Not a bad list to be on

July 13, 2024 10:50 AM

Adrienne Westenfeld at Esquire enumerates the 75 best sci-fi books of all time. Metafilter's own™ jscalzi says "well this doesn't suck" and that it's "not a bad list to be on".

The same list was posted previously, although the author has expanded after two years as part of their 2024 summer fiction week.

posted by autopilot (59 comments total)

My selfish reason for posting this is so that everyone can argue in the comments about which of these books are best (or excluded) so that I have more summer reading suggestions. Thanks for your cooperation!
posted by autopilot at 10:52 AM on July 13 [13 favorites]

There's something off about this list but I can't put my finger on it. Good to see Olivia Butler, RH's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, & Dhalgren, Valente's Radiance and King's The Stand (plus jscalzi, natch). I haven't read most of the books on this list and that it probably my problem with it; easily solved by choosing some.

But oh, oh oh, they've missed Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker.

That's what's off...
posted by chavenet at 11:10 AM on July 13 [10 favorites]

I just read Riddley Walker! I was inspired by the latest Mad Max movie. That's a tough read, for a few different reasons, but boy was it good.
posted by kbanas at 11:14 AM on July 13 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile, in the spirit of recommendations, I just finished Walter Tevis' Mockingbird, which I thought very fine: a future where robots have solved all of the world's problems and decided there's no need for the remaining humans to reproduce. Tevis is the author of The Hustler, The Color of Money, The Queen's Gambit and The Man Who Fell To Earth, all made into excellent movies (and one series).
posted by chavenet at 11:33 AM on July 13 [3 favorites]

Mockingbird is an odd book, it seems like a bunch of cliches from the genre, but it's also deeply affecting and kinda profound in a way. Tevis made another SF novel, The Steps of Sun, which is fucking awful and reads like a completely different (and drunk) person wrote it.


I thought that This List did a pretty okay job of picking out the best representatives out of the famous writers' work.

This List also includes a lot of completely unknown to me work by new writers. Which isn't a bad thing.

Station Eleven is okay but over-rated. I haven't seen the show but I've heard that it's pretty good.
posted by ovvl at 11:41 AM on July 13 [2 favorites]

Very pleasantly surprised to see Engine Summer, the best science fiction novel ever written but not one that usually makes this kind of list.
posted by doubtfulpalace at 11:50 AM on July 13 [8 favorites]

An interesting selection but too much newish overrated stuff and no Vurt.
posted by Petersondub at 11:51 AM on July 13 [5 favorites]

In the uncharitable part of my mind, I think of some of these books as dealing with important political topics in a way that is just a bit too current-affairsy and on the nose for me. It's like the difference between how The Power approaches gender, versus how The Left Hand of Darkness approaches gender. I prefer the latter, you know?

But I'm just one reader and can't speak for how any of these works affect others. I can't stand The Handmaid's Tale but that is something that has obviously strongly resonated with people, and the reasons I can't stand it aren't reasons that it's bad.

(Where is it?)

I do think this list is less infuriating than many I've seen, and there's a few on here I haven't gotten around to and I'm appreciating the nudge. Maybe I'll give a couple a second look.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:52 AM on July 13 [5 favorites]

having come off of a months-long obsession with dune that started with watching the second villeneuve movie like four times (no regrets) and then reading the sequels (many regrets) up through the truly execrable heretics of dune, which managed to be actually worse than god emperor. and god emperor is a worse book than you think it is, no matter how bad you think it is. i find myself resolving to take a few months off from matters duneish before looping back to the first book and seeing if it is in fact, like, good actually. i suspect that it is in fact a terrible book, just an extremely readable terrible book. but i'll have to get some temporal distance between me and five hundred pages of bene gesserit reverend mothers referring to the honored matres as "whores" — literally every time any of them are mentioned at least one bene gesserit reverend mother literally always says "whores!"— before i can go back and make a fair assessment.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:03 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]

Everyone seems to like "Project Hail Mary" much, much more than I do.

I don't object to the inclusion of newer stuff, as many of these lists are far too classic heavy, but I think this might lean a little too far in the other direction. I know a lot of older science fiction is... shall we say "problematic"?... but Ringworld and Foundation are classics. CLASSICS, I say!

