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Reading lists Moderators: Admin Jump to page : 1 Now viewing page 1 [25 messages per page] | View previous thread :: View next thread |
General Discussion -> SF/F/H Chat | Message format |
DrRSG |
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New User Posts: 3 | Hello, I have always enjoyed SF but have had little time to indulge because of work. When I have read I enjoy Banks Culture series and my all time favourite is probably Childhood's End. I will retire soon and am looking forward to catching up on the enormous back catalogue of SF work. What reading lists are recommended to read the best of the best? Many thanks Richard | ||
Administrator |
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Admin Posts: 3994 Location: Dallas, Texas | DrRSG - 2013-06-16 1:50 AM Hello, I have always enjoyed SF but have had little time to indulge because of work. When I have read I enjoy Banks Culture series and my all time favourite is probably Childhood's End. I will retire soon and am looking forward to catching up on the enormous back catalogue of SF work. What reading lists are recommended to read the best of the best? Many thanks Richard Hello Richard, and welcome to WWEnd! Congrats on your upcoming retirement and your new found freedom to indulge in some great books. There are so many great awards and lists that you can pick from you might want to review them all and see which ones you like the look of. Each has it's own philosophy and method for selection and several of them are quite specialized like the Baen Military SF list. If you ask 10 people you'll likely get 10 different answers but I'll make a few suggestions for your consideration. On the awards side of the house you can't really go wrong with the Hugo Award. It's the biggie when it comes to awards and has been around the longest. It's also the one most people are familiar with so you'll have some conversation material if you decide to try and read all the winners. Of course, you shouldn't eschew the nominees either. Many fine books in their ranks that are worth a read. For the lists I would recommend your look seriously at the SF Masteroworks list. It's an extremely popular list to follow and you'll find plenty of variety and it's a list that keeps on growing. We just added another couple dozen this year and the publisher, Gollancz, is determined that nobody ever finishes the list so you'll always have more books to lust after every year. If you like collecting at all these books will help you scratch that itch too. They have wonderful cover art and can be addictive - once you get a handful on your shelf you'll want to keep getting more. The other list I would suggest you investigate is The Classics of Science Fiction. This list is the result of much number crunching across a whole range of awards to arrive at a "definitive" list that is pretty impressive. There's a link on the list page that takes you to an explanation of how the list was created that's worth a read. These guys got pretty serious about their methods. There is a lot of crossover between this one and the SF Masterworks list but there are many books here that Gollancz did not have rights to publish. You may also want to look at our own list of Top Nominated works. This is derived from our data for the the 13 awards we cover. Every book on the list has at least 4 nominations so you'll find some great stuff there. Those are pretty safe suggestions for someone ready to dive into SF and cover the traditional SF cannon. You'll get more opinions from others I'm sure. My guess is that Rico will be along shortly to tell you that I'm wrong and that if you want to read the best books you need to look to the Guardian list for a real challenge. Oh, before I forget, pay attention to the read and black numbers on the book covers throughout the site. Red indicates number of award noms while the black indicates the number of "best" list inclusions. If the number is high for both you might look a little closer. Chances are it's a worthwhile read. Hope that helps and happy reading!
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Badseedgirl |
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Uber User Posts: 369 Location: Middle TN, USA | Hi DrRSG; welcome to WWE! I would also suggest looking at the sub-genre listings in booktrakr. If you know you enjoyed a series look at the listings of other books in that sub-genre. This catches novels that may not have been nominated for a list or an award, but are in a genre you know you have an interest in. This might help. Congats on the up-coming retirement. My Dad retired last year and I have seen him read more books in this last year than I saw him read my entire life! | ||
DrRSG |
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New User Posts: 3 | Admin and badseedgirl (intriguing name), many thanks for taking the trouble to reply. You are certainly a friendly, helpful and welcoming bunch and I will use your advice to good effect. One of my retirement ambitions is to write sci-fi - so who knows, maybe one day I will appear on a reading list.! Thanks again Richard | ||
Badseedgirl |
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Uber User Posts: 369 Location: Middle TN, USA | I look forward to reading your reviews! | ||
minervasowl |
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Member Posts: 24 Location: New Hampshire | If you are looking for lists, you came to the right place. While I tend to be more of an elves and fairies and talking critters sort of a girl, your mention of Clarke and Banks makes me inclined to second the Hugo list recommendation. I like more specific recommendations, so I am going to go ahead and give you my own list. Neuromancer might he the classic, but I struggled with it, so for William Gbson, who is brilliant, I recommend Pattern Recognition instead. Heinlein's Cat Who Walked through Walls, although I always forget if it is walks or walked. Pat Cardigan's Tea from an Empty Cup and Dervish Is Digital, and Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Different stripes of science fiction, but all really well written books. Just plain good fiction. Another thing about WWEnd which is especially cool is that they don't list just an author's award winning books. They shoot for the whole lot, so it is pretty easy to branch out when you are ready. If you want a bit of structure, try one of the reading challenges. | ||
justifiedsinner |
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Uber User Posts: 794 | Actually your mention of Clarke and Banks makes me inclined to recommend the BSFA list. It has people like Christopher Priest and Stephen Baxter who you may like. | ||
minervasowl |
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Member Posts: 24 Location: New Hampshire | Ooh! Christopher Priest definitely. Which makes me think of Jonathan Lethem for some reason, probably because I started reading those two authors at roughly the same time, and they were recommended by the same person. | ||
Administrator |
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Admin Posts: 3994 Location: Dallas, Texas | DrRSG - 2013-06-20 11:45 AM Admin and badseedgirl (intriguing name), many thanks for taking the trouble to reply. You are certainly a friendly, helpful and welcoming bunch and I will use your advice to good effect... You are most welcome! I think people around these parts are truly interested in sharing info about great books and I see you've been getting lots of advice as I expected you would. Do let us all know what strategy you adopt in your reading whether you go for the awards or lists or come up with another plan. | ||
pauljames |
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Veteran Posts: 107 Location: scotland | I would recommend the SF masterworks list. This is the one I am reading. Now on my 4th book. | ||
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