Top 10 in Bordem

[lead_sponge]

So I stumbled upon the Top 10 Science Fiction novels of 2008. The typical authors are there, namely Neal Stephenson and Ian M. Banks. I don't know what it is, but I find science fiction and fantasy quite a chore to get through

Comments

[name_redacted]

I agree with you on Stephenson, though I enjoy him. I read Snow Crash first, which was a little much, then Cryptonomicon, and what I learned was, you pick up the book to read an amusing story/aside, and then you put it down for a while, and then you come back for another amusing story. Trying to actually read it as a book would be like trying to get your daily calorie requirement by eating cotton candy... After Crypto, I went back and read Zodiac, which was pretty good, and you can definitely see the hyperbolic arc that his writing style is on. There's part of me that wants to read the System of the World books, except a) reading them in this fashion would take forever, and b) I hardly have time to read anymore anyway.

I also enjoyed Charlie Stross's Atrocity Archive, which is sort of Douglas Adams and Chris Carter write HP Lovecraft fanfic.

I also agree with you on the Song of Fire and Ice books - fun War of the Roses fanfic, but altogether too many nipples. Or, as this gent puts it, "Knights Who Say 'Fuck.'"

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/10/20/mgk-versus-his-adolescent-reading-habits/

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/10/21/mgk-versus-his-adolescent-reading-habits-part-two/

http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2008/11/03/mgk-versus-his-adolescent-reading-habits-part-the-last/

Fact is, I pretty much haven't read ANY fantasy since Mists of Avalon, except when I decided to sit down and read the entire Robert E. Howard Conan corpus. Now THAT was good fun! And, most sci-fi leaves me cold as well. Oh, I pick up every William Gibson book, but that's about it. Right now, I'm working on Juvenal's Satires, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for about 20 years...