SF books with impact

[cahn]

There's this Esquire 75 best SF books of all time meme going around (I think thistleingrey first posted about it on DW in meme-form here) and the Esquire list annoyed me so very much (it leaves off all kinds of interesting books that I love) that instead of doing the meme I made my own list :P I used Jo Walton's Informal History of the Hugos (which is even better than I remember, btw) as a major source for finding books to put on my list. The list also has turned into more of a "SF books that had a nontrivial impact on me" rather than "best SF books" but eh.


Books where I agree with the Esquire list:
Snow Crash (Stephenson)
A Clockwork Orange (Burgess)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Heinlein)
A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)
The Stars My Destination (Bester)
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams)
A Canticle for Leibowitz (Miller)
A Memory Called Empire (Martine)
Ancillary Justice (Leckie)
Oryx and Crake (Atwood)
Red Mars (Robinson)
Brave New World (Huxley)
1984 (Orwell)
The Left Hand of Darkness (Le Guin)
The Fifth Season (Jemisin)
Martian Chronicles (Bradbury)
Dune (Herbert)

Books the Esquire list has that I imagine should belong but which I haven't read yet: (in all cases except Miéville I have read something by the author, but not any book-length SF)
The Claw of the Conciliator (Wolfe)
Neuromancer (Gibson)
Ammonite (Griffith)
Engine Summer (Crowley)
The City & The City (Miéville)

Authors the Esquire list has, but I would put in a different book (sometimes because I haven't read the one on the list):
City (Simak) - I haven't read Way Station but I don't think it would overtake City in my head
Cyberiad (Lem) - I haven't read Solaris
The Bridge (Banks) - I thought I should have one Iain Banks in here, and I've read this one
Babel-17 (Delany) - I haven't read Dhalgren but I adore Babel-17
None So Blind (Haldeman) - I haven't read The Forever War, but I probably should - but this collection of short stories is pretty great
Cat's Cradle (Vonnegut)
Foundation (Asimov) - idk - I think conceptually it just edges out the Robot stories for me, though it's a coin flip because Susan Calvin is my fave
A Scanner Darkly (Dick) - I like this one more than Electric Sheep
Stories of Your Life and other stories (Chiang) - I like this more than Exhalation
Dawn (Butler) - I mean isn't this obvious??

Authors that don't appear on the Esquire list at all:
Stand on Zanzibar (Brunner) [how is this not on the list]
Memory (Bujold) [I MEAN]
Ender's Game (Card) [kinda surprised this is not on the list, honestly - as it's in print and has got crowd appeal]
Cyteen (Cherryh) [HOW]
Doomsday Book (Willis) [WHY]
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (Tiptree) [HOW IS THERE NO TIPTREE]
The Dispossessed (Le Guin) [Le Guin is the only time I've put in two from the same author which I can see the original list was trying to avoid but... yeah]
A Fire upon the Deep (Vinge) [come ooooon!]
The Rediscovery of Man (Smith) [HOW IS THERE NO CORDWAINER SMITH]
Some Desperate Glory (Tesh) :P
Ingathering (Henderson)
The Wounded Sky (Duane) [I'm making this list, it's going in]
Arslan (Engh)
Web of Angels (Ford)
Beggars in Spain (Kress) [RIGHT?]
Hexwood (Jones)
Dreamsnake (McIntyre)
Gideon the Ninth (Muir)
The Real Story (Donaldson) [also probably a personal choice]
Flowers for Algernon (Keyes)
Perhaps the Stars (Palmer)
Dangerous Visions (ed. Ellison) [no really HOW IS THIS NOT ON THE LIST]
Behold the Man (Moorcock) [I hated this book when I first read it but boy did it have an impact on me]
Cards of Grief (Yolen) - well - mostly because I couldn't resist putting Yolen on this list
The Steerswoman (Kirstein)
Permutation City (Egan)
In the Garden of Iden (Baker)
Joanna Russ should probably be on this list though I've never read an actual book by her, unless you count Souls

omg, we could fight about this list, it's clearly a list tailored to me personally and I'm sure everyone reading this will quibble about things that I've put on or left off (and please do) -- I noticed, for one thing, that apparently I read no SF published from around 2000-2010, except for Bujold -- but maybe the idiosyncrasy will make it more interesting :P

Comments

[ambyr]

Man, I hadn't even noticed the absence of Flowers for Algernon from the original list, but now that you point it out that's a weird gap!

