Top 100 - 1/3 of the way through

[johnridley]

I pulled the list from this page:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html
into a spreadsheet and ticked off what I've read. I'm at 38. 'Course, I've only started intentionally trying to get through the books on that list in the last month or so, many of those reads are from decades ago. I'll include an updated count on my biannual book roundup, and I'll probably include the top 100 fantasy books count as well.

Comments

[whl.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure any two books of a series should be listed in a top 100 list (the Orson Scott Card); And, seriously, Sphere? While the book was better than the movie (in which I couldn't get rid of the feeling that instead of Dustin Hoffman's character apologizing to Samuel Jackson's character for getting him involved, that it was instead actually Hoffman apologizing to Jackson for getting him involved in the MOVIE. Congo, the book, was much better than Sphere, and The Andromeda Strain was superior to either. I'd say with Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, they should consider Chrichton covered and move on.

And Battlefield Earth? Did someone flood that ballot, too?

In the case of Solaris, is there a better translation than the Russian->French->English one from the 1970s? Something by Kandel, perhaps? (Ah, I see there WAS a better translation done, according to Google. I'll have to try reading that one.)

Still, several of my favorites make the cut: Way Station, Citizen of the Galaxy, Cities in Flight... (Although I might be tempted to put that in the second 100, given the weak finish of the series.)

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I'm not planning on sweeping the list, for some of the reasons you mentioned. But there are some books in there that I really should have read by now and haven't. Slaughterhouse Five is a good example. I'm sure I'll give Sphere a miss, and I may give Chrichton a miss as an author.

There's been some noise lately about a direct Polish-to-English translation having just been done for Solaris but I don't know if it's available yet.

It might be interesting to build or set up a polling system for GT to vote on books or other media to build lists of various genres.