The Sword and Laser discussion

We know the titles and authors who get a lot of attention, but what books/authors do you think should be considered amongst the greatest of science fiction and fantasy literature, but have not got the recognition they deserve?

My suggestions:

Fantasy: Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake.

Science Fiction: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller.

Close runner up: Henry Kuttner

A Canticle for Leibowitz is widely acclaimed. It's one of the few science fiction books you'll find on required reading lists for high school students. I don't know what its goodreads score is, but I doubt it's low.

I'm sure a similar argument could be made for my fantasy choice as well. After all, that one did get a BBC production.

Nonetheless, I list those two based on my personal experience with how much attention they get versus how much they deserve. YMMV.

I agree with Darren; I think Canticle is pretty widely known and appreciated. It's right up there with Brave New World and 1984 when it comes to being taught in college. It usually makes the list for "best post apocalyptic stories."

It's probably difficult to really find someone who is completely overlooked. A friend of mine teaches Women's Studies and I pointed her at Octavia Butler last year, so now she incorporates Butler's work in her classes, but I had to find Butler on my own back in the day.

I suppose even Octavia Butler is pretty popular among those looking for feminist sci-fi. Even a preliminary web-search throws up her name with astonishing regularity. I doubt if she is under-valued.

Lit Bug wrote: "I suppose even Octavia Butler is pretty popular among those looking for feminist sci-fi. Even a preliminary web-search throws up her name with astonishing regularity. I doubt if she is under-valued."

Yeah, that's what I meant. It's probably localized as to who gets overlooked and who is celebrated. A university near me uses Dan Brown in their literature classes primarily, I think, because he's a local author, not because his books are high literature.

Maybe - I cannot imagine Dan Brown being taught in literature classes. Several good authors too are popular in their home-country and virtually unknown in others.

Lit Bug wrote: "Maybe - I cannot imagine Dan Brown being taught in literature classes. Several good authors too are popular in their home-country and virtually unknown in others."

For example: Andrzej Sapkowski More widely read than Tolkien in his homeland Poland, but relatively unknown outside its borders. His books did get some more traction internationally in recent years, because of the hit cRPG series The Witcher that is based on his books.

Personally I think Joel Shepherd is criminally underappreciated. His Cassandra Kresnov series is great: intelligent, action filled SF that does suffer a bit from new author unevenness in its writing. His fantasy epic A Trial of Blood and Steel however, is brilliant and can stand up against the best in the genre.

For me, being highly and widely rated as well as critically respected kills it for any sort of "most under-rated" list. It's like saying Catcher in the Rye is one of the most under-rated coming-of-age stories, or that William Burroughs was the least-appreciated of the Beats.

Even a relatively unknown spec book that I like such as Wyvern, which most people I know have never heard of, much less read, is still quite highly rated here. By very few, but all the same, highly rated. (And though I like the book, I wouldn't really call it "most" under-rated. It's not without flaws.)

I think it would be hard to find a real dog which was awesome. What's the worst rated book you can find here, which you love?

Darren wrote: "For me, being highly and widely rated as well as critically respected kills it for any sort of "most under-rated" list. It's like saying Catcher in the Rye is one of the most under-rated coming-of-..."

I disagree with your definition of "underrated". That Wyvern book you mention is IMO a perfect example of "underrated": a book that nobody has read, but was very well received by the few who did, indicating that it deserves more attention than it is getting.

A book that just pulls in average to low ratings, despite you (generic you) liking it isn't "underrated" it's just a book nobody likes ...

Some well known authors' works are unrated.

I want to agree about Wyvern, because I like the book. But it's still in print, 25-years on. I have to consider that my own experience can not be trusted in how widely read the book actually is.

KevinB wrote: "A book that just pulls in average to low ratings, despite you (generic you) liking it isn't "underrated" it's just a book nobody likes ... "

That's a slippery slope of logic. An underrated book, by definition, has a rating beneath what one feels it ought to be.

Gary wrote: "Science Fiction: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller."

Overrated in my opinion. Didn't think that much of it.

KevinB wrote: "For example: Andrzej Sapkowski More widely read than Tolkien in his homeland Poland, but relatively unknown outside its borders."

They're finally releasing an English version of book 2 of the saga this year.

A book I think of as underrated is The Carpet Makers.

