A few must read lists and Matthew has a snow day rant on Sci-Fi/Fantasy
I got a book about a year ago from the Bloomsbury Good Reading Guides series called, "100 Must-Read Science Fiction Novels," and just picked up, “100 Must-Read Fantasy Novels,” both of which have extensive lists of the must read novels and 1000 total additional suggestions to compliment the entries. You can find the amazon pages here(SF) and here(Fantasy).
While perusing the SF book, I became intrigued as to the break down of who was published, so I started to compile the data the book presents, primarily year of publication, country of author, etc... What I found was very interesting. A few of the revelations seemed normal from a genre dominated by male figures (90% of the books on the list were written by men, which is again not very surprising given the genre). The most astounding piece of information to me was the dominance by Americans in the list. I expected it to be high but about 70% is American, 25% is British and 5% is other, which blew my mind! I expected around 50% to be American, 40% British and 10% other. The other is surprising too, 1 Canadian (which was listed as Canadian/American, so I rounded towards Canada), 1 French (Only Verne... who basically founded the modern genre), 1 Russian (total and utter crap, there is plenty of good Russian SF, but I guess not widely translated so not on here), 1 Australian and 1 Pole. The 1 Polish entry was understandable (Lem is the biggest from his country, so I kind of felt he'd overshadow and be the only one from Poland), but one Australian? I know I read a good deal of British Sci-Fi and a fair amount of Australian, but it just surprised me that there weren't more names from Down Under on the list. The statistics don't change drastically if you remove repeat offenders either (people with more than one entry on the list). Only one Verne novel was on there, and it was Journey not 10,000 Leagues. Verne was the grandfather of the genre for crying out loud! The graph below does not account for repeats.
I also looked at publication date. The mean year of publication was 1964, which was also in the most populous decade. 1960s had the most novels published with 23, followed closely by the 1970s with 18. Next was the 1950s with 18 as well and after that it kind of bells outward. There is definitely a bell curve, which indicates trending that the best Sci-Fi has come and gone (not surprising). I am bummed by this prospect and hope it isn't true but do acknowledge it probably is. Most would say the distribution is skewed, but looking at it and thinking of later years, it is a bell curve and not skewed. The graph below does not account for repeats.
Looking at the Fantasy though interested me greatly when I saw the results. The mean publication date for Fantasy was also 1964 (whole years) but the distribution was different. The 1970s were the most populous decade by far, and the 1980s were close too. The distribution here is different, it is belled but there is a second hump in the 1930s range, looks like a diminishing sinusoidal wave, like tunneling particles. The Fantasy list though had more well renowned authors on it, Virginia Wolf for example. The term fantasy was expanded to include magical realism, which encompasses a lot of modern fiction from very prominent authors. The writers, however, realize that this is not what the majority of people think of when they think Fantasy so they kept it to a minimum. The graph below does not account for repeats.
This list also had more women, they were 20% of the list this time, not 10 (21 if you remove repeat offenders). I actually expected this list to be dominated by the British again, but surprisingly enough, it is and it isn’t. The British win book wise, however, if you take out repeat authors, the Americans actually win. We had more authors on the list but fewer books, go figure. It was a close race too. The list also had a much more varied number of countries, but Canada comes in third with four (jumps from 40 to about 4). Finland, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, Ireland, Argentina and Australia all had one entry apiece. The repeat offenders are Terry Prachett/Neil Gaiman (they listed Good Omens and both each had an entry on the list but I wasn’t going to take off two for that), Tolkien and Michael Moorcock. The graph below does not account for repeats.
I can tell that I don’t read much Fantasy. When I started the list, I had read about 30% of the SF but only about 10% of the Fantasy. I don’t like a lot of Tolkien-style Fantasy with lots of magical creatures like elves. I love Sword and Sorcery (there is a difference, Conan is Sword and Sorcery) but hate lots of magical elves, runes, forgotten destinies, etc… it bogs me down. Elves this and poof that, I can’t wrap my mind around them. I also tend to go for more magic in the modern realm, whereas most fantasy takes place in a medieval realm.
