Wastrel Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 (edited) Mod note: In order to keep the top of Literature clean, here are the links all in one place. Please direct your recommendations (no discussion) to one of these threads. Looking for a book to read? Look no further. Fantasy and Science Fiction Series Fantasy and Science Fiction Standalone Books Fantasy and Science Fiction Obscure Works Non-Modern Fantastical Literature Other literature (literary fiction, non-fic, etc.) Below are posts from the thread "Westeros Fantasy and Science Fiction Book List". This was a poll done in 2010 of posters in this forum and a list compiled from there. It is unranked, but straddles many people's recommendation lists. -Kat Original post below:------------------------ I've already posted this over in the original thread, but perhaps a new thread/post for stickying would be appropriate.-----------------The Main List:The Affirmation – Christopher PriestThe Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael ChabonThe Anubis Gates – Tim PowersThe Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel Garcia MarquezThe Black Company – Glen CookeBlindness – Jose SaramagoThe Book of the New Sun – Gene WolfeBrave New World – Aldous HuxleyA Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller, Jr.Cat's Cradle – Kurt VonnegutChildhood's End – Arthur C. ClarkeChina Mountain Zhang – Maureen McHughThe Chronicles of Amber – Roger ZelaznyThe Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. LewisThe Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) – Stephen DonaldsonA Clockwork Orange – Anthony BurgessThe H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus – H.P. LovecraftThe Dark Tower – Stephen KingDiscworld – Terry Pratchett* [see Note]The Dispossessed – Ursula K. Le GuinDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. DickDoomsday Book – Connie WillisDownbelow Station – C.J. CherryhDracula – Bram StokerDune – Frank HerbertThe Dying Earth – Jack VanceThe Dying of the Light – George R.R. MartinThe Earthsea Trilogy – Ursula K. Le GuinThe Empire Trilogy – Raymond E. Feist and Janny WurtsEnder's Quartet – Orson Scott CardThe Farseer Trilogy – Robin HobbThe Fencer Trilogy – K.J. ParkerFevre Dream – George R.R. MartinFictions – Jorge Luis BorgesThe Forever War – Joe HaldemanThe Foundation Trilogy – Isaac AsimovThe Gap Series – Stephen DonaldsonGood Omens – Terry Pratchett and Neil GaimanThe Gormenghast Trilogy – Mervyn PeakeThe Gospel According to Jesus Christ - Jose SaramagoA Handmaid's Tale – Margaret AtwoodThe Harry Potter Series – J.K. RowlingHellblazer – Garth EnnisHis Dark Materials – Philip PullmanThe Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts – Douglas AdamsThe Hobbit – J.R.R. TolkienHyperion – Dan SimmonsI Am Legend – Richard MathesonThe Illiad - HomerInvisible Cities – Italo CalvinoThe Iron Dragon's Daughter – Michael SwanwickThe Last Unicorn – Peter S. BeagleThe Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le GuinThe Lions of Al-Rassan – Guy Gavriel KayLittle, Big – John CrowleyThe Liveship Traders – Robin HobbLord of Light – Roger ZelaznyThe Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. TolkienLucifer's Hammer – David Niven and Jerry PournelleThe Lyonesse Trilogy– Jack VanceThe Glass Bead Game – Hermann HesseThe Man in the High Castle – Philip K. DickThe Master and Margarita – Mikhail BulgakovMemory, Sorrow and Thorn – Tad WilliamsMidnight's Children – Salman RushdieThe Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. HeinleinLe Morte D'Arthur – Thomas MalloryMythago Wood – Robert HoldstockNeuromancer – William GibsonThe Night’s Dawn Trilogy – Peter F. HamiltonNineteen Eighty-Four – George OrwellOdyssey - HomerOne Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia MarquezOnly Forward – Michael Marshall SmithOtherland – Tad WilliamsPermutation City – Greg EganPlanet of Adventure – Jack VanceThe Prestige – Christopher PriestReplay – Ken GrimwoodThe Riddle-Master Trilogy – Patricia A. McKillipSandman – Neil GaimanThe Sarantine Mosaic – Guy Gavriel KayShardik – Richard AdamsThe Silmarillion – J.R.R. TolkienSlaughterhouse 5 – Kurt VonnegutSnow Crash – Neal StephensonSolaris – Stanislaw LemThe Soldier Trilogy (Soldier of the Mist, Soldier of Arete, and Soldier of Sidon)– Gene WolfeA Song of Ice and Fire – George R.R. MartinThe Stand – Stephen KingThe Stars My Destination – Alfred BesterStarship Troopers – Robert A. HeinleinTigana – Guy Gavriel KayThe Tooth Fairy – Graham JoyceTransmetropolitan – Warren EllisUse of Weapons – Iain M. BanksThe Warlord Trilogy – Bernard CornwellWatchmen – Alan MooreWatership Down – Richard AdamsWe – Yevgeny ZamyatinThe Wheel of Time – Robert JordanHonourable Mentions: Salem’s Lot (Stephen King), Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis), The Once and Future King (T.H. White), The Elric Series (Michael Moorcock), A Fire Upon The Deep (Vernor Vinge), Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), The Vorkosigan Saga (Lois McMaster Bujold), The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry), Gravity’s Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon), and The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri).