io9 website booklist

http://io9.com/5924625/10-science-fiction-novels-you-pretend-to-have-read-and-wh...

Have you read them all? Is this a good list? Do you agree with the arguments made for each book?

It's a rather eclectic and unusual list. It's not bad, but I can't think of anyone I know who would have picked exactly those ten books, not even among a 25-best-books list.

A very odd list. I've read all but #1 and #10, although I've been interested in #1 for a long while.

Trying to explain Clarke's Strange & Norrell by comparison to James Branch Cabell strikes me as profoundly hilarious, for all that I'm a fan of both. Probably at least 100 times as many people have read Clarke as have read Cabell at this point.

Oh by all means, paradoxalpha, read Cryptonomicon. The description given in the article is apt--but it doesn't convey how much fun it is.

I've read 7 of the books and liked them all, despite the slightly academic snobbery attached to them. The other 3 are now on my list.

I admit I'm a little miffed at the "10 books you pretend you've read" in the post title.... I don't pretend to read books. I've either read them or I haven't! ;-)

Unfortunately a lot of people do pretend to read (and not simply just books).

The irony is that a lot of those I have met from that category buy either way.

Wierd species, human species.

I never did finish Dahlgren. (And heaven knows I gave it a good college try!!) For that matter, I never got through Gravity's Rainbow.

But I have read Dune multiple times as well as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I will have to hunt down that Leigh Brackett one, The Long Tomorrow; I like her stuff even though post-apocalyptic is a rather grim setting.

Regarding Cryptonomicon, I am saddened that the person they quote makes it sound like a chore. It's a delightful read, due to Stephenson's energy and mutant-like ability to make anything interesting.

DON'T read the Stapledon book; it's actually a recently-declassified Pentagon project consisting of pure weaponized boredom. In fact, the scientists who created it were so horrified that they recommended that DARPA be defunded, but in the atmosphere of the Cold War it was felt that this might lead to an insurmountable Soviet advantage in lethal boredom technology. Let's just hope we never have to use it.

>1 vwinsloe:

1) No, I've only read three (Cryptonomicon, Dune, and 1984). I've read 1984 more than once, though.

2) Yeah, I think it is, or at least eccentric and interesting.

3) Well, certainly for Cryptonomicon, as the article states, "A person who has recently read Cryptonomicon is temporarily the smartest person on Earth." Good news for me! :D

Note to whomever: The Dahlgren touchstone in post 7 is linking to a Civil War book.

I barely escaped the Stapledon book. Put me in the hospital for a week.

You were lucky to get out alive!

I put a copy of Gravity's Rainbow on hold at the library. I have no idea if I have read it before or not. Guess I will find out.

I read all but 1, 8 and 10 (and 8 is TBR) before I turned 30. I never felt like abandoning any of them, but I don't think I would have the energy to read some of them now.

I really enjoyed 1984 andFoundation, I thought Dune was overrated and Cryptonomicon was ok, but it was a chore to read. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell I abandoned about halfway through from boredom, so if I was going to pretend to read any of them, that would be the one. I've got Gravity's Rainbow sitting on a shelf, so I may make the attempt at some point. I'd be interested in the others if they fell in my lap at the right time, but I've got a massive TBR pile as it is.

> 14

I feel that way about Gravity's Rainbow, which I read in my early 20s. I stalled out a little over midway through Against the Day a couple of years ago, but I swear I'll get it done eventually. (I liked it!)

I've read....

2) Dune (and Dune Messiah and Children of Dune), agree with tottman that it's overrated, and think the sequels are even poorer.

3) Foundation (and Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation). I read them back in the very late sixties (and rated them highly), just recently reread them in the new Everyman edition, and rate them just as highly today. I also read Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth when they first came out but don't remember very much at all about them. I've got both somewhere around the house and should give them a reread. My favorite book of the franchise? Foundation and Empire.

5) Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and quite liked it, and I'm not ordinarily big on steampunk but it very much reminded me of the Bartimaeus trilogy (probably in large part because of the use of footnotes). Hmmm. To a degree it did run on a little too long, but I still liked it.

6) 1984. Of course I've read it. Definitely better than Animal Farm, but my own favorite Orwell of what I've read is the nonfiction war memoir Homage to Catalonia.

9) Dhalgren, don't remember anything about it, and recall having found it incomprehensible when I read it. In fairness, I ought to give it a reread.

My number one "fake it" would probably be Gravity's Rainbow. I've never read anything of Pynchon's, but I just picked up a real nice condition hardcover of Mason & Dixon on the cheap a couple weeks ago at a used bookstore. Eventually I'll give it a whirl.

I may have Cryptonomicon around the house in some TBR pile somewhere. The one I'd be most likely to read in the near future is The Long Tomorrow.

Read Cryptonomicon, Dune (multiple times), Foundation (terrible book), 1984, and Dhalgren (multiple times).

On the TBR: Gravity's Rainbow, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Starmaker (read First and Last Men, however), and The Long Tomorrow.

Some weird choices. Leigh Brackett is hardly that well-known, and if she is it's for planetary romance like The Sword of Rhiannon or The Secret of Sinharat. The Stephenson, Herbert, Delany, Pynchon and Clarke seem to have been chosen chiefly for their size. Dune is probably the worse of the six books in the series that Frank Herbert wrote (ignore the execrable McDune fanfic written by his son and Kevin J Anderson), though it is a good intro to the series. Dhalgren is superb, and one of my favourite novels. Foundation and its sequels only belong on lists of sf's worst books - thumpingly clumsy prose, cardboard characters, 1940s America transplanted into a galactic empire; it's risible.

The list looks nice, I have only read Dune from that list, though I am currently reading 1984 and Foundation is on my TBR list (after finishing the Robot series, I think I have just one or two left).

Going to look up other books when I am at a store.

I've read the Brackett, but I had hardly heard of it before I took interest in her work based on her planetary romances. It doesn't seem like the sort of book that would confer any advantage to "pretend to have read."

And by way of correction to my #3 I'll cop to having only read in the Stapledon, and thus validate its position in that list!

@Carnophile (#8) I fixed the offending touchstone in #7. Thanks for the heads up.

Do you think that Infinite Jest belongs on a list of sci-fi? I love the book, don't get me wrong, but is it a stretch to be on this list?

Of all of them, except perhaps Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest is the most likely to have been claimed to be read by pretenders. If all that these books have in common is their reading difficulty, then maybe Ulysses should be on it. Infinite Jest is only slightly more sci-fi than that because it takes place in the near future.

The Brackett's not difficult at all. It's not even long, despite the title.

I have read 3 of those, Dune, 1984 and Cryptonomicon. Enjoyed them all.
Started 2 others but could not get through Dhalgren or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

>21 jillmwo:
jillmwo, I'm glad you could change a touchstone; I thought only The Powers That Be could.

#25 by @Carnophile> Well, it was HER post that had the touchstone in it, after all. :D

But how can a regular member change a touchstone? Maybe she just changed it to a garden-variety link.

You just go back and edit your message and click "(others)" below the touchstone next to your message text. The problem was that she spelled it wrong: Dahlgren. So the default touchstone was not the one for Dhalgren. However, enough other people have spelled it wrong in their editions for the Delany to appear on the "others" page.

27>> Take a look at the Touchstones column to the right of your input message box. That's where you see the result when you use the brackets to create a touchstone.

A touchstone can link to various different works. For example, if you touchstone "Foundation" you'll probably see Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Right underneath that, in parentheses, you'll see a link to others. If you click on that link, you'll get a pop-up list of alternate touchstones, and you can click one or another of them (for example, Foundation by Mercedes Lackey) if you want something other than Asimov's title.

ETA: brightcopy beat me to it.

You all are smart! I hadn't for example noticed that I'd spelled the title wrong as @brightcopy pointed out. I just thought I'd been overly hasty in confirming the work in that pop-up window.

