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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Hi
First up I love the concept of this site, the way the book tracker works and the ability to browse by awards, by authour etc. I am hooked but there is one request that would make a big difference to me personally.
I have been working my way through the SF Master Works Series and plan to make my way through David Pringle's Best 100 Science Fiction Novels. My request is that you add these two lists to the site.
I realize the premise for this site is to cover awards, but the overriding goal is to help find quality SF/Fantasy to read and then help keep track of what you have read and want to read. If you have a look at the list you will see there is already considerable overlap and I would argue that the books that are missing would not be out of place featured on this site.
Obvously it presents a problem for navigatiion and site layout to add lists as the currently the focus is on awards. The other problem is if you add lists you may get people requesting other series and lists which may not include notable material so you would then need a criteria for list acceptance. I guess my point is that I am going to be reading these books anyway and would love to be able to use this site to track them. I also believe the books in these two lists would fit bill in terms of good SF and other members would find them valuable additions. Thanks
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess, I really love the SF Masterworks Series and the Fantasy series as well. Some really great books in there. You're right about the overlap. I'd guess that about 75% of the books on the list are already in our DB which is convenient as that's fewer books for me to have to track down. The purpose of WWEnd is to present the best books in the genre so those books would fit perfectly with what we are trying to accomplish. So, in theory, I'd love to have those lists on the site in some fashion but our time and manpower resources are very limited. Add to that our current list of improvements is quite long as is. I know exactly how we could get it done but time will be the limiting factor. One of the improvements I'm pushing for now is better tagging capability. Right now we can tag books by series name but that's it. What we want to eventually do is allow unlimited tags for every book. We could tag the universe the books belong to, the series, alternate series names etc. that would make for better cross referencing. If we can get that done we can also tag the books that are part of the Masterworks series so you'd be able to get just a list of them in a search result table. That way we could have as many worthwhile lists as we can find. We could poll our members to decide which ones are important. Then it would be a simple process to create a clickable list of lists for our members to explore etc. So, to sum up, it's a great idea and we'd love to do it but I can't give you any time frame for when we'll get it done but we will eventually make it happen. It helps to know what people want to see on WWEnd so thanks for the input! I'll keep you posted here when we have any developments to report.
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Well, after reviewing the SF Masterworks list in detail it seems that my 75% estimate was way off. We've only got 42 of the 73 volumes in our database right now which is a mere 58%. That leaves me with 31 books still to add. Sheesh. I'll add those books to my list and start plugging them in.
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Hi
Great! I look forward to seeing the missing books from the SF Masterworks appear. Also look forward to the implementation of a generic tagging interface. Thanks! |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| For reference here is David Pringle's Best 100 Science Fiction Novels:
1. George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four
2. George R. Stewart - Earth Abides
3. Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles
4. Robert A. Heinlein - The Puppet Masters
5. John Wyndham - The Day of the Triffids
6. Bernard Wolfe - Limbo
7. Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man
8. Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
9. Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End
10. Charles L. Harness - The Paradox men
11. Ward Moore - Bring the Jubilee
12. Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth - The Space Merchants
13. Clifford D. Simak - Ring Around the Sun
14. Theodore Sturgeon - More than Human
15. Hal Clement - Mission of Gravity
16. Edgar Pangborn - A Mirror for Observers
17. Isaac Asimov - The End of Eternity
18. Leigh Brackett - The Long Tomorrow
19. William Golding - The Inheritors
20. Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination
21. John Christopher - The Death of Grass
22. Arthur C. Clarke - The City and the Stars
23. Robert A. Heinlein - The Door Into Summer
24. John Wyndham - The Midwich cuckoos
25. Brian W. Aldiss - Non-Stop
26. James Blish - A Case of Conscience
27. Robert A. Heinlein - Have Space-Suit -- Will Travel
28. Philip K. Dick - Time Out of Joint
29. Pat Frank - Alas, Babylon
30. Walter M. Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz
31. Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan
32. Algis Budrys - Rogue Moon
33. Theodore Sturgeon - Venus Plus X
34. Brian W. Aldiss - Hothouse
35. J.G. Ballard - The Drowned World
36. Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
37. Philip K. Dick - The Man in the High Castle
38. Robert Sheckley - Journey Beyond Tomorrow
39. Clifford D. Simak - Way Station
40. Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
41. Brian W. Aldiss - Greybeard
42. William S. Burroughs - Nova Express
43. Philip K. Dick - Martian Time-Slip
44. Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
45. Fritz Leiber - The Wanderer
46. Cordwainer Smith - Nostrilia
47. Philip K. Dick - Dr Bloodmoney
48. Frank Herbert - Dune
49. J.G. Ballard - The Crystal World
50. Harry Harrison - Make Room! Make Room!
51. Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon
52. Roger Zelazny - The Dream Master
53. John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar
54. Samuel R. Delany - Nova
55. Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
56. Thomas M. Disch - Camp Concentration
57. Michael Moorcock - The Final Programme
58. Keith Roberts - Pavane
59. Angela Carter - Heroes and Villains
60. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness
61. Bob Shaw - The Palace of Eternity
62. Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron
63. Poul Anderson - Tau Zero
64. Robert Silverberg - Downward to the Earth
65. Wilson Tucker - The Year of the Quiet Sun
66. Thomas M. Disch - 334
67. Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus
68. Michael Moorcock - The Dancers at the End of Time
69. J.G. Ballard - Crash
70. Mack Reynolds - Looking Backward from the Year 2000
71. Ian Watson - The Embedding
72. Suzy McKee Charnas - Walk to the End of the World
73. M. John Harrison - The Centauri Device
74. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed
75. Christopher Priest - Inverted World
76. J.G. Ballard - High-Rise
77. Barry N. Malzberg - Galaxies
78. Joanna Russ - The Female Man
79. Bob Shaw - Orbitsville
80. Kingsley Amis - The Alteration
81. Marge Piercy - Woman on the Edge of Time
82. Frederik Pohl - Man Plus
83. Algis Budrys - Michaelmas
84. John Varley - The Ophiuchi Hotline
85. Ian Watson - Miracle Visitors
86. John Crowley - Engine Summer
87. Thomas M. Disch - On Wings of Song
88. Brian Stableford - The Walking Shadow
89. Kate Wilhelm - Juniper Time
90. Gregory Benford - Timescape
91. Damien Broderick - The Dreaming Dragons
92. Octavia Butler - Wild Seed
93. Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker
94. John Sladek - Roderick and Roderick at Random
95. Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun
96. Philip Jose Farmer - The Unreasoning Mask
97. Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - Oath of Fealty
98. Michael Bishop - No Enemy but Time
99. John Calvin Batchelor - The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica
100. William Gibson - Neuromancer |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Heres a couple of other candidates that look interesting
http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/ByRank.php
http://www.isfdb.org/topnbal.html
http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1....
http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank2....
The project by James Wallace Harris is quite interesting and is worth a read:
http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Essays/Classics_of_SF.html
http://jameswharris.wordpress.com/2007/02/24/twenty-years-ago-the-c...
So many books, so little time.... |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| http://io9.com/5423847/20-best-science-fiction-books-of-the-decade |
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Admin
Posts: 4008
Location: Dallas, Texas | Ah, you have anticipated my next question. I was going to ask what other lists are out there. I can see you're going to try to bury me under books.
I've talked with whargoul and we'll be able to start on the tagging upgrades after the new year starting with the Masterworks series. It'll be interesting to see which books overlap the most on all these lists and compare them to the award winners. |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Have you though about giving selected users the ability to add books so as to share the load? (Perhaps with a moderation feature to ensure quality.) |
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Admin
Posts: 4008
Location: Dallas, Texas | That's actually on our list of things to do. The problem is you have to add author and publisher info and then there are the 4 cover images for each novel and there are cross reference tables etc. that have to be populated and an interface has to be built to tie it all together so it's a big deal as far as the programming goes. Quality is the main issue for me so we would have to build in a review and release into it for sure. Right now the data goes live immediately when it's added to the DB so we'd have to fix that first.
I wonder how many people would be interested in contributing time and effort to help us build the DB? And how accurate would the content be? The idea has always been there and it's always made me nervous and excited. It would certainly build faster to have some help. I'll have to think about that some more. |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| I would be happy to help, I expect you will find others. Letting users produce content has some well established precedents on the net. Look at wikipedia or the linux kernel. You could build some sort of ranking or karma system to let a meritocracy of trusted contributors develop so you don't need to vet every contribution which does not scale well.
Its a pity the site is asp on iis or I would volunteer to help out with coding too. |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Hey htaccess, It took longer than I had hoped but the SF Masterworks list is now up on the site. I've been adding the books the last few weeks and we just got the page finished to display them all at once. I've only read 11 of the books on the list, much to my dismay. I've got 7 on my to read list now including some Philip K. Dick for my reading challenge. There is a lot of PKD on the Masterworks list!
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Member
Posts: 38
| This is an incredible list. Great work to bring these titles to us as well as their cover (original or/and reprint?) artwork.
Well at least I read one and sadly I feel I missed on a lot. Unless you are very, very lucky to have them at your local library (not in my case for the majority), I have not seen them. I'd love to read them all, especially the PKD's, but...?
It is interesting to note many were made (or adapted) into movies. ..A consequence of outstanding storytelling perhaps!
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Thanks, Pierre. I'm glad everyine seems to be liking the new list.
These editions seem to be somewhat scarce outside the UK which is really too bad. I'll see them at the used bookstore on occasion but not in the library here either. I've found a bunch on Ebay so I'll eventually sucumb to the temptation to collect them. Eh, there are worse habits to have. |
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Member
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| I was thinking about the SF author who influenced me the most, and without hesitation at all, it was Jules Verne. I am surprised he did not make the list, though it probably limits to original english language authors. He certainly was the Father of SF (see Jules Verne in Wikipedia) with notably predicting many of the scientific achievements of the 20th century. I have read a majority of his work, which was a challenge by itself. His greatest and best known classics are certainly at the top of my recommendations (at any age). Any thoughts?
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | The omission of Verne is interesting. I'm not sure how they went about picking the books for the series but Verne would certainly fit in that list. If I had to guess, I'd say they didn't have rights to print it or, as you've suggested, it could be works in translation were left off. So far, I've only added books by authors that were nominated for the awards we cover. That was to establish a solid foundation of great books. Now I'm putting in lists like the SF Masterworks, and later this week the Fantasy Masterworks, to fill in some gaps in our coverage. Not sure what list is next but I'm sure Verne will eventaully appear on one of these. I think instead of waiting I'll just make Verne the next priority. Thanks for the idea! By the way, you can see the Fantasy Masterworks books going in every day in the site footer under Recent Additions. I've got 15 more to go then I'll add the list page to display them. |
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Member
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| Thanks Dave.
I would hope the Verne's classics are readily available in English at your local library, University and bookstores. As wikipedia states, he is the second most translated author of all time after Agatha Christie. What makes reading Verne interesting is also the analysis of his works which, as the Vernians believe, are science facts, not fiction, but that is another subject...... |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | No problem with getting our hands on Verne's works in the US. Verne is so common in English that most people are unaware that it's been translated at all. I think most of his books have been made into film too which is where most people know him. |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Thanks again for adding them Dave, i think they make a great addition.
In terms of Verne, i had a look at some of the other best lists I posted above to see how he rates. He does not appear at all in David Pringle's Best 100 Science Fiction Novels. He does however have two books in the Classics of Science Fiction list by James Wallace Harris (see http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/ByRank.php ). They are 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at 52 and A Journey to the Center of the Earth at 83. He does not make ISFDB Top 100 Books either ( http://www.isfdb.org/topnbal.html ). The same two books however do appear in the Sci Fi Lists Top 100 Sci-Fi Books ( http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.... ) at 35 and 54.
So there you go |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| I've just been having a look at the lists I mention above, I think they are all worth while lists which would be interesting to track via worldswithoutend.
Looking at those lists got me thinking tho, wheres worldswithoutends list? I'm not entirely sure how you would go about constructing it but I know one is needed
I guess the easiest version would be to just add the scores and divide by the readers, but then a book with one reader who scored it 10 will be artificially inflated .... thoughts?
