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Category Archives: meme


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Meme! The Nobel Prize of Literature

A new meme. Cool. This one is the Nobel Prize for Literature winners meme. I took this list from Larry’s OF Blog of the Fallen. You know the rules: bold if you’ve read anything by the author, italicize if it’s on the TBR.

2011 Tomas Tranströmer
2010 Mario Vargas Llosa
2009 Herta Müller
2008 Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
2007 Doris Lessing
2006 Orhan Pamuk
2005 Harold Pinter
2004 Elfriede Jelinek
2003 John M Coetzee
2002 Imre Kertész
2001 Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul
2000 Gao Xingjian
1999 Günter Grass
1998 José Saramago
1997 Dario Fo
1996 Wislawa Szymborska
1995 Seamus Heaney
1994 Kenzaburo Oe
1993 Toni Morrison
1992 Derek Walcott
1991 Nadine Gordimer
1990 Octavio Paz
1989 Camilo José Cela
1988 Naguib Mahfouz
1987 Joseph Brodsky
1986 Wole Soyinka
1985 Claude Simon
1984 Jaroslav Seifert
1983 William Golding
1982 Gabriel García Márquez
1981 Elias Canetti
1980 Czeslaw Milosz
1979 Odysseus Elytis
1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer
1977 Vicente Aleixandre
1976 Saul Bellow
1975 Eugenio Montale
1974 Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson
1973 Patrick White
1972 Heinrich Böll
1971 Pablo Neruda
1970 Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
1969 Samuel Beckett
1968 Yasunari Kawabata
1967 Miguel Angel Asturias
1966 Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Nelly Sachs
1965 Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov
1964 Jean-Paul Sartre
1963 Giorgos Seferis
1962 John Steinbeck
1961 Ivo Andric
1960 Saint-John Perse
1959 Salvatore Quasimodo
1958 Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
1957 Albert Camus
1956 Juan Ramón Jiménez
1955 Halldór Kiljan Laxness
1954 Ernest Hemingway
1953 Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
1952 François Mauriac
1951 Pär Fabian Lagerkvist
1950 Earl (Bertrand Arthur William) Russell
1949 William Faulkner
1948 Thomas Stearns Eliot
1947 André Paul Guillaume Gide
1946 Hermann Hesse
1945 Gabriela Mistral
1944 Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
1943 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year.
1942 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year.
1941 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year.
1940 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year.
1939 Frans Eemil Sillanpää
1938 Pearl Buck
1937 Roger Martin du Gard
1936 Eugene Gladstone O’Neill
1935 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year.
1934 Luigi Pirandello
1933 Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin
1932 John Galsworthy
1931 Erik Axel Karlfeldt
1930 Sinclair Lewis
1929 Thomas Mann
1928 Sigrid Undset
1927 Henri Bergson
1926 Grazia Deledda
1925 George Bernard Shaw
1924 Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont
1923 William Butler Yeats
1922 Jacinto Benavente
1921 Anatole France
1920 Knut Pedersen Hamsun
1919 Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler
1918 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year.
1917 Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
1916 Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam
1915 Romain Rolland
1914 No Nobel Prize was awarded this year.
1913 Rabindranath Tagore
1912 Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann
1911 Count Maurice (Mooris) Polidore Marie Bernhard Maeterlinck
1910 Paul Johann Ludwig Heyse
1909 Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf
1908 Rudolf Christoph Eucken
1907 Rudyard Kipling
1906 Giosuè Carducci
1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz
1904 Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray y Eizaguirre
1903 Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson
1902 Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen
1901 Sully Prudhomme

Not a very good showing, I’m afraid. Only half a dozen read; though I have more sitting on the TBR – and in several cases, multiple books by those authors.


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Reading snapshot meme

David Hebblethwaite has just done this on his blog, and I read his blog, so I guess I’ll have a go at it. Again. Because we’ve all done this before. But so what: it’s about books. Books are good, and reading them is even better. The only thing better than reading that you can do with books is, er building a fallout shelter with them and pretending World War III has happened. Or maybe a zombie apocalypse. And while the rest of the world succumbs to anarchy and chaos and radiation / undeadedness, you read the books you built your shelter from. Win.

