The Sword and Laser discussion

The latest Entertainment Weekly magazine has several "100 all-time greatest" lists in it. Science fiction and fantasy seem to be moderately well represented in the book list but maybe not the ones I was expecting.
7. Harry Potter series
10. Charlotte's Web
17. The Road
27. A Wrinkle in Time
29. The Handmaid's Tale
31. Blindness
33. Maus
36. Atlas Shrugged
42. The Stand
44. His Dark Materials
49. Ender's Game
57. The Children of Men
58. Midnight's Children
59. Dracula
67. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
70. Neuromancer
71. The Hobbit
81. Frankenstein
99. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
It's not the list I would have made but even from the literary snob perspective that they seem to have I'm surprised there's no Lord of the Rings, 1984, Brave New World, or Fahrenheit 451.

Wow. EW should not be compiling book lists of any kind.

Interesting list. I wonder if 1984 would have made the list if it were published a little later, in light of the US/NSA news lately.

Baelor wrote: "Wow. EW should not be compiling book lists of any kind."

Agreed.

Lists are not journalism. They are barely blog posts. If you wonder why newspapers are going under, a large part is due to the complete absence of content. Please do not fall into the trap of debating the merits or chart positions of this or any other list. They are meaningless filler. If you asked a million people what their favorite books were, you would get a million answers. If you asked them again in a year, you would have two million answers. There are enough (and better) lists of classic fiction that Time Inc. does not need to print a new one and then charge you for it.
Also, EW is a most apt acronym.

Whew. Glad I didn't post the list from Inquest Magazine that I just spent 16 years reading through. ;)

A wee bit off topic, but I totally agree on the "lists are not journalism, they're click bait" thing. That said, if someone posts parts of lists, as here, I have no qualms using it as a jump point for discussion.

Sadly, most news isn't news anymore. It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News made me even more jaded than I was, and was when I stopped clicking-through on any lists (io9, I'm looking at you!).

terpkristin wrote: "A wee bit off topic, but I totally agree on the "lists are not journalism, they're click bait" thing. That said, if someone posts parts of lists, as here, I have no qualms using it as a jump point ..."

Phil wrote: "Whew. Glad I didn't post the list from Inquest Magazine that I just spent 16 years reading through. ;)"

Don't mind me; I was in a mood. I just didn't want to see another thread degrade into an argument over whether this book or that book should have been on this list. My point was any list is just someone's opinion. If you want to see what happens when they post a list like this, you only have to look at EW's own website. There are 80+ comments saying this should have been on/off the list on a post about how you should all stop telling them what should have been on/off the list and go read a book. Lists aren't evil per se. They are just a hallmark of sloppy journalism.

If you have a list of books that inspired you to go out and read, I think that is a fantastic story that you should share. I just think there are far better lists already. The back catalog of S&L picks is a great place to start.

No offence taken Sean.
Actually, I thought the Inquest list was pretty good. I had already read about a third of the books and several others were ones I "always meant to get around to". If you included all the books in the various series mentioned it came to over 300.
I had trouble tracking down a couple like The Crystal Express by Bruce Sterling. I only recently got a Kindle which would have made things easier.
I only lemmed 3; The Wheel of Time series after book 3 (too little pay-off after three long books), The Illuminatus! trilogy half-way through book 2 (too psychedelic for me), and Le Morte d'Arthur (I actually fell asleep while reading this on the toilet one day).
The top 10 on their list were:
1. The Lord of the Rings
2. The Chronicles of Amber series
3. Ender series
4. Neuromancer
5. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
6. Foundation series
7. Dune
8. Elric series
9. The Man in the High Castle
10.1984
Other books the S&L group has read are:
11. Hyperion series
13. Tigana
20. Ringworld
28. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
31. The Hobbit
33. The Book of the New Sun series
54. Pern series
56. Good Omens
89. Downbelow Station

Sean wrote: "... Don't mind me; I was in a mood. I just didn't want to see another thread degrade into an argument over whether this book or that book should have been on this list. My point was any list is just someone's opinion."

That's why I like the collectively created lists where each contributor only adds their one favorite book in the genre to the list. One of the other Goodreads SF Groups has one going that I like quite a bit.

I get EW but I never take their lists seriously. Lists in general are always subjective. What I think is awesome might be total rubbish to somebody else. It's nice they did represent some SFF though.