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Dilemma: I enjoy participating in contests, writing contests. My entries are more often than not against the grain or constitute a quirky take on the theme and, most often, I do not do well in the voting. That doesn’t bother me; it’s the satisfaction of producing stories that I like that keeps me involved.
Lately, though, I’ve been at a loss for contributions. The themes that have been adopted do not speak to me. For example, the current short story contest over at sffworld has for its theme: fear. And the flash fiction contest has Mayday!

I’m not going near fear. I do not read horror stories due to some deep-seated unconscious psychosis that I am only vaguely aware of. I do not watch horror movies. It’s not so much the gore that gets to me; it’s not the ugly deaths. I’ve seen enough of that to understand that it exists. As I said, I’m only vaguely familiar with the reasons for my distaste. I can see stories that involve fear that do not involve horror but submitting an entry imposes an obligation on me to read all the other entries. I say again, I do not read horror stories, not by choice.

I ought to be able to handle Mayday! Sure, there’s a thread of horror in Mayday! On the other hand, in strictly sf terms, it can be done without the horror. I suspect, though, that, given the short story theme, many writers will be sent down the horror path in the flash fiction contest. Ugh!

After yesterday’s post, I got curious about my reading habits. I’ve always known that I tend to acquire favorite authors and tend to read everything they produce. Well, not always; I sometimes get tired of a given series. I only read three of Robert Jordan’s mammoth series. I haven’t read all L.E. Modesitt, Jr.’s output. As much as I read of John D. MacDonald, I didn’t finish his output by a bunch. Still, consider these two lists:

C.J. Cherryh 44
Robert A. Heinlein 41
Jack Chalker 39
Larry Niven 37
Mike Resnick 35
Piers Anthony 35
W.E.B. Griffin 34
Isaac Asimov 32
Anne Mccaffrey 31
Ursula K. LeGuin 27
John D. MacDonald 26
Sherri S. Tepper 23
Dave Duncan 20
L.E. Modesitt, Jr. 19
Orson Scott Card 19
David Eddings 17
Tony Hillerman 17
Ian Fleming 16
Steven Brust 14
Jennifer Roberson 13
Joel Rosenberg 13
SpiderRobinson 13
Daniel Silva 11
Fred Saberhagen 10

Science Fiction 489
Fantasy 367
General 193
Mysteries 111
Adventure 103
1263

The bottom line is the 586 of the 1263 novels I’ve read came from 24 authors. This list was curtailed with an at-least-10-books-read cutoff. There are least as many authors I’ve read, e.g., R.A. MacAvoy, whose output never reached ten books. Must be of some interest to the publishing industry.

Classics That I Would Love to Imitate

The Mouse That Roared, Leonard Wibberly, 1955.
At 14 years of age, this story of the world’s smallest nation declaring war and defeating the U.S.A. was not only funny, everything that happened resonated with me, every misstep by the U.S.A. and the Duchy of Grand Fenwick seeming to me perfectly in character for the governments of the time. Imagine writing a story now where the Vatican City declares war on the U.S.A. and wins. That seems so obvious that I wonder no one has yet written the damned thing.

The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell, 1957 – 1960
Imagine telling an sf story 4 times from 4 different viewpoints. As close as I’ve seen is Stephen R. Donaldson’s The Real Story.

The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury, 1951
Tying a series of vaguely related short stories together with a stand alone tale seemed genius to my 11 year old mind. It still does. I have tons of short stories that I’d like to do the same for.

Birthright: The Book of Man, Mike Resnick, 1982.
I learned of Robert A. Heinlein’s basement wall and the future history displayed thereon in the early 1960s. I believed that to be an awesome achievement. Then, I read Birthright and I saw that Resinck trumped Heinlein. Birthright is not just a timeline; it’s a magnificent future history… because, with everything I think understand about people, Resnick’s history makes sense.

The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell, 1996
Back in 1954, I read Louis de Wohl’s The Second Conquest, a story of first contact with folk on Mars and what that meant for Roman Catholic theology. Since I was checking it out of a Catholic school library, the theme and plot played to those virtues. But, it was a heck of a read. More so, to me, because I had eavesdropped on a conversation among my dad, my uncle, and two Franciscan priests who were debating what it would mean if intelligent life were to be discovered out there. Then, in the 2000s I read The Sparrow and finally discovered someone ready to treat the topic in real terms, with real understanding of church politics. Add to that, she added a marvelous conundrum to be addressed by the church. Imagine a story with a similar conundrum to be addressed by imams all the monotheistic religions.

