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Overlooked Books
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gallyangel
Posted 2011-06-25 4:09 AM (#2470 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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How about Douglas Adams and his Dirk Gently twosome? I'm thinking a lot of us have a special fondness in our hearts for the mad, and that's not mentioning that he's one of those one D adams types. Two Ds are always better.
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htaccess
Posted 2011-07-09 2:54 AM (#2497 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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I just went to a book sale and picked up a bunch of stuff including, "Lord of Light" by Zelazny, not overlooked but a favorite of mine and one I look forward to re-reading. The other, is a genuine overlooked book, "The Dosadi Experiment" by Frank Herbert, I enjoyed this book far far more then Dune or any of its sequels. Terrible cover though.

Interestingly enough wikipedia claims it was in the running for the 1978 Locus Award (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dosadi_Experiment) but I don't see it in in WWEnd, anyone know what the deal is?
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htaccess
Posted 2011-07-09 3:00 AM (#2498 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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Hmm, http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Locus1978.html looks like WWEnd doesn't list all the Locus nominees. As far as I can tell there is no implied order among the nominees but wwend only has the first four. Dave, care to comment? Is there any way the remaining nominated books could get added?
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Administrator
Posted 2011-07-09 10:15 AM (#2499 - in reply to #2498)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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htaccess - 2011-07-09 3:00 AM Hmm, http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/Locus1978.html looks like WWEnd doesn't list all the Locus nominees. As far as I can tell there is no implied order among the nominees but wwend only has the first four. Dave, care to comment? Is there any way the remaining nominated books could get added?

We do in fact list all the nominees, or rather, finalists.  What we don't list is all the books on the Locus recommended reading list.  Let me explain:

- The books on the list are not actually "nominees."  It's a "recommended reading" list put forth by Locus editors for Locus readers.  Those readers can vote for books other than what's on the list too which means that, at least theoretically, a novel not on the list could win the award.

From Locus:  "Locus publishes a "recommended reading" list in its February issue, when the poll ballot is distributed. Though poll voting is not limited to works on this list, some feel the recommendations are overly influential."

- Locus voters choose up to 5 ranked nominations per category.  This is where "recommended" books become "nominees."  We're following the convention that Locus eventually moved to and listing the top 5 as "finalists."

From Locus: "Readers make up to five ranked nominations per category; votes are tabulated according to the 'Carr' system, awarding a first-place vote 8 points, second-place vote 7 points, etc. The leader in each category is declared the winner. Beginning 2005, the top five finishers in each category were revealed as 'finalists' prior to announcement of the winners at a public event."

- There are just too many!  Some years there are up to 30 books listed for each category.  If it was still a combined SF and Fantasy award (the award split in 1978) that would mean 60 books on the list.  Can you imagine 60 Hugo nominees?  Can you name 30 other books that should have made the nominee list for any award? Even 10?  We look at the recommended reading list as a "long list" like the one put out for the Clarke or BFA.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense. You can read more about it all on the Locus site and see the full recommended lists.

As for The Dosadi Experiment, it came in 7th place so missed the finalists cutoff.  It was in the running in that it was on the recommended reading list but really any book published in 1977 was in the running since it was an open ballot. It might be interesting to see what books were written in over the years.

I do see that we have the Locus finalists labeled as nominees.  I'll change that to help clarify.  Let me know if you have any questions.  I'm really surprised that this has not come up before.

What I want to know is do you guys think we should put in the Young Adult Novel or First Novel categories?

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Blue gargoyle
Posted 2011-07-11 4:16 PM (#2503 - in reply to #2499)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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Dirk Gently twosome. Dosadi Experiment. Yes. Had forgotten about those. And Herbert's twosome, Destination void and the Jesus Incident.
Also: despite his mainstream popularity, Im puzzled why Michael Crichton is not in the database.
The Andromeda Strain, involving a near-future what if alien microbes got to earth, was very influential to me at the time (also ranked #37 at http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com). Then, of course, there was Jurassic Park, and Prey, both near-future what ifs involving DNA and nanobot propagation, so again broadly Sci-Fi in my opinion. Sphere is about an alien spacecraft in the deep ocean, and Timeline is very much in the same sub-genre as many of Connie Willis books.
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Administrator
Posted 2011-07-11 4:29 PM (#2504 - in reply to #2503)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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@Blue gargoyle:  You bring up some good points that have always puzzled me too.  Crichton belongs in SF IMO.  I suspect he sells better outside the genre than in though.