OTOH, there are a lot of books there that made me say "Ooooh, never heard of it. Looks good" which is sort of the point. This is the second time I've seen "Riddley Walker" mentioned, so I guess I have to read it now.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 12:04 PM on July 13 [2 favorites]

like i think it's possible that frank herbert just got incredibly lucky with the first dune book, like, that it was a total fluke that just that one time all of the awful ideas in his head happened to fall out in a way that was by pure chance super compelling to read
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:07 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]

I think the trouble with these lists is that if you read science fiction you probably read deeply in one or two sub-genres and very shallowly elsewhere, so there might be an area (here, looks like contemporary SF by women with a focus on the literary or cozy) where you've got some depth and then it's just everyone else's greatest hits or else an equivocally chosen deeper cut. Like, I think I could do a pretty good best of feminist SFF between 1970 and 2000 - I'd stand behind that list as at least a pretty plausible one. But I couldn't produce a good list of space opera, or a good list of military SF, etc. I'd be choosing the best of the few I'd read, or the best of the ones I'd only heard of.

For one thing, there's no Joanna Russ on this list, no older feminist SF (and frankly, I love LHOD but it's not precisely a feminist book - it's a book about gender) and pretty much no new wave or 50s women writers, which means no Zenna Henderson, no McKee Charnas, no In The Mother's Land - I feel like while we can debate who exactly belongs on this kind of list, one of them does.

The list is, like all of these, intended to sell books, so it has to be presentist. Also, there's the deep bench problem - people are far more likely to have read widely in the work of the past ten years than widely in the work of, say, 1975. That's not anyone's fault because in genre fiction in particular things get forgotten and fall out of print. But it does mean that there are semi-forgotten books of past years that are absolutely as good as or better than many on this list, and many on this list will be largely forgotten in ten or fifteen years, assuming that there's anyone left with leisure to read for fun in what will no doubt be an unbearable hellscape, of course.

For a long time I worked pretty hard to find and read feminist SF of the seventies and very early eighties - it could be mediocre, I'd buy it and read it. And it was so, so difficult to get enough stuff to have a really broad sense of the landscape, and that was a small subgenre. It's virtually impossible to have a non-specialist lively sense of SF in a way that makes a best-of list meaningful.

Some specific thoughts:

1. I don't think that the Ancillary books, the Angry Planet books or Three Body Problem are going to hold up well. The Ancillary books were innovative and very of the moment but to me don't have a lot of depth; the Angry Planet books are basically moral primers for how to be a Very Good Person Indeed For A Highly Specific Socially Liberal But Largely Conflict Averse Private Life that will not make much sense as time passes; and I think Three Body Problem is going to get lost a bit as more Chinese SF gets translated.

2. I like Brown Girl In The Ring better than Midnight Robber, personally.

3. Kindred is a powerful book but I think that the Lilith's Brood books are better. People get a lot out of the EarthSeed books but to me the others raise a lot more interesting questions.

4. Does anyone read any Strugatsky Brothers besides Roadside Picnic? It is worthwhile to do so!

5. Small presses are really neglected. If you want some truly astonishing, ambitious science fiction, you should keep an eye on Small Beer and Aqueduct. I personally am willing to buy from them based solely on the imprint.

6. Several books that I think are as good as some of the books on this list:

- Sarah Tolmie's recent Two Travelers

- The Red Rose Rages Bleeding by L Timmel DuChamp, who deserves to be better known

-the absolutely incredible Goliath by Tochi Onyebuche, which I would frankly back against anything else on this list published since 2000. It's no Stone Sky, true, but that's more about epicness versus being just one novel.

- The City Inside is actually kind of weak in a lot of ways and the ending is IMO poorly thought out, but it was enjoyable to read and I think that if you like contemporary character-oriented SF you will like this one. There are a lot of good small books out there, and IME sometimes I prefer a small book that is perfect for me even if it isn't perfect to a titanic achievement that doesn't speak to me much.

~~
Also, did people read Mockingbird because of Science Fiction Ruminations? That's why I read it, or most of it. The gender stuff wore me out after a while, but the imagery and the world were astonishing, wonderfully evocative. Funny how impossible that dystopia seems now, because it's a dystopia where the state takes care of everyone.
posted by Frowner at 12:14 PM on July 13 [20 favorites]

I like Vonnegut, but the way Sirens of Titan treats the character of Mrs. Rumfoord soured me on the book exceptionally hard and keeps me from recommending it in good conscience.
posted by GenericUser at 12:16 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

hahahahahha

well it says it all that I have read 11% of the 100 best books of 21st vs 40% of the 75 best SFF. yep.
posted by supermedusa at 12:19 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]

Also, did people read Mockingbird because of Science Fiction Ruminations?

