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My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

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Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#71

Post by noir_lord »

auntienomen wrote: post #47

If you like these books -- early classics of the genres -- it's going to be well worth your time to check out Fantasy Masterworks collection ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Masterworks ). It's a set of reissued sci-fi and fantasy novels, chosen by the British publisher Millennium for their quality and influence on later writers. 3/5 of the books in the linked article are included. It's not perfect-- it's miss…

Missing Iain M Banks is a weird omission indeed - perhaps they couldn't get the reprint rights.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#72

Post by noir_lord »

triMichael wrote: post #60
bondarchuk wrote: post #12

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

They really aren't all that different from each other. One is imaginary things that might one day be possible, and the other is imaginary things that won't ever be possible. And even then, that can swap between the genres. Scifi often contains FTL tech, which from what we know is almost certainly impossible so it's actually more like fantastical magic. Meanwhile, fantasy can have hard rules for its magic, in which ca…

They are different if you like sci-fi and dislike fantasy which OP apparently does as do I, on the grand scheme of things not a big deal but it does get in the way when specifically looking for new sci-fi to read.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#73

Post by tetris11 »

bwb wrote: post #2

Anyone got some favs to share? I need to read the new Peter Hamilton book (book 2 due out soon). And I am ashamed to admit I haven't read any Greg Egan yet, need to get on that :)

To quote an earlier comment of mine

> Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series.

> Culture, gender identity, hive mind, all rolled up into one extremely dense universe with a rich history told through warfare and cutting remarks, humanising potentially inhuman central characters with a vague number of limbs.

> It takes ten pages to get used to the dense yet clipped writing style, but once it clicks, you cannot put the book(s) down: the plot moves forward at breakneck speed.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#74

Post by readthenotes1 »

gjstein wrote: post #38
bondarchuk wrote: post #12

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

Ursula Le Guin in her preface to The Left Hand of Darkness [1], describes Science Fiction as "descriptive." She invents "elaborately circumstantial lies" as a means of describing what she sees as some truth in our being. The full quote: > I’m merely observing, in the peculiar, devious, and thought-experimental manner proper to science fiction, that if you look at us at certain odd times of day in certain weathers, we…

"A novelist's business is lying....

and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That’s the truth!"

The preface is as valuable as the book that follows.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#75

Post by readthenotes1 »

bondarchuk wrote: post #12

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

How would you define the difference?

Both fit in the category of speculative fiction and as the many commenters have pointed out, speciation is difficult.

One definition I saw that sort of kind of worked is:

One puts an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances, the other puts an extraordinary person in ordinary circumstances.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#76

Post by jerf »

tetris11 wrote: post #26

John C Wright wrote a nice short story set in William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land" Awake in the Night https://web.archive.org/web/20090524012412/http://www.thenig... In the side panels are users/readers who drew up their own maps on what they think the Nightscape is. It has all the romantic mystery of a fantasy tale, whilst still being firmly grounded in reality. I remember when London's Shard was going up, and I'…

It's four stories in the complete set: https://a.co/d/gEdBkYR

Wright also has an extended paen to the mentioned Voyage to Arcturus: https://a.co/d/hubUM05 which neither I, nor the author, recommend unless you have read and deeply love Voyage to Arcturus, but I mention it because the overlap reading this list was quite uncanny. That is a very, very specific point of overlap.

Should the original author ever read this thread I highly recommend Wright to them because of the overlap.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#77

Post by georgefrowny »

noir_lord wrote: post #71
auntienomen wrote: post #47

If you like these books -- early classics of the genres -- it's going to be well worth your time to check out Fantasy Masterworks collection ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Masterworks ). It's a set of reissued sci-fi and fantasy novels, chosen by the British publisher Millennium for their quality and influence on later writers. 3/5 of the books in the linked article are included. It's not perfect-- it's miss…

Missing Iain M Banks is a weird omission indeed - perhaps they couldn't get the reprint rights.

Both Gollancz (SF Masterworks) and Orbit (most Banks books) are ultimately owned by Lagardère/Hachette. Presumably they could wrangle the rights if they really wanted.

I suppose they just don't see any need to republish Banks books, most of which are quite recent, continue to be popular and are mostly still in print under Orbit as part of an already unified series.

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#78

Post by noir_lord »

georgefrowny wrote: post #77
noir_lord wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing Iain M Banks is a weird omission indeed - perhaps they couldn't get the reprint rights.

Both Gollancz (SF Masterworks) and Orbit (most Banks books) are ultimately owned by Lagardère/Hachette. Presumably they could wrangle the rights if they really wanted. I suppose they just don't see any need to republish Banks books, most of which are quite recent, continue to be popular and are mostly still in print under Orbit as part of an already unified series.

Perhaps but if adding it to the list costs them little then to do a print run I don't get why they wouldn't and just have two printings concurrently, if they did say Consider Phlebas with the first edition cover I'd pick up a second copy just for that cover.

Though I'm carefully not going to look on AbeBooks to see what the first editions currently go for since I don't need to spend that kind of money (want to yes, need to no).

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#79

Post by devilbunny »

triMichael wrote: post #60
bondarchuk wrote: post #12

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

They really aren't all that different from each other. One is imaginary things that might one day be possible, and the other is imaginary things that won't ever be possible. And even then, that can swap between the genres. Scifi often contains FTL tech, which from what we know is almost certainly impossible so it's actually more like fantastical magic. Meanwhile, fantasy can have hard rules for its magic, in which ca…

It's not on the quality level of these books, but the Off to Be the Wizard series of books are humorous programming-as-magic tales that skirt the sci-fi/fantasy line. [The fulcrum of the story is that there is a computer file "out there" that reflects reality; those who find it can edit it to do all kinds of "magic". Hilarity ensues.]

Re: My favorite cult sci-fi and fantasy books you may not have heard of before

#80

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

triMichael wrote: post #60
bondarchuk wrote: post #12

I read sci-fi but not fantasy, why do people insist on lumping these together?

They really aren't all that different from each other. One is imaginary things that might one day be possible, and the other is imaginary things that won't ever be possible. And even then, that can swap between the genres. Scifi often contains FTL tech, which from what we know is almost certainly impossible so it's actually more like fantastical magic. Meanwhile, fantasy can have hard rules for its magic, in which ca…

I never find it helpful when people say they aren't that different from each other.

Sure there may be some similarities if you want to take an analytical view of the genres, but there's an awful lot of people who like one but not the other.

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