Classics -SF and F

[Brand]

Hhmm, I guess we need to tighten up what is a 'classic'.

I was thinking:

1. Readable (hence Gormenghast is out)
2. Not published in the last 20 years (Let them get a bit more time-tested)
3. If a series, it must be completed
4. Accessible to the average reader (I included Lord Dunsany, but is that really a classic, or just a notable stop off in the history of fantastical fiction?)


Other things I was on the fence about...Is Horror a seperate category? Or does it belong in scifi or fantasy depending on the milieu it explores?

Should a single author be limited to a single work? Arguably some authors have multiples that could be considered classics.

What do you guys think?

[tad10]

I like the rules and I'd think its more interesting to limit to a single work per author. With maybe a collection of short stories counting as a work (e.g. Niven's Tales of Known Space or Heinlein's Time Enough for Love) if that collection is the best work (probably yes in Niven's case, probably no in Heinlein's case). Not sure what to do about series though (e.g. LeGuin's Earthsea -- do we pick the best book in the series or just lump em together).

[Lenardo]

its hard to define certain Series by a single Book since occasionally the sum of the books exceeds the uniqueness a single book can display

take for example Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule- all in all an excellent book -imo the best of the series- it's presence makes the series better.

now take say The Fellowship Of The Ring- by itself- a decent book yet it pales in its presentation and greatness by comparison to the Trilogy that is The Lord of the Rings.

it is just one Piece of the puzzle that at the end manifests in one of the greatest fantasy stories ever written (in my opinion)

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Brand

Hhmm, I guess we need to tighten up what is a 'classic'.

I was thinking:

1. Readable (hence Gormenghast is out)
2. Not published in the last 20 years (Let them get a bit more time-tested)
3. If a series, it must be completed
4. Accessible to the average reader (I included Lord Dunsany, but is that really a classic, or just a notable stop off in the history of fantastical fiction?)


Other things I was on the fence about...Is Horror a seperate category? Or does it belong in scifi or fantasy depending on the milieu it explores?

Should a single author be limited to a single work? Arguably some authors have multiples that could be considered classics.

What do you guys think?

Gormenghast unreadable? You're just a fucking idiot.

[tad10]

I tried Gormenghast 3 times and also found it to be unreadable. I pretty much agree with the previous poster that it sucks ass.

[Khorum]

Yeah Tad, we know you're a fucking idiot also. Welcome aboard the tardwagon.

Had a little trouble with Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow too, dincha? How about Robert Anton Wilson's actual classic Shrodinger's Cat or even some early Vonnegut or even Harlan Ellison---none of whom got onto this guy's 'classics' list. Next you'll be telling us James Joyce was a fucking hack cuz you couldn't deal with Ullysses.

Gormenghast is no more abstruse than Silmarillion or Dhalgren, but it's WAY cooler than either of those. Peake's style is rich and elaborate and demands more than a casual reading. He's like Charles Dickens on acid writing about a Pink Floyd video. Titus Alone can get tedious at places (no more than Tolkien's inexplicable eruptions of song and dance) but it heralded Gothic Fantasy all the way back in the 1940's. Steampunk and all these neo-Victorian sensibilities you see in contemporary fantasy---in MMORPG's, comics and even Anime---are all rooted in Peake's Gormenghast trilogy.

[Brand]

I stand by my Gormenghast is unreadable. You can call me an idiot, but I think that most rational people who have attempted it would agree.

As for Vonnegut...Good catch, I had forgotten him. What would be his signature work, Slaughterhouse 5? I always enjoyed Cat's Cradle.

I was angling for a classics list bereft of the dense unreadable behemoths like Gormenghast. Frankly, I smell a troll. There is no way in hell a fair-minded person would consider it READABLE...I'm not surprised you mentioned Gravity's Rainbow. Lets toss out some other obscure literary favorites that people attempting to sound smart parade out.

Oh yes, you used Silmarillion and Dhalgren as examples...If those are favorites of yours...Please drive through. You and I have much different ideas of readable.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Khorum

Gormenghast is no more abstruse than Silmarillion or Dhalgren, but it's WAY cooler than either of those. Peake's style is rich and elaborate and demands more than a casual reading. He's like Charles Dickens on acid writing about a Pink Floyd video. Titus Alone can get tedious at places (no more than Tolkien's inexplicable eruptions of song and dance) but it heralded Gothic Fantasy all the way back in the 1940's. Steampunk and all these neo-Victorian sensibilities you see in contemporary fantasy---in MMORPG's, comics and even Anime---are all rooted in Peake's Gormenghast trilogy.