I think it would be great to have a worldswithoutends top 100 though, I know I would try read them! |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | I forgot to post here that the Fantasy Masterworks list is up and running but you guys have probably already figured that out from the blog or seen the link in the menu. htaccess: I figured Verne would show somewhere along the way. One of those lists you mentioned will probably be next after I make the Verne entry. I'm keen to do the Verne page now. Wikipedia has 55 books by Verne but I'll probably only add the top ones but we'll see. I think a WWEnd list is a great idea. We've got a Top 10 list in the footer but that's not actually accurate anymore. It's a hard coded list that I put in there some time back to hold the space until we could work out the actual calculations. Like you said, we did not want a book with a single 10 rating to get into a list ahead of a book rated 9 by 50 people. I suppose the same calculation could be expanded into a list of 50 or maybe 100 books. I'm not sure we have enough members to make the full 100. May need to start at 50 and expand to make sure the list is meaningful. It would likely be a dynamic list that would change as WWEnd grows rather than a static list so you'd have to check it every once in a while if you wanted to read them all. whargoul likes the idea too which is cool cause he has to do the coding. One thing is for sure, these lists are a great way to get more books on the site outside of the awards. I'm going to create a new major tab called "SF/F Lists" and move the masterworks into it. That will create more room for all the new ones to come. Watch this space!
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Awesome, I am really glad you are planning to add more lists, I really like trying to read all the books in a list it gives you a clear goal to work towards. That said I also like goals like reading all the nebula winners, having both awards and lists makes the site much more useful imo.
In terms of the WWEnd list idea, I'm glad you like that too. I would suggest that you make a certain threshold of scores to get on the list, say 5. The list would then be dynamic and would include _all_ the books that have scores over that threshold. Then say once a year you take a snapshot of the list and release that as 'WWEnd 2010 Top 25', 'WWend 2011 Top 50' etc. That way you can have the current list with everything and the snapshots which are kind of featured lists. The featured ones can then grow bigger as WWEnd itself grows, personally i think a top 100 is plenty.
Anyway just throwing ideas out there, keep up the good work! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess: I'll take those ideas into consideration. There are certainly a bunch of ways to slice it up.
Here is something we're working on that you'll probably like:
We're also working on allowing members to create their own custom lists. You'd fill out a simple form giving your list a title and optional description (if the title does not tell the whole story or if you want to make a case for your list) and once you submit you would have a new check box, with your list title, that would show on the novel page in the My Book Lists. Then you just check off the the books you want on that list. The books would be displayed in your My World page and once you have your list built you'd be able to mark it as "Public" and it would go into a list of member lists where other members can see it and make comments.
You could create as many custom lists as you want like "Top 20 First Contact Novels" or "The Worst SF Books Ever to Win a Hugo" or "My Picks for the 2010 Hugo Shortlist" or whatever. Anything goes.
So what do you think? Anybody else interested in custom lists?
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| I think that's a pretty cool idea and I'm pretty sure people would use that feature, personally I think I would use it to add any of the lists i mention above that you did not decide to add to the site as a whole.
I do like the idea of people being able to promote their lists on forums etc. For example there could be a best of jules verne or best first contact books lists to go with forum topics. If you do add this feature it would be good to be able to promote a list from a readers list to an "official" list, also you may find you get a lot more requests for books to be added, where the user says I have made list x but WWEnd is missing books y and z, perhaps you could add a request book form?
It may also be kind of cool if users can watch or subscribe to other users public lists, that way you could gauge the popularity of some of the lists out there and potentially upgrade some of them to official lists if necessary. |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess: I like those ideas a lot. We'll get the custom lists running first and then start adding some of those features. A lot of the ideas you're suggesting kind of fall into another project we've been talking about adding namely, a Buddy List. You'd be able to add other members to your buddy list and would be alerted to their activity on the site. So if they were to create a list and publish it you'd get an PM or email alert so you would not miss it. That may be a way off.
By the way, the lists have been broken out into their own section now. Look for "Book Lists" in the main menu. |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Yea I saw the "book lists" tab, very cool.
more ideas about lists:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show_tag?name=sci-fi
browsing that I noticed an award called the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Award.
reading that i noticed http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/07/27/macleod_interview/pri... |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Just added a new list: The ISFDB Top 100 Books (Balanced List) Check it out and let me know what you think.
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Awesome, loving the lists feature!
Just reading "The Difference Engine" which is on that list, which will take me to 21 read, lots of reading to do!
Edited by htaccess 2010-03-15 3:54 PM
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Yeah, I'm diggin' the lists too. The best thing about this new one is we already had 97 of the 100 books in the WWEnd database. That's low hanging fruit. The 3 missing books were The Lord of the Rings (as a single volume), Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer and In the Country of the Blind by Michael Flynn.
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | A new list! The Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois. This is the quintessential series of SF anthologies going back to 1984. It's a bit of a departure for WWEnd as we have really kept ourselves confined to novels thus far but I thought it would be kind of fun to add 'em. So why the short SF?
- TYBSF is widely followed, highly regarded and eminently collectible. - I want to see what you guys think of anthologies.
- The lists feature is the perfect vehicle for anthologies and I don't have to commit to more than just this list if it doesn't work. - I've been reading a lot of short SF lately... So... what's the verdict? Do you like it? Should we stick to novels or would you like to see more anthologies on WWEnd? I've been thinking about an anthologies section for some time now. There are a bajillion of them out there and I've noticed some great looking new ones have been coming out lately that's I've got to have. I figured you guys might feel the same. I figured I'd start with the most famous series and we could add more starting with the award winning anthos and other famous series like The Year's Best Fantasy etc. Hope you like.
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - 2009-12-23 3:45 PM I have been working my way through the SF Master Works Series and plan to make my way through David Pringle's Best 100 Science Fiction Novels. My request is that you add these two lists to the site.
I realize the premise for this site is to cover awards, but the overriding goal is to help find quality SF/Fantasy to read and then help keep track of what you have read and want to read. If you have a look at the list you will see there is already considerable overlap and I would argue that the books that are missing would not be out of place featured on this site. Boo-Yah! Took a bit longer than I had hoped but now you can go to town. I fare quite poorly with the Pringle list. So poorly in fact that I'm not going to speak of it again. Try not to gloat. Check it out and let me know what you think of the list.
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Yea i saw you had finished it last night, thanks for adding it, quite a few new books in this list. |
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Admin
Posts: 4008
Location: Dallas, Texas | The book lists are now linked from the novel pages. Check out The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter to see. It's in the info box under the Awards list. Schweet!
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| I vote for http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/ByRank.php next! |
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Admin
Posts: 4008
Location: Dallas, Texas | That is an impressive list at 193 books! I'll take a look this weekend and see about adding it to the site. |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | I've reviewed the Classics of Science Fiction list and here are the missing books: - 1932 - Brave New World - Huxley, Aldous
- 1948 - World of Null-A, The - Van Vogt, A. E.
- 1946 - Slan - Van Vogt, A. E.
- 1949 - Humanoids, The - Williamson, Jack
- 1917 - Princess of Mars, A - Burroughs, Edgar Rice
- 1924 - We - Zamiatin, Yevgeny
- 1970 - Solaris - Lem, Stanislaw
- 1870 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Verne, Jules
- 1930 - World Below, The - Wright, S. Fowler
- 1938 - Out of the Silent Planet - Lewis, C. S.
- 1941 - Lest Darkness Fall - De Camp, L. Sprague
- 1946 - Adventures in Time and Space - Healy & McComas
- 1950 - I, Robot - Asimov, Isaac
- 1975 - Deathbird Stories - Ellison, Harlan
- 1912 - Lost World, The - Doyle, Arthur Conan
- 1920 - R.U.R. - Capek, Karel
- 1927 - Short Stories of H. G. Wells, The - Wells, H. G.
- 1967 - Dangerous Visions - Ellison, Harlan
- 1863 - A Journey to the Center of the Earth - Verne, Jules
- 1911 - Hampdenshire Wonder, The - Beresford, J. D.
- 1935 - Odd John - Stapledon, Olaf
- 1944 - Sirius - Stapledon, Olaf
- 1975 - Best of Henry Kuttner, The - Kuttner, Henry
- 1978 - Persistence of Vision, The - Varley, John
- 1726 - Gulliver's Travels - Swift, Johathan
- 1889 - Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, A - Clemens, Samuel Longhorne
- 1920 - Voyage to Arcturus, A - Lindsay, David
- 1951 - Gray Lensman - Smith, E. E.
- 1952 - Player Piano - Vonnegut, Kurt
- 1955 - Of All Possible Worlds - Tenn, William
- 1971 - Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, The - Zelazny, Roger
- 1974 - Before the Golden Age - Asimov, Isaac
- 1976 - Best of C. M. Kornbluth, The - Kornbluth, C. M.
- 1976 - The Science Fiction of Edgar Alla Poe - Poe, Edgar Allan
- 1936 - War with the Newts - Capek, Karel
- 1945 - That Hideous Strength - Lewis, C. S.
- 1948 - Who Goes There? - Campbell, John W.
- 1951 - Illustrated Man, The - Bradbury, Ray
- 1957 - On the Beach - Shute, Nevile
- 1961 - Lovers, The - Farmer, Philip Jose
- 1967 - Past Through Tomorrow, The - Heinlein, Robert A.
- 1970 - Science Fiction Hall of Fame - Silverberg, Robert
- 1975 - The Wind's Twelve Quarters - Le Guin, Ursula K.
- 1975 - The Best of C. L. Moore - Moore, C. L.
- 1975 - A Martian Odyssey and Other Science Fiction Tales - Weinbaum, Stanley G.
- 1886 - She - Haggard, H. Rider
- 1886 - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Stevenson, Robert Louis
- 1922 - Girl in the Golden Atom, The - Cummings, Ray
- 1923 - Clockwork Man, The - Odle, E. V.
- 1927 - Absolute at Large, The - Capek, Karel
- 1927 - Deluge - Wright, S. Fowler
- 1943 - Perelandra - Lewis, C. S.
- 1945 - Animal Farm - Orwell, George
- 1953 - E Pluribus Unicorn - Sturgeon, Theodore
- 1955 - Long Tomorrow, The - Brackett, Leigh
- 1956 - Under Pressure - Herbert, Frank
- 1957 - The Black Cloud - Hoyle, Fred
- 1972 - Sheep Look Up, The - Brunner, John
- 1972 - Again, Dangerous Visions - Ellison, Harlan
- 1871 - The Battle of Dorking - Chesney, Sir George
- 1871 - Coming Race, The - Lytton, Edward Bulwer
- 1872 - Erewhon - Butler, Samuel
- 1880 - Across the Zodiac - Greg, Percy
- 1896 - The Island of Dr. Moreau - Wells, H. G.
- 1909 - Machine Stops and Other Stories, The - Forster, E. M.
- 1913 - The Poison Belt - Doyle, Arthur Conan
- 1915 - Herland - Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
- 1921 - Back to Methuselah - Shaw, George Bernard
- 1931 - The Weigher of Souls - Maurois, Andre
- 1932 - To-Morrow's Yesterday - Gloag, John
- 1946 - Best of Science Fiction, The - Conklin, Groff
- 1948 - Final Blackout - Hubbard, L. Ron
- 1948 - The Lensman Series - Smith, E. E.
- 1952 - Astounding Science Fiction Anthology - Campbell, John W.
- 1954 - Brain Wave - Anderson, Poul
- 1954 - Untouched by Human Hands - Sheckley, Robert
- 1955 - Re-Birth/The Chrysalids - Wyndham, John
- 1961 - Dark Universe - Galouye, Daniel F.
- 1971 - Chronopolis and Other Stories - Ballard, J. G.
- 1973 - Casey Agonistes - McKenna, Richard
- 1975 - Science Fiction of Jack London, The - London, Jack
- 1975 - Best of Frederik Pohl, The - Pohl, Frederik
There are some great names in this list that haven't made it into the WWEnd DB yet: Harlan Ellison, Jules Verne, C.S. Lewis, A.E. Van Vogt, and Edgar Rice Burroughs to name just a few. There are several names I don't recognize too like Karel Capek, E.V. Odle and Groff Conklin.
I've got my work cut out for me but these are some exciting additions.
