{"id":757,"date":"2006-11-22T11:09:32","date_gmt":"2006-11-22T11:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=757"},"modified":"2006-11-22T11:09:32","modified_gmt":"2006-11-22T11:09:32","slug":"sff_book_meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2006\/11\/22\/sff_book_meme\/","title":{"rendered":"SF&F Book Meme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Man, it seems like forever since I’ve run across a good meme — I suspect that they were probably just another Internet fad that’s now largely run its course. Still, that doesn’t mean we won’t run across one from time to time, right? Courtesy of Lou Anders<\/a>, here’s one based on the the Science Fiction Book Club’s list of the 50 most significant science fiction\/fantasy novels published between 1953 and 2002.<\/p>\n

Like other book-related memes<\/a> I’ve done before, the idea here is to indicate which ones you’ve read and what you thought of them, to demonstrate your erudition and good taste, no doubt. Or your lack thereof. Or to at least give you something to do on the boring work-day before a long holiday weekend. Here we go:<\/p>\n


\nFirst, The Key:
\nBold<\/b> the ones you’ve read.
\nStrike out<\/s> the ones you hated.
\nItalicize<\/i> those you started but never finished.
\nPut an asterisk (*) beside the ones you loved.<\/p>\n

1. The Lord of the Rings<\/b>, J.R.R. Tolkien
\n2. The Foundation Trilogy<\/b>, Isaac Asimov
\n3. Dune<\/b>, Frank Herbert
\n4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
\n5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
\n6. Neuromancer<\/b>, William Gibson
\n7. Childhood’s End<\/b>, Arthur C. Clarke
\n8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?<\/b>, Philip K. Dick
\n9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
\n10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
\n11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
\n12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
\n13. The Caves of Steel<\/b>, Isaac Asimov
\n14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
\n15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
\n16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
\n17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
\n18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
\n19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
\n20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
\n21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
\n22. Ender’s Game<\/b>, Orson Scott Card
\n23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
\n24. *The Forever War<\/b>, Joe Haldeman
\n25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
\n26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
\n27. *The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy<\/b>, Douglas Adams
\n28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
\n29. *Interview with the Vampire<\/b>, Anne Rice
\n30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
\n31. Little, Big, John Crowley
\n32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
\n33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
\n34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
\n35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
\n36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
\n37. On the Beach<\/b>, Nevil Shute
\n38. Rendezvous with Rama<\/b>, Arthur C. Clarke
\n39. *Ringworld<\/b>, Larry Niven
\n40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
\n41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
\n42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
\n43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
\n44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
\n45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
\n46. *Starship Troopers<\/b>, Robert A. Heinlein
\n47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
\n48. The Sword of Shannara<\/b>, Terry Brooks
\n49. Timescape<\/b>, Gregory Benford
\n50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer<\/p>\n

Some observations:<\/p>\n

I’ve read fewer of these than I would’ve imagined, only 17 of the 50, although, curiously, I own quite a few more of them that I have just never gotten around to reading. Also, many of the titles I haven’t read and don’t own are on my “need-to-read-one-of-these-days” list, for whatever that’s worth.<\/p>\n

Of the titles I have<\/i> read, most of them were so long ago that I no longer clearly remember them, which made the “love-hate” tagging a bit difficult. I can’t recall actually hating<\/i> any of these books, although I do remember that Gibson’s Neuromancer<\/i>, which I read back in college sometime, didn’t do much for me. I didn’t despise it, but it — and indeed, all of the cyberpunk<\/a> sub-genre that was so trendy at the time — just wasn’t my cup of tea.<\/p>\n

Of the five books I clearly remember loving, I can see no common theme: two military SFers (Starship Troopers<\/i> and The Forever War<\/i>, which is a kind of repudiation to Troopers<\/i>), a Gothic character study (Interview with the Vampire<\/i>), a “hard SF<\/a>” adventure (Ringworld<\/i>), and a rollicking parody of space opera<\/a> (The Hitchhiker’s Guide<\/i>). Guess my tastes are pretty eclectic, eh?<\/p>\n

One final thought: in considering this list, I realized that I don’t read much SF&F anymore, at least not the way I used to. There was a time when I wouldn’t crack a cover that didn’t have a starship or a muscle-bound barbarian on the cover, but that time has long since passed, it seems. With only a couple of exceptions (John Scalzi<\/a> and my wonderful discovery for this year, Chris Roberson<\/a>), I don’t even know who’s current in the SF&F scene anymore. That makes me sad in a way, but probably not the way you would expect. I find I don’t miss the actual science fiction literature<\/i> all that much — there are so many wonderful things to read out there that turning away from any one genre hardly leaves one feeling deprived. However, I do miss being able to identity myself as a reader<\/i> of science fiction. That used to be a big part of how I saw myself; I had a favorite area in the library or the bookstore, a preferred genre, a community of fellow fans if I chose to interact with them. I don’t feel that sense of connectedness anymore, and I define myself as having lots of disparate interests instead of one narrow focus. These days, you might find me in any corner of the bookstore, and sometimes it hits me that I haven’t been over by the SF&F in months<\/i>, and that realization brings with it some really weird feelings.<\/p>\n

My horizons have broadened, yes, but at the cost of losing the comforting, familiar trappings of my childhood and adolescence. No, that’s not quite right. I didn’t lose them. I chose to put them aside. And most of the time, I don’t think about them, don’t miss them. And I feel sort of bad about that.<\/p>\n

But then, I guess that’s life, isn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Man, it seems like forever since I’ve run across a good meme — I suspect that they were probably just another Internet fad that’s now largely run its course. Still, that doesn’t mean we won’t run across one from time to time, right? Courtesy of Lou Anders, here’s one based on the the Science Fiction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memes-and-quizzes","category-the-bookshelf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}