[cahn]

there are so maaaaany weird gaps! :)

(i'm sure my list has weird gaps too, but hopefully not as many! i bet i spent at least as much time on it, combing through my bookshelves and dw posts and Walton's text, as the original list-maker, lol.)

[snickfic]

You've got a good list there! I agree re: Simak, now that you say it. Way Station is fine and won a Hugo, but City is worlds better IMO. Agree also re: Chiang, and while I don't care for Eletric Sheep all that much, I've never been able to even finish A Scanner Darkly, haha. My personal favorite Dick choice would be UBIK.

[cahn]

City is so great!!

Haha, I get you about Scanner Darkly. The middle of it is pretty dire. I did like the ending. I have never read UBIK, though! (I think I maxed out of Philip K. Dick about three books through.)

[hamsterwoman]

I used Jo Walton's Informal History of the Hugos (which is even better than I remember, btw)

I also had the impulse to cross-check the list against Jo Walton's Hugo book :) (but didn't actually do it)

Agreed with most of the books you would keep that I have also read (I think you can guess what one of my disagreements is, heh)

Cyberiad (Lem) - I haven't read Solaris

Having read both, I get why Solaris is on the list and Cyberiad isn't, but I love Cyberiad a lot more! I prefer Lem as a humorous writer in general.

Cat's Cradle (Vonnegut) -- I hadn't read the one they had on the list, but that's the one I was expecting to see.

Foundation (Asimov) - idk - I think conceptually it just edges out the Robot stories for me, though it's a coin flip because Susan Calvin is my fave

I was also surprised to see Robots over Foundation, because I do think of Foundation as his grander work, even though I'm personally meh on it and adore the Robot stories/books.

Stories of Your Life and other stories (Chiang) - I like this more than Exhalation -- 100% agreed! (and this seems a common sentiment)

Memory (Bujold) [I MEAN]
Ender's Game (Card) [kinda surprised this is not on the list, honestly - as it's in print and has got crowd appeal]
Cyteen (Cherryh) [HOW]
Doomsday Book (Willis) [WHY]

Yes on all of these actually! I forgot about Ender's Game, but I think it absolutely should be there. No Bujold and Willis at all on their list is so WEIRD! And Cyteen is the only thing by Cherryh I've read so far, but would certainly not object to seeing it on a list like that.

Flowers for Algernon (Keyes) -- ooh, another one I didn't notice as missing, but now that you mention it, should totally have been on there.

Perhaps the Stars (Palmer) - <333

The Steerswoman (Kirstein) -- ooh, good call! (or maybe Tchaikovsky's Elder Race. But I feel like this subgenre ought to be represented at any rate.)

[primeideal]

But I feel like this subgenre ought to be represented at any rate.

I strongly agree, but I think Gene Wolfe might be this? IDK I'll read him and report back soon :P

[hamsterwoman]

Ooh, maybe! I don't actually know what the Book of the New Sun (that's what that book was form, right?) is, subgenre-wise, just that I've heard it highly praised by SFF authors whose books I like, so I do want to read it one of these days, but it sounds like quite an undertaking... So happy to vicariously read your thoughts instead :))

[primeideal]

Yeah, their pick was from Book of the New Sun; Tchaikovsky also cites "Trip, Trap" (short story?) as being an influence on "Elder Race."

[hamsterwoman]

*looks up "Trip, Trap"* ooh, I can definitely see how this would be an influence on Elder Race, and now I want to remember to track down the Gene Wolfe story, because I really like that conceit!

[cahn]

I think I can guess one of your disagreements! ;)

I know it might be weird to have Perhaps the Stars instead of Too Like the Lightning, but Perhaps the Stars was the one where I was like, "...wow!"

Ugh, I keep meaning to read Elder Race, and I just keep not reading it even though I like Tchikovsky's shorter work that I've read. I think because they look like Epic Doorstoppers, which I've mostly given up on :) ETA: Oh no wait, I'm totally mixing up Elder Race and some other series he wrote! Yes, I love Elder Race :) Of course the one I always think of is Semley's Necklace, but that's a short story.

[hamsterwoman]

I know it might be weird to have Perhaps the Stars instead of Too Like the Lightning, but Perhaps the Stars was the one where I was like, "...wow!"

