Locus magazine has come out with its "Recommended Reading" list of science fiction and fantasy published in 2008. There are, as always, some annoying quirks-- several of the books making the list have been published only in the UK or by small presses, so I've never even seen them-- but it's a reasonably good consensus list of what people on the literary end of SF think was good.
As usual, I've only read a smallish fraction of these. Somewhat unusually, I've read more of the science fiction list than the fantasy list-- 4/20 science fiction novels (Matter, Pirate Sun, Anathem, and Implied Spaces), compared to 1/17 fantasy novels (The Knights of the Cornerstone). In recent years, that's usually been the other way around. I don't know if this reflects an increase in the quality of the science fiction being published, or a decrease in the quality of the fantasy being published.
If you carry the count down into the "First Novels" list (1/14) and the "Young Adult" list (4/15), science fiction extends to a commanding lead-- only one of those five was indisputably fantasy (Graveyard Book), and you could make a case for Nation. The other three are unquestionably science fiction: Singularity's Ring, Little Brother, and Zoe's Tale.
What does this mean? Probably nothing. But if you're looking for some books to help you pass some time, you could do much worse than checking out the stuff on that list.
- Log in to post comments
Yeah, I've read three. Anathem, Little Brother, and Zoe's Tale.
Ah, well.
Unless, of course, you happen to like to read books by women. Which I do. Locus readers not so much. There are 1 or 2 in each category, sure, but come on people. Women are slightly more than half the human race and there are a *lot* of women writers. In my opinion, any recommended list which leaves off Elizabeth Bear's All the Windwracked Stars is highly suspect.
MKK--of course, that's just me
Unless, of course, you happen to like to read books by women. Which I do. Locus readers not so much.
Strictly speaking, this is a list compiled by Locus editors and reviewers. It probably maps reasonably well to the tastes of their readers, though.
There are 1 or 2 in each category, sure, but come on people. Women are slightly more than half the human race and there are a *lot* of women writers.
There are actually 20 works by women (judging from names-- some initials are ambiguous, but there are only a couple of those) in the four novel categories. 2/20 in science fiction, 6/17 in fantasy, 3/14 first novels, and 9/15 YA novels.
In my opinion, any recommended list which leaves off Elizabeth Bear's All the Windwracked Stars is highly suspect.
Bear is highly hit-or-miss for me. All the Windwracked Stars sounds like it's right in the zone where hits turn to misses, so I haven't read it.
I don't think the Locus list is really any better or worse than any other "best of" list. There are some puzzling inclusions every year (a few years ago, there was an absolutely dreadful book in something called the "Moonworlds" series by an author whose name I've forgotten), and some puzzling omissions (Bad Magic was left off the "first novel" list in a year when I thought it was one of the best fantasy novels of the whole year), but I half suspect they do that deliberately, to get people to talk more about the list.
Only one I read on the list is Marsbound by Haldeman. Not much of an endorsement but I thought it was OK, but my least favorite book of his that I've read so far (6 total).
I might have one of the Stephen Baxter books in my "to read" pile of Christmas presents.
Chad@3:
Sean McMullen wrote the Moonworlds series, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I seem to have read one from each list (Implied Spaces, Thunderer and Chalice). This could say something about me, or about the state of the field, but probably not.
By happy circumstance I happened to have read most of the fantasy books and half the SciFi picks including the first and YA books. The SciFi picks are of good quality but really not one of them really made my head explode.
On the Fantasy side there were some outstanding books/authors chosen. I'm especially fond of the Daniel Abraham 'The Long Price Quartet' and the exquisite duology by Gregory Frost. Can't believe they didn't pick the second volume of pure swords & sorcery by Joe Abercrombie though :)
FOR STAR TREK FANS: A man wielding a Klingon Bat'leth blade robbed a Colorado Springs 7-11 this morning. Here's a link to the story
http://www.gazette.com/articles/store_47426___article.html/colorado_swo…