No, I read Mockingbird because I am on a Tevis jag that began with the pool books and accelerated with Queen's Gambit which I read while watching the series. Now I have The Man Who Fell to Earth on the pile.

That said, I betcha I will be reading a bunch of books because of Science Fiction Ruminations, which I hadn't heard of and which looks like a magnificent resource, so thanks!
posted by chavenet at 12:34 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

I hardly ever read lists like this, b/c they're so subjective, but I've been on a SF kick lately so seemed worth checking out. Some highlights for me, starting with the caveat that I've read (or even heard of) less than half of the titles on this list:

- Pleasantly surprised to see Oryx & Crake and Station Eleven here, both of which I loved, the latter to the point of giving copies as gifts for several years after reading. Also glad to see The City & The City, not b/c it's my favorite Miéville book (though I liked it well enough) but he's an interesting writer who definitely deserves a place.

- Same with Claw of the Conciliator and The Fifth Season, except I'm scratching my head about those b/c they seem to me to be much more fantasy than SF.

- Not sad nor surprised to see Scalzi, although Redshirts, while a fun read, is nowhere near his best.

- I am surprised to see The Calculating Stars, which is a good story but not what I would call great writing.
posted by Pedantzilla at 12:43 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]

I think Dhalgren is a more complex, and more difficult book than anything else on thislist, and for a variety of reasons, I cannot quite figure out, it seems to be losing some cachet. Also, I think that Gibson is one of the great novelists of the last few decades, and I find it interesting that Neuromancer is good, it's not as good as the work he has written in the last few years; including but not limited to the bridge series, which are exquisite noirs, in ways that reassemble the genre, also one of the more realistc views of how tech actually works
posted by PinkMoose at 1:13 PM on July 13 [9 favorites]

Same with Claw of the Conciliator

I haven't read Fifth Season yet, but the Book of the New Sun is SF in the same way Dune is: It has a lot of fantastical elements, but they're justified by the story being set so far in the future that technology, history, and even evolution have advanced far beyond what we can extrapolate from the current day. If Dune's on the list, I think it belongs on the list also.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:13 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]

I am surprised to see The Calculating Stars, which is a good story but not what I would call great writing.

Completely agree. When I saw the first two on the list were The Calculating Stars and The Echo Wife I was pretty surprised. Both were... fine, I guess? But I could probably find dozens of books I liked better. But then I was really underwhelmed by stuff like The Three-Body Problem as well. The Mountain in the Sea is another one that came highly recommended that I didn't dislike, but didn't get the hype on.

Some of the newer books on this list that I did like included Annihilation (I guess that's not "new" any more) and In Ascension. One I read recently that I might nominate here (without the benefit of time) is I Cheerfully Refuse, which I would recommend to people who liked Station Eleven. It's similarly dystopian / post-apocalyptic but warm nonetheless.
posted by synecdoche at 1:16 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]

Missing in listing (tsk!)
The Demolished Man (1953) Alfred Bester
The Chrysalids (1955) John Wyndham
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:34 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]

Riddley Walker pro tip: Read it aloud.
posted by whuppy at 1:36 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]

Like the last iteration, this is a very idiosyncratic list, although it's filled a few of the obvious holes in the previous version. Not all of them, though.

Some sci-fi I've found great lately:

Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock, by Maud Woolf

Wild, weird, inventive, and disturbing in all the right ways, this immediately shot onto my list of favorite books of 2024. If you want a book that will make you root wholeheartedly for a clone assigned to murder all of her fellow clones, this is the one.

Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The third book in the Children of Time series enters bold new territory, both narratively and thematically. As a pan-species team exploring the galaxy has encounters that make them question the very nature and meaning of sentience, some of them find themselves trapped on a world that seems to have stopped making sense altogether. Great writing, fascinating ideas.

Severance, by Ling Ma

Reading this book now, parts of it seem almost prophetic. But it's about more than an epidemic; it's about the machinery of the world that consumes us, whether we wish it to or not. How can you tell the victims of this plague, who are trapped in repetitive parodies of the lives they once lived, from those who believe they've escaped it?