*Nota Bene: The Discworld series is extremely long, and variable in style and quality, with litte connexion between many of the novels, and so would probably have better been considered as separate novels. However, the voting was overwhelmingly for it as a series. Furthermore, the most popular individual Discworld book, Night Watch, is generally considered one of the least independent books, and one of the least appropriate for beginners. The second-most mentioned book, Small Gods, is a standalone novel with few connexions to any other novels in the series, and is therefore probably a better starting point for newcomers; however, I didn’t feel it would be legitimate to promote it over Night Watch in this vote (it is not my place to make these decisions), and so rather than list the less accessible book, I acquiesced to the popular voting pattern and listed the entire series, with the addition of this explanatory note. Edited July 22, 2015 by Kat Added new links Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wastrel Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 Ten Works from the 21st Century:Acts of Caine – Matthew StoverBlack Man – Richard MorganThe First Law Trilogy – Joe AbercrombieThe Lies of Locke Lamora – Scott LynchThe Long Price Quartet – Daniel AbrahamThe Malazan Book of the Fallen – Steven EriksonThe Orphan’s Tales – Cathrynne M. ValentePrince of Nothing – R. Scott BakkerThe Scar – China MièvilleStories of Your Life and Others – Ted ChiangHonourable Mentions: The Road (Cormac McCarthy), American Gods (Neil Gaiman), City of Saints and Madmen (Jeff Vandermeer), Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell), Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke), The Wizard Knight (Gene Wolfe), Chasm City (Alastair Reynolds), Anathem (Neal Stephenson). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wastrel Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 I won't bore you with the details of the mythology, but to say that all elections should be considered in the context of their electoral systems, and their electoral systems should be considered in the context of their objectives and constraints.To that end, if anybody wants to read about what the poll tried to achieve, how it tried to achieve it, and what that meant it was unable to achieve, I've explained the methodology, and answered some potential questions about it, on my blog, with the posts indexed HERE.Headline Summary: this list should not be read as a pure "best of" list - a popular vote can't achieve that. There are books on the list that aren't that good, and books that are very good. But every book on the list is likely to be worth reading... for some or other reader; and every reader (at least, every reader interested in the genre) should find something here they find worth reading. It's not a statement of what the board can completely AGREE is worth listing (that would be a very short list); it seeks to compromise between consensus agreement and an eclectic expression of as many tastes as possible. Perhaps it should be seen as a statement: "this is what we like" - and that doesn't entail that we all like all of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tormund Ukrainesbane Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Is it possible (and do you have the time) to present the list in a ranked format from 1 - 100? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wastrel Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 Short answer no with an if, long answer yes with a but.I could, but there would be some issues with it. First, the books have got to the list in various ways (first slots, variously qualified additional slots, passed-on slots, and placement on the Greats List). Second, the votes were aggregated by author. So what's the ranking going to be based on? Total votes for that author? Total votes for that book? Total votes for the most popular book by that author? Is there a bonus for Greats votes? Is there a penalty for being the second or third listed book by a given author?I could answer these questions, but the answers would be arbitrary - all electoral systems are arbitrary, and this would just be yet another level of arbitration. But, more importantly, I won't do that, because that contravenes the purpose of the list as I see it. I repeat again: this isn't a list of the 101 best books ever, in order. It didn't set out to be that. It's merely an attempt, perhaps, at the best list of 101 books. A popular poll like this one simply CANNOT produce a ranked list of the greatest books, because of the massive disparities between what different voters have read (if voters are not ranking the same candidates, their rankings are not commensurable). For that, you need to look at the unified voice of an expert, or at most the aggregate voices of a group of experts (an interesting project for another time). This sort of popular vote cannot even find "the most popular" candidate, because it cannot distinguish between a book not being voted for because it is disliked, a book not being voted for because it is