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| Impressive and some very good titles in there. One of which, She, is the first sci-fi I ever read. |
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| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Čapek is the guy who coined the word robot. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | You know, I've been searching high and low for an authoritative list of the best foreign language SF works translated into English. I'm guessing this guy would be on the list somewhere. Anybody seen such a list?
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| I know of a Fr website which carries a DB of 8000 world authors in the SF/F/Horror genres. For each author, the description will tell you where the author originates from and all his/her titles published, in French of course. They also provide the titles in English. Is this what you mean by authoritative? In other words, this is HUGE. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Pierre - 2010-05-16 7:36 PM I know of a Fr website which carries a DB of 8000 world authors in the SF/F/Horror genres. For each author, the description will tell you where the author originates from and all his/her titles published, in French of course. They also provide the titles in English. Is this what you mean by authoritative? In other words, this is HUGE. Hmmmm. Not quite what I was after though it probably does meet the authoritative requirement! What I'm looking for is a list that will be generally accepted by most fans as "authoritative" because of both the source of the list and the content of the list. For instance The ISFDB Top 100 Books list has credibility because the source, content and method of selection are know and deemed sufficiently authoritative that we care. You don't have to agree with all the books included on the list but you can have some confidence that it's not just a list made by some guys over beers. In this case, I don't know much about translated works but I have a desire to try the best SF/F from foreign climes. A list of great translated books that I can trust would be a huge help to me and would provide some great content for WWEnd visitors. There is a whole world of SF out there that I can't access directly but perhaps I can get a taste of what's happening in Japan or Poland or Russia through the few books that get translated.
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| I figured this was exactly the opposite you are looking for, as it is not a list but rather a compendium. On the other hand, if such a list does not exist, this DB would be quite helpful to build one as you can make a search by countries of origin. If a novel or novella or short has been translated into French, there is a good probability it was also in English. For example, A.E. Van Vogt is an American who, I believe, did not get much recognition in the USA, but most of his books were translated. He has quite a large fan base in France. With this premisse in mind, the reverse may be true for foreign texts translated into English. |
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Location: Boston, MA | my suggestion is to scan through foreign sf/f book awards winners and find those translated into english. logic is based on a premise that if a book won in a national contest AND got translated into english it must be good. hey, you may even scratch the part about winning, translation is a huge deal by itself.
i understand that it requires considerable labor/time investment but maybe forum users can pull this off - identify them, find info on them like plot, cover image, selling store. then admins can simply enter that data into db.
here're names of several foreign sf/f awards - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:National_science_fiction_awar...
thinking of starting a thread to illustrate my idea ... |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | I'm still working on the assumption that such a list already exists somewhere though I'm losing hope in that. I also thought there would surely be an award or even a good list for Military SF but I can't locate one of those either.
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Location: Boston, MA | i did more digging today in search of such list but i can't find anything. there's a lot of talk why very few get translated and why english is a dominant language in the genre.
i found this though - http://www.ou.edu/worldlit/onlinemagazine/2010may/webcontents.html. admins, maybe you can ask these guys to help you find a list of foreign sf. |
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Location: Sacramento, California | @Dave,
A Military SF list would be great, as that is one of my favorite sub-genre of science fiction. William C. Dietz wrote some great ones. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Deven Science - 2010-05-23 9:31 PM @Dave, A Military SF list would be great, as that is one of my favorite sub-genre of science fiction. William C. Dietz wrote some great ones. @Deven Science: If such a list could be found it would be my top priority. I'm dying to get more MilSF into the site. Unfortunately I've not been able to find anything other than some small lists on various blogs and I don't know enough about the sub-genre to make my own. I'll keep looking though. Anybody got any ideas?
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| Regarding the best non-english sf: http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2010/03/overview-of-international-s...
In general I would suggest that these missing lists are a great opportunity for WWEnd, if they don't exist then create them! At its simplest you could make a forum topic where people could nominate and vote and use the lists area to make the resulting list. The lists would need to be updated periodically to allow people to continue to add new material and vote for old material. Starting small would also be a good idea, say a top ten list, it could then be expanded as necessary. Obviously a more complex specialised mechanism for voting and nominating could be built. |
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| Maybe I oversimplify, but if the sub-genres are accurately reflected by admin and members, then lists would create themselves and be generated through a db search. In other words, the more books are added, the best lists will be created. Isn't it also a matter of tagging them correctly and completely, for example: Genre, sub-genres, Series or not, Country/language of origin, number of reads, award wins or noms etc. It all comes down to the books in the db. |
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Location: Sacramento, California | You make a great point, Pierre. If one could track the books on this site by marked sub-genre, and then organize them by average reader rating into a list, then you would have an instant WWEnd list for every sub-genre. A new person could start with the top rated books, and work his way down if he liked what he read.
What do you think, Dave? WWEnd could create their own lists, and WWEnders would have a direct effect on the order by voting for the ones they've read and liked. |
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| Ratings could indeed have an effect, though speaking for myself, I would probabably never rate a book with a 6 or lower as I would not read it or finish it, and there are many of those. How many books in the db have a rating below 5? I would presume not many. I would say most books fall between 7 and 9 and because of this, a rating becomes less useful, not counting the individual preferences. Somebody can give a book a 10 while another a 6, but this does not mean a book is either the best of the best or a bad one. It is simply if it fell into your preferences. |
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Location: Boston, MA | great find! one thing though, most of them are not translated into english, i think Dave wanted only those with translations.
i am all in with htaccess that if a list doesn't exist we should build one. as i mentioned before, Dave, that would be a great value-add and attraction for new users.
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - 2010-05-24 6:20 AM Regarding the best non-english sf: http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2010/03/overview-of-international-s... In general I would suggest that these missing lists are a great opportunity for WWEnd, if they don't exist then create them! At its simplest you could make a forum topic where people could nominate and vote and use the lists area to make the resulting list. The lists would need to be updated periodically to allow people to continue to add new material and vote for old material. Starting small would also be a good idea, say a top ten list, it could then be expanded as necessary. Obviously a more complex specialised mechanism for voting and nominating could be built. I like the idea of making WWEnder lists but I'm not sure we have the numbers to make a go of it. I made a try at getting a list going in the Overlooked Books thread and did not get much response. It takes a lot more people than we have right now to make a good list IMO. What I don't want to do is have a list that goes nowhere cause everyone looses interest for lack of participation. But if you guys tell me otherwise I'm game to try it.
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Pierre - 2010-05-24 7:49 AM Maybe I oversimplify, but if the sub-genres are accurately reflected by admin and members, then lists would create themselves and be generated through a db search. In other words, the more books are added, the best lists will be created. Isn't it also a matter of tagging them correctly and completely, for example: Genre, sub-genres, Series or not, Country/language of origin, number of reads, award wins or noms etc. It all comes down to the books in the db. I agree with Deven, you make a good point about combing through the DB to create new lists. I think we have a pretty good plan to make that work already: We've got a "custom list" feature on our enhancement list that will allow WWEnders to create their own custom lists that they can share with other members through the forum. You'll be able to get some feedback to help you refine your list and we can make the best private lists, determined by vote, into public lists that can be accessed from the list section and the novel pages directly.
So for example, if you create a personal list of the "The Best Post-Apocalyptic Novels" and folks in the forum thought it kicked ass enough to warrant making it a public we'd call a vote and make it public. Once it becomes a public list a new check box would appear in the member section of the novel page for any book sub-genre tagged as "Post-Apocalyptic" that would allow members to vote it up the list. The resulting list would be dynamic and change over time as more people vote. Since WWEnders determine the sub-genre tags as a group only the books that you guys have determined to belong in that sub-genre would be eligible for inclusion in that particular list. Debate about miss-tagged books or books missing from the DB would ensue in the forums resulting in more accurate tags and the inclusion of new books.
Now, back to adding new existing lists: My goal has been to leverage existing lists, from reputable sources, as a convenient way to find new quality books to add to the DB. With each new list we all get some new books to sift through and these books, by virtue of having been in these lists, are going to be better books by and large than any random books we could add to the DB. We can continue to grow our base with the best books first. They're a perfect expansion outward from the awards lists since they cover the books that came before the awards or were overlooked etc.
An excellent example of this is the afore-mentioned Classics of Science Fiction list. Throwing that list in adds 82 new books to the DB by some top-notch authors like Lewis, Ellison and Van Vogt. There is surely some award caliber material in that 82. I'm starting to ramble a bit now. So, what does all this mean? I'm going to keep looking for great lists, and counting on you guys to help me find them. They are out there waiting to be plucked like the ripe fruit they are so you guys will never run out of books! But don't worry, we'll get around to coding the custom lists eventually too.
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Location: Dallas, Texas | It's been a long time since this thread was active but I thought I'd just mention here that we've finally started getting some Military SF into the site. Still haven't found an award or a list but I did find a nice article by Mike Resnick that had a bunch of Mil-SF books in it. I started adding some from the article (42 so far) and I posted a blog article about it too: Lock ‘n Load! - Military SF at Worlds Without End The Resnick article is linked from the blog post and is worth a read so be sure to check that out. I'm currently working with a Mil-SF author on creating a new list. I'll post more info here when I can. |
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| Hey Dave
Great that you're still adding stuff (although I admit that Military SF is not my thing). I would like to recast my vote for the Classics of Science Fiction list Compiled by James Wallace Harris:
http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Lists/ByRank.php
He has arguably made one of the most rigorous lists available if you read his posts about the list creation methodology:
http://classics.jameswallaceharris.com/Essays/Classics_of_SF.html
http://jameswharris.wordpress.com/2007/02/24/twenty-years-ago-the-c...
Keep up the good work, hope you find a coder soon. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Well, I've got good news for you on that front. I'm about 20 books away from getting all the Classics of Science Fiction list completed. It's a huge list and I've stopped a few times to do the MilSF and some other series books etc. I should be able to finish it this weekend so look for it Monday or Tuesday. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Administrator - 2010-10-06 8:04 AM Well, I've got good news for you on that front. I'm about 20 books away from getting all the Classics of Science Fiction list completed. It's a huge list and I've stopped a few times to do the MilSF and some other series books etc. I should be able to finish it this weekend so look for it Monday or Tuesday. Turns our I had more like 35 novels left to add and not much time to work on it this weekend. I did get 8 more posted and I got the images together for the others so I'll be able to whittle away at them this week. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | OK. I finally got all the Classics of SF (193!) added to the DB. The list is in the DB too but I've lost my RDC so I won't be able to update the site until tomorrow morning. Almost there!
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Done deal! Check it out.
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Location: Boston, MA | great list. thanks, Dave.
one bug there, if i open a book's page and then click on the name of the list from the lists section it just reloads the book-page. i'd expect it to bring me to the selected list. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | hihik - 2010-10-25 1:59 PM great list. thanks, Dave. one bug there, if i open a book's page and then click on the name of the list from the lists section it just reloads the book-page. i'd expect it to bring me to the selected list. Thanks for catching that, hihik! I forgot to add the page address to the data table. It's fixed now. Glad you like the new list. It's rather an extensive list to be sure. It's got most of the SF Masterworks on it so if you've made a dent in that one you have a good start on the Classics list. |
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| Thanks Dave!
This list is a great addition to the lists section. I think its fair to say the lists section is getting pretty comprehensive. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - 2010-10-26 4:29 PM Thanks Dave! This list is a great addition to the lists section. I think its fair to say the lists section is getting pretty comprehensive. Glad you like it. Just wish it didn't take so long - 193 books is a lot of work! I really like how that section is coming together, too. I want to get some different kinds of lists in there now to broaden the appeal. I've got to get busy on the Mil SF list again and perhaps something like a "classics of fantasy" to go with the new SF list. Looking for fantasy recommendations if anyone knows of a good fantasy list.
There seems to be a lot of talk on the interwebs about women SF/F authors not getting the recognition they deserve. No arguments here. I've been making an effort to read more women the last few years and a list of the top award winning/nominated books by women authors in the WWEnd DB would be good for anyone else wanting to do the same. That would be an easy list to put together too as it would not require any new books be added first. I like the low hanging fruit so that one sounds like a winner. Any other ideas for lists?
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| Looking back at the start of the thread theres still the Sci-Fi Lists Top 100 Sci-Fi Books:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1....