Anyway, the meme: it goes like this:

1. the book I’m currently reading
Synthajoy, DG Compton – the best British science fiction writer of the 1970s, and his novels continue to be superb and very, er, 1970s. And that’s why I think they’re brilliant.

2. the last book I finished
Maul, Tricia Sullivan – this was October’s book for my reading challenge (see here), and I was expecting to like this a lot more than I did. Proper full write-up to follow soon-ish. For the present, I will say it has a slightly American Psycho vibe to it which, like that book, struggles to convince, and a near-future in which men are exceedingly rare, and correspondingly prized, due to a plague, which feels like an entirely different type of society.

3. the next book I want to read
The Unit, Ninni Holmqvist – the TBR actually numbers in the hundreds, but I have a sort of mini-TBR, a half-dozen books which will be my next immediate reads. And top of this list is The Unit, which Michaela Staton gave me ages ago and keeps on asking me what it’s like. It does look very interesting, in fact.

4. the last book I bought
Leviathan’s Deep, Jayge Carr – when I say “bought”, I didn’t pay any money for this. It was priced 50p but since we’d just given the Harewood House second-hand bookshop two carriers bags full of books, they let us have the handful we wanted for nothing. Which was pretty cool, as Leviathan’s Deep had been on the wants list since reading Carr’s story in Women of Wonder: the Contemporary Years (see here). It’s a shame about the slightly dodgy cover art, though.

5. the last book I was given
Blood Count, Robert Goddard – I have no excuse for this one. Goddard writes formulaic potboilers, but I’ve read every one of his books to date. My mother got this from the above-mentioned second-hand bookshop, and has passed it on to me. In their defence, they are very quick reads.


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World book meme!

Book meme! Here are the 25 titles chosen for 2012’s World Book Night. Do the usual: bold for read, italics for owned by unread. And, given the multimedia nature of our cultural landscape, asterisk those with film or television adaptations you have seen.

*Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Player of Games by Iain M Banks
Sleepyhead by Mark Billingham
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Take by Martina Cole
Harlequin by Bernard Cornwell
Someone Like You by Roald Dahl
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Room by Emma Donoghue
*Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
*The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Misery by Stephen King
The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Small Island by Andrea Levy
*Let the Right One In by John Ajvde Lindqvist
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
*The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
*The Damned Utd by David Peace
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak

Not so good a score: six read, six seen. None on the TBR. Oh well.


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World Book Night meme

Apparently, World Book Night asked people to nominate their top ten books in order to determine what titles would be given away next year. Bold if you’ve read it; italicise if it’s on the TBR.

1 To Kill a Mockingbird*, Harper Lee
2 Pride and Prejudice*, Jane Austen
3 The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
4 Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
5 The Time Traveler’s Wife*, Audrey Niffenegger
6 The Lord of the Rings*, JRR Tolkien
7 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*, Douglas Adams
8 Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
9 Rebecca*, Daphne Du Maurier
10 The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
11 American Gods, Neil Gaiman
12 A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
13 Harry Potter Adult Hardback Boxed Set, JK Rowling – read the first only
14 The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
15 The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
16 One Day, David Nicholls
17 Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
18 The Help, Kathryn Stockett
19 Nineteen Eighty-Four*, George Orwell
20 Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
21 The Notebook, Nicholas Sparks
22 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo*, Stieg Larsson
23 The Handmaid’s Tale*, Margaret Atwood
24 The Great Gatsby*, F Scott Fitzgerald
25 Little Women, Louisa M Alcott
26 Memoirs of a Geisha*, Arthur Golden
27 The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
28 Atonement*, Ian McEwan
29 Room, Emma Donoghue
30 Catch-22, Joseph Heller
31 We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver
32 His Dark Materials*, Philip Pullman
33 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
34 The Island, Victoria Hislop
35 Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
36 The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
37 The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
38 Chocolat, Joanne Harris
39 Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
40 The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
41 One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
42 Animal Farm, George Orwell
43 The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
44 The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
45 Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
46 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*, Roald Dahl
47 I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
48 The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
49 Life of Pi, Yann Martel
50 The Road, Cormac McCarthy
51 Great Expectations*, Charles Dickens
52 Dracula*, Bram Stoker
53 The Secret History, Donna Tartt
54 Small Island, Andrea Levy
55 The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
56 Lord of the Flies, William Golding
57 Persuasion*, Jane Austen
58 A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
59 Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
60 Watership Down*, Richard Adams
61 Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
62 Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
63 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
64 Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
65 The Color Purple, Alice Walker
66 My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult
67 The Stand, Stephen King
68 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
69 The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
70 Anna Karenina*, Leo Tolstoy
71 Cold Comfort Farm*, Stella Gibbons
72 Frankenstein*, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
73 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
74 The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
75 Gone with the Wind*, Margaret Mitchell
76 The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
77 The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
78 The Princess Bride*, William Goldman
79 A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
80 Perfume*, Patrick Suskind
81 The Count of Monte Cristo*, Alexandre Dumas
82 The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
83 Middlemarch*, George Eliot
84 Dune*, Frank Herbert
85 Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
86 Stardust*, Neil Gaiman
87 Lolita*, Vladimir Nabokov
88 Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
89 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone*, JK Rowling – eh? The set makes an appearance and the first book too? Cheat!
90 Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts
91 The Remains of the Day*, Kazuo Ishiguro
92 Possession: A Romance*, AS Byatt
93 Tales of the City*, Armistead Maupin
94 Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
95 The Magus*, John Fowles
96 The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, John Boyne
97 A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
98 Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
99 Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
100 The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

