Poll

Leave it to me to be the only one who would vote for a book about someone's legs turning into radishes.... That spells awesome to me. But then again Im a frickin weirdo

Oh, and heh, since it doesnt look like Kangaroo Notebook has much of a chance, I just noticed that Hominids is on the list AND WINNING so either way it looks like Ill be able to join some discussion soon. Yay. If anyone wants to get a head start on discussing Hominids, Im all ears. The Neanderthal Parallax is A-Mazing!

Because it's here, I want folks to know that Blackout is brilliant. I'm sure it'll be on my best of 2010 reads at the end of the year. It's more of Willis' time traveling historians from Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. (But you don't have to have read those books to enjoy this one.)

This one is set during the London Blitz and part two All Clear comes out any day now...

I just noticed something interesting. If Ursula K LeGuin wins again this months she will be our most read writer of Sci-Fi and Fantasy. She is currently tied with Neil Gaiman. Her work is certainly worthy of it.

I enjoyed Willis' two other time-travel books, and my very clever niece gave Blackout five stars, so please help me vote it up!

Please not Le Guin. She's awful.

a) le guin awful? Them's fighting words.
B) I voted for blackout but i have to mention that Connie willis considers the two volumes to be one novel. This is a moot point since another book looks to win the poll but it might be better to put up blackout and all clear as one selection.

Im not a fan of LeGuin either actually. Sigh...I guess Hominids isnt going to win. Such an utterly fantastic book. I would have loved to have joined in for the first time in forever.

Reading about Hominids it just didn't interest me at all. Blackout sounded the most interesting of all the choices.

I do feel sorry for all who voted for Le Guin. That just isn't right.

JSWolf wrote: "I do feel sorry for all who voted for Le Guin. That just isn't right."

Why do you feel sorry for them?

Sarah Pi wrote: "JSWolf wrote: "I do feel sorry for all who voted for Le Guin. That just isn't right."

Why do you feel sorry for them?"

Cause they obviously don't know a bad author when they read one.

Wow. I don't think I've ever heard anyone call LeGuin a "bad author." I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one, JS, and I'm guessing you're not going to be part of the discussion in December.

While re-reading some of Le Guin’s classics, I haven’t been enjoying them as much as I once did — styles change, and I don’t seem to be enjoying any of the old grandmaster much anymore. But I think the evidence is pretty clear:

   Le Guin has received five Hugo awards and six Nebula awards, and was awarded the Gandalf Grand Master award in 1979 and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award in 2003. She has received nineteen Locus Awards for her fiction, more than any other author. Her novel The Farthest Shore won the National Book Award for Children’s Books in 1973.
   Le Guin was the Professional Guest of Honor at the 1975 World Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne, Australia. She received the Library of Congress Living Legends award in the “Writers and Artists” category in April 2000 for her significant contributions to America’s cultural heritage. The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. In 2004, Le Guin was the recipient of the Association for Library Service to Children’s May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award and the Margaret Edwards Award. She was honored by The Washington Center for the Book for her distinguished body of work with the Maxine Cushing Gray Fellowship for Writers on October 18, 2006.
   In 2002, Le Guin received the PEN/Malamud Award for “excellence in a body of short fiction.”
   At their 2009 convention, the Freedom From Religion Foundation awarded the “Emperor Has No Clothes” award to Le Guin. The FFRF describes the award as “celebrating ’plain speaking’ on the shortcomings of religion by public figures”.

Clearly not a “bad author” by any measure.

Highly overrated.

JSWolf wrote: "Highly overrated."
I'm curious which books you've read to arrive at that decision, since all of your posts are so brief and declarative.
I read the first three Earthsea books as a child and enjoyed them though they were not my favorites.
When I was twelve or thirteen I started reading books I thought were the classics of SF and tried the Left Hand of Darkness but could not get into it. I tried opening it every summer through my teens and put it down every time.
At fourteen I read The Lathe of Heaven, which I thought was wonderful. Great premise, well written.
I finally read The Left Hand of Darkness all the way through last year and absolutely loved it. I started it over when I reached the last page. The thing that had kept me out for so long was still present - a sort of formality and distance in the prose - but I found that I didn't notice it as I got into the characters and the plot and the setting, which are all exquisitely crafted.
I'd honestly love to hear which books you've read and why you feel she is overrated.

It's just something about the way she describes things that is just off-putting.