Its a bit of a random list and the methodology leaves something to be desired but it ranks highly on google (top item for the search "best of science fiction list" for example) so it would be good to have it there for completeness. A quick scan suggests you have most of them already.
This one from goodreads will be skewed towards SF liked by people who mostly don't read SF:
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/3.Best_Science_Fiction_Books
One type of list I would like to see more of is best of the decade lists like:
http://io9.com/5423847/20-best-science-fiction-books-of-the-decade
hopefully we will see some more of these in the next little while. Currently the lists are light on more modern stuff given most of them were complied long ago or they are specifically targeting classics or aggregating other lists. It would be nice to see some more recently complied lists and best of the 00's seems like a good bet.
Theres also "The Gollancz Future Classics Range":
not sure this is the "real" list or not, can't find a definitive source
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
Blood Music by Greg Bear
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
The Separation by Christopher Priest
Evolution by Stephen Baxter
Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan (great to see this one in here)
theres also this new space opera list from Gollancz :
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds
The Centauri Device by M John Harrison
Tau Zero by Poul Anderson
Eon by Greg Bear
Ringworld by Larry Niven
Stone by Adam Roberts
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
Ilium by Dan Simmons
Eternal Light by Paul McAuley
I like your idea of highlighting women writers in some sort of list, I think the list that emerges from this discussion will be a good one to include:
http://vectoreditors.wordpress.com/2010/10/11/planning-and-polling/ *
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/10/future-classics-best-science-ficti...
* note you can vote yourself up until Sunday 5 December...
other random possibilities:
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/05/mind-meld-what-science-fic...
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2010/05/mind-meld-what-science-fic...
http://thisrecording.com/today/2010/1/18/in-which-we-count-down-the...
http://io9.com/5626861/a-syllabus-and-book-list-for-novice-students...
http://www.bestfantasybooks.com/best-science-fiction-books.html
http://www.bestfantasybooks.com/top25-fantasy-books.php
must stop googling ..... |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @htaccess: You've got some great ideas there! Thanks for being so thorough. I really like the best of the decade lists too so that will surely go into our list of lists. The established or famous lists are weighted toward the older titles for sure. Some lists with newer stuff would be a nice contrast. I'm glad you mentioned the women's list. I've been following the Torque Control discussion and I'm waiting like a lynx to pounce on that list when it comes out. I think it's going to be probably the best list of it's kind. A lot of thought is going into that one and I'm excited to see the results. The SF Signal idea has some potential. I'll have to look those over. Great stuff. |
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| Suggestion for a new list: WWEnd Top Winners, like the top Noms list but just featuring winners that have won 2(3?) or more awards. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - 2010-11-13 3:27 PM Suggestion for a new list: WWEnd Top Winners, like the top Noms list but just featuring winners that have won 2(3?) or more awards. I thought about doing a Top Winners list but it would really be just a sub-set of the top noms list. Can't get too excited about that one as it would be too similar to one we've already got. I think while I wait for the Best Women's SF list to come out I'll concentrate on getting the MilSF list up next. That will be a pretty good list and prolly better than any other MilSF lists out there.
Keep the ideas coming!
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| fair enough,
out of interest here is the WWEnd Top Winners list:
5: RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA - Arthur C. Clarke
5: THE CITY & THE CITY - China Mieville
4: GATEWAY - Frederik Pohl
3: THE FOREVER WAR - Joe Haldeman
3: THE GODS THEMSELVES - Isaac Asimov
3: AMERICAN GODS - Neil Gaiman
3: THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN'S UNION - Michael Chabon
3: DOOMSDAY BOOK - Connie Willis
3: FOREVER PEACE - Joe Haldeman
3: RINGWORLD - Larry Niven
3: THE DISPOSSESSED - Ursula K. Le Guin
3: TIMESCAPE - Gregory Benford
3: THE TIME SHIPS - Stephen Baxter
3: STARTIDE RISING - David Brin
3: SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD - Orson Scott Card
3: THE WINDUP GIRL - Paolo Bacigalupi
3: PALADIN OF SOULS - Lois McMaster Bujold
3: DREAMSNAKE - Vonda N. McIntyre
3: NEUROMANCER - William Gibson
2: CYTEEN - C. J. Cherryh
2: MYTHAGO WOOD - Robert Holdstock
2: ENDER'S GAME - Orson Scott Card
2: PERDIDO STREET STATION - China Mieville
2: HYPERION - Dan Simmons
2: TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG - Connie Willis
2: THE FALL OF HYPERION - Dan Simmons
2: THE SCAR - China Mieville
2: MIRROR DANCE - Lois McMaster Bujold
2: THE SNOW QUEEN - Joan D. Vinge
2: THE CHILD GARDEN - Geoff Ryman
2: AIR - Geoff Ryman
2: RED MARS - Kim Stanley Robinson
2: SONG OF TIME - Ian R. MacLeod
2: THE FOUNTAINS OF PARADISE - Arthur C. Clarke
2: WHERE LATE THE SWEET BIRDS SANG - Kate Wilhelm
2: GLORIANA - Michael Moorcock
2: LAST CALL - Tim Powers
2: JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL - Susanna Clarke
2: NOVA SWING - M. John Harrison
2: THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS - Ursula K. Le Guin
2: IRON COUNCIL - China Mieville
2: BLUE MARS - Kim Stanley Robinson
2: ONLY FORWARD - Michael Marshall Smith
2: THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR - Gene Wolfe
2: ANANSI BOYS - Neil Gaiman
2: GREEN MARS - Kim Stanley Robinson
2: THE SPARROW - Mary Doria Russell
2: THE CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR - Gene Wolfe
2: THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER - Gene Wolfe
2: TAKE BACK PLENTY - Colin Greenland
2: RAINBOWS END - Vernor Vinge
2: TEHANU: THE LAST BOOK OF EARTHSEA - Ursula K. Le Guin
2: THE POSTMAN - David Brin
2: THE UPLIFT WAR - David Brin
2: BARRAYAR - Lois McMaster Bujold
2: TITAN - Ben Bova
2: A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY - Vernor Vinge
2: FAIRYLAND - Paul J. McAuley
2: THE SEPARATION - Christopher Priest
2: FOUNDATION'S EDGE - Isaac Asimov
2: THE DIAMOND AGE - Neal Stephenson
2: HELLICONIA SPRING - Brian Aldiss |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Administrator - 2010-10-27 8:17 AM @htaccess: I'm glad you mentioned the women's list. I've been following the Torque Control discussion and I'm waiting like a lynx to pounce on that list when it comes out. I think it's going to be probably the best list of it's kind. A lot of thought is going into that one and I'm excited to see the results. I don't know why I didn't think of it before but I could have made a great list of books by women authors based on data I've already got. Behold:
This is a list of the 65 award winning novels written by women authors across all 10 awards that we cover. What do you think?
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Location: Sacramento, California | Hey, thanks to looking over this new list, I was able to mark many more books inot the "read" category.
Nice list! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | OK, I switched out the graphic for the women's list. jynnantonnyx gave me grief over using such a cliche image as Rosie the Riveter. I do like the image he suggested better. |
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| like the list, like the image, plenty of books I want to read as usual ... currently reading doomsday book from the list |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Glad ya'll like the new list. I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it before. There are some great books in there fo sho. I'm making myself a reading challenge for next year to read 12 books from that list. I've tagged a bunch already including: - Doomsday
- Dreamsnake
- Downbelow Station
- Boneshaker
- A Door Into Ocean
Which other ones are not to be missed? Looking for some recommendations here. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | In case you missed this in the blog: SF Mistressworks list by Ian Sales from his blog It Doesn't Have to be Right has been added to WWEnd. This is a really great list of women authors/books. Check it out. |
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| Cool, looks like a good list, I think it fits well.
Unfortunately I have only read two, but I'm going to be reading "Grass" as soon as I've finished "Stranger in a Strange Land" so soon it will be three |
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| http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/22/1000-novels-science-fic...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/22/1000-novels-science-fic...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/22/1000-novels-science-fic... |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Now that's a big list! Of the 149 SF/F books on the Guardian list we're missing 72 - just under half: - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
- In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
- Millennium People by JG Ballard
- The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
- Darkmans by Nicola Barker
- Vathek by William Beckford
- Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
- Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown
- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
- The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess
- Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
- The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
- The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
- The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton
- Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney
- Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
- House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
- Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
- Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
- Under the Skin by Michel Faber
- The Magus by John Fowles
- Red Shift by Alan Garner
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
- The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
- Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
- The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
- The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
- The Children of Men by PD James
- After London; or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- The Shining by Stephen King
- The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski
- Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
- Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
- The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
- The Monk by Matthew Lewis
- Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
- Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
- The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
- Ascent by Jed Mercurio
- Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller
- Mother London by Michael Moorcock
- News from Nowhere by William Morris
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
- Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov
- The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
- The Famished Road by Ben Okri
- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
- Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock
- Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
- A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys
- Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
- The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
- Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- Blindness by Jose Saramago
- How the Dead Live by Will Self
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- The Insult by Rupert Thomson
- The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
- Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser
- Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Affinity by Sarah Waters
- The Sword in the Stone by TH White
- The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson
This list is of a more literary bent than some so will make an excellent addition to the site. It'll take some time to complete however so don't hold your breath! Great find.
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Location: Dallas, TX | That's a great list. I think I'll have to make a start at filling it out on the site. |
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| I certainly won't be complaining if you add this one |
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Location: SC, USA | I'd love it if you added the Mythopoeic Awards. There's lots of overlap. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Rhondak101 - 2011-06-08 6:04 AM I'd love it if you added the Mythopoeic Awards. There's lots of overlap.
Ah! New awards. A subject near and dear to my heart. Will definitely add Mythopoetic Awards at some point later this summer: http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/fantasy/ At first glance it looks like a good bit of overlap with what we have in the DB already so that's helpful.
Great suggestion.
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Location: Grootfontein, Namibia | And it is predominantly fantasy based, so there is no confusion. The winner is likely to be a fantasy novel :-) |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Emil - 2011-06-13 8:46 AM And it is predominantly fantasy based, so there is no confusion. The winner is likely to be a fantasy novel :-) I've looked this one over and you're right - there does not seem to be any ambiguity. Straight up fantasy. That's the good news. The bad news is that there are 99 books in that award list that we don't have in our database. Oy! I guess I better get started... This is going to take some time. Currently we're trying to add the Guardian list and a MilSF list that I've been plugging away at for months. The MilSF list is closest to being done so I'll probably shift to that one to wrap it up. jynnantonnyx is helping with the Guardian list so we should have them both up in the next month or so. |
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Location: SC, USA | Now you are making me feel guilty My wishes don't have deadlines.
rhonda |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Rhondak101 - 2011-06-13 7:21 PM Now you are making me feel guilty My wishes don't have deadlines. rhonda Ha ha! It's a great list but I admit I was hoping for a little more overlap
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Location: Grootfontein, Namibia | If there is 99 books "short", how many are actually in WWEnd
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Emil - 2011-06-14 8:29 AM If there is 99 books "short", how many are actually in WWEnd There are 190 books on the list so we have 91 already- just under half. Not too bad really. |
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Location: Grootfontein, Namibia | Oh. I meant, how many books are there in the WWEnd database in total? I'm just calculating that amount of books, plus the potential additional 99, divided by my age and multiplied by the number of years left until ... well ... I vacate this reality to see if it's humanly possible to ever catch up |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Emil - 2011-06-14 1:18 PM Oh. I meant, how many books are there in the WWEnd database in total? I'm just calculating that amount of books, plus the potential additional 99, divided by my age and multiplied by the number of years left until ... well ... I vacate this reality to see if it's humanly possible to ever catch up Ah! Right now there are 3,020. Bit of a milestone getting past 3k. You may find it difficult to read them all but I know you'll give it your best shot! Just keep reading, just keep reading.... |
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Location: Grootfontein, Namibia | "Never give up. Never give up" |
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Location: The Wilds of Washington | And then of course, you must factor in the amount you add each year. Ten awards, with more to come, with the winners and all the nominees. That is at least another 50-80 titles right there every year. Plus everything else which gets tossed in. (Thank you very much, by the way.)
But don't despair.