These lists have renewed my interest in foreign language Sci-Fi and Fantasy. The lack of translated works, however, is disturbing, although I am finding a good deal of translated fan works on the web; I feel as if their validity comes into question (why can I accept fan subs of anime but a fan translation of a novel/short story seems invalid?). Thanks to Haika Soru, the new novel company from Viz, they have provided a good resource for Japanese Sci-Fi. I’ve read most of their collection so far (I just picked up Yukikaze) and I have a few German/Austrian translations coming in from Ebay. I am trying to get more from other countries (South African and African interest me as do Indian and Chinese) but the availability of it in American/English is rare. Chinese SF interests me a lot but it is virtually unobtainable in America. I am curious as to how their different mindset and censorship evolve their genres. There are huge articles on it but it is unknown here.
The lists fascinate me still, I have the OOP books in my house (via ebay) and I am beginning my way through it. I have read 40 of the books for SF so far (I skimmed a few of them when I got bored with them) and 10 Fantasy. There are a lot on this list I had never heard of before (The Journal of Nicholas the American, anybody?) and a lot that I’d like to see more of (I feel 200 might be a better number for both but it also dilutes the lists). I’m hoping to be up to 55 by the end of May, 70 by August and 85 by year’s end of the SF list. It is a bit ambitious, but we shall see.
I feel, for right now, Sci-Fi has gotten back into the adventure area that dominated the “Golden Age,” of the 30s through the 50s, when the genre was mainly escapist fiction for young boys, where the Carter novels crept up. Reading most modern (early 90s to today) it seems the genre has gotten out of the mind bending area with the deaths of Dick and Cordwainer Smith. John Brunner too wrote with intent as did Herbert, but the new writers just put words to paper. It is a good wank now and then but not very satisfying; it doesn’t leave you with an appreciation of the genre. Or it can be too scientific; the best part of Ubik was what Dick tried to convey not that it was scientifically accurate. Jack McDevitt is a great example of new writers. He basically writes adventure stories starring his main slew of heroes (he has a bunch of sagas), or David Webb with his Honor Harrington novels. They are not horrible novels, the writers rely more on the reader wanting to escape than expand his mind. Johnathan Lethem is maybe one of the few examples of modern SF writers who have different ideas and expresses them well (try, “Gun with Occasional Music,” for a great example), but he is one out of too many.
I truly was surprised that more Verne wasn’t on the SF list but three Wells entries were (he had the most at 3). Verne and Wells define the two main areas of the genre. Verne always tried to be scientific (From the Earth to the Moon) and Wells focused more on story using the, “science,” as a plot device (his ideas were bang on but most likely not scientific). I felt both men deserved equal footing being the grandfathers of the genre (would this make Shelly the Grandmother in some bizarre ménage-a-trois?) but only Wells got the respect he deserved. Although I am a self-admitted Asimov fan, I was surprised he got two on the list. Sure, he has written more books than most anybody alive but, “I, Robot,” is the most famous and the one for which he should be remembered. “Foundation,” is an amazing novel if you have not read it, but I wouldn’t put it on a must-read list, it can be a bit too dry for most readers, although I might include it to see how serialization from the pulps led to a novel. The must-read books do not give clear reasons why they include certain books nor do they give, in the introduction, reasons they don’t include others.
I thought about bringing race and gender orientation into the mix but I feel we all know the results (Samuel R. Delaney covers African Americans and Homosexuals for SF and that would probably be it based on the list, fantasy gets a bit trickier). I am not getting into a rant about how the genre is dominated by white straight American males because I’d need to get more into how it appeals to that demographic. Afrofuturism has not made a huge impact on the literary world but it is so engaging!
The SF list has been great so far, the average rating (out of 5) is about 4 for me, so most of them aren’t stinkers. Fantasy is about 3 out of 5, but then again, not liking Tolkien is kind of a death sentence in this genre. I rate, “Fahrenheit 451,” a 2 because I did make it through the novel without vomiting whereas most people call it frightening. I frankly hate the one-sided mentality Bradbury gives television and film, assuming they are one of the reasons for societal decay. When I am done I’ll probably list the ten I think are the most engaging and I would put on a “required reading,” list. I don’t know if I’ve read enough to compile a list like this, but suffice it to say, the graphs show it all. If you want to see the lists, send me an e-mail and I’ll let you have one (or both). The books give great commentaries on the genre and offer a good deal of follow up reading. I’ve done quite a bit of the follow up and it is phenomenal. Plus, the books offer up film suggestions and expanding with non-fiction books (books on making chain mail, books on nanotechnology) so I whole heartedly recommend both of them. They are small and good for the train (wallet sized editions).