Re: Ranking the Hugo & Nebula Winning Novels, Best to Worst

In article <1175200875.347617.193040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
genewardsmith@xxxxxxxxx says...
On Mar 29, 7:51 am, Gerry Quinn <ger...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Same here. I'm a bit late here but here goes:

As I was saying, I can't see any difference between the categories.
Cyteen is "Unreadable", which suggests that things which require some
effort to get into are Evil.

No - as I plainly said, it's a personal choice. I noted in particular
that _Rendezvous with Rama_, a book I didn't rate at all, appeared high
on the lists of many posters. And few would, I suspect, place _Man
Plus_ in the top category as I did. My vote represents my opinion, no
more.

The fact is, though, I started _Cyteen_ and found it quite unreadable.
Doubtless there are those who find it wonderful. What you mean by
"requiring some efort to get into", I'm not sure. If you mean that the
opening is turgid and confusing, we are in better agreement than you
perhaps imagine. It's just that there are books out there that are
worth reading and also pleasant to read, and those are the sort I
prefer to recommend. But some people find Gene Wolfe unreadable, and
maybe some of those love Cherryh.

But no, A Fire Upon the Deep, Hyperion,
and The Claw of the Conciliator are are "Highly recommended", and A
Deepness in the Sky, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and Red Mars are
all "Recommended". There isn't any discernible tendency in quality.
You could do as well with a list of random numbers.

Discernable to you, perhaps. Do you think there is some objective
standard of quality? The above rating is how I assessed them, and I
don't expect anyone else necessarily to feel the same.

I decided on four categories, copied from the poster I responded to,
and added a fifth (books I personally found unreadable). The two
categories to which you refer are adjacent, and the choice between them
is potentially marginal.

I put _A Fire on the Deep_ in the 'A' bracket, and _A Deepness in the
Sky_ in the 'B', because I felt there were more sparky new ideas and
drama in the former than in the latter. _Jonathan Strange and Mr.
Norrell_ was a close call for an 'A', but I felt it had just a few too
many longueurs.

_Hyperion_ and its sequel comprise a masterpiece of sustained quality
(though the next two were vastly inferior). So do the four novels of
_The Book of the New Sun_.

Kim Stanley Robinson's politics disagree with me, and _Red Mars_
contains technological ludicrosity, but the scope and scale of his
story of the formation of cultural as well as physical soil on his
terraformed Mars firmly places it in the 'recommended' category for me.

They may appear random to you. But do me the credit of assuming there
is some method in my madness.

I looked upthread, and see that while you are prepared to mock the
'worst', you have not elected to put forward your own recommendations
for the best. Certainly it's a lot harder - I feel myself that
comparisons tend to be invidious. But since you think my selections
come across as random, why don't you show us what a truly objective
literary ranking of the listed books (those that you've read) looks
like?

- Gerry Quinn















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