Round 2 of NPR top 100 sci-fi books of all time

Jerry Friedman · 04 Aug 2011, 20:54 · from 2011-August.txt.gz

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From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman)
Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 13:54:58 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: (urth) Round 2 of NPR top 100 sci-fi books of all time
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I liked/Hyperion/, but was disappointed by the sequel.  I seem to recall that 
the mysteries were better than the explanations, which I seem to recall 
contained a lot of quantum double-talk.

I liked The Man in the High Castle, but Through a Scanner Darkly, VALIS, and The 
Transmigration of Timothy Archer are more to my taste.

/The Sirens of Titan/ bored me when I was a teenager.  I greatly preferred 
/Cat's Cradle/ and /Slaughterhouse 5/--now there's a book I don't want to 
reread.

/Ender's Game/--I remember liking the original story, but I don't think the rest 
of the book (or the series) quite measured up.

/The Once and Future King/ and /Stand on Zanzibar/ were favorites of my teen 
years (SoZ a couple years later).  I could easily have put either of those on my 
list.  Pace Gerry Quinn, I don't remember anything the slightest bit cheerful 
about SoZ.  And pace Lane Haygood, the method is a lot like what John Dos Passos 
did in U.S.A. in the '30s.  (Or so I've read--I've only glanced at U.S.A., but 
it looks very similar.)

/The Worm Ouroboros/ strikes me as as doing a set of cliches as well as they can 
be done, with an unexpected turn to horror leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

My choices:

The Book of the New Sun
Cat's Cradle
The Caves of Steel
Childhood's End
The Chronicles of Amber (hoping that means only the first five)
The Demolished Man
The Left Hand of Darkness
Little, Big
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Neuromancer

Lots of award winners there.  I must have conventional tastes.  And what is it 
about the first half of the alphabet?

Jerry Friedman

From: Robin B. Smith <robinbsmith at gmail.com>

Hi everyone,
>
>
>I'm a Wolfe devotee and a lurking URTH subscriber and I'd be interested in your 
>opinions on a few titles that I selected for my Top 10, but which I did not see 
>included on your lists above: The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons, The Man in the 
>High Castle by Philip K. Dick, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, Ender's 
>Game by Orson Scott Card, The Once and Future King by TH White, Stand on 
>Zanzibar by John Brunner, and The Worm Ouroboros by ER Edison
>
>
>
>
>For the record it's been a pleasure spectating your Wolfean discussions!
>
>
>Robin
>
>
>
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