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top one hundred speculative fiction works: nominations
So I was being grumpy about that NPR list of the top 100 science fiction and fantasy novels and how boring it was, and then I started wondering what that kind of list would look like if a bunch of fannish people made it instead and if the definition of scifi and fantasy were looser.
And then I decided to do it, more or less on the same model as the NPR list, because why not? At the very least it would mean getting a bunch of interesting recs.
So the general model is:
1) Nomination period: anyone can nominate ten speculative fiction works (in any media).
2) Long list: made up of all the nominations where anyone can vote for their favorites. (Probably divided by media and/or language because the poll might be too big otherwise.) NPR used some NPR folks or an algorithm or something and then a panel of "experts" at this point to narrow things down, but nobody's an expert on all speculative fiction. (And also either the unknown NPR folks or the experts did this.)
3) Short list: a poll of the top two hundred-some things from the long list.
4) Compile the numbers from (3) to make the final list of the top 100.
And this is going to be the nomination post! For nominating things you love. They don't have to be the things that you think of as the absolute objectively best speculative fiction - nominate your favorites or the things you love most or the things you think are best or the things that influenced you the most or however else you define your top ten speculative fiction works.
What counts as speculative fiction?
Anything called "scifi" or "fantasy" or "horror" or "paranormal" or "supernatural" or "magical realism." Anything with vampires or werewolves or zombies or bodyswap or time travel or space travel or aliens or other planets or apocalypses or talking animals or magic swords or angels or demons or fairies or faeries or mystical creatures or other dimensions or futuristic tech or superpowers or wizards or witches or ghosts or blasters or talking trees or sapient rocks or teleportation or elves or A.I. or giant robots or alternate history or about a million other speculative fiction tropes. If you think it's speculative fiction, it's speculative fiction, regardless of what the original creators call it or where it's usually shelved. Young adult and children's speculative fiction counts, too.
The nomination rules:
You can nominate up to ten speculative fiction things from any media. So you could nominate a live action tv show, cartoon, anime, book, book series, short story, album, song, comic series, graphic novel, manga/manhwa/manhua, movie, fanfic, fanart, fanvid, amv, music video, video game, rpg, webcomic, picture, episode of a tv show, etc.
The things you nominate don't have to be English-language sources - any language is okay.
The things you nominate can be things that were on the NPR list - there were many great books on that list!
You can comment using a dreamwidth account, using openID, or anonymously, but if you comment anonymously please include a name/username/pseudonym somewhere in your comment.
Everything anyone nominates will end up on the long list, regardless of how many times it's nominated, so you don't have to worry about making sure enough people nominate it. (But since people can change their nominations later, if you really really want to see it on the poll, you might want to nominate it yourself.)
To nominate your ten things:
Comment here telling me what you'd like to nominate, and what medium it is so I don't have to google it. If you'd like, you can comment on your nominations and recommend them to passerby, or link to them if they're available anywhere online. (And you can comment to other people's nominations if you want to find out more/rejoice at finding someone else who also loves X.)
If you change your mind, reply to your own comment with your updated list.
Nominations will be open for a week, conveniently closing after both my current freelance project and my femslash 11 story are due.
Example nomination:
Book Series:
1. Terry Pratchett - Discworld series
Music:
2. Janelle Monae - Metropolis/The ArchAndroid
TV show:
3. Avatar: The Last Airbender
4. Babylon 5
5. Code Geass
Book:
6. Rosemary Kirstein - The Outskirter's Secret
Fanfic:
7. Your Cowboy Days Are Over by M.
Feel free to signal-boost! More nominations = more interesting polls.
ETA: Here's a browsable spreadsheet listing all of the nominations as of 8/19. Many, many things have been nominated!
ETA2: Oh what the hell, some people have asked for it and why not! You can have +5 additional nominations as long as they're for less-represented speculative fiction media: music (songs, albums, filk, music videos), fanworks (fanfic, fanvids, fanfilms, fanart), theater (plays, musicals), poetry, games (video, rpg, card, board), short films, art (paintings, fanart, digital art), or any medium that's not currently represented on the spreadsheet at all.
ETA3: Nominations are now closed.
And then I decided to do it, more or less on the same model as the NPR list, because why not? At the very least it would mean getting a bunch of interesting recs.
So the general model is:
1) Nomination period: anyone can nominate ten speculative fiction works (in any media).
2) Long list: made up of all the nominations where anyone can vote for their favorites. (Probably divided by media and/or language because the poll might be too big otherwise.) NPR used some NPR folks or an algorithm or something and then a panel of "experts" at this point to narrow things down, but nobody's an expert on all speculative fiction. (And also either the unknown NPR folks or the experts did this.)
3) Short list: a poll of the top two hundred-some things from the long list.
4) Compile the numbers from (3) to make the final list of the top 100.
And this is going to be the nomination post! For nominating things you love. They don't have to be the things that you think of as the absolute objectively best speculative fiction - nominate your favorites or the things you love most or the things you think are best or the things that influenced you the most or however else you define your top ten speculative fiction works.
What counts as speculative fiction?
Anything called "scifi" or "fantasy" or "horror" or "paranormal" or "supernatural" or "magical realism." Anything with vampires or werewolves or zombies or bodyswap or time travel or space travel or aliens or other planets or apocalypses or talking animals or magic swords or angels or demons or fairies or faeries or mystical creatures or other dimensions or futuristic tech or superpowers or wizards or witches or ghosts or blasters or talking trees or sapient rocks or teleportation or elves or A.I. or giant robots or alternate history or about a million other speculative fiction tropes. If you think it's speculative fiction, it's speculative fiction, regardless of what the original creators call it or where it's usually shelved. Young adult and children's speculative fiction counts, too.
