The Sword and Laser discussion

I have a confession to make. After being a member of S&L for the last 14 months I've come to realize that there are books that most everyone seems to have read (and loved) but that I have never gotten around to reading. I didn't read a lot of SFF for about 25 years or so, other than the occasional William Gibson or Terry Brooks novel.

Now that I'm reading SFF again, I keep hearing people rave about certain books and wonder what classics other people have never gotten around to reading. My list is probably longer than most, but the biggest ones are probably Dune, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, or anything by Brandon Sanderson or Patrick Rothfuss. What classics have you skipped?

Also, since I plan on plugging those holes in my S&L resume, for an additional question I'd ask which of those omissions I should read first? Dune? WOT? Sanderson? Rothfuss? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I think you should read Dune first. That is a fantastic book.

I have never read anything by james tiptree jr, but i will definitly read something from her this year.

I never read a full book of Jordan, Brooks, or Pratchett. And I don't plan to...

Some things just don't interest me.

I haven't read any Philip K. Dick. On the fantasy side, I also haven't read Robert Jordan.

When you start with Sanderson, I recommend the Mistborn trilogy.

Sci Fi:

Neuromancer - William Gibson. I have it, I just haven't read it yet.

Fantasy:

Never read any of the Pern books, anything by Zelanzy, and Wrinkle in Time series.

Dara wrote: "When you start with Sanderson, I recommend the Mistborn trilogy."

Seconded. All Sanderson noobs should start with Mistborn.

I haven't read Brave New World yet.

I would read Dune first if I were you. I thought the WOT was overrated and the others aren't old enough to be "classic" yet. (You darn kids get out of my yard...)

Phil wrote: "I haven't read Brave New World yet.

I would read Dune first if I were you. I thought the WOT was overrated and the others aren't old enough to be "classic" yet. (You darn kids get out ..."

Haha! I'm bringing over lemonade, then. Yelling at those young whippersnappers is hot and thirsty work.

Haven't read Pohl's Man Plus or Asimov's Foundation series. In fact, I haven't read most of Asimov's stuff. I have The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories, and I'm not impressed with his writing.

im on a tablet and cant link so my apologies. ill also probably have some typos...
anywho, I recently read Foundation by Asimov and I liked it I plan to continue I also want to read some of his robot series and I have irobot to go. I havent read Dune, left hand of darkness, assassins apprentice, furies of culderon . I have read gibsons neromancer but didnt care for the charcter plan to give him another shot though. the list can go on I havent read even half of the npr 100 list lol.

Chakara wrote: "im on a tablet and cant link so my apologies. ill also probably have some typos...
anywho, I recently read Foundation by Asimov and I liked it I plan to continue I also want to read some of his rob..."

Stop with Foundation. Go back and read his robot novels first and then continue with Foundation. Asimov eventually tied his various book series together and there are things from the Robot novels that will eventually appear in Foundation and will be much more meaningful if you've read the Robot books - I hadn't so when the tie ins happened I didn't understand the significance at all until I later read the Robot books and then I realized why a certain something was such a big deal.

Dune is amazing. I first read it when I was 18, and I remember reading it in a single sitting... and then re-reading it immediately after. It was a truly great reading experience.

Mmmh, writing this I realize how many classics that have been on my tbr for a long time I have never read... Any of the Asimov books, Dune, Robin Hobb, Patrick Rothfuss, Terry Pratchett, RObert Jordan...

And I'd definitely recommend you start with Sanderson, although he is not a "classic", simply because he is a worldbuilding and magic-systems genius and builds amazing characters. I'd also say that mistborn is the place to start (despite the fact that I adored the first book, was not too keen on the second and liked but not loved the last one, the first book definitely shows Sanderson's strong points). I am currently reading the second book in the stormlight archive and, just as the first, it is simply brilliant!

Wait a minute... Do you consider Patrick Rothfuss to be a classic? I haven't read anything of the Kingkiller (though Name of the Wind is on its way via Amazon) but do you REALLY can contend that his work is a SF&F classic?

Oh, and regarding classics free of debate, until last year I hadn't read most of them, but I did my homework and read Dune, Foundation, A Wizard of Earthsea, Dragonflight, Ender's Game and Hyperion.

and as many of you, I haven't read any Jordan.

Joaquin wrote: "Wait a minute... Do you consider Patrick Rothfuss to be a classic? I haven't read anything of the Kingkiller (though Name of the Wind is on its way via Amazon) but do you REALLY can contend that hi..."

Ok, classic is probably the wrong way to put it for Rothfuss, and Sanderson for that matter, as neither have been around long enough to earn that distinction. I included both of them because they get a whole lot of love in the S&L forums which piques my curiosity and I already have them sitting on my shelf. I could have just as easily listed Terry Pratchett, Jim Butcher or Alastair Reynolds. I look forward to trying those out as well.

After reading over all of the comments, I think I'll start with Dune and then move on to Mistborn. My thanks to those that commented and if anyone else wants to chime in I'd be happy to hear from them.