Um, a lot of them I’ve seen the film adaptations (I’ve asterisked those ones). But I make that 33% read. Not bad considering there are at least 15 books I have no intention of ever reading.


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Meme! Women sff writers of the 1980s

Following on the from the previous meme, women sff writers of the 1970s, here’s a list from James Nicoll of women writers whose careers began in the 1980s. Again, italicise those you’ve heard of, bold those you’ve read at least one work by, and underline those whose work you own an example of.

Marcia J. Bennett
Mary Brown
Lois McMaster Bujold
Emma Bull
Pat Cadigan
Isobelle Carmody
Brenda W. Clough
Kara Dalkey
Pamela Dean
Susan Dexter
Carole Nelson Douglas
Debra Doyle
Claudia J. Edwards
Doris Egan
Ru Emerson
C.S. Friedman
Anne Gay
Sheila Gilluly
Carolyn Ives Gilman
Lisa Goldstein
Nicola Griffith
Karen Haber
Barbara Hambly
Dorothy Heydt (AKA Katherine Blake)
P.C. Hodgell
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Tanya Huff
Kij Johnson
Janet Kagan
Patricia Kennealy-Morrison
Katharine Kerr
Peg Kerr
Katharine Eliska Kimbriel
Rosemary Kirstein
Ellen Kushner
Mercedes Lackey
Sharon Lee
Megan Lindholm*
R.A. MacAvoy
Laurie J. Marks
Maureen McHugh
Dee Morrison Meaney
Elizabeth Moon
Paula Helm Murray
Rebecca Ore
Tamora Pierce
Alis Rasmussen (AKA Kate Elliott)
Melanie Rawn
Mickey Zucker Reichert
Jennifer Roberson
Michaela Roessner
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Melissa Scott
Eluki Bes Shahar (AKA Rosemary Edghill)
Nisi Shawl
Delia Sherman
Josepha Sherman
Sherwood Smith
Melinda Snodgrass
Midori Snyder
Sara Stamey
Caroline Stevermer
Martha Soukup
Judith Tarr
Sheri S. Tepper
Prof. Mary Turzillo
Paula Volsky
Deborah Wheeler (Deborah J. Ross)
Freda Warrington
K.D. Wentworth
Janny Wurts
Patricia Wrede

* She had one story published in the 1970s but, as James Nicoll says, “what the hell”.

Several of the names seem vaguely familiar, and I suspect I may have read short fiction by them. I’ve only marked those I’m sure about, however. I did own books by a number of those I’ve read, but they went in the last purge of the book-shelves.


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Meme! Women sff writers of the 1970s

Got this from Nicholas Whyte, who got it from James Nicoll. Italicize the authors you’ve heard of before reading this list of authors, bold the ones you’ve read at least one work by, underline the ones of whose work you own at least one example of.