He's not in our DB because we didn't think of adding him yet.  If you look closely you'll find lots of oversights which is why I love this thread.  I'm constantly surprised about the obvious books I've missed so keep telling us what you want to see added and we'll do our best to get 'em all in there.  I'll get you some Crichton soon! 

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Wintermute
Posted 2011-07-11 5:48 PM (#2505 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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Damn, you spoiled some of my thunder by mentioning Crichton. I am putting together a list of sci-fi books that are underrated and Crichton absolutely makes the list. Andromeda Strain. Jurassic Park. Hello? I mean come on! Even if you didn't think his later work was as good (I agree, not as good... though I exclude State of Fear from that generalization since it was a political book) his absence from even being nominated is scandalously conspicuous.
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gallyangel
Posted 2011-07-12 3:47 AM (#2506 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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If you're thinking about Herbert's The Jesus Effect, I believe it's the first book in a threesome he co-wrote with Bill Ransom. It's been a long time since I read those babies.

And as to Crichton, I think he purposely gets overlooked by the SF people because he's so popular. It's like they penalize mainstream success. I think The Road fits into this as well. A searing postapocalyptic novel, but no nods from any of the major SF awards. I guess Cormac is not part of the SF club, so that's that. Ignore him.
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Emil
Posted 2011-07-15 3:08 AM (#2509 - in reply to #2506)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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"The Road" is a novel one should not ignore. Sadly that the SF faternity did so. They (we) would have had a Pulitzer prize winner. Opportunity missed.
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Blue gargoyle
Posted 2011-07-29 6:27 PM (#2536 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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Galley Angel - Thnx for the correction, re: Jesus effect. Never read the third (wasn't even aware of it - probably because I'd grown bored of his Dune series). Should have wiki'ed it before posting (Dosadi was the 'duology'.

Admin- Not blaming you for not thinking to add Crichton (UR doing an awesome job with the site), more agree with Wintermute that the problem was with the awards nominators overlooking him.

Two other authors I think are worthy of eventual inclusion in the database (not necessarily overlooked for awards, but I enjoyed the few books of each that I've read); both are probably best known for novel adaptions of/or screenplays:
James Khan (novelized one of the Star Wars movies, wrote Star Trek TNG, VOY episodes, etc) for the SFi/Fan "Time" trilogy - only ever managed to get hold of the first installment "World Enough and Time"
Alan Dean Foster (Alien, Star Wars, Star Trek TMP etc) for "sentenced to prism", spellsinger SFan series, etc.
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Deven Science
Posted 2011-07-31 7:23 PM (#2538 - in reply to #2536)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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Alan Dean Foster has some fun novels that aren't related to his film novelizations. Jed the Dead is a standout.
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gallyangel
Posted 2011-08-06 12:14 AM (#2547 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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How about Carl Sagan's Contact? If I remember correctly, the whole concept of worm holes as an actual physical possibility, was fleshed out for this novel. And the effect of the novel in the 80ies we mustn't underestimate.
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gallyangel
Posted 2011-08-06 11:40 PM (#2564 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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RE: Frank Herbert's Dosadi Experiment and Jesus Incident.

Since we mentioned these two, this is what the wiki says about both - if you do add them, you can get the whole series.

WorShip novels:

Destination: Void: Serial publication: Galaxy, August 1965, as "Do I Wake or Dream?" First edition: New York: Berkeley, 1966 revised in 1978.
The Jesus Incident (with Bill Ransom): Serial publication: Analog, February 1979.
The Lazarus Effect (with Bill Ransom), New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1983.
The Ascension Factor (with Bill Ransom), New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1988.

ConSentient novels:

Whipping Star: Serial publication: Worlds of If, January April 1970. First edition: New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1970.
The Dosadi Experiment: Serial publication: Galaxy, May August 1977 "The Dosadi Experiment". First edition: New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1977.