not known, and a book not being voted for because it is liked but ranked outside that voter's top twenty. Not to mention the fact that there is no such thing as "the" most popular - different electoral systems will give you different answers.If you DID really want a ranked list of the most popular books, the basis of such a poll would have to be getting people to share their opinion on every single book in an exhaustive list of books - it's the only way to avoid the ambiguities mentioned above. The mechanics would be very arbitrary, of course, but such a project would be feasible.However, even if that had interested me, it wouldn't have been possible in this case - because I didn't HAVE an exhaustive list of candidate books, and because the number of voters would certainly have been smaller if there was a compulsory 600-book ballot sheet, and also because the amount of work would have been immense. Feel free to try!---So, I can't give you a meaningful ranked list. No poll of this sort possibly can. I could give you a ranked list anyway, and it would still be interesting for some purposes, but it wouldn't really be a ranking OF anything. In light of this, I think the only responsible thing to do is to refuse to give something that the methodology cannot support.That said, obviously Martin and Tolkien were in a level of their own. Tolkien narrowly but comfortably beat Martin, and The Lord of the Rings beat The Silmarillion, but A Song of Ice and Fire beat both (but didn't beat their combined total).R. Scott Bakker and Gene Wolfe formed a second tier by themselves. Herbert, Mieville, Kay, Simmons and Orwell then followed in their own tier, with Card rounding out the top ten.That's by "points" (which take into account which tier they were in on the ballot). In terms of overall how-often-were-they-mentioned votes, the top ten were Tolkien, Martin, Mieville, Wolfe, Bakker, Herbert, Abercrombie, Kay, Gaiman and Hobb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedEyedGhost Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 I don't need or even care if we get a list by number of votes, but a 'tiered' list would be nice.We voted in tiers so it would be nice to see which are the top 20%, then the next 40%, and the final 40%.And thanks for all the time and effort you've put into this Wastrel. It's definitely appreciated :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wastrel Posted March 4, 2010 Author Share Posted March 4, 2010 (edited) How would voting in tiers equate to results in tiers? In STV, for instance, people give first, second and so forth preferences - but they don't elect a "first choice MP", "second choice MP" and so forth. All the people elected are equal...I could make a rough tiering, but I don't see the point. Remember, the more detail you want, the more arbitrary that detail is. For instance, I'm happy with my system of point allocation when it comes to selecting a list of books, but I'd be less happy with it if it came to any sort of ranking or tiering - and small changes in it could produce large changes in outcome. Is Orwell 7th - or 26th? Is Bulgakov 42nd - or 98th? It all depends on the details of the scoring system. And, again, do I tier the books or the authors? Tiering the books, when I've said that all votes for an author count for them, is rather cheating the voters who ahve taken me at that word and voted for a lesser-known book by a top author. This isn't all the books that were listed. There were something like 650 of those, and there's only about 1/6th of them here. And if it looks like an overview of what was voted for the most... well, that tends to be how elections work, yes. I can't wave a magic wand and pluck out some fascinating discovery that goes beyond the votes.That said, I'll think about how feasible/honest a tiering could be, given the discontent. Also, if people have specific questions about how authors did, I don't mind answering those. I've already given you the top ten - and as you go down the list, the difference between the different authors get smaller and less meaningful.EDIT: Also, you seem to suggest that this is only how often they've been listed - whereas in fact, as the methodology explains, it also matters HOW they are listed - top-tier votes carry more weight than bottom-tier votes. Edited March 4, 2010 by Wastrel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kat Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 In order to keep the top of Literature clean, here are the links all in one place. Please direct your recommendations to one of these threads. Looking for a book to read? Look no further. Fantasy and Science Fiction Series Fantasy and Science Fiction Standalone Books Fantasy and Science Fiction Obscure Works Other literature (literary fiction, non-fic, etc.) I am also moving posts from the thread "Westeros Fantasy and Science Fiction Book List" here. This was a poll done in 2010 of posters in this forum and a list compiled from there. It is unranked, but straddles many people's recommendation lists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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