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eruthrosSo 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
Date: 2011-08-20 08:58 am (UTC)I can't tell you the number of times I listened to Die unendliche Geschichte as a kid (books on tape). It's one of my favorite beginnings of a book ever. I just loved Bastian hiding in the school attic and getting lost in that story. So amazing. And yes, the movie really just can't compare.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 09:57 am (UTC)Both Käpt'n Blaubär and Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher are part of a loose series of books taking place in the fictional world Zamonien. Another one is "Rumo", which is also very good and I'd definitely recommend it. Then there are "Hensel und Krete" and "Der Schrecksenmeister", but they're not quite as great as the others imo.
I just looked and apparently in a few weeks the sequel to "Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher" will come out. I'm excited! Also a bit apprehensive because I can't imagine it could be as good as the first one, but who knows?
So much love for Die unendliche Geschichte. As a kid I was fascinated by the two colors of the writing, red and green, and the pictures for the first letters, and the imprint on the red cover. Not only a beautiful story, but a beautiful book as well. All the "but this is part of another story" were perfect fantasy fuel for me as a kid and even now. And Bastian and Atréju were the most wonderful friendship I'd ever seen despite or because they fight.
I've tried to erase the movies from my memories ;-)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-20 01:15 pm (UTC)Oh, yes, I loved the book as well. I think I've maybe *read* it a couple of times, but I've definitely spent a long time just staring at it and leafing through it. Come to think of it, it was a really special book with the colored writing and the pictures -- almost multi-media, and definitely stretching what was normal for a 'youth' novel...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 11:47 am (UTC)Yes, how a book looks is definitely important, too. Another thing I love about Moers' books: beautiful illustrations. It must be very frustrating for authors, who almost always can't influence what their books' cover etc. looks like. (And sometimes publishers realize that and the only beautiful edition costs at least three times as much, as happened with the German LotR versions...)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 12:38 pm (UTC)Yes, Moers is definitely fortunate to be able to make his own illustrations! Urgh, don't remind me about the Alan Lee illustrated LoTR. I coveted The Hobbit, way back when, and finally had enough money to buy it for probably 300 Dkr. Now I've seen it on sale for 30,- kr!!! Seriously! I just don't get it. You wouldn't think that to be a book that went out of style either...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-21 02:26 pm (UTC)Wow! Beautiful. I'll try to get a copy of that one as soon as possible.
I'll have to get new copies of LotR, too, and Momo, and a few other classics, once I move out from my parents' house. Not having their library will be one of the most annoying things. But on the other hand - new, beautiful books! And I will definitely try to get editions with good illustrations.
And no, I can't understand how The Hobbit can ever go out of style, either. It's one of those books that are timeless.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 05:34 pm (UTC)Hee, it sounds like both a blessing and a curse leaving that library behind. New books are the best, though! I had a phase where I mostly bought paperbacks because I was devouring books constantly. These days I have less money to shop for, but I'd rather buy one beautiful illustrated hardback than 5 paperbacks... *g*
no subject
Date: 2011-08-28 06:38 pm (UTC)Oh yes, the hardbacks/paperbacks problem. I very rarely buy books at all, I prefer to get them from the library because otherwise I'd be broke in a month! Nowadays when I buy new books it depends on what's available; with some books I'm lucky to get them at all, with others I browse until I find a cover I like. But it's rare to get English hardbacks in bookshops here, and I prefer bookshops to amazon, so most of my English fantasy books are paperback.