Peake sucks. End of story. The Silmarillion, Gravity's Rainbow and yes even fucking Dahlgren are more fucking readable (I am not a huge Sam D. fan but I do have fond memories of the Einstein Intersection) -- a lot more readable in the case of The Silmarillion or Gravity's Rainbow. Ulysses is the one of the most overhyped books ever -- Joyce peaked with his short stories (in particular The Dead) and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (and fuck anyone who thinks someone should devote a good portion of their life to read one book -- hi2u Finnegan's Wake).

In my youth I read everything and I still couldn't get past Gormenghast or Fletcher Pratt sans L. Sprague De Camp both put me to sleep with dull writing.

Speaking of which should add the Compleat Enchanter(De Camp/Pratt) to the list.

I'd also add Farmer's To Your Scattered Bodies Go (best of the Riverworld books).

Edit: And you stupid fuck Gothic Fantasy arguably originated in Shelley's Frankenstein as modified by Bram Stoker's Dracula. And both have their roots in the Romance poets (Keats, Shelley & etc.).

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Brand

I'm not surprised you mentioned Gravity's Rainbow. Lets toss out some other obscure literary favorites that people attempting to sound smart parade out.

Nah, I mentioned Pynchon to smoke out the pulp-inhaling philistines whose reading habits can be directly correlated to Walmart's four-shelf HAHABOOKZ aisle.

I mentioned Joyce to sound smart.

Originally Posted by tad10

Peake sucks. End of story.

In case you were under the impression that anyone sees you as more than the foot-chewing catass troglodyte whom everyone snickers at for so blindly championing Vanguard for six fucking months, let me straighten you out. You've shown an astounding talent for suspending rationality and good taste for entirely sophomoric reasons and thus your opinion on pewter pipe fitting, SUV tire alignment, the care and feeding of honduran furless gerbils and oh, literature, amount to two things: Jack and Shit.

Overhyped or not Ulysses shattered preconceptions about the novel and helped make the modernist literature what it is. Even the checkout-line-ready jackoff-fodder that passes for science fiction nowadays has resonances of Joyce's play with the English language. Similarly, Peake's novels and art literally shaped famous novelist careers.

With Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, Iain M. Banks and Anthony Burgess STILL blogging about their debt and praise of Mervyn Peake's tremendous influence it's hard to argue against the man's talent. Almost as hard as taking a ridiculous vanboi dumbfuck seriously.

[Brand]

Originally Posted by Khorum

Nah, I mentioned Pynchon to smoke out the pulp-inhaling philistines whose reading habits can be directly correlated to Walmart's four-shelf HAHABOOKZ aisle.

I mentioned Joyce to sound smart.

Ok, that made me laugh.

Originally Posted by Khorum

Overhyped or not Ulysses shattered preconceptions about the novel and helped make the modernist literature what it is. Even the checkout-line-ready jackoff-fodder that passes for science fiction nowadays has resonances of Joyce's play with the English language. Similarly, Peake's novels and art literally shaped famous novelist careers.

With Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, Iain M. Banks and Anthony Burgess STILL blogging about their debt and praise of Mervyn Peake's tremendous influence it's hard to argue against the man's talent. Almost as hard as taking a ridiculous vanboi dumbfuck seriously.

Good points...BUT I still would not consider Peake readable, or even accessible to the average reader. I was looking for a classics discussion for the average reader...Not a scholarly jerkoff about how well read I am in obscure titles. Literary people consider Great Expectations a classic...But I don't. Jane Austen, same thing...Jane Austen is more like a old-time harlequin romance than a staggering work of genius.

So, changing gears...Do you consider Lovecraft and King as Fantasy, or Science Fiction. I have a tendancy to consider them Fantasy...I remember a old Bradbury Quote...Just looked it up.

Ray Bradbury's definition of fantasy from a 1999 interview with Weekly Wire: "First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see?"

Or should Horror be a sub-genre all to it's own? It seems silly to me to seperate Fantasy and Horror...Especially given today's trends in Fantasy. Thoughts?

[Brand]

Originally Posted by Khorum

With Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, Iain M. Banks and Anthony Burgess STILL blogging about their debt and praise of Mervyn Peake's tremendous influence it's hard to argue against the man's talent. Almost as hard as taking a ridiculous vanboi dumbfuck seriously.

