Great Books of SF — Tentative defintion of SF v F

Hmmm. DUNE, for me, does not stand up to re-reading. The only sympathetic character is Paul… at the beginning. By the end, I really don’t much care what happens even to him. (And the sequels are unbearably oppressive – and worse, dull.)

It does evoke a sense of wonder, though, I’ll give you that. There’s some compelling stuff in there. I’m glad I read it. It just doesn’t seem to me to meet the three criteria.

I don’t think THE SILMARILLION counts as SF, much as I love it.

THE TIME MACHINE, seminal as it was to SF, doesn’t strike me as adding much to the Great Conversation. Very powerful from the point of view of sunsawunda, but Wells’ political satire is heavy-handed and quite shallow.

BOOK OF THE NEW SUN – great candidate. I have never gotten to the bottom of those. I personally find them difficult to read, though… There are some amazingly wonderful bits in there, but something about how they’re written makes them difficult for me to get through. (I find the Latro books – which I love with a consuming love – much easier on the mental palate.)

Gene Wolfe in general is very hit-or-miss for me. When he hits, oh how very much he hits! But loving one Wolfe book has very little to say about how much one will like another Wolfe book. THERE ARE DOORS, which I think he described as his personal favorite, left me quite cold.

I would nominate PERELANDRA in preference to THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH, on every criterion. It’s more SFnal, too – though I would argue that the line between SF and fantasy in the translunary realms of Great Heaven doesn’t just blur, it gets actively murdered. :) The argument could well be made that it isn’t ‘really’ SF. (OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET clearly qualifies, but I don’t think it has as much to say.)

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR I’m not sure I would classify as inspiring a sense of wonder… More like suffocating horror. It’s not a book I have ever felt inclined to re-read, either. (I once made the mistake of reading it and ANIMAL FARM back to back… I was about ready to open a vein afterward. :)

It’s been ages since I read BRAVE NEW WORLD, but I think it definitely belongs on the list. It’s also much more SFnal than NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR.

CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ clearly qualifies for the short list.

I agree with what others have said about the Foundation books. I loved them once, but as an adult I’m hard-pressed to say why – other than the fact that Asimov is one of the most readable of all SF authors. (It’s like Card said: “You read him and think, ‘I could write like that!’ BUT YOU CAN’T!”) The characters in Foundation recur to memory as quite colorless.

I refuse to give STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND so much as the time of day. Heinlein is a huge disappointment to me – so much talent for storytelling, so very misused in his later books. Don’t even get me started on THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS, it’s a painful and anger-inducing memory.

Now for some new candidates…

How about ENDER’S GAME? This book made my brain explode, so it’s difficult for me to analyze, but it seems to me to have quite a lot to say about free will, ethics, war, and much else. Pity the sequels were not worthy, but really – how could they have been? What do you follow up a book like that with? Better to have left it to stand alone.

I would dearly love to nominate me some Roger Zelazny, who is among my very favorite SF authors. But while he towers in the sunsawunda department, and is eminently re-readable, I’m not sure how much he contributes to the Great Conversation, alas. He loves to play with ideas, but he rarely seems to me to go beyond play. If any of his works qualify, I’d say LORD OF LIGHT and his short story (my Most Favorite Ever) FOR A BREATH I TARRY. His little-known work TODAY WE CHOOSE FACES raises all sorts of questions about personal identity and free will, and might qualify too.

Someone mentioned HYPERION and FALL OF HYPERION by Dan Simmons, and I could get behind that. Perhaps the first book has a little too much pastiche about it, though? He’s a bit too self-conscious about shifting between different styles for the stories of the different characters – the seams show, if you will. Great read, though.