I find many YA books are underrated, or dismissed just because they're YA.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone I just read as a Vaginal Fantasy book and I was blown away. I generally avoid books that "look" like it. YA, romance, angels. My first thought was "YUK!" but I could get a copy at the library, and it didn't cost me a penny so I tried it. And LOVED it. Couldn't put it down. It's nowhere near being high brow, but it was just plain good. The story was interesting, the characters were incredibly well developed, and the world, the lore was out of the box.

Boneshaker is another one I've heard spoken of rarely, and had people avoid because it's YA. The author did not write it as YA, her publisher decided to publish it as YA because the main character happens to be a teenager. But it's a great story, steampunk and zombies.

Dragon Weather and the following books in the series are great. I picked them up for the first time in 8th or 9th grade and it was one of my first experiences with dragons.

The Scorpio Races I've seen a lot of advertisements for this on Amazon, here, etc. but I haven't HEARD a lot about it. I think every little girl who's ever imagined herself having a horse/pony would bond instantly with it. But it has some interesting, and previously unknown to me at least, lore. Her prose is beautiful. Like heart-wrenching, gorgeous, almost painfully beautiful. If you like nothing else about this book her writing, and her descriptions are just amazing.

Too Many Curses The only reason I picked this up... is because when the Borders near me was closing I promised myself I would go on the last day when everything was 90% off and buy every book I had ever wistfully looked at and not picked up because I couldn't afford to. So for like $.79 I got this and figured it would be cute (Checked and used on Amazon right now it's $1.19), maybe like Pratchett or Asprin. Wow- it was just amazing. FUNNY, like laughing and ow my sides hurt I'm laughing so hard funny. It was very cutesy in some respects but so refreshing. Quick read, and only like 1100 ratings on Goodreads.


Not YA:
Anything by Lincoln Child, Douglas Preston. They've written a plethora of novels and while they're not straight up scifi/fantasy there are many... unknown elements shall we say? If the X files and... Castle were to mix with a little dose of alchemy to create a aeries of books. That is what these two have. I have read, oh maybe 10-15 of their books and devoured each one. They're quick reads. Detective style, but not just a who-dun-it, but more of a what-the-f-is-that in many cases. They've had a few of (unsuccessful) movie adaptions but I hope one day it'll be done right.

Walter Moers has written a few (ginormous) novels and they've been translated from German into English. He also apparently writes comics (that have sadly not been translated). Everything I've read of his I have LOVED. I've lent the books to friends and they've lent them to friends and a year later I see that I've infected a good 8 people with Mr. Moers and still haven't gotten my books back! :-p The prose is simple, they're not tough reads despite the length (The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear is 700ish pages long). They're funny. Like, really funny. And different. And just plain interesting, and he needs to write MORE. NOW! (And have it translated into English, darn it). They're like Children's books for adults.

The Magic Kingdom of Landover Volume 2 Everyone knows the Shannara books but not many seem to know the Landover books. They're completely different from Shannara. They're light and funny, and quick reads. Again- if you like Asprin and Pratchett, check this series out.

I don't know if it's underappreciated, but I've never met anyone else who read the bartimaeus trilogy from Jonathan Stroud. For people like me, who can still really enjoy fantasy written for younger people (e.g. Harry Potter) I thought it was really great.
It was a total coincidence that I got to read these books (second-handed in a foreign country, having nothing to read), but I have no regrets.

I think that in determining if something is under appreciated it is important to also define over appreciated.

Sometimes things just become a fad or over hyped, often with no relation to its overall quality. For instance I think Game of Thrones is often overrated. I think it's a good series, I just think a number of reviewers and fans become a bit effusive in their praise of it. I also think that Twilight is overrated because even though it was panned by critics (and three chapter mad me physically ill) it had a very wide readership, and an active grass roots fan base. Truly, it was the Amway of literature.

I think A lot of people wish that their favorite book or series would get that kind of "Harry Potter" treatment. But as we saw with the Oprah Book Club, over selling a book is bad for the industry as a whole.

In that light I think Canticle is appreciated just about right. It's taught in many schools, it's got a perennial place on the summer reading table, and It's on the NPR top 100 list.

Honestly, I would find it hard to call any book that has been in print for multiple decades underrated.

Daran wrote: "I think that in determining if something is under appreciated it is important to also define over appreciated.

Sometimes things just become a fad or over hyped, often with no relation to its overa..."

I'll be one of the first to belittle Twilight... BUT

I have to admire the way that it made reading "cool" again for kids. Teaching in Middle School and High Schools I can not emphasize how much of a change those books made for teenagers. It became cool to read, and to love a book. School and local libraries EXPLODED with kids reading, and falling in love with books. Our local book stores went from having two rows of YA books to a HUGE section. I'll consider Twilight a gateway book. :-P From there kids are picking up other books... Hunger Games, etc. So as much as I hate it, and it's BAD, and overrated... I have to appreciate that it opened up so many more young minds to books that otherwise never would have read on their own.