TLWSHLWM and I watched the 50th anniversary showing of To Kill a Mockingbird last night. We were both struck by the line “It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” and the explanation: “all they do is sing”. We were both struck by the parallel to the mockingjays in The Hunger Games. I rarely read author interviews so I have no idea whether Collins was thinking of Harper Lee’s book when she created her mockingjays but it would not surprise me that she was. At the very least, I hope so.

Continuting examination of taste: this website [http://nerdsguidetoreading.com/Nerds_Guide_to_Reading/Science_Fiction.html] offers the 25 most spectacular sf novels. These are the entries I have read:
No. 1 Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
No. 2 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
No. 3 1984, George Orwell
No. 4 Dune, Frank Herbert
No. 5 The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
No. 7 The Hunger Games Trilogy, Suzanne Collins
No. 8 Farenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
No. 11 A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
No. 13 Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
No. 16 Ilium, Dan Simmons
No. 18 American Gods, Neil Gaiman
No. 19 Kiln People, David Brin
No. 23 Anthem, Ayn Rand
No, 25 The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein

I read Ender’s Game in 1985 when it first hit the shelves judgng it to be a classic with that first read. Upon completion, what struck me the most was the conclusion: taking the egg to allow rebuilding of the Formic race. That seemed right to me. 28 years later, I still have fond memories of that read. I enjoyed Speaker for the Dead but not as much and my pleasure decreases with each new volume in the series. The only thing Card has done since then that comes close to meeting the standards of Ender’s Game is Pastwatch.

What else can I add to the chorus of praise for Hitchhiker. It deserves inclusion.

As for 1984, the camera behind the armoire is just plain classic though the overall writing lacks the merit of some others on the list.

Reading Dune in 1965 I was awed. Living in the desert myself, the notion of the water preserving skinsuits fascinated me. A half century later, I remember the read with fondness. The sequels never matched the power of the original and I stopped reading them after the third.

Read The Time Machine in the late 50s. What always stuck out to me was the conclusion: out of all the books in the library, which three would you take forward to build a new society. My answers to that question have evolved over the years and never included the same three books.

The Hunger Games I’ve read in the last six months. Whether they are classic is an open question but they are superior in every way. This may be due to their resonance with our own times. Once again, the climax seemed powerful to me. Logical, necessary, unexpected. What else can you ask?

Farenheit 451 I read in 1953. Bradbury is a master of language; I’ve read none better. The burning of books resonated in 1953 with the recent end of Nazism and the building Red scare. Picturing the camp of the walking books thrilled me though I could not imagine myself memorizing an entire novel.

I didn’t finish A Clockwork Orange. Lost interest after a couple of chapters. Graphic violence is not my cup of tea.

I read Brave New World in the late 50s and became fascinated with the notion of soma constantly examining but not trying the world around me for traces of same: alcohol, pot, LSD. Eventually, I acquired a taste for alcohol, damned near achieving AA status, but the others never tempted me. Watching commercials today where all my problems can be solved with pills, I wonder how close we are to soma.

I wonder at the selection of Ilium. For me, Hyperion is the better tale, better written and more thought provoking. I didn’t complete Ilium losing interest about 2/3 of the way through.

American Gods‘ inclusion is a mystery to me. Certainly, the notion of the old gods reappearing in the U.S.A. Was clever but what else about the story makes it a classic?

When I read Kiln People, I was gobbling up everything Brin wrote. His writing and his ideas captured my imagination. Then, something happened and he lost me. I haven’t been back.

In the 1950s, Anthem struck me as a great read. Then I lived through the me generation and I became much less fascinated. From a literary architectural POV, it deserves inclusion. As a great book? I’m not convinced.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is an excellent read; I have no qualms about that. But, for me, Stranger In a Strange Land is better and I got more out of Starship Troopers than I did from Moon.

Of the entire list, the one I’d rank No. 1 is Hitchhiker for quality of writing and ideas presented. At No. 2 I’d place Bradbury. At No. 3 I’d place Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Leguin, and the Nerds didn’t bother to mention her.