The Sword and Laser discussion

Goodreads Best Forgotten Science Fiction of the 20th Century

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Have your read any of these? Can you recommend any?

I loved the Lyonesse trilogy by Jack Vance (fantasy, so it shouldn't be on this list). And I'm also a big fan of Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Retrieval Artist series (scifi mysteries).


Of the rest, I recognize some author's names, but not the titles.

An interesting mix of titles. I recognize a few from back in the day that I haven't tagged as Read and only two tagged as Read since I've been on Goodreads. Of the former, I'd recommend Needle by Hal Clement. The same story is the plot of a splatter movie, The Hidden, starring Kyle MacLachlan and Claudia Christian. I don't know if Clement's story was officially adapted or just ripped off. Of those I've read more recently, The Illegal Rebirth of Billy the Kid by Rebecca Ore was entertaining.

I haven't read any of these but I am intrigued by Doctor Who: Goth Opera. How can this possibly be bad?

I've read one on that list, After Worlds Collide, which I gave 5 stars. And I currently own 2 others that I still have yet to read, The Dark Beyond the Stars, When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One: Release 2.0. — I'd have to look at my extensive SF shelf and weed out which ones have less then 1000 ratings to recommend.

EDIT: Okay, a quick look turned up these possible recommendations (of which I either gave 4 or 5 star ratings):

The Year of the Quiet Sun
The Palace Of Eternity
After Doomsday
Looking Backward, From The Year 2000
Night Of The Saucers

Without actually counting them, I t looks like I’ve read about 40-50%. (Which probably means 20%.😜)

Anything by James P. Hogan, Joe Haldeman, Jack Vance and Charles Sheffield I’ve read, without a doubt.

Code of the Lifemaker by Hogan has one of the best prologues I’ve ever read. I re-read that bit in recent months because the book is available online. The first half is, anyway.

Never heard any of those though I recognize some author names. Interesting pulpy covers as well.

Whole lotta nope in there. A quick squint gives me about 15. That's mainly on the strength of some series' in there, like the Venus books by Burroughs or the later Worlds of the Imperium books by Laumer.

Of the list, the one I would say "yes, yes, read this NOW" is Code of the Lifemaker by Hogan. Hilarious take on life on another planet in the solar system.

The two Barnes books are quite good. I didn't look past the first 100 because it's basically a list of "hey, my book isn't on there" with no other votes past the first 40 or so.

Nokomis.FL wrote: "Goodreads Best Forgotten Science Fiction of the 20th Century

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Have your read any of these? Can you recommend any?"

I read Metropolitan and would recommend it.

I've heard of a lot of them and read others by the same authors but have only read a few of the books on the list. The only one I would recommend is The Lyonesse Trilogy but as Michele pointed out it's fantasy. The others I've read I only gave 2 or 3 stars to. Sometimes things are forgotten for a reason.

Dara wrote: "I haven't read any of these but I am intrigued by Doctor Who: Goth Opera. How can this possibly be bad?"

Dear Lord, this will definitely suck!

Dara wrote: "I haven't read any of these but I am intrigued by Doctor Who: Goth Opera. How can this possibly be bad?"

I'm planning to read all of the Doctor Who novels on this list.
Amazingly, I don't think I've read 1 book on the whole list.

I've read the Star Trek books on this list, but that's about it. My TBR pile just got a lot bigger.

I've also read about 15 of them, mostly Burroughs & Vance. The two I was pleased to see were Nifft the Lean and In Yana, the Touch of Undying, both by Michael Shea.

Dang, from the title of this thread I was hoping the question would be what would you never read from some of these lists (maybe the Amazon 100... maybe I will create that thread anyway!)

From this list, I've started Kirinyaga but didn't go back to it.

I've marked to-read some of the Delany (after flummoxing my way through Dhalgren) and the Elizabeth Hand, because I like her Cass Neary novels.

We Who Are About To... is on that list? It deserves so many more readers. Russ is awesome.

What aren't I reading? That's quite a long list.

I found "We Who Are About To" difficult to enjoy. Not a happy book.

Anything past 24 on that list was only voted on by 1 person and even the top books only got 3 votes so really it's just a couple people saying "Here's some fairly obscure books that I may vaguely remember enjoying."

We should add some of our own.

Tasha wrote: "We should add some of our own."

I definitely did. The ones I mentioned in my comment above.

Tasha wrote: "We should add some of our own."

If you go to the S&L "group home" at the top right of this screen you can find links near the top of the page that say "suggest fantasy books" and "suggest science fiction books". Those list have been built up over many years by hundreds of people and I think is more useful than this one.

Phil wrote: "Tasha wrote: "We should add some of our own."

If you go to the S&L "group home" at the top right of this screen you can find links near the top of the page that say "suggest fantasy books" and "su..."

Those lists were more useful when they were kept up to date, and edited.

The list in the OP is more useful when you look at the decades, etc. For example, here's the 70s. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/4...

This is a really "hipster" list, in that it's kind of like asking "You know all those famous classic rock acts that are really well known for a couple of hit songs or one or two landmark albums? Which of their B-sides or unreleased (as a single) tracks do you recognize?" i.e. I've definitely heard of almost all the authors on this list, and they were all at least respected if not successful in their own eras, but none of these are generally considered their most enduring or definitive work.

The only one I've read is the current last entry, Children of the Thunder by John Brunner.