The Pharmacist, by Rachelle Atalla

It's easy to root for a heroic protagonist. It's harder to sympathize with one who becomes horrific in order to survive in a horrific situation. Rachelle Atalla pulls off the difficult trick of keeping us on the main character's side as she trades away pieces of her conscience and soul bit by bit. It's not difficult to believe that in the same situation, most of us would make similar choices.
posted by kyrademon at 1:39 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]

It's a shame no Bester has been brought to the silver screen -- it was ahead of its time, all thriller no filler. My LLM says Oscar Isaac as Gully Foyle, with Tilda Swinton, Daniel Kaluuya, and Zazie Beetz supporting. Denis Villeneuve would direct, though that's kind of lazy.
posted by credulous at 1:44 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]

I think you could say I have a strongly different aesthetic than the author; strong visceral reaction against some selections and some rankings. Especially for a putatively "all time" list.

But I refuse to fall for it! They want me to start ranting about bad inclusions, overlooked works of genius, and especially about mediocre books ranked 20 slots higher than some real gems. This sort of thing just encourages clickbait.

So instead some random positive comments:

Red Mars is great. Not a big Kim Stanley Robinson fan but I loved this one. If you like space stories, but haven't read it, it's basically For All Mankind, the Martian terraforming years.

I am an Adrian Tchaikovsky fan. I don't know if Children of Time is on my best-ever list--I think the last act is a tiny bit weak--but it's very, very good and (like Red Mars) manages to tell a multi-generational story without ever being dry. It's a tough trick to pull it off but he manages.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is one of the two obvious PKD options, but it's the correct one. Also, they are very clear that it is not at all like the movie, which I swear many list writers somehow don't think is worth mentioning.

I've reread a couple Clifford Simak books recently, and they've held up well. Haven't read Waystation, but if you're going throw in a pre-New Wave writer casual SF readers often overlook, he's a good choice.
posted by mark k at 1:47 PM on July 13 [4 favorites]

Talking of China Mieville did you all notice he has a team up novel coming out next week? His co-author is Keanu Reeves.

The Book of Elsewhere: A novel by Keanu Reeves & China Miéville
posted by biffa at 1:49 PM on July 13 [5 favorites]

I read little fiction. I read even less science fiction. But I do read, revisit and enjoy Ray Bradbury regularly. Glad to see him on the list...
posted by jim in austin at 2:04 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

Nobody is ever likely to put it on a list of the greatest science fiction ever but I am currently enjoying the heck out of a re-read of Clifford Simak's The Goblin Reservation, as part of a summer nostalgia pass through books I remember from when I was much younger. I had toyed with the idea of creating a FanFare post for it but didn't think it'd garner much discussion, so instead I'm putting a short plug for it here (or more likely a reminder of its existence for those who remember reading it decades ago..)
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:18 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]

I agree that Gibson deserves to be on this list. Not sure which or where though. Neuromancer was great, but feels very dated. Pattern Recognition was pretty great, but didn't like the other two books in that trilogy. Don't own any of the Bridge books, got them from the library and read them, but, never connected with them.

Enjoyed The Peripheral and The Agency, (and Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive for that matter).
posted by Windopaene at 2:24 PM on July 13 [4 favorites]

So here's a list I would like to see: what sf does an inveterate reader with eclectic tastes *reread* ten years later? When I think of speculative fiction I have both wanted to reread much later and not regretted having done so, it's an odd list: James White's hospital station books (why are these never on any list?), Zenna Henderson's 'The People' stories, Heinlein's 'Time Enough for Love' (which I think escapes Heinlein's weak command of form by just meandering), Tarr's 'The Hound and the Falcon', Le Guin's Earthsea and a bunch of her novellas of the Ecumen, Fred Hoyle's 'Ossian's Ride', Pournelle's 'The Mercenary', Modesitt's 'Gravity Dreams', quite a bit of Pratchett's Discworld, especially the late Tiffany Aching books, Asimov's 'Profession' and Clarke's 'Against the fall of night.' There's probably a few more, but that's kind of a short list for someone who read scifi as voraciously as I did when I was young.

The only recent sf book I feel like I might want to read again in the next couple years but it hasn't been in my head long enough: de Bodard's 'The Red Scholar's Wake' and El-Mohtar's 'This is how you lose the time war'.