Perhaps the Stars makes perfect sense to me as the pick for Terra Ignota! To start with, I do feel TLTL suffers from being only half a book -- I'd be far more on board with the combo of TLTL + 7 Surrenders (as it was intended to be the first volume) -- but also, yeah, Perhaps the Stars was the book that blew me away most of the four, and the fact that it stuck the landing with that complex a setup is the thing that makes the whole series most extraordinary for me. So, I'm in complete agreement there!

I think because they look like Epic Doorstoppers, which I've mostly given up on :)

Heh, yeah, the reason I've read and loved Elder Race and have yet to finish anything else by Tchaikovsky is that the rest of them that are interesting to me do look like Epic Doorstoppers, and I mostly can't deal with those anymore, except where I've already invested the time in the series.

Of course the one I always think of is Semley's Necklace, but that's a short story.

Oh right, for some reason I keep completely forgetting about Semley's Necklace. That too! Though I guess they already had Ursula LeGuin on the list and it's not like one can argue Left Hand of Darkness is unworthy.

[cahn]

Haha, yeah, and I even put a second Le Guin on my personal list so I suppose it can't ALL be Le Guin (although if it were, I'd also maybe put the story "Nine Lives" on there... :) And maybe Lathe of Heaven as an alternate-universe story?)

[hidden_variable]

Having read both, I get why Solaris is on the list and Cyberiad isn't, but I love Cyberiad a lot more! I prefer Lem as a humorous writer in general.

Yes, same! I read Cyberiad first, and then Solaris was... totally not what I was expecting.

[cahn]

Ha, okay, I shall have to read it. (And, of course, it was M that got me to read Cyberiad :) I think he tried to get me to read Solaris too and I never got around to it...)

[hidden_variable]

it was M that got me to read Cyberiad

Haha, I thought that might have been the case, but wasn't sure. :)

So we are packing up boxes for moving, and today I found a big stack of Lem books in M's bookcase. Some of them are in Polish, which is not helpful for me, but there were at least a couple of English ones that I don't remember having read. Now they are in a box, though, so I'll have to wait on them for a while.

[cahn]

Oh, neat. I'll be interested to see what you think of them. And good luck with moving! (In the same general area, I presume? Or not?)

[hidden_variable]

Thanks! Yes, the move is not too far. We bought the house a while ago, but it needed a lot of renovation. It looks like it will finally be ready to move in by the end of the summer.

[cahn]

Oh great -- good luck for your move!

[thistleingrey]

Yay, I love that you've made your own list!

I do prefer Excession (on the original list) to The Bridge for Banks in terms of technical intricacy as well as subjective satisfaction with the plot arcs, but since the Esq list isn't into subjective satisfaction, whatever works for each listmaker is fine by me. :)

(Skipping italics now, my fingers hurt.)

I did wonder about Stories vs. Exhalation for Chiang--haven't read the latter.

Editing myself because I need a better filter this week,sorry! Also better phone autocorrect.

[cahn]

<3 Thank you for making the original meme!

Oh nooooo you shouldn't need to feel like you need to filter yourself, I did ask for critiques/differences! <3 You know, I didn't even notice the growing white/US-centricity; it does seem like something of a consequence of trying to get rid of recency bias but at the same time having a big hole from 2000-2010-ish (maybe even longer?) without consciously thinking about the problems that might introduce. And I respect the original list more for actually thinking about it! Are there books that you would recommend to fill those gaps for me? Looking back at the list, Nalo Hopkinson (for example) is one that I think I should have read but in fact missed. Oh! And there's Riot Baby (Onyebuchi), which I forgot can go on this list as a novella.

And then, of course, there's Three-Body Problem, which I had on the list, and then took off at the last minute because I had a lot of issues with it (though I did vote for it for the Hugo). Though that one has stuck with me too, so if I put Behold the Man on the list, Three-Body Problem really ought to go on it too. (Though they bother me for very different reasons, lol.)

[thistleingrey]

Thanks for extending it! All I did is c+p.

Part of why I should've kept my mouth shut is that my sense of books is a bit out of date; I don't have good recs, or not ones I'd offer confidently. (I think Shelley's flawed The Last Man outdoes Frankenstein, but no one but English majors reads it anymore and really that's fine.) I do think Hopkinson's work holds!

[cahn]

Lol, it's not like having incomplete information has ever stopped me from being highly opinionated, see this post ;) (Okay, I suppose I should work on that too...) I have not read either Shelley, which is of course another lack I have to remedy. I think I skipped Frankenstein as an adolescent, when I was reading similar kinds of books, because from pop culture I was expecting it to be more overt horror than I understand it is. I will check out Hopkinson!

