Quote
July 27, 2012
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"Science fiction is often described, and even defined, as extrapolative. The science fiction writer is supposed to take a trend or phenomenon of the here-and-now, purify and intensify it for dramatic effect, and extend it into the future. ‘If this goes on, this is what will happen.’ A prediction is made. Method and results much resemble those of a scientist who feeds large doses of a purified and concentrated food additive to mice, in order to predict what may happen to people who eat it in small quantities for a long time. The outcome seems almost inevitably to be cancer. So does the outcome of extrapolation. Strictly extrapolative works of science fiction generally arrive about where the Club of Rome arrives: somewhere between the gradual extinction of human liberty and the total extinction of terrestrial life."

— Ursula K. Leguin, Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness

Tags: ursula left hand of darkness science fiction quotes

Text
May 31, 2012
7 notes

NPR - Top 100 Sci Fi/Fantasy Books

  1. The Lord of the Rings 
  2. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
  3. Ender’s Game
  4. The Dune Chronicles
  5. A Song of Fire Ice and Fire (3 of 5)
  6. 1984
  7. Fahrenheit 451
  8. The Foundation Trilogy
  9. Brave New World
  10. American Gods
  11. The Princess Bride
  12. The Wheel of Time (I guess quitting halfway through the first book doesn’t count)
  13. Animal Farm
  14. Neuromancer
  15. Watchmen
  16. I,Robot
  17. Stranger in a Strange Land
  18. The Kingkiller Chronicles
  19. Slaughterhouse-Five
  20. Frankenstein
  21. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
  22. The Handmaid’s Tail
  23. The Dark Tower Series
  24. 2001: A Space Odyssey
  25. The Stand
  26. Snow Crash
  27. The Martian Chronicles
  28. Cat’s Cradle
  29. The Sandman Series
  30. A Clockwork Orange
  31. Starship Troopers
  32. Watership Down
  33. Dragonflight
  34. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
  35. A Canticle for Leibowitz
  36. The Time Machine
  37. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
  38. Flowers for Algernon
  39. The War of the Worlds
  40. The Amber Chronicles
  41. The Belgariad
  42. The Mists of Avalon
  43. Mistborn Trilogy
  44. Ringworld
  45. The LEft Hand of Darkness
  46. The Silmarillion
  47. The Once and Future King
  48. Neverwhere
  49. Childhood’s End
  50. Contact
  51. The Hyperion Cantos
  52. Stardust
  53. Cryptonomicon
  54. World War Z
  55. The Last Unicorn
  56. The Forever War
  57. Small Gods
  58. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever
  59. The Vorkosigan Saga
  60. Going Postal
  61. The Mote in God’s Eye
  62. The Sword of Truth Series
  63. The Road
  64. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
  65. I Am Legend
  66. The Riftwar Saga
  67. The Sword of Shannara Trilogy
  68. The Conan the Barbarian Series
  69. The Farseer Trilogy
  70. The Time Traveler’s Wife
  71. The Way of Kings
  72. Journey to the Center of the Earth
  73. The Legend of Drizzt Series
  74. Old Man’s War
  75. The Diamond Age
  76. Rendezvous With Rama
  77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series
  78. The Dispossessed
  79. Something Wicked this Way Comes
  80. Wicked
  81. The Malazan Book of the Fallen Series
  82. The Eyre Affair
  83. The Culture Series
  84. The Crystal Cave
  85. Anathem
  86. The Codex Alera Series
  87. The Book of the New Sun
  88. The thrawn Trilogy
  89. The Outlander Series
  90. The Elric Saga
  91. The Illustrated Man
  92. Sunshine
  93. A Fire Upon the Deep
  94. The Cave of Steel
  95. The Mars trilogy
  96. Lucifer’s Hammer
  97. Doomsday Book
  98. Perdido Street Station
  99. The Xanth Series
  100. The Space Trilogy

I’m a little sad I only got 12.

Tags: NPR book lists fantasy science fiction and I call myself a nerd for shame but really couldn't get more than 200 pages into the first Robert Jordan novel