Books that I thought I would want to reread but turned out I didn't or regretted doing so: the Dune series, Brian Aldiss (actually, his book of short story fragments that were really out there and weren't finished I might want to reread, now that I think about it...), Stanley Weinbaum, a couple bits of Bradley's Darkover.
posted by madhadron at 2:35 PM on July 13 [4 favorites]

But I do read, revisit and enjoy Ray Bradbury regularly. Glad to see him on the list...

I'm aware of his work.
posted by credulous at 2:40 PM on July 13 [4 favorites]

Well, it could have been worse. Glad to see a good number of mid-20th-century writers included.
The ranking is silly until the very top.

Missing:
-No Jules Verne?!
-No Karel Čapek? Please, cite _RUR_ (gives us "robot") or _War with the Newts_.
-Evgeny Zamiatin, for _We_, that great dystopia.
-Nothing older than Mary Shelley's first novel? Harrumph - strong presentist current here.
-Charlotte Perkin Gilman's _Herland_ is a delight.
-Jack London - _Iron Heel_ surely resonates today.
-Neither Edgar Rice Burroughs (hugely influential) nor William Burroughs.

I agree with doubtfulpalace about the goodness of including criminally underread John Crowley.
Agree with Frowner about Angry Planet books and the missing Joanna Russ.
posted by doctornemo at 2:42 PM on July 13 [2 favorites]

I thought Station Eleven was a good example of literary science fiction, which is to say that the emotions and interlocking motifs were good, but the science fiction wasn't. In particular, I do not believe a post apocalyptic theatre company would do Shakespeare. They would do Star Wars, Star Trek, MCU, and maybe Harry Potter. Let's have a little verisimilitude here

bombastic lowercase pronouncements, I think Herbert was big on Strength Through Pain, so of the Bene Gesserit detested the Honored Matres.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:58 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

Agree with kyrademon that Children of Memory is really fantastic, in a Harrow the Ninth kind of way.

(Speaking of which, where's Gideon on this list??)
posted by Gadarene at 2:59 PM on July 13 [4 favorites]

disappointed to see weir taking up a spot. second rate.

terrific that bester and zelazny made it.

helliconia trio has always been under-rated. would have been surprised and pleased to see it, alas.

happily, station eleven is absent.
posted by j_curiouser at 3:06 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

I'll take the bait. They put The Sparrow, a beautiful book that is an immensely human effort to use sci-fi to reckon with faith and connection, LOWER than Project Hail Mary? Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir? Project Hail Mary that reads like stage directions for an action movie and nothing else?
posted by c'mon sea legs at 3:17 PM on July 13 [10 favorites]

happily, station eleven is absent.

It's #9, ahead of Orwell and Dick and Huxley and and and
posted by chavenet at 3:41 PM on July 13 [4 favorites]

They put The Sparrow, a beautiful book that is an immensely human effort to use sci-fi to reckon with faith and connection, LOWER than Project Hail Mary?

I actually laughed at the blurb saying "Project Hail Mary is his best work yet." Very faint praise considering that in The Martian, the potatoes have more character development than the protagonist.
posted by betweenthebars at 3:43 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]

Sci fi book recommendations always welcome, so loving this thread. I mostly 'read' audiobooks at the moment, so some titles are without my 'to read' list due to not having an audiobook yet.
Obviously I take issue with the list in Esquire, but these things are always a jumping off point. I would disagree with some of the choices from the authors they have selected. I am trying not to repeat what people have already written in this thread.

Semiosis by Sue Burke felt like it wanted to be a trilogy, but she left it at two, fantastic, books, and a lot of intriguing unfinished plot points.

If we are talking cosy sci fi, Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot is the most cosy I have read. Gender non-specific 'tea monk' meets a robot who also has ADHD and they become friends. It's just lovely.

I loved the Raven Tower by Ann Leckie, but I think that is a fantasy book. The Fifth Season by Jemisin is more sci fi fantasy. An amazing series about slavery, power, and prejudice, and love.

c'mon sea legs, you may be aware that Project Hail Mary is being made into a movie, so

Martha Wells Murderbot is not on their list, and is pretty cosy, as well as funny, and occasionally action packed. Soon to be an Apple TV series, apparently.

I can recommend the space opera A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge, and Nordstrilia by Cordwainer Smith for older sci fi with some great ideas. Philip Jose Farmer - Strange Relations, and Axiomatic by Greg Egan are great short story books. Greg Egan has written a few enjoyable 'hard sci fi' novels too.

Another proper hard sci fi experience is the Quantum Thief series by Hannu Rajaniemi. So solidly packed with ideas.