Remember your Clarke: "At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years." - Arthur C. Clarke
And then think of Ray Kurzweil, prophet of the singularity crowd. He at least plans on living forever. He takes it on faith, with all the data you can stomach, that the rate of human understanding and prevention of aging, will reach the point where it out paces aging itself. This equals immortality as far as he's concerned, if he just doesn't download his brain before that happens. That's his idea of a win/win scenario.
Edited by gallyangel 2011-06-20 3:22 AM
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| http://www.npr.org/2011/06/24/137249678/best-science-fiction-fantas...
"NPR is asking its listeners to contribute their favorite science fiction and fantasy novels to a summer reading poll with the idea of generating a top 100 list", I saw this earlier in the week but was too busy to post about it, pity because nominations are now
You can however still vote in a few weeks time, and then perhaps we will have another quality list to add to wwend
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| Oh, and looking forward to the Mythopoetic Awards getting added. Keep em coming! |
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Location: The Netherlands | I think the Sidewise Award for Alternative History might be a good addition to the site.
http://www.uchronia.net/sidewise/
Looks like there is a bit of overlap with the existing content of the database and it's only been around since 1995 so it shouldn't be too much work to add |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @htaccess: We're getting close to done with the Guardian list now. I've got all the images done and jynnantonnyx is pluggin' away at the data. It'll be interesting to see how the NPR list compares to Guardian's. I'm sure we'll be adding that one to the site too. Mythopoetic should be a great addition to the site. @valashain: Sidewise looks interesting though it's a short list. Some years didn't see much alt-hist books being published it seems. Kinda strange to have a winner but no other nominees for three of those years...
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Location: Dallas, TX | Only four books to go on the Guardian list! I'm really loving some of these additions, too. We'll write a blog post about them once it's done. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Boo-yah! All done and looking schweet. Many thanks to jynnantonnyx for helping me get all these books added to the database. Take a gander and let us know what you think. There is quite a bit of variety in this one which is exciting. jynnantonnyx will be posting to the blog about the list shortly. Enjoy! |
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| w00t! great job, thanks for adding this one, your hard work is appreciated. Looks like theres an error with the novel pages for books in this award though, they are all giving this error "AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED - PLEASE RETRY YOUR REQUEST" eg: http://worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?ID=2522 I am itching to go add a bunch of the new ones to my read list.
Looking forward to the blog post too.
Edited by htaccess 2011-07-08 10:23 PM
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - 2011-07-08 10:21 PM w00t! great job, thanks for adding this one, your hard work is appreciated. Looks like theres an error with the novel pages for books in this award though, they are all giving this error "AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED - PLEASE RETRY YOUR REQUEST" eg: http://worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?ID=2522 I am itching to go add a bunch of the new ones to my read list. Looking forward to the blog post too. Yeah, we've got a slight data issue that should be fixed shortly. One of the data fields is not long enough or some such so it's hanging up. Stand by.
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Location: Dallas, Texas | It's fixed now. Try it and see.
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Boo-yah again! Took way longer than expected but we finally finished the Baen Reader's List of Recommended Military SF. Check out the blog intro here. Happy reading.
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| http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/top100.cgi?novel
Note: this is not the same as http://www.isfdb.org/topnbal.html |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | That's a good list but we've already got the balanced list from ISFDB and I'm not sure this is different enough from that. Looking around that site I found this list: ISFDB Top 100 Authors (Balanced List) and I thought what if we had a WWEnd poll based on this list where members and visitors choose one book for each author on the list? It would be like having 100 mini-polls where you'd have to vote for 1 book from each author's entire bibliography. What one book best represents that author's work? We could call it "100 Best Books by 100 Top Authors" or some such and display them in the same order as the ISFDB list. It would be one hell of a great list judging by the names on there and a great way to find a book for an author you haven't tried yet. What do you all think? Worth the effort? Would you cast your votes?
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Location: Dallas, Texas | In case you missed it in the blog we've just added a new list!
Take a look and let us know what you think. Surprised by any books on the list? Any books that we've missed?
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Location: SC, USA | I think that's a great idea. It will be fun.
Rhonda |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Well, I got one bite. Thanks, Rhonda. I think it would be fun and I think the result will be really unique. It would take at least a few hundred voters to make it worthwhile though. And now for something completely different... |
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| nice work. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @nate1234: Thanks, glad you like it! I mentioned this in the blog so I thought I'd put it here too: We'll be adding links for connected series soon so you can get to all 3 of Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series that fall under different letters in the alphabet. There are many series of series in the database so this will help you find the ones that go together so you won't end up starting in the middle trilogy. I'll post here when that's been added. |
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Location: Rhode Island | Love this site. I'm all about lists.I have another awards list sugestion. I'm a big fan of Harry Turtledove and S.M. Stirling,so how about the Sideways Award for Alternate History. It is a new award compared to the others,the first being awarded in 1995.
The most recent was awarded on 8/16 at the 69th Annual World Science Fiction Convention in Reno,NV.
The winner was When Angels Wept:A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Eric Swedin |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | splunge52 - 2011-08-28 10:12 AM Love this site. I'm all about lists.I have another awards list sugestion. I'm a big fan of Harry Turtledove and S.M. Stirling,so how about the Sideways Award for Alternate History. It is a new award compared to the others,the first being awarded in 1995. The most recent was awarded on 8/16 at the 69th Annual World Science Fiction Convention in Reno,NV. The winner was When Angels Wept:A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Eric Swedin I'm glad you're diggin' the site! I've been thinking of the Sidewise award and it would be a nice addition. I'll certainly add it to the list of awards we want to add. I'm a bit embarrassed that we've only got 1 Turtledove book in our database! I'll try to get some of his books added here shortly. Thanks for the suggestion.
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| I saw this one on a forum post but can't seem to find it again to credit whoever mentioned it but I think this list is a pretty good one:
Easton Press Masterpieces of Science Fiction
http://www.keithwease.com/easton.htm
the page has a few lists on it the SF one is down the bottom.
Looks to be very few books not already in the database on there. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - 2011-10-20 12:15 AM I saw this one on a forum post but can't seem to find it again to credit whoever mentioned it but I think this list is a pretty good one: Easton Press Masterpieces of Science Fiction http://www.keithwease.com/easton.htm the page has a few lists on it the SF one is down the bottom. Looks to be very few books not already in the database on there. We've looked into adding this one before. I wrote to EP to get a definitive list of the books after finding several conflicting lists around the web and they could not/would not provide such a list. They told me "we don't keep track of the books we publish" and further admonished me in no uncertain terms that I should in no way claim to have the definitive list as if I was going to try and trade on their reputation. To be honest, they were rather dickish in their response, when all I wanted was a reliable list, and I just said screw that and moved on to another list. I thought it strange that they would not want to promote their own books at no cost and very little effort but I'm not surprised anymore. If you guys like the list we'll get it added. Especially if it's mostly books we've already got |
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| Seems childish and dumb, having a featured list would bring them exposure and traffic, what business doesn't want that?
That said its still a good list, would prefer to have it vs. not have it.
If it ever does get added I would suggest mentioning their unhelpful attitude in the description! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | I looked over the EP list you linked to and after removing the duplicates it comes out to 139 books of which we already have 120. We'll get the remaining 19 added in the next few days and throw the list up. |
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| Thanks!
Once again, I would just like to say thanks for being so responsive to your users. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - 2011-10-21 5:41 PM Thanks! Once again, I would just like to say thanks for being so responsive to your users. You are most welcome! You guys keep giving us great ideas we'll keep adding 'em. The lists are one of my favorite features so I'm usually happy to jump on a new one. It helps when we're most of the way there already. Here's a new feature we think you're gonna like: My Series This is a list of all the SF/F/H series in our database that you have at least 1 book tagged in. So if you've tagged a book as read, to read or currently reading and it's part of a series, the series will show in this list. Of course, you have to be a member, you have to have tagged a book that's part of a series and you have to be logged in. Use this list to find your incomplete series so you can finish them off. It's great if you've lost track of where you stopped reading or perhaps you caught up to the author and had to wait a few years for the next book so you forgot to go back to it. I know I found The Boy Who Would Live Forever which is book 5 of the Heechee Saga. It came out 17 years after book 4 and I thought I had read them all. You can also use this list to show off all the series you've read to your friends and talk them into joining WWEnd. Just sayin' Anyway, check it out and let us know what you think! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | You asked for it, you got it. Let us know what you think! Easton Press Masterpieces of Science Fiction
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| Thanks, quick turnaround!
Like I say, regardless of their attitude its a quality list.
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Location: Boston, MA | every time i come back to this site you've added something new and i, like a child, 'play' with it thanks so much for 'my series'! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | hihik - 2011-11-12 10:30 PM every time i come back to this site you've added something new and i, like a child, 'play' with it thanks so much for 'my series'! Ha, ha! You are so right! Of course, you should never really leave this site in the first place I really dig the My Series too though that page can take some time to load. We're going to add some filtering to it eventually so you can select completed series, incomplete series and series that you haven't started but have tagged on your reading list. We've also got a new list coming up in a few days for our YA Genre Fiction Month so stay tuned. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | More YA books than you can shake a stick at. |
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Location: SC, USA | Dave, et. al.
Since the recent entries are focused on both YA and series, I was wondering if you'd look at the Tom Dietz books. Dietz's fame was more regional. He wrote some interesting fantansy series with young protagonists that blends Native American (primarily Cherokee) mythology and Welsh mythology in a North Georgia Appalachian location. The two best series are the David Sullivan series and the trilogy that contains Soulsmith, Wordwright and Dreambuilder.
Just a thought,
Rhonda |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Rhondak101 - 2011-11-29 4:36 PM Dave, et. al. Since the recent entries are focused on both YA and series, I was wondering if you'd look at the Tom Dietz books. Dietz's fame was more regional. He wrote some interesting fantansy series with young protagonists that blends Native American (primarily Cherokee) mythology and Welsh mythology in a North Georgia Appalachian location. The two best series are the David Sullivan series and the trilogy that contains Soulsmith, Wordwright and Dreambuilder. Just a thought, Rhonda Sounds interesting! I'll get these added - perhaps this weekend but no promises. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Rhonda, Tom Deitz has been added to the database. His David Sullivan series and Soulsmith Trilogy. Took a bit longer than I wanted but doesn't everything around here? |
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Location: SC, USA | Thanks, Dave. There's a typo in the Dreambuilder title--Dresmbuilder. Otherwise, they look great. Thanks again.
Rhonda |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | D'oh! It's fixed now. |
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| Not a bad list here: http://blamcast.net/articles/best-science-fiction-books
Hows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Fantasy:_The_100_Best_Novels coming along?
I note the wikipedia link is not working right now due to the sopa/pipa protests. Its interesting looking at that the US Govt is trying to do while keeping in mind things like https://www.worldswithoutend.com/lists_banned_sff.asp.
I also note that WWEnd could be "dissapeared" from the internet with no due process or recourse based on an accusation of copyright infringement if these laws pass. I therefore encourage those of you in the US to add your voices in pressuring your representatives to reject these pieces of legislation. |
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| Some context: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h2dF-IsH0I |
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| oh and to tie this all together, here's Cory Doctrow "28c3: The coming war on general computation".
When Clay Shirky talks about being ready for whats coming in the previous clip, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Not a bad list at all. I've read most of those and a good many would be on my own "best" list. The Pringle Fantasy has stalled a bit here lately because of the GMRC but I'll pick it back up soon. It would be just our luck that SOPA/PIPA would rain on our parade. Dill-holes. |
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Location: The Wilds of Washington | In Accelerando, Stross used a great word for those in the legislature who had no clue about what's going on, suddenly found out, and then promptly overreacted. They are the legislatasuarus. They're extinct but don't have brains to fall over dead. This fits with the theory that all laws, beyond the most basic, are codifications to old problems, which may or may not still exist. |
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| i assumed it was $$$ motivating them, not being out of touch.
mpaa donations have been fairly constant, tho they spiked in 2008:
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000027729&year=2...
riaa donations increased considerably starting in 2008:
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000581&year=2...
my guess is that the guys backing away from it now are doing so do to public outrage, rather than new information.