The nomination rules:
You can nominate up to ten speculative fiction things from any media. So you could nominate a live action tv show, cartoon, anime, book, book series, short story, album, song, comic series, graphic novel, manga/manhwa/manhua, movie, fanfic, fanart, fanvid, amv, music video, video game, rpg, webcomic, picture, episode of a tv show, etc.
The things you nominate don't have to be English-language sources - any language is okay.
The things you nominate can be things that were on the NPR list - there were many great books on that list!
You can comment using a dreamwidth account, using openID, or anonymously, but if you comment anonymously please include a name/username/pseudonym somewhere in your comment.
Everything anyone nominates will end up on the long list, regardless of how many times it's nominated, so you don't have to worry about making sure enough people nominate it. (But since people can change their nominations later, if you really really want to see it on the poll, you might want to nominate it yourself.)
To nominate your ten things:
Comment here telling me what you'd like to nominate, and what medium it is so I don't have to google it. If you'd like, you can comment on your nominations and recommend them to passerby, or link to them if they're available anywhere online. (And you can comment to other people's nominations if you want to find out more/rejoice at finding someone else who also loves X.)
If you change your mind, reply to your own comment with your updated list.
Nominations will be open for a week, conveniently closing after both my current freelance project and my femslash 11 story are due.
Example nomination:
Book Series:
1. Terry Pratchett - Discworld series
Music:
2. Janelle Monae - Metropolis/The ArchAndroid
TV show:
3. Avatar: The Last Airbender
4. Babylon 5
5. Code Geass
Book:
6. Rosemary Kirstein - The Outskirter's Secret
Fanfic:
7. Your Cowboy Days Are Over by M.
Feel free to signal-boost! More nominations = more interesting polls.
ETA: Here's a browsable spreadsheet listing all of the nominations as of 8/19. Many, many things have been nominated!
ETA2: Oh what the hell, some people have asked for it and why not! You can have +5 additional nominations as long as they're for less-represented speculative fiction media: music (songs, albums, filk, music videos), fanworks (fanfic, fanvids, fanfilms, fanart), theater (plays, musicals), poetry, games (video, rpg, card, board), short films, art (paintings, fanart, digital art), or any medium that's not currently represented on the spreadsheet at all.
ETA3: Nominations are now closed.
no subject
1. Spock's World by Diane Duane
Because this story had such great world-building, characterization, sprawling history and biology and astronomy, and was so influential that it became canon for the Trek universe.
2. The Tough Guide To Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones
Because it mocks sword-and-sorcery tropes (gently) and has real humour and satire and genuine love for the fantasy genre.
3. The Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones
A favourite of mine as a child. Loved it so much. Loved the way there were flawed characters and unreliable narrators. Loved the way it uses brains rather than brawn to outwit the enemy.
4. Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones
An excellent brain-bender, with detailed world-building and a rather excellent study of teenagerhood and young female sexuality, and interstellar empires , politics, and corruption of power. Yum.
5. The Dark Lord of Derkholm series by Diana Wynne Jones
Another funny, loving play on Fantasyworld tropes. Loved the family dynamics of siblings from different species.
6. The Power of Three by Diana Wynne Jones
I read this at a young age and have re-read it repeatedly over the years. Young teens face evil, but with a twist: ordinary humans are the aliens here. Again, enemies who have reasons for what they do, rather than simply being evil. Victory through negotiation and compromise rather than main force. Understanding your enemy and forming an alliance with them to 'defeat' them, and avoiding a war as the way to 'win'. Great stuff.
7. The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper
Do I even need to explain this one? The things Cooper does with british mythology are great. And the time-twisting. Mmmm, yeah.
8. The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
I have such a soft spot for this series, even though it's fairly bog-standard boy-on-a-quest stuff.
9. The Godbond trilogy by Nancy Springer
Quite dark, quite twisted. I'm not entirely happy with the resolution, but I like that the heroine is damaged and still the heroine -- and she still gets her man, who loves her despite her being damaged and trying to nobly give him up.
10. The Dark Horse series by Mary H. Herbert
Another influential series, quite cliched in places, but I like the female heroine, who definitely has a mind of her own. I also like that it follows several generations through the series, and does history and politics, and... yeah. I have a thing for world-building.
Quite a few young-adult books there, but I hate the way male authors and/or boy-on-a-quest stories are classed as 'real' SFF, whereas female authors and/or girl-on-a-quest stories are classed as children's books, young adult or fantasy romance. I mean, I loved Eddings' Belgariad, but really...
ETA: Oooh, thinking of the Belgariad -- can someone else list "David and Leigh Eddings"? Apparently they co-wrote *ALL* the Eddings' books, but the publishers said the books would sell better if they were listed under *his* name only! It's unjust that Leigh Eddings doesn't get any credit for the books she wrote with her husband.
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no subject
This is a great idea, and I'm loving the recs-list aspect of it. *G*
But I'm sad that I forgot to include The Authority; such a revolutionary comics series. *sadface* Can I edit my list?
If someone else has already nominated David Eddings, could you add Leigh Eddings' name to that, with an explanatory note? In "The Rivan Codex", the couple acknowledged that they'd co-written the Belgariad and everything since then. I'm really annoyed by this, because I've seen people say -- even after their collaboration was acknowledged -- that 'David Eddings' work went downhill when he 'started' working with Leigh; by which they mean, when the couple had enough clout that they could get Leigh acknowledged as co-author of their books. SO many layers of misogyny in that, IDEK.
no subject
I'm loving the recs list aspect of it, too, there is so much great stuff there!
And I'll make a note about David and Leigh Eddings.