When Orson Scott Card was asked: “What is your advice to the aspiring SF or fantasy novelist?” he replied:
Don’t even think about writing sf or fantasy unless you’ve read every story in: The Hugo Winners, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions.
These stories are the root of the field. If you don’t know them, you will try to reinvent the wheel; and since the readers do know them, it will kill your work. Besides, you can’t learn the tools of the trade without being familiar with how they’ve been used and developed. Science fiction is more demanding than literary fiction, and is harder to do well; the reward is that science fiction and fantasy allow you to tell any story that can be told in li-fi, and far more that can’t.
I don’t have specific aspirations to be a writer, but this seems like good advice for the sci-fi reader as well. So, instead of wandering blindly through the mass of sci-fi, i decided to read those works recognized by the writers and readers of sci-fi as the greats. And because i’m very bad at remembering book titles, i put together a chart to keep track of things. The chart gradually grew into something more, either exhaustive or monstrous— depending on your perspective.
I’ve included the Anthologies O.S. Card recommended, the Hugo Award winners and nominees, The Nebula Award Winners, and most of the Locus Award Winners. A total of 1100+ novels, short stories and intermediate length works. For convenience the chart tallies up your progress in the various award categories. It also displays how much of the content in each category you’ve read, weighing longer works more heavily than short stories. Finally there are brief non-spoiling summaries of some of the works i’ve read.
I don’t know how many people are rabid enough about sci-fi to use this, but here it is:
A excel chart of award winning sci-fi
My current, life-long total:
38% of the Hugo Winners
15% of the Total in this chart.
[UPDATE]
I’ve updated the chart. There were several errors, and one big mistake, the weights for “novellas” and “novelettes” were reversed. I.e. reading novelettes gave you twice the credit that novellas did with only about half as many words to read. It works like this: the longer the word, “novel, novella, novelette” the fewer words it has.
I’ve also added some links in the chart, and a column that distinguishes between sci-fi and fantasy. However these are currently blank for most.
Great list, if the author was sorted (or sortable) by last name it would be easier to find the books at the store…
Thanks.
In my searching on the internet i find that the last-name-first thing is less frequently used. But more importantly the lists that i pulled the data from all had the names written this way, and it would be a minor pain to switch the first name to the front.
Card’s advice, however well-meant, is at least half wrong. The probability that you’ll reuse some SF or fantasy cliche goes UP, not down, in proportion to your familiarity with “the root stories in the field.”
In any event, fiction of any sort derives its power from its ability to evoke emotions. A story is categorized as SF or fantasy according to its attitude toward setting: that is, what motifs it allows itself in the depiction of the world its characters inhabit. Retraveling a well trodden path — e.g., space flight, alien societies, psi powers, time travel — is legitimate as long as your characters are fresh and appealing, their crises are original, and their motivations are consistent with their actions.
The great, invariably fatal failing is to think originality about setting and motifs is the prime determinant of competence in the writing of fiction — of ANY sort. Think first and foremost about your characters, what motivates them, and what sort of crucible you want to put them in. Then choose the appropriate setting within which they can work out their destinies.
Porretto:
I believe you misunderstand Card’s main point. He’s not worried that a writer will reuse a concept/cliche— after all, this is virtually unavoidable. Card’s concern is that a writer who is ignorant of his genera will create inferior versions of a concept/cliche. If someone was going to write about Robots which are all governed by a few fundamental laws of behavior, he would be foolish not to read Azimov’s Robot stories, because many of his readers will be familiar with those stories. The informed writer could build on and/or contradict Azimov’s thought on the subject. The uninformed writer’s concept will likely seem underdeveloped, because he is in the dark.
I also must disagree with your assertion that concepts and world-building have no value except as a setting for the characters. That may be all that you value, but it misses the main (or a major) point of speculative fiction. (fiction that asks “what if?”)
Considering only the emotions and characterizations, i don’t rate 1984 a great novel. But those aren’t Orwell’s focus. He has an idea about possible totalitarian governments, and Winston’s degradation is only a means to communicate that idea.
Flatland is a more extreme example. It’s characterization is sketchy, and the concepts clearly dominate. However it is an enjoyable way to explain these dimensional concepts, and certainly far more fun that a textbook approach.
There are people, including myself, who find ideas about the future, possible human societies, or alien life, etc. just as interesting as the personal struggles of a well-written character. Including well written characters to the conceptual mix is valuable, and improves a story. But the readers of speculative fiction find much or more enjoyment in well-thought out ideas.