Lynn Abbey
Eleanor Arnason
Octavia Butler
Moyra Caldecott
Jaygee Carr
Joy Chant
Suzy McKee Charnas
C. J. Cherryh
Jo Clayton
Candas Jane Dorsey
Diane Duane
Phyllis Eisenstein
Cynthia Felice
Sheila Finch
Sally Gearhart
Mary Gentle
Dian Girard
Eileen Gunn
Monica Hughes
Diana Wynne Jones
Gwyneth Jones
Leigh Kennedy
Lee Killough
Nancy Kress
Katherine Kurtz
Tanith Lee
Megan Lindholm (AKA Robin Hobb)
Elizabeth A. Lynn
Phillipa Maddern
Ardath Mayhar
Vonda McIntyre
Patricia A. McKillip
Janet Morris
Pat Murphy
Sam Nicholson (AKA Shirley Nikolaisen)
Rachel Pollack
Marta Randall
Anne Rice
Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Pamela Sargent
Sydney J. Van Scyoc
Susan Shwartz
Nancy Springer
Lisa Tuttle
Joan Vinge
Élisabeth Vonarburg
Cherry Wilder
Connie Willis

I’ll also note that I own every book written by Gwyneth Jones, Mary Gentle and Sydney J Van Scyoc.


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Let’s do the meme

I seem to have been strangely busy the past week or so, and, I have to admit, somewhat short on inspiration for a subject to write about here. So here’s some cheap content: a meme. This was originally put together by Charles Tan. As usual: bold it if you’ve read it, italicise it if you own it but haven’t read it.

