I Missed This Because I Was Away From the Internet Earlier This Week

And if you missed it too, SFSignal’s flowchart for NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books is pretty awesome. And as a bonus it pegs Old Man’s War reasonably well. Check it out.

22 Comments on “I Missed This Because I Was Away From the Internet Earlier This Week”

  1. Thats cool! Damn, I have read every military story he had listed. That and every Heinlien listed.

  2. Domo for the pointer. Cool,chart. I realize that although I do like fantasy I’ve read almost nothing from the left side of the chart, except LotR. Haven’t touched Piers Anthony since ‘Macroscope’, which I would read again if I saw a copy…

  3. I am a total nerd and need to find another hobby. I have have read 80% of these (including all of Pratchett, Bujold, Stewart, etc). ‘Tis nice to see Robin McKinley’s “Sunshine” for vampire books. Have to go read it again…

  4. phone browser cant handle the image. cant zoom in enough to read anything. looks cool though. will peruse it on the desktop later.

  5. Nice. Lots of good stuff on the right side. Can’t vouch for much on the left.

    Wish there was some Richard K. Morgan. Love his SF work.

  6. Well damn. I’ve read almost everything on the chart, except for a few things which I’ve either tried and decided against, or established firmly that I’m not interested in. Drat, I was hoping for some new stuff to put on the “To be read” pile.

    Now where’s that next Big Idea?

  7. This is the most useful collection of 100 SF/Fantasy works ever. And whoever made it must be a HUGE Neil Gaiman fan.

  8. From the people who brought you a TV series chart without Farscape, Babylon 5 or Supernatural and a book list that was kind of meh, not too actively horrible, but not great either. If they did cult TV, they would probably point you to Elvira and tell that stood in for MST3K.

  9. Awesome book was just released by the Founder of Prehistoric Channel. Called “THE ICE GORILLA” its currently being looked at by movie producers in terms of making a movie out of the book. Whether or not its made into a movie will depend on the total number of books sold. Its available at Amazon now. It would be cool for us all to unite and help get this book made. THE ICE GORILLA concept is perfect for something like SyFy Channel.

  10. musictheorysean: No one compiled it; it’s a poll. I guess Gaiman’s prominence is due to two things: he has a lot of fans, and his books are sufficiently different from one another that different voters will be lining up behind different ones.

    A couple of things strike me. One is that some works of horror have managed to creep in, although it was officially excluded.

    The other is: what on earth is Flowers for Algernon doing in the ‘not in that section of the bookstore’ area? Most of the books there are indeed marketed as mainstream, not surprisingly, as they are written by mainstream authors and aimed at mainstream readers. The Stand and Fahrenheit 451 are exceptions, but I guess it makes sense to group them with other dystopian and post-apocalyptic works. But I would have thougth FFA was centrally science fiction, both in terms of the tradition it comes from and of marketing. What is happening here?

  11. Cool flowchart.

    Not sure how “series has to be finished” leads to “Eye of the World”.

    Interesting how “low fantasy” leads to Martin but wikipedia uses it as an example of “high fantasy”.

    *Love* the “unicorn, bunny, dragon?” question!

    (actually posted in the correct article comments this time…)

  12. Re Dan Cordell “”GASP. There is no Jack McDevitt on that list.””

    Good catch; “A Talent For War” and the subsequent ‘Alex Benedict’ books are among my favorites. ATFW is in my personal top 10.

    “Lost pilot
    She rides her solitary orbit…”

    Damn that book haunts me.

  13. Great flow-chart! Though, I don’t understand how “I have no sense of humor” can lead ultimately to the Vorkosigan Saga. I mean, that series is all about hilarity ensuing between dire happenings and roaring adventure. I’m not sure how you could truly appreciate the brilliance of that series WITHOUT a healthy sense of humor!


  14. @AnotherAndrew: “Flowers for Algernon” (in some form) is frequently assigned as required reading in school English classes. I suspect that’s why it gets classed as not-marketed-as-SF.

  15. Miles Archer: That feels right to me in some way. I’m not sure why – it can’t just be that it includes things that aren’t scientifically possible, because lots of SF does that. Perhaps the Platonism prevents it being straightforwardly SF.

    Matt McIrvin: How odd. A bit of SF gets on the school curriculum – not just ‘real’ SF like 1984, but open and confessed SF like Flowers for Algernon – and people think ‘We read it at school: it can’t be science fiction’. Ah well.

  16. Rats! Not viewable/readable (even larger version) on apple crappad. Will have to check it on pc later :(

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