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Location: The Wilds of Washington | gallyangel - 2012-01-18 7:32 PM
In Accelerando, Stross used a great word for those in the legislature who had no clue about what's going on, suddenly found out, and then promptly overreacted. They are the legislatasuarus. They're extinct but don't have brains to fall over dead. This fits with the theory that all laws, beyond the most basic, are codifications to old problems, which may or may not still exist.
Legislatosaurus. I think it should be nominated for new word of the year. |
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Location: The Wilds of Washington | Have you ever thought about adding the Masters of Science Fiction list from Carroll and Graf publishers? It's exactly like the SF Masterworks list, one publisher's idea about what is master status in SF.
Ring around the Sun, Miracle Visitors, On Wings of Song, and the Walking Shadow, are all part of the series. Your links to those books are from the series. I think there are less than 50 books. |
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Location: SC, USA | Today's Random Reads contains Eight Skilled Gentlemen. It looked interesting, so I clicked on the book. The book blurb notes that it is the sequel to The Bridge of Birds (in WWE) and The Story of the Stone (not in). Thought I'd let you know, but, of course, that just adds more to my Reading List. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @Galleyangel: I've not heard of that series before but it sounds interesting. When I try to look up "Masters of Science Fiction" I only get the TV series. Do you have a link? @Rhondak101: I hate a broken series.
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Location: The Wilds of Washington | On the Masters of Science Fiction series by Carroll and Graf.
Ive never been able to find a website for this series, so Im guessing there is none out there. Ive had to recreate the list from a varity of sources. The checklist of titles in the back of their books, cross checked with various book sites to see if those books have the Masters of Science Fiction cover or not. Carroll and Graf published other SF during the same time as the Masters series which wasnt part of that series. The Locus mag. website has a searchable publisher index, so that helped too.
These are the for sures, with one exception.
Masters of Science Fiction
Galaxies Malzberg
Beyond Apollo Malzberg
On Wings of Song Disch
The Walking Shadow Stableford
The Forgotten Planet Leinster
Quarantine World Leinster
The Forever Machine Clifton/Riley
vermilion sands j g ballard
Hello America J.G. Ballard
the book of ptath van vogt
the house that stood still van vogt
the beast van vogt
the universe maker van vogt
cosmic encounters van vogt
The Mind Cage Van Vogt
the night mayor kim newman
the goblin reservation simak
cemetery world simak
the werewolf principle simak
Ring Around the Sun Simak
All Flesh is Grass Simak
chekhov's journey ian watson
the embedding ian watson
Miracle Visitors Watson
The Metal Monster Merritt
Venus plus X sturgeon ???
(I have not been able to confirm or denigh this one. It was published in the right time frame but Ive never seen the cover to this issue.)
the golden helix sturgeon
Some of your Blood Sturgeon
you're all alone leiber
the muller-fokker effect sladek
the zap gun Dick
the penultimate truth Dick
clans of the alphane moon Dick
last orders aldiss
the dark light years aldiss
Non-Stop aldiss
the alteration amis
day of the triffids wyndham
Carroll & Graf Pub also did an aborted Masters of Horror and Masters of Fantasy series.
Masters of Horror
demons of daylight campbell
The Complete Werewolf boucher, anthony
Seeds of Evil bingley
The Watchers Out of Time lovecraft
Masters of Fantasy
The Jewel of the Seven Stars bram stoker
the moon pool abraham merritt
Some of these titles seem rather obscure. And trying to find these specific print editions has been difficult and expensive, in a few cases.
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| @Rhondak101: Hugart's Master Li trilogy is fine (although I found that the first book was the best of the three). However, if you're interested in humorous adventures in a China that never was, I would highly recommend Ernest Bramah's Kai Lung's books instead. |
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Location: SC, USA | Engelbrecht, Thanks for the suggestion. I'll certainly take a look at them. |
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| http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.... seems to be going away ... pity, it was quite a good list although it suffered from the dynamic list problem.
Interesting new one:
http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/sflib.htm
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/02/102-essential-scifi-books/
Looks like a good one
Edited by htaccess 2012-02-07 4:21 PM
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Location: SC, USA | Since we know that Dave abhors an incomplete series, I offer this. The Lev Grossman book just added, The Magician King, is the sequel to The Magicians.
http://www.amazon.com/Magicians-Novel-Lev-Grossman/dp/0452296293/re...
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Work is kicking my ass right now so I've fallen off the pace here lately. This one does stick in my craw Could have sworn I'd already added The Magicians! When I get my second wind I'll take care of some of these. |
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| The new Radium Age (1904-33) Series from HiLo books looks like it will be an interesting list if they keep adding books:
The Scarlet Plague By Jack London
With the Night Mail, A Story of 2000 A.D. and As Easy As A.B.C. By Rudyard Kipling
The Poison Belt By Arthur Conan Doyle
When the World Shook By H. Rider Haggard
http://hilobrow.com/hilobooks/
http://boingboing.net/2012/02/14/the-radium-age-science-fiction.htm... |
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Location: The Wilds of Washington | The poison belt is already in the database. The other prof. Challenger stories would be good to add too. |
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| Just wondering which lists we can expect to see added soon?
I would most like to see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Fantasy:_The_Hundred_Best_Novel...
and
Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010 |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - Just wondering which lists we can expect to see added soon? That's a good question! Here are some of the lists/awards we're working on adding: - Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award (author award) (0)
- World Horror Grandmasters (author award) (3)
- Searles' Basic Reading List in Science Fiction (6)
- Shirley Jackson Award (19)
- Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010 (22)
- Pringle's Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels (34)
- Fantasy - The 100 Best Books (Cawthorn and Moorcock) (53)
- Mythopoetic Award (78)
The number next to each indicates how many books or authors we're lacking from each list. We've made a bit of progress on some of these and there is some overlap in these so adding a single book can knock it off of 3 or 4 lists at once. So which one is next? Well, none of these actually. We're working on a different list all-together: Books Reviewed on WWEnd That's right. All the reviewed books in a single list so you can peruse the reviews easier. We've got over 800 reviews on the site (huge props to our contributors!) and we want to be sure you guys are finding them. We're going to make it like the Series list with the alpha pagination and I'm guessing it'll be at least 300 books long. All the usual BookTrackr color coding will be there as well as a page that shows all the reviewed books that you've tagged as read. Should be coming up pretty soon so keep an eye out for it. After that? Pringle's Modern Fantasy seems to have a lot of people excited so that's a good pick methinks. The new 101 Best Novels list is getting some love in another thread so that one's rising to the top as well. What do youthinks? |
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Uber User
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| The Books Reviewed list looks like a great addition - looking forward to it! Pringle's Modern Fantasy and the Mythopoetic award have been hanging fire for some time now - it would be nice to see them completed. Fantasy awards are somewhat underrepresented with only 2 awards vs. SF's 7 (the BFS is really more horror than fantasy), so some more fantasy would be nice. The book lists are even more unbalanced - around 11 SF lists vs. 1 fantasy list.
On the book lists in progress: - Searles' Basic Reading List in Science Fiction: A good list, but it would be nice to see the companion fantasy list (see below) go up first.
- Shirley Jackson Award: Very interesting, would definitely like to see this one.
- Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010: A strong list, should be added.
- Pringle's Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels: Yes!
- Fantasy - The 100 Best Books (Cawthorn and Moorcock): A worthwhile but very eclectic list. Cawthorne says: "In an earlier volume of the '100 best' series, H. R. F. Keating says that he excluded certain titles because they are now almost unobtainable. The contrary view is taken here..." BTW, this work is almost entirely Cawthorn's as Moorcock was too busy to perform the work originally commissioned to him.
- Mythopoetic Award: Yes!
I can tell that you don't have enough work on your plate, so I've come up with some other possible additions (more fantasy lists):
- The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series was a highly influential series in it's day, much more so than the two Orion Masterworks series. It includes works by such seminal authors as William Morris, James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany and George MacDonald.
- The Seven League Shelf, a list of classic fantasy complied by Baird Searles in his Reader's Guide to Fantasy. I can't find the list online, but I can reproduce it if you like. (it has 33 entries).
- Jeff Vandermeer's Fantasy: Essential Reading is a great literary list. Jeff has impeccable credentials for compiling such a list, so this is one that I'd really like to see added. Plus, it has 4 out of the 5 books that I give a 10 to that aren't currently on the site.
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @Engelbrecht: Glad you like the new list ideas. The ones you mentioned are new to me but I dig 'em - especially the Vandermeer. Here's a progress report on the current list of lists: Books Reviewed on WWEnd list is LIVE! Check it out and let us know what you think!
Pringle's Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels - I've got all the images ready and we've started to get them into the DB. I'm guessing we'll have that done in the next couple weeks on the outside. More to come in the next few days including a blog post about the reviewed books list. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | And another one!
My thanks to jynnandtonnyx for jumping on those last 50 books. |
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Location: Gunnison, Colorado | Awesome! Thanks, guys. There were a few of those I'd been wanting to add to my reading list... |
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Uber User
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| Wow, the WWE Books Reviewed is awesome! Turns out that there are more than 500 books represented - lots of reviews to read! I keep thinking about posting some reviews here, but always seem to find myself intimidated by the tremendous quality of the reviews I keep reading. That, and once I finish a book, the siren song of the next book sweeps me away - it's an addiction! Props also for the Pringle Modern Fantasy - jynnandtonnyx waves a mouse and magics weeks into days - thanks!! I'm so happy that the Angela Carter book is here now - The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman is such a GREAT book!!!! The Bridge, Who Made Stevie Crye?, Lanark, The Eyes of the Overworld, all great new additions. The book from the Pringle list that I'm most looking forward to reading is Helprin's Winter's Tale - one of these years I'll get to it - so much reading to do...
BTW, when you get a chance a notice for these should be posted to the New Features & News forum - all this hard work should be recognized.
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Location: Gunnison, Colorado | Yes, the Books Reviewed section is a great addition! Should be a great resource when looking to add to the reading list...
@Engelbrecht: The fact that some people spend way too much time writing reviews :-) shouldn't deter anyone! A brief comment can be just as valuable, and I like to see multiple reactions to a book. I'd be especially interested in the opinion of anyone who has read as much as you have, and have benefited from your recommendations and comments in these forums as I continue down the fantasy road...
Going back to the possible lists above, I've been using Cawthorn/Moorcock as a guide for a couple of years. There are some oddities there, and books that some will question as to whether they're really fantasy (e.g., Moby Dick!), but it adds some interesting diversity. The new SF 1985-2010 list seems to be getting some respect, so I'd like to get going on that at some point as well.
Another source I haven't seen mentioned is the Bloomsbury Good Reading Guides "100 Must Read" series. The Science Fiction Novel and Fantasy Novel guides by Stephen Andrews and Nick Rennison are quite good and wide-ranging. Something to consider when you run out of other things to do! :-)
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Location: Sacramento, California | I keep thinking about posting some reviews here, but always seem to find myself intimidated by the tremendous quality of the reviews I keep reading. That, and once I finish a book, the siren song of the next book sweeps me away - it's an addiction!