[thistleingrey]

:) It's your DW space, though! Please do what you'd like with it. Anyway, honestly I think Shelley is skippable indefinitely--I read her as part of a grad seminar on the "younger" English Romantics, which was helpful for seeing her creativity in a synchronic context, but if that isn't one's jam, might be a bit of a slog.

[cahn]

<3

I think I'd like to read Frankenstein, for Romantic-and-SF cultural literacy, but then again there are a lot of books I'd like to read... :) *pokes TBR list dubiously*

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Dhalgren is insufferable, but it's also more erotic, more metatextual, and more paranoid than Babel-17. I think it's one of those novels where (to misquote some music critic) only twenty people read it, but all those people wrote novels. Gibson mentions it as an influence on Neuromancer, which I think is clearly true. (Can't believe you haven't read Neuromancer, by the way.) I also think it's foundational to the New Weird movement.

Card, Russ and Tiptree seem like really high-impact omissions! Cordwainer Smith, Greg Egan and Connie Willis are also choices I personally would miss. I think Cyberpunk was wronged (no Bruce Sterling; Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang is missing, which is also an important LGBT novel; Charles Stross's Rule 34 is a personal favorite which I think the critics under-rated; I liked Snow Crash, but I find it odd that it's one of those parodies that seems to have survived the real thing). Space Opera is missing the Expanse, Ken McLeod, Alasdair Reynolds and Linda Nagata. Time Travel is missing everything (was "The Time Traveler's Wife" SF? Wells should be here, and possibly some others). World-building is missing Moon Moth.

[cahn]

Re: Dhalgren: fair enough! Yeah, it's kind of unbelievable I haven't read Neuromancer (I've read some short stuff by Gibson, like "Burning Chrome") -- though I seem for whatever reason to have missed out on a lot of Cyberpunk in general (I haven't read any of Sterling or McHugh's novels either). Another of those holes, I guess.

The original list did have Wells, which I struck out due to personally not really being a fan. Heh, I read a lot of time-travel (didn't we all), but I feel like a lot of it was short stories, not novels -- I suppose Crowley's "Great Work of Time," being a novella, could perhaps be put on? Oh! And there's Card's Pastwatch, which I do actually like better than Ender's Game, though I think if one Card has to go on the list, especially if it's a list of books that had an impact on me personally, it probably has to be Ender's Game. I suppose there's time travel in some of the books on the list: The Stars My Destination, Doomsday Book, Behold the Man, Garden of Iden -- though in all those cases I suppose the time travel itself is not the point, it's more of a plot gimmick.

(Hmm, what would you call the canonical time-travel short stories? "All You Zombies" is the one that comes immediately to mind... "A Sound of Thunder" of course... "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" ... and then of course "Story of Your Life," though that's already on the list.)

I guess I'm OK with Vinge and Bujold holding down Space Opera (even though I suppose they're not completely typical examples), though this all is making me more likely to read the Expanse. (I actually own the first book, and ase has already pinged me on this, but it often takes me about 3-4 nudges to actually read something.)

[cenozoicsynapsid]

I think The Expanse is really good, actually. It has some of KSR's fascination with politics, some of Banks's glorious but morally compromised space battles, and a strong ensemble of characters. If you read the books, then watch the tv show, you'll notice that there are probably too many characters/loose plot threads that could be tightened up. But overall, it holds together very well for a work of that size... which is the problem, honestly, the books are *huge*. And though not badly written, the prose style is not the selling point; the style is straightforward and not a draw in itself.

[cahn]

Sorry -- who do you mean by KSR? Thanks for the rec -- ugh, if only it had been published when I was an adolescent and tearing through doorstoppers! Now that's a definite barrier to my reading things, but, well, we'll see if I can summon up the activation energy :) (I did read Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet and enjoyed it.)

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Kim Stanley Robinson, sorry.

I can still do the fugue state devouring-of-doorstoppers for things where the plot moves fast and the style isn't too ornate. If I have to read very effortfully from paragraph to paragraph, I'm slower. I got Alan Moore's *Jerusalem* trilogy as a birthday present, and I'm making my way through that, but not as fast as I could have as a teenager... gaps of weeks between picking one up sometimes.

[cahn]

Yeah, I have lost the will to do that for doorstoppers for the most part, though I will occasionally do it when it's been recced to me enough times :) (And I guess I am reading the Keeper of the Lost Cities YA-doorstopper-ish books right now because my 9-year-old keeps mentioning to me that he would like me to read them...)