KevinB wrote: "Personally I think Joel Shepherd is criminally underappreciated"

I don't believe either of the two series you mentioned were underrated, but they could definitely claim to be under read and deserving of a wider readership.

Kathryn wrote: " I'll consider Twilight a gateway book. :-P From there kids are picking up other books... Hunger Games, etc. So as much as I hate it, and it's BAD, and overrated... I have to appreciate that it opened up so many more young minds to books that otherwise never would have read on their own.
"

The problem I have with this argument is that it is true. Honestly, how dare you.

But seriously, I think that the last three or four generations have had "open your eyes" book series that got them into reading. The series before Twilight was Harry Potter (which, by my own criteria was overrated), and the series after was Hunger Games (also overrated). I just wish that the Twilight books had been of similar quality to the the other two--not great, but not actively bad.

The worst part is that there is no way to predict which book will become a fad, and publishers have spent more than I will ever earn trying to.

When I hear "this book is underrated" my mind *never* goes to its ranking on Goodreads or Amazon. To me, the term long predates these websites and means "People don't know about this amazing book!"

Sounds like we've got several definitions going here ;-)

Harry Potter was awesome but it was still.... nerdy. I read HP and some of my friends did, but the cheerleaders and the "cool kids" weren't walking around with copies in their bookbags and reading in the hallway. Kids who admitted to having, "Never read a book all the way through in my life" loved it. Kids who HATE reading, who struggle, who have learning disabilities and never would have picked up the book on their own read it. And Hunger Games followed so closely on Twilight that it was a natural progression for the Twilight fans to pick up that series and voila! Kids who NEVER would have read a book before just read SEVEN. That's amazing. And from there teachers and parents are able to go, "Yeah- You liked that well now try THIS!"

Even 50 Shades of Grey which was AWFUL... Made many women read who would not have otherwise. It was a bad, bad, bad example of erotica. A bad, bad, bad example of BDSM... but again it got people reading. And any book that gets more people to read can't be 100% bad, right? (Maybe 99%?)

Kathryn wrote: "Harry Potter was awesome but it was still.... nerdy. I read HP and some of my friends did, but the cheerleaders and the "cool kids" weren't walking around with copies in their bookbags and reading ..."

The question then becomes at what point does getting kids to read at any cost become harmful? Most of those people who read Twilight aren't going to go on and become serious bibliophiles. If the one series they read leaves them with a lasting mental impression of bad writing and bad character, has reading fiction done them all that good after all?

Daran wrote: "Kathryn wrote: "Harry Potter was awesome but it was still.... nerdy. I read HP and some of my friends did, but the cheerleaders and the "cool kids" weren't walking around with copies in their bookb..."

In many cases they do go on to read. They start with Twilight, than maybe Hunger Games, they might from there pick up some other romance, or YA. If you've ever looked at the YA shelves you'll see that they're FULL of Scifi and Fantasy, Steampunk and Zombies.

Many of us have read bad books in our lives and loved them. Or at least books that aren't... good. You can't say that the books you read now are the same you would have read and loved at the age of 10-14.

When I was young I only liked books about horses. I wouldn't even go near a book if it didn't involve a horse. So my mother found Saddle Club, and the Misty of Chincoteague books, and the Black Stallion books, and from there Dick Francis (yep, I was reading adult murder mystery at the age of like 8 because they were all based around horses). I read L'Amour because he wrote about cowboys and they rode horses... I read a LOT of bad books back then, and I didn't know any better because "HORSES!" was all I thought about. Just like "BOYS!" are what most teenage girls think about... so if they're picking up YA romance because of boys and twilight... than good for them. Eventually they'll grow and move on to other, better books. Not all of them... but more than would have before. And yes that is worth it. If you had children or worked with children you would agree.

I have a couple of books that I love and they are out of print and hard to find, Mermaid's Song and Maia. I think quite a few people here had never heard of Master Li and Number Ten Ox before Aaron's whiteboard. I haven't seen Jennifer Roberson's Shapechanger series mentioned or anything by Louise Cooper who's Indigo books I re-read many times. Oh and Christopher Stasheff's Warlock series, not so much his other stuff.

I think any book that gets a person reading is admirable. Anyone who continues reading after catching the bug will learn to distinguish between crap and good writing.