The entire (20 book!?!) Vorkosigan saga by Elizabeth McMaster Bujold is absolutely fantastic. Fun books to read which read like she enjoyed writing them.

Tade Thompson, who wrote the Wormwood trilogy mentioned in this list, has a good list of Africa-centric sci fi here.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor would be my choice from that author.

I succumbed to the hype around Three Body Problem and read that and most of The Dark Forest.

Avoid.

To call that the 'Dan Brown' of sci fi would be too kind. It is less rewarding. It is the only audiobook I have listened to that has had me swearing out loud regularly due to it's abominable everything. It comes across like a 1950's mainstream sci fi novel with no self awareness, or compassion. Paranoid, sociopathic nastiness, completely free of self reflection, that is reminiscent of the Cold War, but somehow apparently unaware of the Cold War, so it reimagines mutual assured destruction. The more you think about it, the less you get out of it. 'Cool' characters smoke tobacco. In an underground human habitat. In the future.
The premise of the Dark Forest theory is entirely negated by the first book.
When I found out the author is on record excusing the Uyghur genocide, because in his opinion, they are murderous animals who cannot be allowed to exist, it surprised me not at all.

A less bad Chinese series is the Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee, fairly interminable in parts, it feels like the author believed they were being remunerated by word count at times, but approximately infinity times more heart than TBP, and coherent. Some of the characters are actually likeable.

Empire wise, Arkady Martine delivers a much more compelling read.

Currently I am listening to Planetfall by Emma Newman, which has been great so far.
posted by asok at 4:34 PM on July 13 [3 favorites]

It's #9, ahead of Orwell and Dick and Huxley

dammit. my brain probably blocked it out to protect me.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:40 PM on July 13 [2 favorites]

A less bad Chinese series is the Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee...

Yoon Ha Lee was born in Texas, and has a Korean background. Not a good comparison to Liu Cixin, who was writing in Chinese for a Chinese audience.
posted by betweenthebars at 5:16 PM on July 13 [9 favorites]

I don't understand why CJ Cherryh is nowhere on this list. At the least for Cyteen.
posted by suelac at 6:04 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

Agreed, suelac, or for Downbelow (which won a Hugo).
posted by doctornemo at 6:44 PM on July 13 [2 favorites]

Yeah, a list.
Came here for the ensuing conversation, and was not disappointed. 0

I've certainly seen worse lists - but for a list that's called "all time best," it has a remarkable bias toward 21st century works.
(I think it takes a decade or two to properly assess the lasting impact of any book.)

And so this may be the very first of these lists that I've encountered where I have not read the majority of the entries.
This is cause for self-reflection.

That said, I think that the reputation of several of these recent books will not last. (But I don't feel strongly enough against them to publicly drag any of them....)
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 7:22 PM on July 13 [2 favorites]

Oh man, I have opinions. Some of these choices are top-notch, and others groaningly bad. I think whoever said this reads like it was compiled by someone who really likes cozy-esque books by women and otherwise picked greatest hits nailed it. I don't think they actually read Lord of Light, which if you haven't, do: it's batshit insane and marvellous, and could never be written today because everyone would squawk about "cultural appropriation", ignoring the fact that sometimes that produces works of genius. And I will defend to my grave my opinion that Never Let Me Go is awful crap, though the prose is lovely. Though Hyperion is the single most consistently and wildly overrated book in the genre.

In lieu of (further) arguing individual choices, what struck me was how many of these books are parts of series, but were presented as single novels. For example, Ancillary Justice really holds up on a second read (you can get past the tea drinking and be like holy shit this is suuuper creepy and horrible) but its two sequels are just dreck. The Fifth Season AND the next book in the series are awesome, but the third one... oof. Oryx and Crake, Dune, etc. I get that they might not want to intimidate readers by telling them they have to commit to three books, but still.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:26 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

I like Emily St. John Mandel and I like Andy Weir and Never Let Me Go was one of my favorite reads last year.

Yes, yes. I'm very brave.
posted by phunniemee at 7:28 PM on July 13 [2 favorites]

To add to my point above:

At least one of the books on this list (I spot-checked only a couple that I was COMPLETELY UNFAMILIAR WITH) was published all of 18 months ago. It's not yet out in paperback.

I read enough that I'm unlikely to buy ANY book until I run across it at a price that I can afford.

I would be hesitant about adding what is basically a brand-new work to a list of "all-time best."