You know...That link really doesn't help your case too much. I'm taking it on faith you have Blog entries with Banks and Gaiman saying they owe him a debt. They were not present in Moorcock's article. Frankly, reading that made me once more experience the dense literary bullshit that makes me revile works like Gormenghast. I don't need :

(Gormenghast) remains essentially a work of the closed imagination, in which a world parallel to our own is presented in almost paranoic denseness of detail.

Thats what someone singing his praises says...You gotta be real here. Someone can be important and still not be a classic. Have you really read the books? I can't imagine you have at this point. You're simply web searching for info and trolling. Maybe I'm wrong, but having actually read the books when given a choice I'd rather grind with a holy priest for 60 hrs while listening to Jane Austen books on tape than reread them.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Khorum

Nah, I mentioned Pynchon to smoke out the pulp-inhaling philistines whose reading habits can be directly correlated to Walmart's four-shelf HAHABOOKZ aisle.

I mentioned Joyce to sound smart.

You failed. The most important novel of the the 20th C is Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude not Ulysses. Had you mentioned the former I would have known that you knew what you were talking about instead of sounding like some sophomore English Lit major parroting a lusted after professor.

In case you were under the impression that anyone sees you as more than the foot-chewing catass troglodyte whom everyone snickers at for so blindly championing Vanguard for six fucking months, let me straighten you out.

Well that's pretty fucking arrogant to think I would give a shit what you or anybody else on this board thinks of me. I am now under the impression that you're one of those FoH posters who thinks if they trash talk they'll sound important.

Overhyped or not Ulysses shattered preconceptions about the novel and helped make the modernist literature what it is.

Ulysses was influential when it was first released but nobody gives a shit about Joyce anymore (save certain English Lit profs who wrote their theses on him). More to the point nobody fucking reads Joyce anymore (save certain English Lit grad students who need to write a thesis). Give me Borges, Marquez, Helprin, Calvino. Fuck Joyce (aside from his short stories and Artist).

Similarly, Peake's novels and art literally shaped famous novelist careers.

With Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, Iain M. Banks and Anthony Burgess about their debt and praise of Mervyn Peake's tremendous influence it's hard to argue against the man's talent. Almost as hard as taking a ridiculous vanboi dumbfuck seriously.

Peake can literally not write to save his life, literally.

You can protest as much as you want about how influential he was. That he started this or that school but at the bottom-fucking-line he is dull, he is boring, he is a shitty writer.

Writing is not just about ideas it is also about the ability to communicate those ideas. This is where Ulysses (and even worse Finnegan's Wake) and the Gormenghast trilogy fall flat.

The vast majority of people who read this thread and go out and read the books on your recommendation won't like them. To those folks -- don't say I didn't warn you.

[Havelock]

Originally Posted by tad10

Peake can literally not write to save his life, literally.

Ten yard penalty for abusing the word "literally."

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by tad10

Well that's pretty fucking arrogant to think I would give a shit what you or anybody else on this board thinks of me.

You literally should. Shame literally serves an important purpose. In this case, it would help you gauge how little credibility you have behind the ominous pronouncements you've been making here. If you didn't have that thick crust of oblivious bliss that social retards encase themselves with so that they can keep making faux pas after faux pas, you'd know that yanking your own fucking chain about Oprah's-Book-Club-Marquez just makes you more ridiculous.

Of course, we all visit this board for laughs, so pop your dunce hat back on and feel free to stumble on about your misadventures in MMORPG retardation, to your plebian fondness for retail-ready disposable prose. It's completely harmless because unlike the one sensible sentiment you harbored in the following:

Originally Posted by tad10

The vast majority of people who read this thread and go out and read the books on your recommendation won't like them. To those folks -- don't say I didn't warn you.

there's no danger whatsoever of anyone falling for your recommendations. At least not if they'd tried Vanguard after listening to your miserable, obseqiuous shilling of that festering pile of mouldy smegma.

In fact, it's totally sweet if you would go on blithely handing out sombre literary advice or waxing poetic about your devotion to fucking Da Vinci Code. If you really are as immune to basic self-respect as you so proudly proclaim, by all means stay being the inexhaustible fount of forum hilarity that you already are.

[Cascow]

Running the risk of being branded a "pulp-inhaling philistine whose reading habits can be directly correlated to Walmart's four-shelf HAHABOOKZ aisle", I'd throw Piers Anthony and his "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series out there.

Granted it's more fluff than some of the works mentioned before (and 100% retarded if not read from the start in order), it's still more than an enjoyable read.