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Jon Miller
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Cherryh rocks
as does Zelanzy and Wolfe
JM
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St Leo
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Member of the Apolyton Social Democratic Party
Jul 2005
time: 00:36
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quote:
I've put up a Top Tens page on my website.
Top Ten Fav Books - China Miéville - The Scar
- Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts
- Greg Egan - Diaspora
- Steven Erikson - Deadhouse Gates
- Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderlands & Through the Looking Glass
- Greg Egan - Distress
- Kim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars
- Isaac Asimov - Foundation
- Mary Gentle - Grunts
- Larry Niven - Ringworld
Well, I am sure this list is unconventional and slightly biased towards more recent works. Indeed, I am a child of my times. My psyche is a reflection of the zeitgeist. There is no Golden Age but this one and we are living in It.
The Scar is wonderful. It's literate, poetic, epic, majestic, immersive... Also, unlike the related Perdido Street Station, it does not end with a downer.
Everything you need to know about Life, the Universe, and Everything is in The Hitchhiker's Guide. If you feel like starting a new religion and are in need of a holy book, I'd recommend this one. No one is a True Card-Carrying Geek until they've read THHGTTG.
Why did Greg Egan merit two books? Well, obviously, I really like his fiction. I also think that the two are very different. If descriptions of life in simulated twelve-dimensional universes in three dimensional natural computers sound like your idea of a life-changing experience, read Diaspora or Schild's Ladder. If you want something a bit more human, try Distress, Quarantine, or Teranesia.
Deadhouse Gates is a heavy tome and a second in the series at that. Still, it shows how good epic High Fantasy can be when written by an anthropologist rather than the norm -- an idiot.
Yes, I have the chutzpah to list a "children's book" on this list. Read Alice. It's gooooooooood.
Red Mars? Well, I could have picked Years of Rice and Salt, but have only read that once so far. Red/Green/Blue Mars got reread a lot. They are beautiful, and human, and well-researched, and tending to inspire immortal optimism in space exploration.
Starting with Foundation down, the list is fairly random. I could have picked Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, or Terry Pratchett's Science of Discworld, or Frank Herbert's Dune, or Neil Gaimain's Neverwhere, or another Egan book, or Miéville's Perdido Street Station, or Niven's Rainbow Mars. I haven't.
I also could have picked a non-fiction book by Sagan or Dawkins. Perhaps Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe or Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See. Haven't done that either.
NB: This is a list of favourite books, not best books. Bug off, snobs. |
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Jon Miller
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Turtledove happens to be one of the worse Sci-Fi Fantasy authors that anyone has ever recommended to me
JM
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21-07-2004 07:59
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