Another Must Read Book List

[Mike]

ForbiddenPlanet.com has release "yet another must read sci-fi book list" (tm). It seems like a good list, what do you think?

http://forbiddenplanet.com/picks/50-s...

Mike

[Kris]

Nice list...might quibble with the ranking some but over all all good stories to read. I think I have read about 20 of them and I knew of the others. I would add a Gregory Benford some where.

[Paul]

Wow Dune number 1 and The Reality Dysfunction number 46

Not the way I would do it - but that is just me :)

Great list though - plenty books for me to read

[Colin]

Interesting list.

I'm surprised that I've read as many of the top 50 titles as I have - usually, I can only scrape together four or five of the listed titles.

[Joana]

Huh, a lot of those are on my wish list. I've actually only read 4 of them. Which isn't all that bad considering I've only started reading SciFi maybe 3-4 years ago.

[Patrick]

Funny I was re-reading Gateway the other day. Not sure I'd put it in the top 10. However I'm glad to see the Dispossessed in the top 10. I've read 24 of them and several others are on my to read list.

[Sean]

Since the list leans heavily on the SF Masterworks series, which is renowned for certain biases, this comes as no surprise, but is worth mentioning anyway: only four out of fifty slots are taken up by women, and none by persons of color.

[Patrick]

Sean wrote: "... and none by persons of color."

I thought Samual R Delany was African American. Still, you are right, it's a small number.

[Andrew]

Sean wrote: "Since the list leans heavily on the SF Masterworks series, which is renowned for certain biases, this comes as no surprise, but is worth mentioning anyway: only four out of fifty slots are taken up..."

I tend to be story over author kind of guy (that is to say I often will read for the story with no real knowledge of who the author is - not that I may wish to find out later, or come to love certain authors work). So I haven't really thought about the questions of (authorship and acclaim) bias in the genre with relation to feminism or ethnicity, but I have no doubt that such biases exist as in many areas of life.

Therefore I'm curious. On a pure numbers level do you have some idea of the number of published works by female verse male authors in the genre? And probably even harder question, that of their race or ethnic group? Probably a question for another thread or one may exist, but your comment did make me curious.

As a list it seems reasonable, drawing strongly from the SF Masterworks collection as mentioned. I think numbering these kinds of lists is almost silly with the implied ranking that is always so subjective.

[Sean]

Patrick wrote: "Sean wrote: "... and none by persons of color."

I thought Samual R Delany was African American. Still, you are right, it's a small number."

You're right. I missed Babel 17. But still, no Ted Chiang, no Octavia Butler, no CJ Cherryh, no Mary Shelley, no Andre Norton, no CL Moore.

[Philip]

It just seems wrong to me that Heinlein is represented only by The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. I know it's difficult to pick just one book by him as his definitive work, though. His Future History covers many books, but that's what really comes to mind when I think of him. That and his YA's, which were my introduction to the SF genre as a child and why I have such affection for his books still.

[Sean]

Andrew wrote: "Sean wrote: "Since the list leans heavily on the SF Masterworks series, which is renowned for certain biases, this comes as no surprise, but is worth mentioning anyway: only four out of fifty slots..."

There's the SF Mistressworks list that was created as a direct response to the overwhelming bias of the Masterworks series.

For non-white authors, they're plenty of them out there -- Delany, Barnes, Butler, Chiang, plus a huge number of Japanese authors.

[Andrew]

Sean wrote: "Andrew wrote: "Sean wrote: "Since the list leans heavily on the SF Masterworks series, which is renowned for certain biases, this comes as no surprise, but is worth mentioning anyway: only four out..."


Thanks for the link. Who is managing the site? is it Cheryl Morgan. Was unclear. Know and have read a few of the authors, though many more that I don't or haven't.

I guess my query was more a question of gender representation being moreso an artefact of the historic skew of quantities published verses an ongoing injustice of acclaim or bias. Was curious if anyone has been pragmatic enough to look at it as a numbers question.

There is also the challenge that these lists represent the embedded bias that ‘has’ existed, but it becomes hard to remove authors on terms of gender just as the question of lack of inclusion is raised, because at the end of the day regardless of said qualities (gender/ethnicity) their works are worthy of note.

[Sean]

Historically it's hard to know the gender breakdown because of so many female authors going by male names (Andre Norton, James Tiptree) or initials (C.L. Moore). These days there's still gender bias in the books published (IIRC, women are only about 40% of the science fiction market), but the major disparity is in book reviews and best-of lists which tend to be overwhelmingly masculine.

[Andrew]

Sean wrote: "Historically it's hard to know the gender breakdown because of so many female authors going by male names (Andre Norton, James Tiptree) or initials (C.L. Moore). These days there's still gender bia..."

Since there are threads such as Women & Minorities in Science Fiction I'll park further discussion as it is likely better directed to those threads rather than this one about a specific SF list. I still think it would be interesting to see some better insight into the phenomena beyond that it is apparent.

[Nevan]

I can't believe that it didn't feature Dan Simmons' Hyperion. Oh, well.

[Tamahome]

117 comments and counting... (will you take the joanna russ pledge and women in sf)

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011...

[Patrick]

Nevan wrote: "I can't believe that it didn't feature Dan Simmons' Hyperion. Oh, well."

Hyperion would have been on my list too.

[Kris]

Tamahome wrote: "117 comments and counting... (will you take the joanna russ pledge and women in sf)

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011......"

Thanks for the link Tamahome that was a great read...

[Sean]

Tamahome wrote: "117 comments and counting... (will you take the joanna russ pledge and women in sf)

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011......"

Ah, cool, one of the comments actually sources my claim that 40% of SF books are by women -- it was a study of books listed in Locus.

Also, N.K. Jemisin's contribution is beautiful:

People who go from the simple "make an effort" of the pledge to "OMG YOUS WIMMINS ARE OPPRESHING ME QUOTAS GULAGS MEN REDUCED TO NEKKID CASTRATED SLAVES WOMEN PLAYING FOOTBALL CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER THE END OF THE WORLD!!!1!" ...aren't worth trying to have a reasoned discussion with. And given that this is repetition 39728 of sexism-in-genre discussions here at SF Signal that have gone pear-shaped due to these kinds of hysterical sexist reactions, they're not even entertaining anymore. So imma go write some more books.