Customer Reviews

Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels : An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I first bought this book as a student in 1987. At the time a friend had recommended three or four books of Science Fiction (by authors like Arthur C Clarke and Brian W Aldiss). When I bought David Pringle's guide to the 100 best SF novels from a small shop in London, it introduced me to a much broader scope of fiction. A fiction based on science (to varying degrees), that always had something important to say about us. David Pringle's guide takes us through the "golden age" of SF, the sixties and seventies "experimental" stage of SF and the best of the early eighties SF. Thanks to Mr Pringle, I have travelled back in time, viewed our planet from the future, witnessed history unravel itself from a different prospective, I have flown into space and witness the development and regression of the human race. Finally, I would like to mention one book recommended in this guide that almost changed my life (dramatic words yes, but I still think about this book 12 years later). That book is: Theodore Sturgeon's "More than Human". I would never have read that book if it were not for Mr Pringle's fine commentry.

I suppose if you want to argue with the books that Pringle selects, you might give this 4 stars, but as far as what Pringle is trying to accomplish, I really haven't seen this book's equal. One of the biggest problems in reading s-f (or any genre fiction, I suppose) is that you have to wade through a lot of dreck in order to get to the good stuff.

Well, Pringle has selected a good beginning list of "the good stuff." He devotes the same two pages to each book, and doesn't seem to favor one school of s-f over another, giving the volume as a whole a very balanced feel.

Lastly, a couple of caveats: first, the book does limit itself to the time frame listed in the title, beginning with Orwell's 1984 and ending with Gibson's Neuromancer; it would be interesting to read Pringle's thoughts on the last twenty years. Lastly, Pringle's reviews contain "spoilers;" as he's trying to write thoughtful mini-essays on the books in his list, he occasionally refers to specific plot twists while discussing them.

All in all, a very nice job.

First of all, be cautioned that this list was not the result of some poll or grading system based on genre accolades...it is simply the opinion of David Pringle, one man who admits this point in the book's introduction. Although I do believe Pringle really knows the genre including gems like Bernard Wolfe's Limbo and Malzberg's Galaxies.
But there are some dogs here, given the time period. Harrison's Centauri Device is thirty years behind its time reading like a scientific romance pulp with stock characters and is extremely unimaginative for the time it projects. Ian Watson's Miracle Visitors is just poorly written, despite some keen parody of the American lifestyle. Which brings me to my biggest complaint, the decidedly British slant of this book. It also seems Pringle tried too hard to include female authors (there is a sudden burst toward the latter years). Some titles have merit -Russ' Female Man for instance- but Carter's Heroes and Villains is quite forgettable. The greatest strength of this book is the inclusion of many books that I enjoyed that are on the bubble of the genre- Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time and William Golding's The Inheritors are two outstanding novels.

Find this book, find some titles you may not have sought out yourself and then see how others view those titles, not only Pringle. After all, there are plenty of ways to research these titles on the internet.

I liked the essays he writes, and the book is certainly to be valued. But... I have some serious disagreements with his choices (admittedly to be expected to some degree). To sum it up, too British and too depressing. I am not a fan of post-Holocaust novels, and he dishes them out in droves.

I will agree with other reviewers that there are some gems in here that I would have not read otherwise (Alfred Bester, Cordwainer Smith, Ian Watson, Russel Hoban), but there are some nasty ones as well.

For a bit more mainstream choices, I recommend finding those novels which won both the Hugo and the Nebula. You'll even find 5 of the 17 on Pringle's list.

First of all, to address the alleged "pro-British" slant - let's get the facts straight. By my count 26 of the 100 selections here are by British-born authors; 1 is from an American-born writer (John Sladek) working in England when his selection was written; 2 are by a writer from Northern Ireland (Bob Shaw), so I suppose you can include him, and 1 is from an Australian (Damien Broderick). I may have missed somebody, but certainly the non-American percentage hovers around 30% any way you slice it. And Pringle is restricting himself to English-language writers to begin with. I'm an American, and certainly have read plenty of great American SF - but let's be realistic here, this isn't the only country producing worthwhile science fiction, and Pringle's book is still dominated by it.

