Survivor Appendix N Authors- LEIBER WINS!

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sacrosanct]

The Lord of the Rings was voted the Best Loved Novel in Britain in 2003 after a survey involving three quarters of a million votes. That's a lot of people who thought is was a good book. (I'm not saying it's my favourite book, or that Tolkien is my favourite author on the list - if I bothered to vote, I'd probably upvote Sterling E. Lanier first - but there's no denying that an awful lot of people consider The Lord of the Rings to be a great book for a variety of reasons.

The Jersey Shore had multiple seasons but Firefly was cancelled after one. Just say'n.

Also, 2003 was right after the films, and we know mob mentality is to vote for what is the most familiar. It's kind of a self fulfilling circle that continues to spiral. "We read his stories which made him popular. He is popular so we read his stories."

Name recognition is a powerful thing. I marketing, we call it Branding. And it's worth billions alone.

 

[Dioltach]

People suck.

Yes, for instance they say, "I didn't enjoy this book because it didn't meet my expectations/doesn't reflect modern tastes/moves too slowly for my attention span/a variety of other reasons, therefore the opinions of millions of others over several decades must be wrong."

 

[Parmandur]

Well, yeah, but Pride and Prejudice was number 2, and His Dark Materials was number 3.

Can't trust people. They listen to Coldplay, voted the Nazis into power, and voted Tolkien's LOTR #1, Wuthering Heights #12, and didn't even include Pynchon.

People suck.

Pynchon, good Lord, speaking of overrated... I'd try reading Saberhagen again before that hack.

Austen is one of the greatest in the English language. My personal top five favorites would be Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Austen and Tolkien. There is no particular correlation either direction between popularity and quality, but persistent popularity, AKA the Test of Time, trends towards quality. Part of what makes the 70's snapshot of Appendix N interesting, to see what has lasted.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

Anderson, Poul 1
Bellairs, John 19
Brackett, Leigh 16 - 2 = 14
Brown, Frederic 18
Burroughs, Edgar Rice 26
Carter, Lin 16
de Camp, L. Sprague 16
de Camp & Pratt 20
Dunsany, Lord 19
Farmer, P. J. 19
Gardner, Fox 21
Howard, R.E. 14
Lanier, Sterling 18
Leiber, Fritz 23
Merritt, A. 20
Moorcock, Michael 26
Norton, Andre 23 +1 = 24
Offutt, Andrew J. 20
Pratt, Fletcher 20
Saberhagen, Fred 12
St. Clair, Margaret 18
Tolkien, J. R. R. 24
Weinbaum, Stanley 16
Wellman, Manley Wade 18
Williamson, Jack 18
Zelazny, Roger 23

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Invisible Stalker]

Not only is it possible, it's done quite regularly. Tolkien is a titan of the fantasy genre, but not the only one... and as titans of the genre go, he's not the best writer by a long shot.

What really gets me about Tolkien is the number of people on these forums who insist that elves'n'dwarves'n'orcs are "staples of the genre" or "universal in fantasy." They are nothing of the kind. They are, in fact, quite unusual in fantasy fiction outside the sub-genre of Tolkien and Tolkien rip-offs. But because D&D happened to be published around the height of the Tolkien craze, the creators (perhaps inevitably) shoehorned it into that sub-genre, and so we're stuck with them forever.

I'd go as far to say that because of the Lord of the Rings cartoons of the late 1970s leading me to the books, the only reason I'm even playing D&D is because of Tolkien.

My second choice after him in this entire genre isn't even in the 5E recommendations. It's J K Rowling.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

Pynchon, good Lord, speaking of overrated...

Co-signed.

Where's a memory hole when I need one?

 

[Parmandur]

You wash your mouth out with soap!




Does it always though? Or is it a question of path dependency?

I used Melville in my earlier example; I happen to think that Moby Dick is a damn fine read, but ... the reason I even know about it (and read it) is because it was rescued from obscurity, and spoke to those scarred by the Great War, looking back to understand the Civil War. And now it is great ... because it is great.

Notice how you choose, for example, Chaucer and not Sterne. And even Sterne is passed down to use because, well he is passed down to us (and I happen to know Sterne so well because I did a personal study course comparing Tristram Shandy to Gravity's Rainbow).

And so on. By the way, your top five .... one of those things is not like the others.

"My favorite five movies are Citizen Kane, Vertigo, Tarkovsky's Solaris, um, The Godfather ... and CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE!*"

*He was dead, but he got better.

A better, though flawed, movie analogy might be to the critically acclaimed popular hit that won 11 Oscars, Return of the King (flawed in that Tolkien is a much better writer than Jackson is a film maker). Honestly, though, all five are highly unique and not like each other, apart from artistic use of the English language.

The role of tradition, of passing on (trade/tradere, to hand over) is as much of an argument for those author's meaningfulness, not against it. For myself, I can compare all of those authors to their contemporaries due to my education, and it is my judgement that they stand over their peers with good reason.

 

[chrisrtld]

Anderson, Poul 0
Bellairs, John 19
Brackett, Leigh 14
Brown, Frederic 18
Burroughs, Edgar Rice 26
Carter, Lin 16
de Camp, L. Sprague 16
de Camp & Pratt 20
Dunsany, Lord 19
Farmer, P. J. 19
Gardner, Fox 21
Howard, R.E. 14
Lanier, Sterling 18
Leiber, Fritz 23
Merritt, A. 20
Moorcock, Michael 26
Norton, Andre 24
Offutt, Andrew J. 20
Pratt, Fletcher 20
Saberhagen, Fred 12
St. Clair, Margaret 18
Tolkien, J. R. R. 25
Weinbaum, Stanley 16
Wellman, Manley Wade 18
Williamson, Jack 18
Zelazny, Roger 23