Well, I'm not smart enough to know how to actually spell it. I had to check. :D

The Henderson?? Really?

Who (in THIS century, anyway...) has ever "pretended" to have read The Long Tomorrow?

Perhaps this article should have been titled famous books famous authors tried to read.

I have to agree with >5 amysisson:. I don't pretend to read books I haven't.

I've covered about a third of the list. I've read Dune, Foundation, 1984, Last and First Men, and Dhalgren. Oddly enough, while I seldom re-read books, I have read the first three multiple times. As for Stapledon, any list of great science fiction authors that's more than three authors long should have Stapledon on it.

As for Dhalgren ... well, as I said in my LT review of it, I think that book is something of a literary con job. (On the other hand, I also predicted it would show up on fewer and fewer of these lists. Shows you what I know.)

Again, I love the wide range of opinions the groups gets on books from the same genre...
Dune was the book that turned me onto Scifi and Space Opera. I still re-read it every few years and would be one of my favourite books of all time. Foundation and 1984, I love both and intend to re-read again soon.
After the high praise for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell I thought i would love it , but only got about 150 pages and could not stand the slow pace and plotting and an abosolute dearth of any characters of interest.
Cryptonomicon is on by TBR pile for the Christams holidays.
ps...how could anyone not love Dune

#33 I suspect you've completely missed the point of Dhalgren if you think it's a "literary con job". I've read the book multiple times and I still think it's one of the best sf novels ever written.

I actually quite liked Star Maker.

I love io9 and what they say about books, gives me great ideas for obscure books I know I'll love.
I've read from the list (and am surprised anyone would find them unreadable):
- Dune (and Children of Dune). Dune Messiah and God Emperor of Dune are already on my TBR pile.
- Foundation (and the entire first trilogy). I am working on the second trilogy now, saving them for when I need something good.
- 1984.
- Star Maker. And I have Last and First Men on the TBR pile.

A long time ago I started and abandoned Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, before I read as much as I do now. I really want to try again.

Some of the other books are on my wishlist, especially Cryptonomicon (but I wanted to read The Baroque Cycle first, which I have just finished).

>35 iansales: Well, I understand Dhalgren was somewhat controversial when first published -- a love it or hate it book. Evidently, it still provokes the same reactions today. I will say I've never really heard much in the way of half-hearted reactions by those who've read it.

And those who love it do seem to return to it frequently. For me, though, I didn't really see a point to the novel and the experience presented by Delany wasn't that interesting and annoyingly obscure at times.

And, now that I think of it, why wasn't Wolfe's Book of the New Sun on the list? I've heard more than one person praise it -- then admit they actually hadn't read all of that series (really a long novel).

I don't think that the book caused as much controversy as the author. Sam Delany was not the stereotypical science fiction writer of the 1950s- 60s, and it was a time when being what people expected was very important.

I have not read Dhalgren but the few short stories of his I have read were very good.

#35 Part of the controversy, as I understand it, is that it's been more successful outside sf than it has within it.

I'm still in two minds about the Book of the New Sun. I reread it a few years ago and found it problematic in places - it's very misogynist, for one thing.

So...

1) Not read, to be picked up someday when the opportunity arises.

2) Dune is one of my gateway books to SF, loved it, still do, and still like the sequels written by Frank Herbert himself.

3) Totally not on my radar, so in my eye it's an odd item in a list of "books people love to pretend they've read but haven't". Not particularly planning to read it.

4) Liked (though didn't *love*) the Foundation books when I was a teen, and am thankful I read them then, because they've been hit hard by the Suck Fairy.

5) See 1). Brick/doorstopper format is definitely not a deterrent for me.

6) Read it a few times.

7) See 1).

8) See 3) except I might actually pick it up if I stumbled upon it, having rather liked The Sword of Rhiannon.

9) See 1).

10) See 3).

>28 brightcopy:, 29

Testing.