The book starts with a forward by Michael Moorcock in which he comments a bit on what he feels was ignored - short-story collections in particular, which, again, Pringle chooses to leave out for reasons that he explains in his own thoughtfull 11-page introduction. Pringle is more interested in the literary end of the spectrum than the pulpy one, which may help to account for why he starts his survery in 1949, the year of "1984", rather than, say, 1939, the year of Asimov, Van Vogt and Heinlein's ascension. This "bias" it seems to me makes the book far more worthy a quarter-century on than it might otherwise have been - many of these works don't feel nearly as dated as some of the work more deliberately aimed at genre audiences (though to be fair, most of his selection certainly are from "genre" authors). He's interested primarily in books that work as much as novels about the human condition, as they do as explorations of science fictional concepts.

Rather than list every book included (which you can find out readily enough from a variety of places - and which I think might spoil your fun in browsing the book, so please don't!) I'll just give a rundown of the most-named writers, which should give you some idea as to whether this book might be still interesting or not:

Philip K. Dick - 6 novels chosen
J.G. Ballard - 4

Brian R. Aldiss, Thomas M. Disch, Robert Heinlein - 3 each

Alfred Bester, Ray Bradbury, Algis Budrys, Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula K. LeGuin, Michael Moorcock, Frederick Pohl, Bob Shaw, Clifford D. Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, Kurt Vonnegut, Ian Watson, Gene Wolfe (1 of his selections is for the 4-volume series "The Book of the New Sun"), John Wyndham - 2 each

Few of the books selected will be completely obscure to the specialist, but few are world-famous outside of the genre either. A great rundown then, with all the caveats that come from being one man's personal choices - some of the famous books NOT listed include "Ringworld", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "The Gods Themselves", "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (but do any of these really need more hype?) - but also few of the concessions to generic taste or the lowest common denominator that a more populist book might make. Highest recommendation to serious SF buffs, even after 25 years.

Like many others, my idea of science fiction was Star Trek or Star Wars and I had never even heard of most of the novels in this book. I have now read about half the titles critiqued in this fine book and many are now some of my favorite novels of any genre. Pringle does an incredible job of including well known works and almost impossible to find works. But they are HIS favorites and very subjectively chosen. That is fine with me because, although I may not totally agree with each and every title, Ive enjoyed each novel he has recommended. I cannot say enough how vital this book has been for me as a science fiction fan.
I should also say that David Pringle is a tremendous writer. For a book like this, which is not necessarily meant to be read for enjoyment, that is rare. It is clear from the first sentence that this was a piece of work done with great care and attention.

Pringle's list of the 100 best science fiction novels starts with Orwell's 1984, giving brief descriptions of each novel. Also helpful is a summary of each novel's first and most recent editions, American and British. Thanks to Mr. Pringle, I have been introduced to many great science fiction classics, most recently "The Year of the Quiet Sun" by Wilson Tucker. The only complaint I have is that Pringle sometimes gives away too much of the plot.

If you ever wondered how to find a good sci-fi book among the piles of crap that get published, this book is for you. David Pringle has done an outstanding job in digging out the true 100 best novels of science fiction published between 1949-1985. In addition, his reviews are very thoughtful and well written. This is an invaluable book for the sci-fi novel reader.

I wish this book had been titled, Science Fiction: MY favorite 100 novels. I can see what authors Mr. Pringle likes (Dick, Heinlein, Moorcock, to name a few) and what his taste in sci-fi is and can even probably determine his age, but objectively speaking (if I am in fact, being objective) I think a lot of novels that should have been in the top 100 were left off off his list. Of course we all have our opinions of what the best science fiction is, and if you like science fiction that usually means you love it and therefore probably have strong opinions, so if you find you share his tastes then this is the 100 for you.

I did get a few suggestions from it so it was somewhat helpful.