I love lots of books. But I think my favourite—I believe it's a 'perfect' book for many reasons—is one I read many years ago. Actually I had it read out loud to me. Then when I got older, I read it myself. I continue to read it every so often, and appreciate it more and more. When I first encountered it, of course it was the superficial story itself that I loved. But as I got older, I realised the skill it took to write it so simply, with such a confident voice, to defy so many conventions about what books for young people needed to be like. The book conjured up a time and place to perfection, without being either sentimental or pessimistic. It was a simple story, with only a few characters, but they were expertly crafted. It's a story I still enjoy reading, and it still moves me. It's actually a very adult book. It's about how life doesn't always give you what you want, that it's often unfair and cruel. But you make the hard decisions, live with the consequences and keep going, because that's what you do. And you take pleasure in small things, when you can. The story? Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson. I still occasionally re-read stories I loved as a child, and many of them still 'work' for me. But none as well as this one does. There isn't a single word out of place, or a single aspect that rings false. I wish I could write like that.
That's a matching factor, not another work that uses it It's when the point of a work is that making the best of a horrible world is a victory in its own right and that the story doesn't need to be about the heroes fixing everything. I'm still looking for a trope that more precisely describes what you're talking about, but do you think you'll be looking for works with that one in the meantime? The page has a pretty long list Including: Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Stephen King's The Stand, Terry Brook's The Word and the Void, Alastair Reynolds' Terminal World, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road.
I wasn't specifically seeking that story's outcome. I was only about 6 years old when I first encountered it (my first grade teacher read it out loud to us.) It was only later on, when I read it as an adult, that I began to really appreciate the craft and the theme. What will attract me to reading a story in the first place (unless I've read reviews that make me interested) is usually the time period or setting. I was always attracted to stories set in the 19th century, and specifically in rural parts of the country. I still gravitate towards that kind of setting, and it's the general setting I used for my own novel. Why? I have no idea. However, what the stories laid in those realistic historical settings can do is surprise me. The themes vary. I have never been very interested in the genre stories from that time period ...the stock Western, for example. My dad had a collection of Zane Grey, which I read, but didn't really like. Something about them didn't seem right. (Of course now I know they were pure myth, but I didn't know that at the time.) Then I remember reading a couple of books by Will James ...and that clicked for me. His stories were 'real.' Some were semi-autobiographical. I couldn't get enough of that kind of writing. My bookshelves are still loaded with stories written about that time and place. Willa Cather. Mari Sandoz. AB Guthrie. James Welch. Hamlin Garland. Charles M Russell. And of course the childhood 'other' favourites by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved books set elsewhere during the 19th century as well—not just in the old west. In fact, that's probably my favourite period to read about, even today. I read even more non-fiction pertaining to that era, including lots more from First Nations writers, and love the personal histories and primary source works that I've gathered over the years. I love history as much as I love fiction, and I love when they come together well. Either written by contemporary hands, or written by modern authors who know their stuff and who portray life during the time with all its colours.
I see The site doesn't have a good list of literature explicitly categorized as taking place Down On The Farm but there's always sites like GoodReads to fill in the blanks @BayView Does GoodReads have a category for stories taking place in the rural 1800s?
I think that my favorite is fairly heavily nostalgia-based: The Doll's House by Rumer Godden. It's totally a children's book, but hiding inside are tragic heroism, loyalty, betrayal, an examination of expected versus actual roles in the family, the aching need for security and home and a place in the world, the helplessness of the helpless, the strength of the helpless, the strength of true evil, status versus love, the value of different kinds of intelligence, abuse and recovery from abuse but the forever fragility, returning to life after bereavement... (So maybe it's not nostalgia based. Maybe the core is as strong as I feel it to be.) All with dolls. The bits where the little girls are learning stuff from adults could just be cut, as far as I'm concerned. And I really don't care if Emily "gets" Charlotte's message in the end. Emily's on her own, as far as I'm concerned. Mr. Plantaganet losing his post office still makes me want to cry. Birdie's final action still makes me want to cry--and the fact that I put it that way means that I'm treating this as a story worth protecting from spoilers.
Based on your recommendation, I've just ordered it on Kindle. It's a story I never read, but always meant to.
I don't really read a lot of fantasy, but this sounds interesting. I jumped into the conversation without reading all the posts, but (to me) fantasy means you have the freedom to make up just about anything, right? People are probably writing about the same things or having the same setting etc. because it's safe.