I used to write bigger reviews here, but that comes in waves. After a while, it felt tiring, but I do love the idea of clicking on a book and seeing several reviews to look over, so I try to give at least a couple of quick sentences on anything I read. That quick review may help you decide not to waste your time, or to go ahead and try it out. |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Glad to hear you guys like the new lists! I'm stoked about both of them. The Pringle list because I want to balance out the content on the site a bit more. Fantasy lags behind on the awards and lists and Horror is much farther behind but it's still a new addition to the site so I don't feel too bad about that right now. I like having both Pringle lists now and I'm excited to be adding the new SF list that picks up where Pringle left off. I wonder if there will be a continuation on his Modern Fantasy list too? Anyway, when Jynnandtonnyx saw how close we were to completing another list he wasted no time. The books reviewed list is something we should have done long ago but never really thought of it. The GMRC was the catylist. We've been getting a ton of great reviews but, more importantly, it's brought in a bunch of new folks to our little community! A lot of these new members are very generously sharing their old reviews too so the numbers just keep climbing. When we passed 800 reviews(!) the other day we just had to do something. Luckily the pages we built for the series list adapted easily for the reviews so we were able to turn that around really fast. Credit to whargoul for the coding! As for the reviews, I agree with Scott and Deven. There's room for all kinds of reviews on WWEnd. I like a big chunky review that I can sink my teeth into but I also appreciate the short reviews and what I call "opinion pieces" where you get "This book is over-rated. You should read X instead." Those are the kind you get from your buddies over beers and they're nice when you just want to get the straight dope or you don't have time to read somethig that long. I know what you mean about being a little intimidated by some of the reviews around here. Man, I can't write 'em like that either. But here's the thing, if you've got something to say about a book, just get it out there! Somebody will read it and glean somethig from it. For example, Scott writes a bad ass review like for his Forays series and I just eat that up like a lot of other folks. But some people will look at that 12 paragraph review and just be turned off by the length. They'll skim through or look for something more like DivineNanny's reviews which are much shorter but still high quality. It's all good as far as I'm concerned. The more variety like that we have the happier everyone will be. I'll say one more thing and then stop - I've already gone on too long. It's an interesting exercise to put your thoughts down on "paper" for others to see. It can really help you work out your own ideas and reactions to a book in a way that you can't get from just thinking about it by yourself. You might be surprised at how it comes out if you give it a go! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | @Scott Laz: I've not heard of the Bloomsbury Guides but they sound interesting. I'll look that one up. Sounds like a new list item to me |
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| Thanks for adding, Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels, keep them coming
@Scott Do you have the book lists for Bloomsbury Good Reading Guides? |
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Location: UK | Dave,it was so reassuring to read your comments about reviewing.When I have looked at some of the reviews I am so intimidated by their quality,that I darent put finger to posting! But its encouraging to hear that we can produce just short sort of comments which can be of use to readers,Also good to know we can produce reviews on older reads too.I am totally swamped with books of all kinds at the moment,SF is a pretty new minor part ,and I am doing book challenges on Shelfari that have me tied to reading no less than 100 books -crime,paranormal,general fiction,young adult,junior classics,vintage crime,manga,historical etc( you name it ,I read it,apart from war books!).but my love for SF has been reignited,and surely later in the year I will take part more.This is an absolutely wonderful site,I keep finding more great features(the latest was listing my series.That is cool,but adding lot more books to my TBR lists...sigh...
My only problem with this site? Nobody posts! I feel a bit stupid at times posting something,and no one answers.I honestly think members give and take is essential to keep a group vibrant and active,how sad so few want to get involved.Scott,Jedi Timothy,Rhondak, and of course Dave our admin,you are heroes.
Perhaps you need a general thread,something as simple as ''What are you reading in June?'',to get people posting and replying.Sorry if I am stepping on any toes here,but I am a regular on Shelfari,where every group has such a thread,and it is always very popular and active.Just passing thoughts,folks,but such a thread could be very lively and productive,in getting all those potential posters to WAKE UP and support this most excellent website.
OK,there's my rant of the day concluded,a very common occurence with me! ;0) |
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Uber User
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Location: Gunnison, Colorado | @htaccess: Well, you asked for it:
Formatting doesn't look too good, so I tried attached a documents that should be easier to peruse...
Frankenstein Shelley, Mary 1818
Journey to the Center of the Earth Verne, Jules 1864
Time Machine, The Wells, H. G. 1895
Island of Dr. Moreau, The Wells, H. G. 1896
War of the Worlds, The Wells, H. G. 1898
Princess of Mars, A Burroughs, Edgar Rice 1912
Lost World, The Doyle, Arthur Conan 1912
Brave New World Huxley, Aldous 1932
Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams Moore, C. L. 1933-40
Legion of Time, The Williamson, Jack 1938
Orphans of the Sky Heinlein, Robert A. 1941
Fury Kuttner, Henry 1947
Triplanetary Smith, E. E. "Doc" 1948
Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell, George 1949
Earth Abides Stewart, George 1949
I, Robot Asimov, Isaac 1950
Martian Chronicles, The Bradbury, Ray 1950
Voyage of the Space Beagle, The Van Vogt, A. E. 1950
Demolished Man, The Bester, Alfred 1952
This Island Earth Jones, Raymond F. 1952
Foundation Asimov, Isaac 1953
Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury, Ray 1953
Childhood's End Clarke, Arthur C. 1953
Bring the Jubilee Moore, Ward 1953
More Than Human Sturgeon, Theodore 1953
I Am Legend Matheson, Richard 1954
Stars My Destination, The Bester, Alfred 1956
Midwich Cuckoos, The Wyndham, John 1957
Case of Conscience, A Blish, James 1958
Immortality Inc. Sheckley, Robert 1958
Languages of Pao, The Vance, Jack 1958
Starship Troopers Heinlein, Robert A. 1959
Canticle for Leibowitz, A Miller, Walter M., Jr. 1959
Rogue Moon Budrys, Algis 1960
Reality Dysfunction, The Hamilton, Peter F. 1960
Solaris Lem, Stanislaw 1961
Houthouse Aldiss, Brian 1962
Drowned World, The Ballard, J. G. 1962
Clockwork Orange, A Burgess, Anthony 1962
Man Who Fell to Earth, The Tevis, Walter 1963
Genocides, The Disch, Thomas M. 1965
Dune Herbert, Frank 1965
Final Programme, The Moorcock, Michael 1965
Make Room! Make Room! Harrison, Harry 1966
Flowers for Algernon Keyes, Daniel 1966
This Immortal [And Call Me Conrad] Zelazny, Roger 1966
Ticket That Exploded, The Burroughs, William S. 1967
Norstrilia Smith, Cordwainer 1964-68
Nova Delaney, Samuel R. 1968
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dick, Philip K. 1968
Pavane Roberts, Keith 1968
Heroes and Villains Carter, Angela 1969
Ubik Dick, Philip K. 1969
Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, The Ellison, Harlan 1969
Lovers, The Farmer, Philip Jose 1969
Left Hand of Darkness, The Le Guin, Ursula K. 1969
Man in the Maze, The Silverberg, Robert 1969
Slaughterhouse-Five Vonnegut, Kurt 1969
Ringworld Niven, Larry 1971
Sheep Look Up, The Brunner, John 1972
Other Days, Other Eyes Shaw, Bob 1972
Iron Dream, The Spinrad, Norman 1972
Roadside Picnic Strugatsky, Arkady & Boris 1972
Best of John W. Campbell, The Campbell, John W. 1973
Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, The Compton, D. G. 1974
Forever War, The Haldeman, Joe 1974
Centauri Device, The Harrison, M. John 1974
Dispossessed, The Le Guin, Ursula K. 1974
Guernica Night Malzberg, Barry N. 1974
Female Man, The Russ, Joanna 1975
Jonah Kit, The Watson, Ian 1975
Garments of Caen, The Bayley, Barrington J. 1976
Man Plus Pohl, Frederik 1976
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang Wilhelm, Kate 1976
Involution Ocean Sterling, Bruce 1977
Timescape Benford, Gregory 1980
City Come A-Walkin' Shirley, John 1980
Shadow of the Torturer, The Wolfe, Gene 1980
Anubis Gates, The Powers, Tim 1983
Tik-Tok Sladek, John 1983
Neuromancer Gibson, William 1984
Dr. Adder Jeter, K. W. 1984
Glamour, The Priest, Christopher 1984
Blood Music Bear, Greg 1985
Ancient of Days Bishop, Michael 1985
Ender's Game Card, Orson Scott 1985
Journal of Nicholas the American, The Kennedy, Leigh 1986
Life During Wartime Shepard, Lucius 1987
Player of Games, The Banks, Iain M. 1988
Synners Cadigan, Pat 1991
Stations of the Tide Swanwick, Michael 1991
China Mountain Zhang McHugh, Maureen 1992
Red Mars Robinson, Kim Stanley 1992
Snow Crash Stephenson, Neal 1992
Fire Upon the Deep, A Vinge, Vernor 1992
Doomsday Book Willis, Connie 1992
Permutation City Egan, Greg 1994
Moonseed Baxter, Steven 1998
Super-Cannes Ballard, J. G. 2000
Altered Carbon Morgan, Richard 2002
FANTASY
She Haggard, H. Rider 1887
Wood Beyond the World, The Morris, William 1894
Lilith MacDonald, George 1895
Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Baum, L. Frank 1900
Lost Continent, The Hyne, C. J. Cutcliffe 1900
Man Who Was Thursday, The Chesterton, G. K. 1908
Wind in the Willows, The Grahame, Kenneth 1908
Tarzan of the Apes Burroughs, Edgar Rice 1912
Voyage to Arcturus, A Lindsay, David 1920
Worm Ouroboros, The Eddison, E. R. 1922
King of Elfland's Daughter, The Dunsany, Lord 1924
Ship of Ishtar, The Merritt, A. 1924
Lud-in-the-Mist Mirrlees, Hope 1924
Orlando Woolf, Virginia 1928
War in Heaven, The Williams, Charles 1930
Lost Horizon Hilton, James 1933
Circus of Dr. Lao, The Finney, Charles G. 1935
Hour of the Dragon, The (aka Conan the Conqueror) Howard, Robert E. 1935
Green Child, The Read, Sir Herbert 1935
At the Mountains of Madness Lovecraft, H. P. 1936
Hobbit, The Tolkien, J. R. R. 1937
Sword in the Stone, The White, T. H. 1938
Islandia Wright, Austin Tappan 1942
Comet in Moominland Jansson, Tove 1946
Titus Groan [Gormenghast Trilogy] Peake, Meryn 1946
Silverlock Myers, John Myers 1949
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The [Narnia] Lewis, C. S. 1950
Dying Earth, The Vance, Jack 1950
Broken Sword, The Anderson, Poul 1954
Lord of the Rings, The Tolkien, J. R. R. 1954-55
Dandelion Wine Bradbury, Ray 1957
Annotated Alice, The Carroll, Lewis [ed. Martin Gardner] 1960
Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Garner, Alan 1960
Serpent, The [Atlan] Gaskell, Jane 1963
Over Sea, Under Stone [Dark Is Rising] Cooper, Susan 1965
Master and Margarita, The Bulgakov, Mikhail 1967
Last Unicorn, The Beagle, Peter S. 1968
Wizard of Earthsea, A [Earthsea] Le Guin, Ursula K. 1968
Feast Unknown, A Farmer, Philip Jose 1969
Black Gods (aka Jirel of Joiry) Moore, C. L. 1969
Anita Roberts, Keith 1970
Grendel Gardner, John 1971
Pastel City, The [Viriconium] Harrison, M. John 1971
Swords and Deviltry Leiber, Fritz 1971
Watership Down Adams, Richard 1972
Invisible Cities Calvino, Italo 1972
Elric of Melnibone [Eternal Champion] Moorcock, Michael 1972
Nine Princes in Amber [Chronicles of Amber] Zelazny, Roger 1972
Kleinzeit Hoban, Russell 1974
Forgotten Beasts of Eld, The McKillip, Patricia A. 1974
Book of Sand, The Borges, Jorge Luis 1975
Compleat Enchanter, The de Camp, L. Sprague & Fletcher Pratt 1975
Great Victorian Collection, The Moore, Brian 1975
Peace Wolfe, Gene 1975
Malacia Tapestry, The Aldiss, Brian 1976
Dragon and the George, The [Dragon Knight] Dickson, Gordon R. 1976
Sword of Shanarra, The Brooks, Terry 1977
Lord Foul's Bane [Chronicles of Thomas Covenant] Donaldson, Steven R. 1977
Merlin Nye, Robert 1978
Bloody Chamber, The Carter, Angela 1979
Watchtower [Chronicle of Tornor] Lynn, Elizabeth A. 1979
Drawing of the Dark, The Powers, Tim 1979
Land of Laughs, The Carroll, Jonathan 1980
Lord Valentine's Castle [Majipoor] Silverberg, Robert 1980
Little, Big Crowley, John 1981
Mists of Avalon Bradley, Marion Zimmer 1982
Pawn of Prophecy [The Belgariad] Eddings, David 1982
Magician [Riftwar Saga] Feist, Raymond E. 1982
Gunslinger, The [Dark Tower] King, Stephen 1982
Nifft the Lean Shea, Michael 1982
Colour of Magic, The [Discworld] Pratchett, Terry 1983
Legend [Drenai] Gemmell, David 1984
Mythago Wood Holdstock, Robert 1984
Wizard of the Pigeons Lindholm, Megan 1985
Warrior Who Carried Life, The Ryman, Geoff 1985
Homunculus Blaylock, James 1986
Howl's Moving Castle Jones, Diana Wynne 1986
City in the Autumn Stars, The Moorcock, Michael 1986
Weaveworld Barker, Clive 1987
Compleat Traveller in Black, The Brunner, John 1987
Replay Grimwood, Ken 1987
Book of the Damned, The [Secret Book of Paradys] Lee, Tanith 1988
Dragonbone Chair, The [Memory, Sorrow and Thorn] Williams, Tad 1988
Eye of the World, The [The Wheel of Time] Jordan, Robert 1990
Tigana Kay, Guy Gavriel 1990
Good Omens Pratchett, Terry and Neil Gaiman 1990
Beauty Tepper, Sheri 1991
Iron Dragon's Daughter, The Swanwick, Michael 1993
Mercury Kavan, Anna 1994
Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass) [His Dark Materials] Pullman, Philip 1995
Neverwhere Gaiman, Neil 1996
Game of Thrones, A [Song of Ice and Fire] Martin, George R. R. 1996
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, The Murakami, Haruki 1997
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Rowling, J. K. 1997
Gardens of the Moon [Malazan Books of the Fallen] Erikson, Steven 1999
Perdido Street Station [New Crobuzon] Mieville, China 2000
Across the Nightingale Floor [Tales of the Otori] Hearn, Lian 2002
Emperor of Dreams, The (collection) Smith, Clark Ashton 2002
Inkheart Funke, Cornelia 2003
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Morrell Clarke, Susanna 2004
Edited by Scott Laz 2012-06-03 5:53 PM
Attachments ---------------- Bloomsbury Guides.docx (47KB - 1 downloads)
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Veteran
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| Thanks Scott.