I'm willing to believe that it is in fact very good - but isn't it simply too soon to say that it's good enough to bump [Your Favorite Classic] off this "All Time" list?
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 7:53 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

Riddley Walker pro tip: Read it aloud.
posted by whuppy

Also with an Ordnance Survey map of the area on hand.
posted by skyscraper at 9:39 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

Also with an Ordnance Survey map of the area on hand.


Now you've got my attention.
posted by mollweide at 10:01 PM on July 13 [4 favorites]

The Ordnance Survey maps are detailed and graphically excellent maps, now separated from their roots as providing for the possibility that one would need to lob a mortar over that hedge to deal a blow to an invading entrenchment without damaging the pub 10 meters to the right.

I’m a US person, and the maps just made Riddley Walker real - seeing how villages are packed so tightly together and following along with what the landscape would be like was very affecting.

Never really read another fiction book in that way. I’ve been avidly reading SF since the late 1950s and Riddley Walker is stuck in my head in a unique way.
posted by skyscraper at 10:40 PM on July 13 [1 favorite]

Ordnance Survey
posted by skyscraper at 10:47 PM on July 13

It's all fine if you like lists, but if you want the real stuff just listen to SFULTRA. There's a free feed, but if there ever was something worth supporting on patreon it's this podcast
posted by mayoarchitect at 12:56 AM on July 14

It's not a bad list, although for at least three writers I would have chosen different books (Dick (should be A Scanner Darkly), Mieville (should be Embassytown), and Banks (should be Use of Weapons)) There are a few I'd like to see, but who's best work is definitely fantasy, not sf (Bujold (I will fight you on this) and VE Scwab). I also think Murderbot should have been included.

I'm glad Richard Morgan is not on the list, although a case could be made for Altered Carbon.

There is one book placed exactly where it should be on the list, even though it is ranked lower than many books it is better than. I've been debating whether to be cryptic or not, but if you've read this far, check the 40s.
posted by Hactar at 4:48 AM on July 14

God Emperor of Dune is great. God Emperor of Dune cannot fail us; it is we, in our frail human limitation, and only we, who can fail God Emperor of Dune. (Heretics really is a bit of a slog, though)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:06 AM on July 14

I think Sherri Tepper is immensely underrated and I would have been pleased to see her novel Grass take a spot on the list, just not mine.
posted by jscalzi at 6:00 AM on July 14 [6 favorites]

Asok, good news: Semiosis is going to be a trilogy. Usurpation is coming out in late October.
posted by maryrussell at 6:46 AM on July 14 [2 favorites]

the absence of Peter Watts is...an absence.
posted by supermedusa at 10:10 AM on July 14

> God Emperor of Dune is great. God Emperor of Dune cannot fail us; it is we, in our frail human limitation, and only we, who can fail God Emperor of Dune.

may i remind you that there is a wholeass paragraph wherein the nigh-immortal half man half god half worm rails against the evils of deodorant?
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 12:28 PM on July 14

I don't think they actually read Lord of Light, which if you haven't, do: it's batshit insane and marvellous, and could never be written today because everyone would squawk about "cultural appropriation", ignoring the fact that sometimes that produces works of genius.

+1
posted by j_curiouser at 4:36 PM on July 14

About the rereading of books, every few years I go through the Dune books again, although if I am feeling merciful towards myself I will stop after Children. There are some great ideas in God Emperor and beyond, but they are wrapped up in novels that are too long and kind of ...bad. God Emperor, and I say this as a great admirer of Herbert, is a bad novel. The other ones I go back to are Lord of the Rings, the Earthsea series, the Neuromancer trilogy, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. (I like A Scanner Darkly, but it's not as good and I will fight you.)

There are a lot of books on this that I liked, sometimes a lot, but wouldn't really put on a "best of all time" list. I thought Semiosis was really good, for example, but I'm not sure I'd say it was in the top 75. It just didn't really seem to push the boundaries in the way that, say, Dhalgren does. Some of these books I think are bad (The Stand) and one or two I actively hated (Angry Planet, by God I really had to grit my teeth to get through that one, and I agree with the author's politics). Some of the rankings are laughable to me, like is Three-Body Problem really better than 1984?

I still liked the article though, since it seems like a good source of probably pretty-good but not top-75 books from the last 20-odd years that I'd probably enjoy.
posted by whir at 7:58 AM on July 15