1. The Monkey’s Wedding and Other Stories by Joan Aiken
2. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
3. The Kite of Stars and Other Stories by Dean Francis Alfar
4. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
5. Black Projects, White Knights by Kage Baker
6. The Best of J. G. Ballard by J.G. Ballard – well, I have volume one of the Complete Stories, so I assume that counts.
7. Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories by Neal Barrett, Jr.
8. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
9. Occultation by Laird Barron
10. Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle
11. The Collected Stories of Greg Bear by Greg Bear
12. The Chains That You Refuse by Elizabeth Bear
13. The Girl With The Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
14. Lord Stink & Other Stories by Judith Berman
15. Trysts: A Triskaidecollection of Queer and Weird Stories by Steve Berman
16. A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti
17. Blooded on Arachne by Michael Bishop
18. One Winter in Eden by Michael Bishop
19. The Poison Eaters & Other Stories by Holly Black
20. Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges
21. From the Files of the Time Rangers by Richard Bowes
22. Streetcar Dreams by Richard Bowes
23. The Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury
24. Graveyard People: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories by Gary Braunbeck
25. Home before Dark: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories by Gary Braunbeck
26. Particle Theory by Edward Bryant
27. Tides from the New Worlds by Tobias S. Buckell
28. Bloodchild and Other Stories By Octavia E. Butler
29. Dirty Work: Stories by Pat Cadigan
30. The Night We Buried Road Dog by Jack Cady
31. The Panic Hand by Jonathan Carroll
32. Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories by Angela Carter
33. Fireworks: Nine Stories in Various Disguises by Angela Carter
34. The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories by Angela Carter – er, why the “collected stories” and then two more collections?
35. Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
36. The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke by Arthur C. Clarke – I’ve read half a dozen or so Clarke collections so I must have read the contents of this,
37. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke
38. Novelties & Souvenirs, Collected Short Fiction by John Crowley
39. The Avram Davidson Treasury by Avram Davidson
40. The Enquiries of Dr. Eszterhazy by Avram Davidson
41. Driftglass: Ten Tales of Speculative Fiction by Samuel R. Delany
42. We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
43. Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys with Gardner Dozois by Gardner Dozois
44. Beluthahatchie by Andy Duncan
45. What Will Come After by Scott Edelman
46. Axiomatic by Greg Egan
47. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
48. The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World by Harlan Ellison
49. Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
50. The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller by Carol Emshwiller
51. Dangerous Space by Kelley Eskridge
52. Fugue State by Brian Evenson
53. Harsh Oases by Paul Di Filippo
54. The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant and Other Stories by Jeffrey Ford
55. The Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford
56. The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford
57. Returning My Sister’s Face and Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice by Eugie Foster
58. Artificial Things by Karen Joy Fowler
59. What I Didn’t See and Other Stories by Karen Joy Fowler
60. Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
61. Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
62. Burning Chrome by William Gibson
63. In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss
64. Take No Prisoners by John Grant
65. A Separate War and Other Stories by Joe Haldeman
66. Last Summer at Mars Hill by Elizabeth Hand
67. Saffron & Brimstone: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand
68. Things That Never Happen by M. John Harrison
69. The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert Heinlein
70. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
71. Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson
72. The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard
73. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
74. Unexpected Magics: Collected Stories by Diana Wynne Jones
75. Minor Arcana by Diana Wynne Jones
76. Grazing the Long Acre by Gwyneth Jones – though I have read all of Jones’ other collections.
77. The Wreck of the Godspeed and Other Stories by James Patrick Kelly
78. The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories by John Kessel
79. Night Shift by Stephen King
80. Different Seasons by Stephen King
81. Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King
82. Portable Childhoods by Ellen Klages
83. Scenting the Dark and Other Stories by Mary Robinette Kowal
84. Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories by Nancy Kress
85. Nine Hundred Grandmothers by R.A. Lafferty
86. Objects of Worship by Claude Lalumiere
87. Black Juice by Margo Lanagan
88. Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan
89. Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan
90. Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters by John Langan
91. The Best of Joe R. Lansdale by Joe R. Lansdale
92. The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin
93. The Compass Rose by Ursula K. Le Guin
94. The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin
95. Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee
96. The First Book of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
97. The Second Book of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
98. The Nightmare Factory by Thomas Ligotti
99. Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
100. Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
101. Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors by Livia Llewellyn
102. H. P. Lovecraft: Tales by H.P. Lovecraft
103. Breathmoss and other Exhalations by Ian R. MacLeod
104. You Might Sleep by Nick Mamatas
105. Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective by George R. R. Martin
106. Invisible Country by Paul McAuley
107. Harrowing the Dragon by Patricia McKillip
108. The Bone Key by Sarah Monette
109. The Best of Michael Moorcock by Michael Moorcock
110. Black God’s Kiss by C.L. Moore
111. The Cat’s Pajamas and Other Stories by James Morrow
112. Dreams of the Compass Rose by Vera Nazarian
113. Unforgivable Stories by Kim Newman
114. The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club by Kim Newman
115. The Original Dr. Shade and Other Stories by Kim Newman
116. Monstrous Affections by David Nickle
117. The Best of Larry Niven by Larry Niven
118. I Am No One You Know: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates
119. The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
120. Zoo by Otsuichi
121. Lesser Demons by Norman Partridge
122. Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales by Norman Partridge
123. Night Moves and Other Stories by Tim Powers
124. Little Gods by Tim Pratt
125. Map of Dreams by M. Rickert
126. Holiday by M. Rickert
127. The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson by Kim Stanley Robinson
128. The Ant King and Other Stories by Benjamin Rosenbaum
129. Unacceptable Behaviour by Penelope Rowe
130. The Adventures of Alyx by Joanna Russ
131. Long Walks, Last Flights, and Other Journeys by Ken Scholes
132. Filter House by Nisi Shawl
133. Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Rob Shearman
134. The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard
135. Trujillo and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard
136. Phases of the Moon: Stories from Six Decades by Robert Silverberg
137. Are You There and Other Stories by Jack Skillingstead
138. The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales by Angela Slatter
139. Crystal Express by Bruce Sterling
140. Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling
141. Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub
142. Magic Terror: 7 Tales by Peter Straub
143. Absolute Uncertainty by Lucy Sussex
144. The Best of Michael Swanwick by Michael Swanwick
145. Gravity’s Angels: 13 Stories by Michael Swanwick
146. Monterra’s Deliciosa & Other Tales & by Anna Tambour
147. The Ice Downstream by Melanie Tem
148. The Far Side of the Lake by Steve Rasnic Tem
149. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr.
150. Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home by James Tiptree, Jr.
151. In the Mean Time by Paul Tremblay
152. My Pathology by Lisa Tuttle
153. Ventriloquism by Catherynne M. Valente
154. The Jack Vance Reader by Jack Vance – have read half a dozen of his collections, so have probably read the contents of this.
155. City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer
156. The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer
157. Strange Things in Close-up; the Nearly Complete Howard Waldrop
158. Dead Sea Fruit by Kaaron Warren
159. Everland and Other Stories by Paul Witcover
160. The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories by Gene Wolfe
161. The Very Best of Gene Wolfe by Gene Wolfe – have read three or four Wolfe collections, so have probably read contents of this.
162. Impossible Things by Connie Willis
163. Fire Watch by Connie Willis
164. The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth and Other Stories by Roger Zelazny
165. Impossible Stories by Zoran Zivkovic
166. The Writer, The Book, The Reader by Zoran Zivkovic