1984

Rik wrote: "Chakara wrote: "im on a tablet and cant link so my apologies. ill also probably have some typos...
anywho, I recently read Foundation by Asimov and I liked it I plan to continue I also want to read..."

I, robot is next on my list I'm going to buddy read it with another person :)

Rothfuss is not a classic...but nice try LOL. I'm reading the first in his series now for my sff book club I mod and its not all that special honestly not even sure if I like Kvothe.

Michal wrote: "1984"

Bought this last year planning to read it but hasn't happened yet.

Hey Ty, I´m in a similar position. I´m currently reading The Way of Kings, and it´s my first Sanderson book. In my TBR pile I also have: Dune, Hyperion, The Name of the Wind and Neuromancer.

If you're after a great overview of a lot of the top works in the field read Jo Walton's Revisiting The Hugos series on Tor.com. She not only does she look at the nominees and the winner but what she feels were also other worthy books from that year.

http://www.tor.com/features/series/re...

When I first began reading sci-fi and fantasy it was the classics that I started with, at least in sci-fi because it was the only books available. I had to read Dune out of necessity since I had watch David Lynch movie version and every other page had me going "oh, now that makes sense".

There is still some gaps though that I intend to fill. I find this list helpfull for finding classic sci-fi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Maste...

Like many of you I haven't read Dune yet. Also at the top of my list of embarrassing omissions are Pohl, Zelazny, and Philip K Dick.

Matthew wrote: "Like many of you I haven't read Dune yet. Also at the top of my list of embarrassing omissions are Pohl, Zelazny, and Philip K Dick."

I have six Zelazny books I haven't read yet, most of them story collections.

Phil wrote: "I haven't read Brave New World yet."

Wow, are you in for a treat. It feels so... modern. Yet it was written in 1931. 1931. That's not a typo.

So far I've all the ones mentioned. but then that's the advantage of having read SFF for more than 40 years now. Back in the 1970s there was a dearth of sci-fi and fantasy to read.

The ones I haven't read are the oddball stories, like anything by Delaney (Nova, Dhalgren). I think the only old-time classic author I haven't read is Olaf Stapledon, simply because his books were never available. Now there's too much to read. I tried Gene Wolfe and J.G. Ballard but didn't like them.

Using NPR's list as reference, I got through the first 50 and found I was missing 19. Too many to list, so here are the ones I actually want to read:

Animal Farm
The Kingkiller Chronicles (though I'm not sure they're old enough to be considered classics)
Frankenstein
The Handmaid's Tale
Snow Crash
The Martian Chronicles
A Clockwork Orange
Dragonflight (or any of Anne McCaffrey's Pern stories)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The War of the Worlds
Neverwhere
Contact

Hm. Wasn't able to whittle away as many as I thought, and there are plenty more in the next 50. Of course, there are some on the list I think are crap, but to each their own.

LotR, Dune, Foundation, Gibson. However, I am about to start in on Dune in a minute. I'll find a better lotR copy next week. And I'm working through the Foundation universe in publication order. So far I've only read The Complete Robot. Gibson can wait, but I'm making it in the priority list since my friend Ross said I should read Neuromancer.

Ben wrote: "Frankenstein..."

One of the greatest things ever in my opinion. :)

Paolo wrote: "Hey Ty, I´m in a similar position. I´m currently reading The Way of Kings, and it´s my first Sanderson book. "

Are you enjoying WOK? I'm reading the second book: "Words of Radiance" and it's so good! Just a word of advice, if at one point you feel frustrated because nothing is really "going anywhere", don't give up because the book really picks up right afterwards and because the second book is just wow, I mean, I've just read about 10% of it but wow!

Also thanks to all the people posting on this thread, my tbr shelf got even longer. Thanks guys! ;)

Alice wrote: "Paolo wrote: "Hey Ty, I´m in a similar position. I´m currently reading The Way of Kings, and it´s my first Sanderson book. "

Are you enjoying WOK? I'm reading the second book: "Word..."

I'm enjoying it so far. I'm around page 400 which I think is the part you're talking about, and haven't really gotten bored or anything since I like the characters so it's all good. Anyways things should pick up soon.

The spren are annoying though, I don't like them.

No one has mentioned Tolkien, which seems like an obvious oversight. Maybe because it's a no-brainer, being responsible for large-scale epic fantasy as we know it?

Mysterio2 wrote: "No one has mentioned Tolkien, which seems like an obvious oversight. Maybe because it's a no-brainer, being responsible for large-scale epic fantasy as we know it?"
Maybe it's just that so far the posters have read LotR.

I've never read anything by Guy Gavriel Kay or Ian M Banks. I also haven't read the Dune sequels, the Shanara sequels or the sequel to Forever War. Are any of those sequels glaring gaps in my tbr pile?

For everyone who's never read any Zelazny, I strongly recommend Lord of Light.

I really like Forever Peace, but it doesn't seem to be generally regarded as well as the first one. If I remember correctly though, it also won both Hugo and Nebula.

I'll second the Lord of Light recommendation.

Roger Zelazny is another one I've never read so I'll have to add Lord of Light to my ever-expanding TBR pile. Thanks for all the great suggestions.