
Use of Weapons, Iain Banks
Permutation City, Greg Egan
Aristoi, Walter Jon Williams
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
If you allow first in series, I'd think about including one of these:
Hyperion, Dan Simmons
The Golden Compass (The Northern Lights), Philip Pullman
A Game of Thrones, George RR Martin
Sabriel, Garth Nix
The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russel
The last two stand alone fairly well, though.
I also really, really want to include City on Fire by WJW, but it's the
second book in an incomplete series.
But they did make a movie out of What's the Worse that . . . oh, wait, I see what you did there. You clever dog, you!
I think Aaron has a pretty good list, that might come close to tracking my own, as a first cut, at least (I'm too lazy to try a second cut...). Although I don't read McKillip or Egan, and I haven't been as impressed with WJW as a lot of people. Oh, and I love Snow Crash to pieces, but Cryptonomicon would probably have to get the nod from me.
Comments on books that I've read:
The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Michael Swanwick
I wasn't that impressed with this. I couldn't quite figure out what the point was, and it was trying a little too hard to be dark and gritty.
The Lions of al-Rassan (narrowly over Tigana), GG Kay
That would also be a fine choice.
Permutation City, Greg Egan
Enh.
It didn't annoy me as much as Quarantine, but I didn't really buy the central conceit.
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
I waffled about this one for a while, but decided not to put it on the list, because the middle sags really badly, and it doesn't have an ending, just a place where it stops.
Cryptonomicon just squeaks into the 90's, I think, and I think that's a better book.
If you allow first in series, I'd think about including one of these:
Hyperion, Dan Simmons
The Golden Compass (The Northern Lights), Philip Pullman
These are both hurt by the fact that not only are they the start of a series, the series ends really badly.
A Game of Thrones, George RR Martin
I can't really assess this until he finished the series. The most recent installment makes me very nervous about the future books.
The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russel
I choose to believe that this book does not have a sequel. Rumors of a sequel originate with the same nefarious characters who suggest that there's a movie of What's the Worst That Could Happen?. With Martin Lawrence, no less.
I admit I was going for a bit of "influential" when I put down Snow Crash and Permutation City. The list really needs some Egan, but Axiomatic is a collection and not a novel. And, as interesting as Cryptonomicon is, it doesn't really occupy the same sort of place in the field that Snow Crash does.
As for The Iron Dragon's Daughter, I had a bunch of ways of saying what I thought it was about, but, unsurprisingly, Swanwick said it best (paraphrasing): "It's about the silence of god." But, if you don't like that one, feel free to substitute Stations of the Tide which is also one of the best books of the decade.
As you formulate the question (but keeping with the SF proviso), I'd definitely put City on Fire on the main list, in place of Aristoi. Finally, Vast by Linda Nagata has come up on rasfw which I wholeheartedly endorse, although it probably wouldn't break the top 8.
Chad's right about everything but the merits of The Iron Dragon's Daughter and Infinite Jest. Not only is the latter horrible trash, but it would, in fact, be merely terrible if it did contain footnotes as he claims. Alas, it has endnotes, for which there is simply no excuse.
Wow, was Deepness in the Sky from the 90's? I only read it a year ago, but I will say that it's one of my favorite SF novels of all time at the moment. It would make my "top 10" list for books from the 90's (if indeed that's where it's from).
I'd probably also put Cryptonomicon on that list.
Ender's Game would have made it, if it had been published five years later.... I only discovered that one in 1992 or thereabouts, so it was a 90's book for me, anyway.
I'm thinking mostly of the books that were memorable for me, that had an impact, and that I probably will at some point go back and reread if I haven't reread them already.
I might also list The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer, because Sawyer is one of my favorite authors-- although I don't know if that book really does rate that high. It's not so much that any of his books are as notable as Deepness in the Sky, but I find all of them interesting and stimulating.
Another author I would always look for is Charles Sheffield; if forced to single out a novel of his, it would probably be Cold as Ice, although I also have some fondness for Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I know T&T was from the late 90's, and I'm pretty sure CaI is from the early 90's.
-Rob
"What's the Worst That Could Happen? by Donald E. Westlake"
That's funny, I was thinking that this was the worst one in the series apart from that one where they end up going to England. (See? I've already purged the title from my memory.)
My 90s faves:
A Long Line of Dead Men by Lawrence Block
The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly
Dance With Shiva by William Deverell
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
King of the Corner by Loren D Estleman
Token SF:
Eternity Road by Jack MacDevitt
Well, I'd take A Fire Upon The Deep over A Deepness In the Sky, but I agree it's a close call. From Orson Scott Card, I'd go for Pastwatch: The Redemption Of Christopher Columbus. Egan: Permutation City is indeed seminal, but I think he may have topped it with Diaspora. For Baxter I'd pick Timelike Infinity -- seminal, dramatic, and before his handwaving got "out of hand".
Let's see... Hmm. Feist & Wurts' Daughter Of the Empire is a little too early, but it's the first of a strong trilogy that runs into the 1990s. Likewise, Tad Williams' Tailchaser's Song is from 1985, but I'm not sure of the dates for Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (which isn't so much a trilogy as a multi-volume epic).
Likewise for Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction epic. I'd like to include Steven Brust and Diane Duane, but the question is books?
Diaspora by Egan gets a vote from me, too.
So does Stephenson's Snow Crash; OK, so not the most conventionally written book, but an important (and oft referenced) one for the genre.
I love all Iain M. Banks' work, but I personally rate Excession higher than Use...; though admittedly Use... has far more 'literary' merits.
William Gibson's Idoru (and in fact the whole Bridge sequence) needs a mention.
Julian May's Intervention will no doubt cop me flak from SF purists, but not half as much as Jeff Noon's Vurt will; selah, as HST would have said.
K. W. Jeter's Noir; does what it says on the tin.
If I can have one that was published in 2000, Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space. If not, pick any Ken Macleod from that era. Or count David Zindell's Requiem for Homo Sapiens sequence as one book. Or throw in a Bruce Sterling...
OK, I'm stopping now!