Tag: canon-forming

Twenty Epics

For anyone who didn’t click through, yesterday’s post about essential sf books of the last twenty years provoked quite a lot of discussion, plus the suggestion that we repeat the experiment with fantasy books. For me at least, this is a somewhat more daunting prospect, not just because I’ve read less fantasy than sf, but because fantasy seems more a much more diffuse category. Terry points to this discussion about “essential reads in literary fantasy”, which may provoke some thoughts, although it’s not limited to the last two decades. Possibly also useful for reference are the winners of the World Fantasy Awards for best novel, best anthology and best collection.

Graham Sleight’s already offered his first-draft list:

  • Aegypt sequence (1987-2006), John Crowley [I know it falls slightly outside the period, but just considering the three in-period novels would be silly.]
  • Rats and Gargoyles (1990), Mary Gentle
  • Moonwise (1991), Greer Gilman
  • The Ends of the Earth (1991), Lucius Shepard
  • Was (1992), Geoff Ryman
  • The Course of the Heart (1992), M John Harrison
  • Wise Children (1992), Angela Carter
  • Glimpses (1993), Lewis Shiner
  • The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (1993), Michael Swanwick
  • His Dark Materials sequence (1995-2000), Philip Pullman
  • Waking the Moon (1995), Elizabeth Hand
  • The Physiognomy (1997), Jeffrey Ford
  • Declare (2000), Tim Powers
  • Perdido Street Station (2000), China Mieville
  • The Other Wind (2001), Ursula Le Guin
  • Stranger Things Happen (2001), Kelly Link
  • Coraline (2002), Neil Gaiman
  • The Salt Roads (2003), Nalo Hopkinson
  • Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), Susanna Clarke
  • Map of Dreams (2006), M Rickert

Lal also mentioned some fantasy novels:

  • The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick (1993)
  • A Game Of Thrones, George R. R. Martin (1997)
  • Perdido Street Station, China Mieville (2000)
  • Declare, Tim Powers (2000)
  • Galveston, Sean Stewart (2000)
  • Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susannah Clarke (2004)
  • Worldstorm, James Lovegrove (2005)

Taking these into account, and engaging in some further consultation, here’s my suggestion:

  • Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay (1990)
  • Tehanu, Ursula Le Guin (1990)
  • The Course of the Heart, M John Harrison (1992)
  • The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick (1993)
  • Was, Geoff Ryman (1992)
  • Assassin’s Apprentice, Robin Hobb (1995)
  • His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
  • A Game Of Thrones, George R. R. Martin (1997)
  • The Physiognomy, Jeffrey Ford (1997)
  • Last Summer at Mars Hill, Elizabeth Hand (1998)
  • Perdido Street Station, China Mieville (2000)
  • Ash, Mary Gentle (2000)
  • Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link (2001)
  • City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer (2001)
  • Coraline, Neil Gaiman (2002)
  • The Light Ages, Ian R MacLeod (2003)
  • Trujillo, Lucius Shepard (2004)
  • Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke (2004)
  • Map of Dreams, M. Rickert (2006)
  • Discworld, Terry Pratchett (ongoing)

Now: over to you.

The Canons That Came In From the Cold

Cheryl Morgan has posted the results of the “20 essential science fiction books of the past 20 years” panel from Denvention, in which she, Graham Sleight, Gary Wolfe, Karen Burnham and Charles Brown each drew up a list, and then they discussed. Some observations.

  • Picking entire series of books seems like cheating to me. I can see a case for something like Science in the Capitol, or Book of the Long Sun, which really are long stories split into multiple volumes; but having all the Culture books, or the entire Fall Revolution sequence, is just greedy.
  • I am baffled by the fact that Charles Brown apparently can’t think of enough essential sf books from the last 20 years to fill out a list of 20; that said, given the cheating noting above, and the fact that Karen’s list has 22 items on it anyway, I guess it balances out.
  • Books that I am surprised did not get more mentions: A Fire Upon the Deep; Stories of Your Life and Others; China Mountain Zhang; The Sparrow; Light; The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (particularly given the tendency to pick “emblematic” books rather than strictly “essential” ones; would it be on anyone’s list now that it’s won the Hugo, I wonder?)
  • Books that I am surprised were mentioned as many times as they were: The Course of the Heart (even allowing for a generous definition of “science fiction”); Magic for Beginners (ditto); Diaspora (that’s the most essential Egan from this period? Really?); Against the Day (wishful thinking there, I feel); Antarctica (I love it, and I suppose it is a half-way house between the landscape of the Mars books and the focus of the Capitol books, but it still seems a perverse choice for a representative KSR book).
  • Books mentioned by all five panellists: as Cheryl Morgan notes, only one: River of Gods.
  • Authors mentioned by all five panellists: Ian McDonald; Dan Simmons; Kim Stanley Robinson.
  • Years with the most books mentioned (counting series from the publication of the first volume): 1989; 1992; 1996; 2004 (six each).
  • Years with the fewest books mentioned: 1988; 2001; 2003; 2007; 2008 (one each).
  • A consensus list (being those books that got more than one mention, with authors’ most often-mentioned books chosen in cases where authors have more than one book mentioned, or conflated into series choices where necessary):
    • The Culture Novels, Iain M Banks (starting 1987)
    • The Hyperion Cantos, Dan Simmons (starting 1989)
    • Grass, Sherri S Tepper (1989)
    • The Aleutian Trilogy, Gwyneth Jones (starting 1991)
    • The Mars Trilogy, Kim Stanley Robinson (starting 1992)
    • Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson (1992)
    • The Flower Cities sequence, Kathleen Ann Goonan (starting 1994)
    • Fairyland, Paul McAuley (1996)
    • Diaspora, Greg Egan (1997)
    • Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds (2000)
    • The Arabesks, Jon Courtenay Grimwood (starting 2000)
    • Light, M John Harrison (2002)
    • Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang (2002)
    • Evolution, Stephen Baxter (2003)
    • Pattern Recognition, William Gibson (2003)
    • Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
    • Air, Geoff Ryman (2004)
    • River of Gods, Ian McDonald (2004)
    • Accelerando, Charles Stross (2005)
    • Spin, Robert Charles Wilson (2005)
  • If I could do some kind of fancy sequence analysis, I could work out whose list most agrees or disagrees with this consensus; it’s also my sense, eyeballing the aggregate data, that there is more consensus about the past decade than there is about the nineties, but I’m not sure how to analyze that, either. The larger questions, though, are: which list do you most agree with? And what do you think is missing?