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Case Kipple
Posted 2011-08-10 3:27 AM (#2578 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: RE: Overlooked Books



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I notice a distinct lack of short stories in the lists is there a reason for this that I have missed?
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Administrator
Posted 2011-08-10 8:15 AM (#2579 - in reply to #2578)
Subject: RE: Overlooked Books



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Case Kipple - 2011-08-10 3:27 AM I notice a distinct lack of short stories in the lists is there a reason for this that I have missed?

WWEnd's focus is on novels.  We started by collecting all the award nominated books for the 10 awards we cover then we expanded to iclude all the realted series books and other books by the nominated authors and finally we started adding "best of" lists like the Classics of SF and SF Masterworks etc.  The goal was/is to get to the best books first then fill in from there.  Our next expansion will be to start adding new awards like the Mythopoetic and Stoker awards and something more geared for Young Adults.

We HAVE added a lot of anthologies to the DB like Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction, the Eclipse series by Jonathan Strahan and Asimov's Before the Golden Age series.  In addition we have many collections like The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny (6 volumes), The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson (4 volumes) and of course 20 books of short stories by Harlan Ellison plus many other short story collections by various authors throughout the site.  Taken all together there are many thousands of short stories to be had even if, by volume, they are a rather small percentage of the thousands of books we have in total.

We're certainly not opposed to short fiction, I'm particularly fond of it myself, it's just not our focus.  But now that you've made me think about it, we should probably start adding some anthology awards or best of lists to help round things out a bit more.  Hmmm.  I'll have to think about that and do some research.  Do you have any in mind that you'd like to see?  Anybody else?  The Hugo Award for Anthologies springs to mind as a no-brainer.

Thanks for posting your question. You've given me lots to think about.  We love getting feedback and ideas from our members.  Afterall, it's your site too and we always try to add features and books that you guys want to see.  Keep 'em coming.

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nate1234
Posted 2011-08-10 9:57 PM (#2581 - in reply to #2579)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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the full spectrum series maybe?
http://www.amazon.com/Full-Spectrum-5-Jennifer-Hershey/dp/055337400...
i've only read #5, but quite liked it.
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Case Kipple
Posted 2011-08-11 12:59 AM (#2582 - in reply to #2581)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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How about Virtual Unrealities by Alfred Bester or Burning Chrome by William Gibson.
Both excellent reads with very different styles I prefer the Gibson but thats just my thing
at the moment, loving the hard edged lowlife of cyberpunk.
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Emil
Posted 2011-08-14 6:15 AM (#2588 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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I think you should consider adding The Common Wealth Saga by Hamilton. Also, Echo Round His Bones, from Disch.
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Emil
Posted 2011-08-20 5:22 AM (#2591 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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How about "The Compleat Traveller" - John Brunner. A fantasy classic!
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Administrator
Posted 2011-08-28 12:09 PM (#2604 - in reply to #2591)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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I combed back through this thread and collected all the titles you guys have requested.  The links are obviously the books I've gotten to so far - a little more than half.  Not too bad all things considered.  I'll keep plugging away at these and will periodically update this list with the ones I've added to the DB and other requests you guys submit.

 

You'll notice that we don't have any Michael Crichton or Alan Dean Foster in the DB yet which is a huge oversight.  I'll probably start with those.  Keep 'em coming.
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nate1234
Posted 2011-08-28 5:19 PM (#2610 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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vortex by robert charles wilson
lovecraft?
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splunge52
Posted 2011-08-29 12:06 PM (#2621 - in reply to #1750)
Subject: RE: Overlooked Books



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Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" series continueing on to the "Colonization" series.
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nate1234
Posted 2011-08-30 3:21 AM (#2626 - in reply to #2621)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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frank baum's oz series?
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Administrator
Posted 2011-08-30 10:28 PM (#2627 - in reply to #2621)
Subject: RE: Overlooked Books



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splunge52 - 2011-08-29 12:06 PM Harry Turtledove's "Worldwar" series continueing on to the "Colonization" series.

I've got Turtledove on another list of books that I want to add already so stand by for those.

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Administrator
Posted 2011-08-30 10:30 PM (#2628 - in reply to #2626)
Subject: Re: Overlooked Books



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nate1234 - 2011-08-30 3:21 AM frank baum's oz series?

Vortex sure and certainly Lovecraft!  We were taken to task for not having any on the site by a couple people at Worldcon.  Oz is a little out of our demographic I'm afraid.

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