Dahlgren

Dhalgren

Ok, I see. The first one gives literally dozens of alternatives; I chose one that has Dahlgren in the author's name, not the title, just for fun. The second one only has a single option. I was thinking that the touchstone was "broken" so that only one of TPTB could fix it.

I've read them all...

...or have I?

I started {first 5 pages} Gravity's Rainbow, nope don't think I have read it before. Published 1973 is a time I was not reading SF except for Vonnegut. I flicked it open to a couple of different pages and sex seems to be a theme throughout - off the path sex. The prose is interesting however as others have stated.

I've mentioned this before elsewhere (http://www.librarything.com/topic/135346) but The Long Tomorrow is going to be available as part of a two volume boxed set entitled American Science Fiction from the Library of America in October.

And, evidently, there are going to be all sorts of digital goodies for that set of books according to the publisher's website -- reproductions of covers, dramatizations, interviews, and related stories: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/classic-sci-fi-novels-get-21st-cent...

I myself picked up a cheap paperback of The Long Tomorrow yesterday.

>45 RandyStafford:

Very cool! Thanks for the link. :)

I've read three of them: Dune, which I loved and want to reread just based on being reminded of it now; Foundation series, which I continue to have some affection for despite acknowledging some of IanSales' objections (not to say loathing!) for it; and 1984, which I don't have strong feelings about other than thinking it's an important cautionary tale that seems to be coming true . . .

And I don't pretend to have read books I haven't, either. Why should any of us here? we all read far more than the average person.

I've read three of them: Dune, which I loved and want to reread just based on being reminded of it now; Foundation series, which I continue to have some affection for despite acknowledging some of IanSales' objections (not to say loathing!) for it; and 1984, which I don't have strong feelings about other than thinking it's an important cautionary tale that seems to be coming true . . .

And I don't pretend to have read books I haven't, either. Why should any of us here? we all read far more than the average person.

#47 & #48 are you so indignant that you post twice? Thou dost protest too much? Only kidding. Looks like no one else here has read--or even claims to have read--Infinite Jest.

Nah, I claim to have read it. DFW is one of my favorites, though especially for his brilliant essays.

I've read all except Gravity's Rainbow, Criptonomicon, and
The Long Tomorrow (started both but "it wasn't the right time").

JSaMN is wonderful. And Dune. But I haven't read Dune in years. Rereading Foundation was how that one was removed from my favorites list.

Reread beloved books from when you were 14 at your peril. Often, you can't go home again.

Stellaexplorer- Cryptonomicon is quite a ride.

I've read all except The Long Tomorrow Gravity's Rainbow and Dhalgren. I'd never heard of The Long Tomorrow and I started this thread to see whether I should put it and the other two on my "to be read" list. Despite the controversy about a couple of titles, it sounds like I should at least check the used bookstores for them.

#51- Such a good point Stellaexplorer. I have been thinking about that myself lately. What books do stand the test of time? The ideas of Foundation certainly do--but the writing style is wooden and really quite awful.

On the other hand, it's great to read books you really loved when you were young and realize there was more there that your tender young self didn't get. Dark Is the Sun is one of those. I'm not saying it was a complex drama, but there were little bits and pieces that I just didn't get due to lack of worldly experience.

>53 brightcopy:: Possibly the first adult sf novel I ever read was Ten years to Doomsday by Chester Anderson and Michael Kurland. I was 10 or 11 at the time. (For those unfamiliar with the book, a medieval-level civilization is sitting in the way of a major alien invasion, and humans decide that the only way to stop the aliens is to covertly accelerate this world's technological development to advanced spaceflight and an industrialised society in ten years flat. There was some doubtless excellent reason for doing this that I don't recollect at the moment.) I loved it, and for years I carried round an image from the book, of a group of nobles in roughly cavalier outfits attending comparative trials of different spacecraft designs.

It was only when I finally tracked a copy down when I had become an adult that I realised that there were all sorts of jokes and subtexts in the book that had sailed way over my head at the time, such as the Order of Mother's Little Sisters in the Street of Many Flowers...