Heuristic

A while ago now NPR polled its readers online for what they thought the best 100 SFF books were. The list is a bit odd, with some series combined and other represented by one or two individual entries, but it was interesting nonetheless.

My friends promptly turned it into a meme, and I eventually got around to following suit. I’m writing this in a plain-text editor, so rather than bolding and italicizing I’ll just reorder the lists.

Of the 100 entries, I’ve read 77, left 3 unfinished, and haven’t read 20 (but most of those are on my to-read pile). I’m baffled by a few, and appalled by one. No, I won’t name it. There were also a couple that I think I’ve read, but wasn’t positive on, so left in the unread category.

Have read (or in the case of series, have read a substantial number of the books; 77)

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
22. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
23. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
24. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
25. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
26. The Stand, by Stephen King
27. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
28. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
30. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
32. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Have not read (20)

12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
29. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
31. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldon
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville

Started but didn’t finish (3)

46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock

Most of the older ones I read because my father had copies, and I read voraciously as a child. Asimov, Bradbury, and so forth, while I was too young to have any concept of “popular” as applied to books, really. After that I moved on to public libraries, which were also likely to have the most popular works of SFF. Now I still read popular works, but the arbiters of popular for me have changed dramatically.

It’s the end of the year at work, and that has prompted me to make a list of publications to date. So far in 2011, I’ve had published:

• Four peer-reviewed scientific journal articles
• One peer-reviewed scientific book chapter
• One science essay for Clarkesworld
• Nine essays for Science in My Fiction
• Five reviews for The Portal
• One article for TWIST
• One reprinted anthology

There’s no new fiction on that list. I think I’ve only finished one short story in 2011, though I’ve started several. I did finish a novel draft, though the revisions are going very slowly. The rest of the list goes a long way toward explaining the lack of new fiction, though it doesn’t satisfy me. Objective for the rest of 2011: send some short stories out, and see if I can change the last item.

Isn’t that all we ever talk about around here? Apparently.

Remember that zombie book that I had a story in (Rigor Amortis, Absolute XPress, 2010)? The one that sold a gajillion copies and is being reprinted?

The publish date isn’t until mid-October, but there are copies in the dealer room at WorldCon in Reno. (Where I’m not, but I plan to be in Chicago next year!) So exciting!

And some links, both writing and science:

PublishAmerica does it again. Simply amazing.

Free will? Nope, just parasites.

New way to develop models for 3D printing, one of my pet tech interests: evolve them. (Anyone else remember Richard Dawkins’ software for The Blind Watchmaker?)

Augmented reality is another pet interest, and this company’s prototype is amazing: 3D real-time optical tracking? Wow.

I know, two topics you’ve totally never seen here before!

First the writing.

How to write a book in three days. Michael Moorcock did it, and explained how.

If that wasn’t enough to think about, here’s Lester Dent’s Master Plot Formula for pulps.

And then the science.

Those word count progress bars? Just might help you succeed!

But whatever you do, watching TV should be avoided. There are so many reasons, but a really big one is that it has a serious impact on life expectancy, possibly even worse than smoking.

More reasons that drinking coffee is good for you: skin cancer prevention.

And if, like me, you combine the two, the deadline for the Science in My Fiction anthology is fast approaching. Got your story done?

I have an enormous backlog of half-finished articles, links and videos and cool things, brilliant ideas, flash fictions that fade in the middle… I haven’t had time or internet access sufficient to get them all out to you.

It actually isn’t due to spending all my time on Google+, honest. See above, lack of internet access (thanks, Verizon).

But here are a couple, at least:

I have a new Science in My Fiction article, on self-driving cars. Want!

I’m a reader, most or all of my friends are readers, many of my acquaintances are readers. But is that something we should expect of everyone?

The truth about Van Halen’s brown M&Ms. This is fascinating, and clever.

The absolutely wonderful and highly influential Hermione Granger series.

And some Friday music.

This Cold Mailmen video really is stop motion. They did it in a set of Norwegian office buildings that were vacant and set to be demolished.

The internet, that is, luring me away from whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing. And really, it’s too hot to be doing anything, so why not? (Don’t answer that, please.)

Some highlights:

How sci-fi let women be in charge – I’m bothered by the title. “Let women be in charge” is rather condescending. The whole article feels a little off to me, as if it were written by someone (a woman) who doesn’t respect or understand genre fiction, but researched a few things for the story. But maybe I was just thrown by the title, something the writer probably didn’t get to choose. And as always, don’t read the comments.

Switching gears entirely, a dense and thought-provoking essay on the roots of fantasy from Cat Valente, her Guest of Honor lecture at Mythcon. It’s worth the time to read, and then reread, and then ponder.

The photo of the day.

I’m going to be at Confluence in Pittsburgh this weekend. Anyone else going to be there?

The damned things are breeding like bunnies: I have seven short stories in progress, plus a double-handful of fragments and ideas, and just added another to the list. Plus, um, three novels-in-progress. One entirely drafted and being revised (yes, really), one about 2/3 way through, but in need of gobs of work, and one in near-complete outline. Plus a fourth, that has setting and character, and nothing else.

Yes, even at that developmental stage I can tell the difference between a novel idea and a story idea. The latter is a geode, something small and shiny that I can cup in my hands, while a novel idea is the entire landscape.

I don’t think I ever posted a picture of the faeriestone I found along the shore of Lake Michigan. It’s dark gray and black, and has holes pierced all the way through. I can hold it to my eye and see out the other side, always useful for seeing things that aren’t there. And it’s sparkly inside.

That’s a short story.

I have three that need to be tweaked and resubmitted. They should not spend as much time lazing around the house as they do. The dog and the cat are entitled; the stories need someone else to love them. I’m tempted to shove them farther down the food chain, just to get them out, but I will try a few more of the top places first.

And then there are the three stories that I need to finish. This morning’s plan was to arise early and work on them. One has a lovely (well, not really at all pleasant, but eye-catching) beginning and an ending that makes me happy, but neither title nor middle. The second was started for a project-with-deadline, and it has a setting and character and feel and ending, plus some thoughts, but I’ve found an even more appropriate place to send it, one which would avoid a constraint that’s been niggling at me. And the third? That’s the replacement for the deadline-intended story that’s been sidetracked. It has a title, and a disturbing and intriguing main character, and a potential ending. I can work with that, I think.

I have the most fun writing short stories if, like the geode, I have the entire tale in my grasp before I write it. Sometimes I have to write it to learn what the tale is, and I have a harder time with that.

So as I said, I was going to write early this morning, when it was quiet and cool. Instead, I have been stalking authors I like on the internets (reading old blogs, nothing actually creepy). This is interesting, and perhaps somewhat useful even, but not directly relevant to any of the things I should be doing. The same is true for blogging, and yet.

I also picked a bowl of black raspberries and made them into whole-wheat sourdough scones, a practice I highly recommend.

I should be finishing these stories, and I should be working, because I am desperately behind at the office. And there is this fascinating side project that should have been done a year ago. I am ever full of things to do, in a way that vastly exceeds my ability to do them. And this is after weeding out the less-suitable ones, truly.

So. I will go look for a story-middle or two in the shower, and I will make a caffeinated beverage that it isn’t too hot to drink, and I will turn off the internet (much though I love you all), and I will write.

But until I come up with something suitable for public dissemination, here, have a fun thing.

Here.

Enjoy! Leave comments there!

Chuck Wendig, on writing myths.

Short version: writers are not Speshul Snowflakes.