According to this blog post:
http://www.sfwriter.com/2009/08/anatomy-of-rjs.html
by Robert J. Sawyer, there is a "best of" list included in "Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction", does anyone know the contents of this list? Its probably different for different editions. |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Here are the missing books from those lists: Science Fiction - This Island Earth Jones, Raymond F. 1952
- Man in the Maze, The Silverberg, Robert 1969
- Other Days, Other Eyes Shaw, Bob 1972
- Best of John W. Campbell, The Campbell, John W. 1973
- Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, The Compton, D. G. 1974
- Garments of Caen, The Bayley, Barrington J. 1976
- Involution Ocean Sterling, Bruce 1977
- City Come A-Walkin' Shirley, John 1980
- Super-Cannes Ballard, J. G. 2000
FANTASY - Wood Beyond the World, The Morris, William 1894
- Lilith MacDonald, George 1895
- Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Baum, L. Frank 1900
- Lost Continent, The Hyne, C. J. Cutcliffe 1900
- Wind in the Willows, The Grahame, Kenneth 1908
- Ship of Ishtar, The Merritt, A. 1924
- Lost Horizon Hilton, James 1933
- Circus of Dr. Lao, The Finney, Charles G. 1935
- Green Child, The Read, Sir Herbert 1935
- Islandia Wright, Austin Tappan 1942
- Comet in Moominland Jansson, Tove 1946
- Annotated Alice, The Carroll, Lewis [ed. Martin Gardner] 1960
- Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Garner, Alan 1960
- Serpent, The [Atlan] Gaskell, Jane 1963
- Over Sea, Under Stone [Dark Is Rising] Cooper, Susan 1965
- Anita Roberts, Keith 1970
- Kleinzeit Hoban, Russell 1974
- Book of Sand, The Borges, Jorge Luis 1975
- Great Victorian Collection, The Moore, Brian 1975
- Merlin Nye, Robert 1978
- Bloody Chamber, The Carter, Angela 1979
- Legend [Drenai] Gemmell, David 1984
- Wizard of the Pigeons Lindholm, Megan 1985
- Howl's Moving Castle Jones, Diana Wynne 1986
- Book of the Damned, The [Secret Book of Paradys] Lee, Tanith 1988
- Mercury Kavan, Anna 1994
- Across the Nightingale Floor [Tales of the Otori] Hearn, Lian 2002
Not too bad. |
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Member
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Location: Karachi, Pakistan | Real chuffed about the Pringle list! Thanks! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | dustydigger - 2012-06-03 4:38 PM Dave,it was so reassuring to read your comments about reviewing.When I have looked at some of the reviews I am so intimidated by their quality,that I darent put finger to posting! I'm glad to see you've posted some reviews now! Very nice addtions to the site by the way - thanks! That wasn't so bad was it? My only problem with this site? Nobody posts! I feel a bit stupid at times posting something,and no one answers.I honestly think members give and take is essential to keep a group vibrant and active,how sad so few want to get involved.Scott,Jedi Timothy,Rhondak, and of course Dave our admin,you are heroes. Perhaps you need a general thread,something as simple as ''What are you reading in June?'',to get people posting and replying. Thank you for sticking in there and continuing to post in the forum! You've singlehandedly jump started the whole shebang and we're just thrilled that folks have been responding to your efforts. The ''What are you reading in June?'' thread was so obvious we just never thought to start one ourselves. It's such a pleasure to see so many comments every day and all the great threads! We're finally getting enough members to sustain the conversation in the forum and your arrival was the catalyst get things rolling. Many thanks from the whole team and, indeed, I think I can say from the whole WWEnd community. |
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Location: The Netherlands | I know you are busy n such but this list might be worth adding.
http://fantasymistressworks.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/fantasy-mistre... |
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Location: UK | Why Dave,thanks for the kind words! All you needed was ,to be inelegant,a kick up the backside! lol...no be polite Dusty - a wakeup call
Seriously though,sharing knowledge and recommendations doubles the pleasure of reading.In real life it can be difficult to find fellow bookaholics,and one of the joys online is being able to share with others who have the same addiction.I hope some of the other members hiding away with their booklists will come and join the fun.I have truly learned so much since joining this group.Glad so many are joining in.I was very pleased to see almost all the Usual Suspects taking part in the genre game,its going down a treat.Of course it has already added several books to the TBR.Thanks everyone for supporting it! |
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Location: Dallas, Texas | valashain - 2012-07-19 10:13 AM I know you are busy n such but this list might be worth adding. http://fantasymistressworks.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/fantasy-mistressworks-fifty/[/QUOTE] An interesting list that's certainly worth adding to the site. We're a bit off the pace here though - short 30 books of the 50: - Songspinners – Sarah Ash
- The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
- The Blue Sword – Robin McKinley
- The Curse of the Mistwraith – Janny Wurts
- Shadow Magic – Patricia C Wrede
- Familiar Spirit – Lisa Tuttle
- Diadem from the Stars – Jo Clayton
- Black Horses for the King – Anne McCaffrey
- The Clan of the Cave Bear – Jean M Auel
- The Wood Wife – Terri Windling
- The Porcelain Dove – Delia Sherman
- The Winter Prince – Elizabeth Wein
- The Time of the Dark – Barbara Hambly
- Tam Lin – Pamela Dean
- The Sacrifice – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- The Beleagured City – Margaret Oliphant
- The Soul of Lilith – Marie Corelli
- The Citadel of Fear – Francis Stevens
- Dragon Prince – Melanie Rawn
- Black Trillium – Julian May
- The Thief’s Gamble – Juliet E McKenna
- Daggerspell – Katharine Kerr
- The Blue Manor – Jenny Jones
- The Barbed Coil – J V Jones
- In the Red Lord’s Reach – Phyllis Eisenstein
- The Last of the Renshai – Mickey Zucher Reichert
- Archangel – Sharon Shinn
- The Hall of the Mountain King – Judith Tarr
- A Blackbird in Silver – Freda Warrington
- The Red Magician – Lisa Goldstein
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Location: Dallas, Texas | dustydigger - 2012-07-20 12:46 PM Why Dave,thanks for the kind words! I was very pleased to see almost all the Usual Suspects taking part in the genre game,its going down a treat. You are most welcome. I really like the genre game thread too. Easy enough for anybody to jump in. Now we need to see about getting the Usual Suspects list to grow a bit longer. |
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Member
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Location: Rhode Island | I have a couple suggestions for some WWEnd inspired book lists.
How about "The 50 most read by members of WWEnd". Of course it would be ever changeing.
or
"The 50 Highest rated books by members of WWEnd". There would have to be a minimum of ratings to qualify. |
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Uber User
Posts: 202
Location: Sacramento, California | splunge52 - 2012-11-21 5:37 PM
How about "The 50 most read by members of WWEnd". Of course it would be ever changeing.
or
"The 50 Highest rated books by members of WWEnd". There would have to be a minimum of ratings to qualify.
I actually really like these ideas! The second one is a good one because that gives you a peer-reviewed list of essentials, according to folks like yourself.
These might already be viewable through one of the stat settings, but I do like the idea of a page on the site that shows the top stats. Highest rated, most read, most reviewed, etc. |
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Admin
Posts: 4008
Location: Dallas, Texas | @splunge52: These are, indeed, some great ideas. We've been kicking around the highest rated books list idea for some time. The main issue is coming up with a suitable formula for determining the list. @Deven Science: Most read and most reviewed would be simple lists to build since that is just straight data. I'll talk with the team and see what we can do about all these ideas. It may be some time before we get to them as we're gearing up for next years reading challenge right now. |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| As I have suggested in the past, where you have lists that are changing you can have editions which you can then publish periodically.
"The 50 most read by members of WWEnd - 2012 edition"
The benefit of this is that when a new edition comes out it creates interest because people want to see what books are on the rise and which are fading. Think pop charts. |
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New User
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| Awesome site! If I could suggest one more category of top works for your consideration, it would be "translated foreign works". In particular I'm thinking of the well translated and well read Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko's NightWatch series. There are 4 books in the series -- Nightwatch, Daywatch, Twilight Watch, and Last Watch. All are outstanding, somewhat out of the horror, magic, and vampire genres. Thanks. |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | Izzy4real - 2012-12-08 9:19 AM Awesome site! If I could suggest one more category of top works for your consideration, it would be "translated foreign works". In particular I'm thinking of the well translated and well read Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko's NightWatch series. There are 4 books in the series -- Nightwatch, Daywatch, Twilight Watch, and Last Watch. All are outstanding, somewhat out of the horror, magic, and vampire genres. Thanks. Hey Izzy4real, Welcome to WWEnd! I'm glad you like the site. Let me know if you have any questions and thanks for the suggestion. We have a long tradition of great suggestions from out members that turn into features on the site. Translated work is something I'm very interested in highlighting on the site. Awhile back I went looking for an award or list to add to the site but there was nothing out there that we could work with. Now there's an award, Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award, but it's brand new so only has a few books in it thus far. If you know of an extensive list from a credible source please point us to it. The thing about these lists is they need to have a big name or organization behind them to get people to sit up and take notice. I've added the Night Watch series to our overlooked books list in the mean time. Cheers! |
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Veteran
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| Its high time worldswithoutend produced a list so it can be classed as a big name organisation like the other list producers out there! |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| Oh, and the Fantasy Mistressworks Fifty gets my vote for adding to the lists, looks like a good one. |
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Veteran
Posts: 207
| ... and the "Bloomsbury Good Reading Guides" are actually very good too. +1 |
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Admin
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Location: Dallas, Texas | htaccess - 2012-12-10 4:07 PM Its high time worldswithoutend produced a list so it can be classed as a big name organisation like the other list producers out there! Heh. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Well, I'm comfortable deriving lists from our data like our Award Winning Books by Woman Authors and the WWEnd Top Nominated Books of All-Time, but to actually create a list from scratch is not something I'm eager to mess with. Too many good lists out there that we can leverage to bother making 'em up on our own. I think our job is more about presenting the best lists than trying to determine any ourselves. We'll still probably end up making some anyway.
htaccess - 2012-12-10 4:09 PM Oh, and the Fantasy Mistressworks Fifty gets my vote for adding to the lists, looks like a good one. Yeah, this is one I want to get to pretty soon. Prolly some time after the new year. htaccess - 2012-12-10 4:14 PM ... and the "Bloomsbury Good Reading Guides" are actually very good too. +1 Another interesting list that I still need to look into.
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