I started reading with Nancy Drew, and V.C Andrews and YA historical romances and here I am, oh so many years later, desperate to hide the fact that I read the Sookie Stackhouse books and even skimmed my way through the Twilight books, hopefully waving around titles like Dune and Foundation to distract you all.

Like having fresh veggies prominently displayed in the fridge and Twinkies stashed in the bedside drawer.

I think a lot of underrated novels come from authors with mainstream success or recognition from other works. Gibson is obviously known for Neuromancer and the rest of the Sprawl trilogy, but I really liked Pattern Recognition.

I guess it depends what you mean by underrated. A Canticle for Leibowitz/Octavia Butler are good examples to me where a lot of people who say they love sci-fi/fantasy have never heard of them but you mention in a larger group and you get the "of course that is good/well known" type of response.
Some others I would put in that category are Tanith Lee, Steven Brust's Jhereg series, Jack Vance's Lyonesse and any big Dresden File fans should check out Glenn Cook's Garrett PI series of books.

Trike wrote: "I agree with Darren; I think Canticle is pretty widely known and appreciated. It's right up there with Brave New World and 1984 when it comes to being taught in college."

It's funny, I got that book in college, but not as part of an actual class. I was talking to one of my profs and she mentioned Miller. I said I had no idea who that was, and she told me this story about being in grad school, chatting with one of her profs while dividing up the papers they had to grade that weekend. They are chatting about literature, and her prof started talking about Miller. She'd never heard of him. So her professor took up half the papers on her side of the desk that she was meant to grade and put them on his stack, grabbed Canticle off his shelf and handed it to her, explaining that she can't be considered a literate person until she's read that book. She then handed me that copy of Canticle, and I devoured it over the weekend.

Point being, I think that's an underrated book because it may be recognized by literati for what it is, but outside that circle nobody's heard of it. Same thing for Peake. Both of those guys should be better known than they are. The crypto-PR of the literary world somehow missed them.

Arne wrote: "I don't know if it's underappreciated, but I've never met anyone else who read the bartimaeus trilogy from Jonathan Stroud. For people like me, who can still really enjoy fantasy written for younge..."
I'm glad someone mentioned Stroud's Bartimaeus series. Outstanding series, one of my favorites, and the definition of underrated. Good call Arne.

PM wrote: "I guess it depends what you mean by underrated. A Canticle for Leibowitz/Octavia Butler are good examples to me where a lot of people who say they love sci-fi/fantasy have never heard of them but y..."

It has more to do with the superlative. Most under-rated (OF ALL TIME!) is a very different animal than simply under-rated.

I think any stand alongs by Iain Banks and/or Iain M. Banks are quite underrated.

I think Islandia is deserving a wider appreciation and more readers. Anyone else read or even heard of it? I always get blank stares when I mention it. Maybe it's not really sword or laser, but it is world-building.

Lord Dunsany is also not as widely read as he deserves. Most people have a passing recongition of the name and may have read a story or two in some anthology but have not read any entire books by him.

Charles Williams is also often overlooked. I almost forgot to mention him here. Yet, he wrote some wonderfully werid novels. Not much to compare them to, they are unique. But C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength may give some idea.

Gary wrote: "I'm sure a similar argument could be made for my fantasy choice as well. After all, that one did get a BBC production.

Nonetheless, I list those two based on my personal experience with how much ..."

I did a book review on 'Gormenghast' in high school English. The teacher not only didn't appreciate my deathless prose and incisive explication -- she was convinced I'd written up a nonexistent book and was trying to get over on her, somehow. Then I showed her the book, and she walked her suspicions back some of the way.

Now, this was back in the 70s, in a nowhere public school, but I was still proud of myself for knocking her off center. And I still agree that it's essential foundation fantasy. Three cheers for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series and its curator, Lin Carter.

Arne wrote: "I don't know if it's underappreciated, but I've never met anyone else who read the bartimaeus trilogy from Jonathan Stroud. For people like me, who can still really enjoy fantasy written for younge..."

Listened to the first volume on audiobook, and liked it a lot. Then I sort of forgot about it until now. Need to get back and finish the trilogy! Another series I've only read the first installment of but thought deserves more attention is the Virga Series by Karl Schroeder. Kind of steampunk hard science space opera, if that makes sense. Begins with "Sun of Suns."

Noomninam wrote: "I did a book review on 'Gormenghast' in high school English. The teacher not only didn't appreciate my deathless prose and incisive explication -- she was convinced I'd written up a nonexistent book and was trying to get over on her, somehow. Then I showed her the book, and she walked her suspicions back some of the way."

