quote:Likewise, I don't know if I'd ever be able to really get into Discworld if I don't start at the first book.
You definitely could. The first two books are almost entirely irrelevant to most of the rest of the books. What's more, they're bad, in comparison to the rest, and the style of humor is different.
The suggested starting places are good. Guards, Guards is a good introduction to the Watch part of the Discworld books, Wyrd Sisters is a good introduction to the Witches part of the Discworld books, and Small Gods is a good nearly standalone Discworld book (that's one of the best written). Hmm, for the Death part of the Discworld books, I think Mort might be the best starting place. After you've started on at least all those areas, you might go back and read Color of Magic, just to be ready to read the rest of the Rincewind part of the Discworld books.
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quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: I feel the problem with that is the same reason why I've never read The Wheel of Time. A lot of Jordan fans tell me the quality of his writing vastly improved as a grew older, and I believe them, but I can't get myself to start at a book in the middle of the series.
As Fugu says (well, implies), Discworld isn't really one series; it's several series, set in the same world, which only very occasionally touch each other. The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are both part of the Rincewind sub-series, which I generally consider forgettable, although the latter volumes are better than the first. There's a chart that shows how the various series connect, which might help?
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quote:I am REALLY REALLY sad that CS Lewis's space trilogy is number 100. That means it came in dead last, since we only voted out of a hundred. I can only assume it's because not many people have read it. It's the mind blowingly trippiest sci-fi I've ever read, and that's what makes things fantastic in my mind.
I've read it. I liked it. But it does not belong on this list at all. They're interesting stories, but pretty terrible science fiction.
Regarding Zelazny, Lord of Light deserves to be on this list 10x more than the Amber books do.
quote:If you read the little side story that explains how they classify things, they'll tell you that His Dark Materials was declared YA fiction.
And YA fic is disqualified as being great science fiction or fantasy?
Yeah that really bugged me too. They are actually doing a separate YA Top 100 list next summer. It seems pretty silly to me to separate them. If people vote a YA novel into the top 100 of all time, then so be it, but, they wanted to create two separate lists.
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posted
Are there even enough notable YA books to make a 100 list? From what I remember, there's only a handful of notable books/series, but maybe that's just my lack of experience with the classification.
I'm assuming we'll see books like Harry Potter, the Hobbit, Narnia, Golden Compass, Eragon, and so on, but I find it questionable that these are YA while others aren't. Ender's Game seems more YA than not, if you ask me, since it deals with a child and most people read it in middle school (although certainly not everyone).
And what's up with the Thrawn series being on here. Isn't that Star Wars? Or am I thinking of something else? Oh, and the Xanth series...ugh. Piers Anthony is an OK writer, but he's not THAT good, and Xanth is hardly his best work. Just my opinion, of course.
I'm also sad to not see Old Man's War or Speaker for the Dead, two of my absolute favorite books, right after EG.
[ August 14, 2011, 12:43 AM: Message edited by: Jeff C. ]
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posted
The Thrawn Series wasn't in the top 100 was it? Don't get me wrong, that was a great series, but I don't know about top 100.
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Lord of Light is perhaps my favorite Zelanzy novel; I really couldn't get into The Chronicles of Amber.
I notice that many of these have already been made into movies or adapted into other mediums in general. Perhaps this has inflated the popularity of some of the entries.
Books I'm surprised didn't make it:
The Stars My Destination (a.k.a. Tiger, Tiger) by Alfred Bester
I have heard rumors of this getting made into a movie. If the movie is any good, perhaps it will start appearing on lists like this again.
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The version I have is translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. It is one of the best novels I have ever read, period. I feel it is clearly fantasy, but I could see it being classified differently.
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Lord of Light is definitely a good book. I really prefer Zelazny's short fiction to his novels, though.
I was also a little surprised not to see any Bester on the list, though I'd have been as likely to nominate The Demolished Man as The Stars my Destination.
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As far as YA being excluded, am I remembering Something Wicked this Way Comes incorrectly? It really seemed like a young adult novel when I read it... perhaps that wasn't the target audience though.
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I'm really disappointed, but not surprised*, to see that Julian May's Intervention/Many Coloured Land/Galactic Milieu books didn't make the list. That is a stunning series, so full of huge ideas and great characters, and amid a really strong story a sly sense of humour that never gets in the way.
*Nobody but me seems to have read them!
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Phillyn, a former coworker of mine absolutely loves those. I picked them up at a library book sale, but haven't gotten to them yet. They're on my list, though.
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