Let's see if this one goes better Wow. So I'm definitely finding a lot of blind spots that I wasn't aware of when I started plugging the site, but TVTropes does have categories for "Tragic Hero," "I Just Want To Have Friends," "Dark and Troubled Past," "Uptown Girl" (formerly called "Inter Class Romance"), and dozens of different types of loyalty, betrayal, and "intelligent" characters. I can count on one hand the number of times knowing an ending ahead of time made me enjoy the experience more rather than less.
That may be counting multiple versions of the same book as separate? Like, one title may be counted for hardcover, paperback, e-book, audiobook, etc. Still... it's pretty huge. I think because of the Amazon connection, most books show up on Goodreads as soon as they're up on Amazon.
Actually, the test in this case is writing meaningful literature and the method of not studying is not learning and using science/history/ our real world, in other words, using fantasy. So it's a problem with the method.
SciFi/Fantasy or otherwise I'm confused. Is "SciFi/Fantasy that qualifies as meaningful literature" inferior to "non-SFF that does not qualify as meaningful literature" EDIT: What about these? http://www.npr.org/2011/08/09/139248590/top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books More than 60,000 ballots were cast in our annual summer reader's survey — click here to see the full list of 100 books, complete with links and descriptions. Below is a printable list of the top 100 winners. And for even more great reads, check out the complete list of 237 finalists. 1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien 2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams 3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card 4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert 5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin 6. 1984, by George Orwell 7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury 8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov 9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley 10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman 11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman 12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan 13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell 14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson 15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore 16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov 17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein 18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss 19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut 20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley 21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick 22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood 23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King 24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke 25. The Stand, by Stephen King 26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson 27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury 28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut 29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman 30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess 31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein 32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams 33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey 34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein 35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller 36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells 37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne 38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys 39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells 40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny 41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings 42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley 43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson 44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven 45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin 46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien 47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White 48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman 49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke 50. Contact, by Carl Sagan 51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons 52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman 53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson 54. World War Z, by Max Brooks 55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle 56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman 57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett 58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson 59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold 60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett 61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle 62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind 63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy 64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke 65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson 66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist 67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks 68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard 69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb 70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger 71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson 72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne 73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore 74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi 75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson 76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke 77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey 78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin 79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury 80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire 81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson 82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde 83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks 84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart 85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson 86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher 87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe 88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn 89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan 90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock 91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury 92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley 93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge 94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov 95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson 96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle 97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis 98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville 99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony 100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis
Why not? Would breaking the science and history of the real world for Science Fiction not dampen a story's quality the way that breaking the science and history of the real world for Fantasy would?
Let's look at two classic sci fi/fantasy examples-- space travel and the unicorn. When we talk about space travel--and there are a million threads in WF about it--the same questions always come up. How could we achieve FTL speeds, how many generations of people would it take to get to another galaxy, how far would would we have to go to find another planet like Earth, etc, etc. This is speculation. Now look at the unicorn. It's just a white horse with the horn of a miniature narwhal slapped into its forehead. There's no consideration to neck strength, or whether it would prevent the unicorn from grazing effectively, or if the horn would get stuck-- no consideration for biology or evolution. It's just mixing and matching two pictures-- physics and biology is ignored. That's reduction. We could fix that. Maybe the horse is genetically spliced with a gnarwhal. Maybe a sick billionaire gets the horn of a narwhal surgically implanted into the head of a horse for an art show, and then the horse dies. Now it's science fiction. Similarly, maybe we just put some regular joes into a cool looking metal vehicle, strap on some sound effects, give the pilot a vest, and let them travel to any planet they want within minutes, no physical considerations required. Now it's fantasy.
And where does Soft SciFi like Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Marvel Comics fit into this? Is there no such thing as Soft SciFi because Fantasy and Hard SciFi are the only categories? What about fantasy where certain aspects couldn't possibly exist under the laws of nature in real life, but where a lot of attention is given to establishing the laws that they do follow instead?
A number of stories have elements of more bone genre. About the second question--if you're making up your own rules it's just reduction.
I think what @numbersenpai is trying to say is: Sci-fi = If this were to happen Fantasy = I wish this were to happen Not coming up with the 'if' is seen as lazy writing.