[sophia_sol]

I absolutely don't feel up to writing a definitive list of the best scifi, if nothing else because I simply haven't read everything that I think might qualify, but here are some authors or books I would want to strongly consider. some overlap with esquire and with you, but a fair amount of divergence too!

- Everfair (Nisi Shawl)
- The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula Le Guin)
- something by Octavia Butler (idk, I only read one of her novels and it was emphatically not for me but I could see how she was doing really brilliant and interesting things....I'm just not the right person to choose a representative work for her.)
- Midnight Robber (Nalo Hopkinson) (would also accept a different Hopkinson book instead)
- Ancillary trilogy (Ann Leckie) (yes this is three books in one, fight me :P)
- Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
- Vigilant (James Alan Gardner)
- Harrow the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) (Gt9 is the first book, and Nt9 is my fave so far, but I think Ht9 is doing the most interesting things in the series!)
- A Memory Called Empire (Arkady Martine)
- An Unkindness of Ghosts (Rivers Solomon)
- Sorcerer of the Wildeeps (Kai Ashante Wilson)
- Memory (Lois McMaster Bujold)

[cahn]

if nothing else because I simply haven't read everything that I think might qualify

ahahahaha like that stopped me ;) Anyway, very happy to get your thoughts on books! Hmm, yeah, my particular holes mean I kind of skipped Hopkinson and Shawl, but I will have to remedy that, thanks for the recs.

I agree with you that Ht9 is doing some really interesting things, yeah!

[sophia_sol]

definitely recommend shawl to you especially - everfair fits, I think, one of the things you look for in award-winning sf, which is that it's ambitious and interesting and trying to do things that take attention and thought. not an easy read but a thoroughly worthwhile read, imo.

[cahn]

oh, neat! okay, that's definitely going on my list!

[hidden_variable]

Yay Hexwood! But you knew I was going to say that. :)

I strongly agree with a lot of your other additions/changes to the list as well—especially Memory, Doomsday Book, the Steerswoman series, and A Fire Upon the Deep. And now I have some new things to check out, based on the ones you listed that I haven’t read. This is really making me want to write up my own take on this list, which I 100% do not have time to do right now, but I’ll see if I can make it happen.

[cahn]

:) I'm glad that you encouraged me to read it!

Ahahahaha, I absolutely understand not having time, but I hope you do at some point -- I would really love to read it!

[wendelah1]

Many great choices here, and many books I've never read (so many books, so little time). I love The Steerswoman series. I wish she'd finished it. I think Le Guin deserves two books. She's brilliant.

I'm in the middle of rereading the Vorkosgian series--listening to it, this time around. Though it's been years, Memory sounds like a good choice, but I love the series so much, I'd have a hard time picking just one book from it.

Cyteen is brilliant but I'd never reread it. Too depressing. I much prefer Downbelow Station. And the Chanur series, too.

Ender's Game is a great book--I first read it because my son recommended it to me when he was 12, I think. It was--maybe still is--his favorite book. From that series, I love Speaker for the Dead best. Again, it's been years, but I recall it being very moving.

[cahn]

Yes, I also wish she'd finished it!

I love the Vorkosigan series <3 Memory was definitely the one that I loved the most (maybe because that book just surprised me with how much I had come to care for Simon Illyan, whom I would not have said I had particularly strong feelings for before that).

Downbelow Station is great too! I haven't read the Chanur series.

I read Ender's Game when I was 12 or 13 and it was an Experience! I think that's the age to get to it for it to really just be tremendously moving.

[ase]

"Novels with impact" and "good novels" do not have to be one and the same... but no Vinge? None at all? That's a miss. Ditto Bujold, Card, Cherryh, and Willis.

The Wounded Sky (Duane) [I'm making this list, it's going in]

Heh. Approval from this corner.

I'd leave the Robot novels on, because I'm here for Susan Calvin. But I would also acknowledge that the Foundation novels are probably more, ah, foundational to science fiction. So it's a toss-up.

I noticed, for one thing, that apparently I read no SF published from around 2000-2010, except for Bujold

I'd have to consult some calendars, but I think there were some other hobbies you were doing around that time, and oh, maybe finishing up formal school and getting a job. Might've been a Kid #1 in there as well.

[cahn]

I knooooow how can you not have Vinge? Or Bujold/Card/Cherryh/Willis??

Hee, yeah, I had a couple of other things going on there :)