Not a good list for me: too many writers I have no desire to read. I also suspect there’s a lot of overlap for those authors who have more than one collection listed, especially where one of them is a “best of” or “collected stories”. Many of the authors I’ve probably read the contents of their “collected stories” volumes as I’ve read so many of their short stories.

If I were to put a list of collections together, I suspect it would look very different from this one.


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I saw this meme and…

I spotted this on David Hebblethwaite’s blog and, while something similar went round on World Book Day (see here), I decided to have a bash at it. Besides, I’ve not posted much this week, and I don’t want all my fans (ha!) to think I’m slacking…

1. The book I’m currently reading

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

Many people have recommended this to me, but I can’t see what all the fuss is about. The main character, Ignatius J Reilly, is an over-educated idiot, and the novel is asking us to laugh at him. That’s cheap humour. Some of the slapstick, on the other hand, is quite amusing; and there is some wit in the black characters’ dialogue. But this is no American classic.

2. The last book I finished

The Silver Chair, CS Lewis.

I’m about thirty-five years too old to enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia, but I’m ploughing my way through the books nonetheless. I suspect if I had read them when I was a kid I would have found them just as patronising and dated. Oh well, only three more to go…

3. The next book I want to read

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy

The TBR pile is frighteningly large and, of course, I want to read every book on it. But some sooner rather than later. I’ve had Blood Meridian for a while, and have been meaning to read it for just as long. I think I shall tackle it next. Honest.

4. The last book I bought

The Atrocity Exhibition, JG Ballard

I made a few bob on Amazon affiliates recently and was sent a voucher. Which I promptly spent. Chiefly on graphic novels. But I also included a SF Masterwork, and this, the nicely-packaged Fourth Estate edition of The Atrocity Exhibition. I read a lot of Ballard’s later “mainstream” novels when I was living in Abu Dhabi, and enjoyed them; but as I get older I find myself appreciating his writing more and more.

5. The last book I was given

The Kings of Eternity, Eric Brown

I’ve known Eric for nearly two decades, and liked his fiction for a couple of years longer than that. He sends me copies of his novels now when they’re published. Some day I hope to be able to return the favour. The Kings of Eternity is, by all accounts (including Eric’s), the best novel he’s written to date. So I really need to read it before the end of the year as it may well appear on a few shortlists in 2012.


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21st century sf mistressworks meme

As promised, here is a list of science fiction novels by women sf writers whose careers have been active chiefly during the past decade. The sharper-eyed among you will spot two authors who were also on the previous sf mistressworks list. I felt both books deserved to be on this list, and so they are. While researching this list, I discovered that many of the more recent women sf writers whose names I knew hadn’t actually had novels published so far – such as Rachel Swirsky, Kij Johnson, Jennifer Pelland, Theodora Goss, Vandana Singh… Or they had written only fantasy novels to date – eg, Aliette de Bodard, Mary Robinette Kowal, Vera Nazarian…

Same as before: science fiction only, no YA. Trilogies and series named in [square brackets]. I could have snuck in a collection or two (see above), but decided that might have been pushing it a bit. Bold for those you’ve read, italics for those you own but haven’t read. My own showing is a bit embarrassing on this list.

