Tag: lists

Yet More Top Tens

Because I have the data, and because I can, some alternatives to the overall list:

Top Ten SF Novels 2001-2010 by British Writers

1. The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall
2. Natural History by Justina Robson
3. Spirit by Gwyneth Jones
4. Life by Gwyneth Jones
5. Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
6. City of Pearl by Karen Traviss
7. The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston
8. Living Next-Door to the God of Love by Justina Robson
9. In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield
10. Hav by Jan Morris

Top Ten SF Novels 2001-2010 by American Writers

1. Maul by Tricia Sullivan
2. The Time-Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
3. Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
4. Lavinia by Ursula K Le Guin
5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
6. Passage by Connie Willis
7. Spin State by Chris Moriarty
8. Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh
9= Carnival by Elizabeth Bear
9= Hammered by Elizabeth Bear

Top Ten SF Novels 2001-2010 by Writers from the Rest of the World

1. Maul by Tricia Sullivan
2. Farthing by Jo Walton
3. Moxyland by Lauren Beukes
4. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
5. UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolo Guo
6= The Etched City by KJ Bishop
6= Lifelode by Jo Walton
8. Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
9. The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
10. The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia

Sincere apologies if I’ve mis-nationalised anyone in any of these lists — do let me know. [last update 12/12/10]

Ranking calculated from 101 responses to a poll run during October, November and December 2010.

List of the Day

Blatant blog-fodder, but hey: the Guardian is doing a series on 1000 novels everyone must read, and today they reached science fiction and fantasy (and horror). Don’t worry, I’m not going to post the whole list — Martin’s done that, if you’re interested — but here are the links:

I’m not sure to what extent the novels on the sidebar lists count towards the total; I assume Crumey’s list, at least, is separate, given that it overlaps with the main list and other sidebars, and I hope that, say, Susanna Clarke’s picks count towards the total, because they’re rather canonical, though I have no idea whether they’re counting The Chronicles of Narnia as one entry or seven. In a way I wish they’d done the whole thing as individual lists because that would make it easier to track the preferences of the nominators, though there are no real surprises (i.e. the vast majority of the genre-published books are picked by genre-published writers: Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Eric Brown, and Keith Brooke). The other nominators make plenty of interesting (or perhaps challenging) picks — Darkmans; The Blind Assassin; The Unconsoled — and there’s plenty to argue with in the list itself, which presumably is the point of the exercise. As Martin says, the idea that The Years of Rice and Salt is the Kim Stanley Robinson novel that everyone should read before they die is barmy, ditto Greg Bear and Darwin’s Radio; The Einstein Intersection is almost certainly not the essential Delany, ditto Calvino and The Baron in the Trees. And as ever, I’m sure you could come up with another list, just as long, comprised entirely of books omitted from this one. But, all things considered, not bad. I’ve read about a third.