The Chronicles Network Hall of Fame - Voting Thread **PLEASE READ FIRST POST**

[iansales]

Um, that's what I said.

[dwndrgn]

I apologize for my mistake in typing 'favorite' - what I was trying to say is that the original request was for a list of 10 speculative fiction books chosen by you. 10 single books. Your choice/favorites. In your own order. I was just trying to clarify for those who may have skimmed the original post and missed the intention of the thread. I'm not trying to offend or annoy anyone and I apologize if I have done so, as it was completely unintentional. I'll shut up and go away now.

Go away and think very carefully about your ten - yes, ten - favourite books in the realm of speculative fiction. Then rank them from first to last

[nixie]

You know I look at my list and I'm pretty certain there are others books that I've read that I prefer to some in my top ten.

[Perpetual Man]

Okay, this turned out to be a lot harder than I first thought but:

1. Lord Of The Ring - J R R Tolkien
2. Tigana - Guy Gavriel Kay
3. Dune - Frank Herbert
4. A Game Of Thrones - George R R Martin
5. The Mad Ship - Robin Hobb
6. Jack The Bodiless - Julian May
7. The Gap Into Ruin - This Day All Gods Die - Stephen R Donaldson
8. The Deadhouse Gates - Steven Erikson
9. The Hammer of the Sun - Michael Scott Rohan
10. The Reality Dysfunction - Peter F Hamilton

[Jay]

Top 10 Single books (as some have mentioned absurdly difficult):

1. All the Names by Jose Saramago
2. Mother London by Michael Moorcock
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (not my favorite Ishiguro novel, but the one that fall into the SpecFic category the easiest.
4. Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
5. Famished Road by Ben Okri
6. Naked Lunch by William Buroughs
7. Jersualem Poker by Edward Whittemore
8. Dhalgren by Samuel Delany
9. The Chess Garden by Brooks Hansen
10. The Master and Maragrita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Madeness I tell you! No room to include Wolfe, Bierce, Self, Disch, Chabon, Chiang, Shepard, Pynchon, Calvino, Kafka, Marquez, Rushdie, Link, Mieville, Ballard, Cordwainer Smith, Chapman, PKD, Bradbury, Pavic, Kobo Abe, Jeffrey Ford, Moore (yes, the comic book writer), Angela Carter, Machen, Lovecraft, Ligotti, Auster, Lethem, Crowley, Chapman, Borges, M John Harrison, Schultz, Gray....

So frustrating!

[j. d. worthington]

Yep! I'm still in a truss from having to do this. This comes under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment, if you ask me....

[littlemissattitude]

I'm still thinking. This is difficult.

[Culhwch]

Jay, J.D. and all others having trouble cutting the list to ten: I am certainly not compelling you in any way to participate. But if you wanna get folk to list their hundred favourite/best (I'll get to that) books, you guys can compile that data....

For me, my favourite books are what I'd consider the best. Sorry for the confusion there. But really, it's about what you feel. If you want to list what you think are the ten most important books, do that. If you want to list the books that have affected you the most, do that. Just know that they're all gonna be compiled together. The idea was to come up with a 'Chronicles Hall of Fame' - not 'The Ten Thousand Best Speculative Fiction Books Of All Time'.

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by nixie

You know I look at my list and I'm pretty certain there are others books that I've read that I prefer to some in my top ten.

Ahem.

Originally Posted by Culhwch

Be sure!

Rules is rules. Sorry. As I said, I'll probably allow revisions after a certain time. My suggestion is you write them down so you don't forget them next time.

[Brown Rat]

Hard? Nearly impossible . . . but giving you my favorites, not "best" or those with most literary merit or something else, makes it easier. So here goes:

1. The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
2. Dune – Frank Herbert
3. Restoree – Anne McCaffrey
4. The Snow Queen – Joan D. Vinge
5. Aegypt – John Crowley
6. Lincoln’s Dreams – Connie Willis
7. The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
8. Courtship Rite – Donald Kingsbury
9. Red Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson

Only space for one more . . . should it be The Once and Future King, or Rite of Passage??? Gack, um, White makes me laugh, Panshin makes me think. Laugh, think, laugh, think . . .

Dang it, go for romance instead:

10. Partners in Necessity (three books bound as one: cheating?) – Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

[littlemissattitude]

Originally Posted by Culhwch

Go away and think very carefully about your ten - yes, ten - favourite books in the realm of speculative fiction.

Quick question: does "speculative fiction" include horror?

[Culhwch]

Of course. By speculative fiction I meant the main genres we discuss here - fantasy, science fiction, horror, and even (because it suited me, shhh) historical.

[Nesacat]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Yep! I'm still in a truss from having to do this. This comes under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment, if you ask me....

Definitely cruel & unusual treatment. Every time I look at my post I want to go and change things.

[YOSSARIAN]

Does Kurt Vonnegut fall into any of the appropriate categories? I already voted, but I'd like to know if I could've voted for him.

[j. d. worthington]

I'd definitely say so. A fair chunk of his material would easily fit into some form of "speculative fiction", be it sf (The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle), fantasy (Happy Birthday, Wanda June), or a blending of different types (Welcome to the Monkey House, Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, etc.). And Player Piano should be right up there with 1984 for rather pointed satire on several levels.....