All future-military fiction will look derivative, as it is a pretty tight genre. Having read both the Forever War and Old Man's War, I think Scalzi did end up going to a different, and interesting, place.
I read a lot of future military fiction. Some of it is derivative, some of it is parallel evolution, sometimes it's actually new. That's true of any genre and subgenre. But we're going to disagree about how well Scalzi handles it, because I didn't think it was sufficiently different or interesting. It's hit some kind of weird cultural wave, like Ready Player One or The DaVinci Code, and (Old Man's War specifically) has garnered acclaim from a generation of readers that aren't aware of how uninspired it is.
That's an excellent question, seeing as how I already noted in this thread that we are both supposedly reading that while the OP claims it is "best", Amazon themselves did *NOT*. It is "100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books to Read in a Lifetime". They do call them extraordinary, but don't assert them to be "best" or "top". How valid is criticizing it for not being something that it never claimed to be?
The claim to be "best" or "top" is inferred. A list of a hundred items is by definition, limited (assuming there are more than one hundred entries in the category, which there are). It's reasonable to assume that Amazon wasn't looking to make a list of relatively decent books to read. They were looking for influential books (I intentionally didn't say best, actually). 100 (Extraordinary) SF & Fantasy Books You Should Read In Your Lifetime? My opinions stand.
There are no listed criteria, so that's not a solid argument. But, let us be sensible - the list is on AMAZON. They're going to offer up books they could sell you.
There are listed criteria. "...considering criteria such as vision, character creation, world building, and storytelling style...." It's a list. Of criteria.
Maybe I'm just not that cynical.
There are more books I "really should" read than someone who is not independently wealthy can read in a lifetime. This is not a complaint, merely a statement of relevant fact
Given your apparent interest in SF & Fantasy literature as evidenced by your posts in this thread, I made relevant suggestions. There are a lot of books I think worth reading, but I'm not going to drag them into this because they're not relevant to the conversation or your interests as I currently know them. So, two books, both of which are frequently available in used book stores. Wealth and abundance only come into play if you give equal weight to all suggestions regardless of merit...or none of them any weight.
The Postman is excellent, but it suffers from an ending that reads like it is from some other story, crudely stitched on in a Frakenstinian way, possibly because he didn't know how to have the main protagonist resolve the issues before him.
I hated the ending to The Time-Traveler's Wife.
No. It was an attempt to point out that any Top 100 (which this never was, but whatever) is subject to the experience of whoever puts it together (and that includes those based on polling). It is fair to say that a given book wouldn't be on *your* top 100 list. But you claimed it shouldn't be be on *a* top 100 list, and that I contest. Your personal taste should not be an arbiter of any and all ranking lists.
In essence, I am giving pushback to your phrasing a matter of tastes as if it were objective truth.
Lists like this are an attempt to form at least the impression of objective quality by quantity of subjective opinion. If 9 out of 10 people subjectively say something is good, then that lends a veneer of objectivity, whether or not such actually exists. In this case, my personal taste is absolutely an arbitrater of whether or not I believe this list to be worthwhile. Overall, it's fine. Not great, but fine.
Honestly, I don't really get what the issue is. It's like I can't be critical of the list, I just have to swallow it. Thanks, but no. I have an opinion because I'm fairly well read in the genres, and I've learned some things, and sometimes disagree with other people who are fairly well read and have learned some things. I was hoping this thread would have a little more commentary on people's experience with the books, actually. I'm cool with disagreement.
I didn't criticize books I haven't read. There are just books that I don't think should be on that list, except maybe as an example of what not to do, and books that ought to be on that list that aren't. I hold those opinions because I've read those books. And there are books on that list that I might not have chosen, but I understand why they are there. The Gunslinger, for one.
Generally the purpose of the lists is to create conversation and discussion, so...success!
And for the record, I'm almost finished Altered Carbon, and it's better than I remembered.
Also: I just wrote down the thoughts I had as I was reading through the list. That's why the post began with "Thoughts:"