1 Solitaire, Kelley Eskridge (2002)
2 Warchild [Warchild], Karin Lowachee (2002)
3 Natural History, Justina Robson (2003)
4 Maul, Tricia Sullivan (2003)
5 The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger (2003)
6 Spin State, Chris Moriarty (2003)
7 Dante’s Equation, Jane Jensen (2003)
8 Steel Helix [Typhon], Ann Tonsor Zeddies (2003)
9 Life, Gwyneth Jones (2004)
10 Nylon Angel [Parrish Plessis], Marianne de Pierres (2004)
11 The Courtesan Prince [Oka-Rel Universe], Lynda Williams (2004)
12 Survival [Species Imperative], Julie E Czernada (2004)
13 Banner of Souls, Liz Williams (2004)
14 City of Pearl [Wess’har Wars], Karen Traviss (2004)
15 The Year of Our War, Steph Swainston (2004)
16 Bio Rescue, SL Viehl (2004)
17 Apocalypse Array [Archangel Protocol], Lyda Morehouse (2004)
18 The Child Goddess, Louise Marley (2004)
19 Alanya to Alanya [Marq’ssan Cycle], L Timmel Duchamp (2005)
20 Carnival, Elizabeth Bear (2006)
21 Mindscape, Andrea Hairston (2006)
22 Farthing [Small Change], Jo Walton (2006)
23 Half Life, Shelley Jackson (2006)
24 The Carhullan Army, Sarah Hall (2007)
25 Bright of the Sky [The Entire and the Rose], Kay Kenyon (2007)
26 Principles of Angels [Hidden Empire], Jainne Fenn (2008)
27 Watermind, MM Buckner (2008)
28 The Rapture, Liz Jensen (2009)
29 Zoo City, Lauren Beukes (2010)
30 Walking the Tree, Kaaron Warren (2010)
31 Birdbrain, Johanna Sinisalo (2010)
32 Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor (2010)
33 Song of Scarabaeus, Sara Creasy (2010)

(Incidentally, I did start Bright of the Sky, but gave up halfway through.)

EDIT:
It has been pointed out to me that Steph Swainston’s The Year of Our War is more fantasy than it is sf. I’ll leave it on the list for the time-being – for one thing, it’s one of the books I picked for my 2011 reading challenge.

I’d also intended to include Kage Baker, but I’ve never read any of her books. The first of the Company series, In the Garden of Iden, was published in 1997 and so not eligible for this list. Which novel should I include?

And I’ve also added Louise Marley, a writer I’d missed, at #18.


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A few notes about the sf mistressworks meme

The meme has been out there now for a week, and a number of people have picked up on it. This is excellent. There have also been a few comments about the books which appear on the list. So here’s something of an apologia…

Yes, there are many authors I should have included but missed – Kit Reed, for example; or Wilhelmina Baird. Mea culpa. There are also a few I have read but didn’t feel were strong enough to appear on the list. Plus many who have written more, and better, books this century than last (in several cases, it’s only their debut novel which sneaks into the tail end of the twentieth century). In fact, it’s likely a few names will even appear on both the sf mistressworks list and the 21st century sf mistressworks list…

There are a couple of books which shouldn’t be on the list, as well. Jirel of Joiry, which I’ve not read myself, is apparently fantasy, not sf. The year given is the year it first appeared in book form, according to isfdb.org. Orlando… well, the central device is fantasy inasmuch as it’s unexplained and unexplainable. But the story feels more sfnal than fantastic. Ash: A Secret History is certainly science fiction, and was even shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award.

In several cases, I perhaps didn’t pick the best-known or most highly-regarded book by an author, but instead chose one that I’d read myself. For example, Alison Sinclair’s Cavalcade was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award in 1999, but I’ve only read her Legacies. On the other hand, while I prefer Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness to The Dispossessed, I think the latter is a more interesting novel.

This, I hope, helps explain some of the (seemingly) odd choices in the list. But at least the meme is getting out there, at least people are spreading it across the internet. It’s changing as it spreads, but I’m perfectly happy with that. It should evolve – it was, after all, put together partly from my own taste in science fiction (and my ignorance regarding some of the authors and titles).

And if you’ve not seen it yet, it’s here.