Great anecdote. I've got a similar story about Logan's World the sequel to Logan's Run. A friend had a copy--this is 20-25 years ago--and I picked it up and read about half of it hanging out at his place. When it was time for me to go I asked if I could borrow it. I'd borrowed books from him before. We'd swapped a few. That kind of stuff. This time he flatly refused.

"That book doesn't leave this house," he said.

It seems there was an issue with the printing or something. Not a lot of copies or some strange thing with its release. I don't know the details, but my friend insisted it was very difficult to get hold of, and most booksellers didn't even think it really existed.

Now, I thought that was just paranoid and ridiculous. How could booksellers not know about a book that was in trade paperback? Nonsense. He was nuts. But he was a friend, so I only scoffed a little and told him I'd go pick up my own copy.

Turns out he was right. I went to a half dozen bookstores that afternoon, and nobody had it. I got several strange looks from some of the staff. Finally, the last guy I spoke to rolled his eyes and told me there was no such book. It was like episodes 1-3 of Star Wars (which didn't exist back in the day other than in Lucas' brain) or the fictitious S. Morgenstern version of Princess Bride.

"I had it in my hands just a few hours ago!"

Nope. I had to be mistaken, he insisted. No such book.

I did eventually get a copy... but still. Weird.

Long way to go for this one, but if people didn't think it existed for a decade or so after it was published, I guess Logan's World would qualify as under-appreciated.

I guess another way to be labeled underappreciated would be to have become largely forgotten so I'll toss in some favorites of mine from decades ago that no one seems to mention any more ...

Nifft the Lean

Gladiator-at-Law

Ill Met in Lankhmar

Maybe none of these books are one of the best ever (a claim that Canticle for Liebowitz can plausibly make) but boy were they fun. And, I suspect that most people in this group have read Ill Met in Lankhmar but *shrug* I think it's still underrated compared to its quality.

Alan wrote: "...I think it's still underrated compared to its quality."

A peril of all sci-fi/fantasy. Anything that smacks of more wonder than reality (which is my operative definition of SF/F) seems to automatically put something in either the under-rated or under-appreciated category.

Thanks throwing Lieber into the mix. He gives me a nostalgia spike on my EKG. I'm going to have to pick those up and reread them in the not-too-distant future now.

Kevin wrote: "I think any stand alongs by Iain Banks and/or Iain M. Banks are quite underrated."

You mean multiple award-winning novels that sell millions of copies translated into more than 20 languages? Not sure you have the right definition of "under-rated" pulled up on your computer there.

Gary wrote: "Long way to go for this one, but if people didn't think it existed for a decade or so after it was published, I guess Logan's World would qualify as under-appreciated. "

Weird. I had no idea that book was rare. I own a copy. It's around here somewhere. Supposedly an acid-trip sequel called Logan's Search exists where Logan travels to an alternate universe, but I've never seen it.

Trike wrote: "Weird. I had no idea that book was rare. I own a copy. It's around here somewhere. Supposedly an acid-trip sequel called Logan's Search exists where Logan travels to an alternate universe, but I've never seen it."

I don't think it really is rare. It was a little hard to find, but I got a copy eventually. I think somehow some sort of rumor got started and it went around to the booksellers. This is back in the day, so it wasn't like you could just google it or use Goodreads....

I talked to a good half dozen bookstore staff members who told me it didn't exist, though, so it was a thing. Probably some sort of confusion about a cancelled print run or something along those lines.

I remember when I actually found it in a used bookstore I took it up to the counter and the guy kept giving me this funny look. He looked at the book, up at me, back at the book, rang it up, back at the book and then read the back cover before putting in a bag. It was very strange. I suspect he must have heard that it wasn't a real book.

I didn't know there was a book three until just yesterday, having looked up the first two out of curiosity. I don't think it'll be that hard to find a copy....

Some of my very favorite books would likely qualify as underrated.
The Princess Bride, which was a fantastic book but is often overlooked because everyone has already seen the movie.
Ariel by Steven R. Boyett; a great post-apoc book from before it was cool. It is the only book I've read many times... Though I'm not sure if I would like it as much as an adult.
And so many others that don't get the attention and hype they deserve, despite being much better examples of the written word than crap like Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey.

Have to put in a word here for Rick Moody's The Four Fingers of Death. An absolutely unique book that deserves much more attention both among literary and genre readers in my opinion.