A few must read lists and Matthew has a snow day rant on Sci-Fi/Fantasy

[lordgeon]

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(

Comments

[lordgeon]

Urban fantasy can be so much fun! Though Rowling doesn't do it justice, she turns wizards into snobs, looking down on the unmagical instead of befriending them and creating this resentment in those who do know of magic. She treats her, "muggles," such a horrid term too, as if they were Africans living in the bush at the turn of the century. They are ignorant and just make little trinkets which the wizards take for granted.

Neil Gaiman is weird. I enjoyed American Gods for the amount of Americana in the book (the weird attractions in America are reason enough!) but he drags the story out for too long and the ending is so unsatisfactory. His other novels are too heavy handed and the morals aren't just written on the wall, they are blaring from the air siren outside the house. Stardust was dreadful and Coraline was cringe-worthy. Mirrormask, which thankfully hasn't been turned into a novel, was visually brilliant and had a great ending but his personal touches in it were too much (the dark mother says the moral so loudly I just wanted to die!).

[dfordoom]

I just don't understand the Gaiman Cult, when there are writers of urban fantasy like Tim Powers and Charles de Lint.

[lordgeon]

I don't understand what everyone sees in him either. I feel like he is so overrated. I think he appeals to people who got into Sandman. Also, his pictures always show him with this mystic, gothic aura about him which seems to appeal to people, they think since he is sexy like that his writing must be phenomenal!.