The James Davis Nicoll List Thingy

[phoenixfalls]

Fine I'll do the thing. There's only so many times I can see people talk (even briefly!) about all these SFF books without throwing my own two cents into the ring.

So:
Bold means I've read it
Underlined means I've read something else by the author
*Asterisked means I own it but have not yet read it

*The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (I've read under her other penname)
The Stolen Lake, Joan Aiken
Fullmetal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa
Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko, Hitoshi Ashinano (if I ever read a manga, it will likely be this one)
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
Stinz: Charger: The War Stories, Donna Barr
The Sword and the Satchel, Elizabeth Boyer
Sibyl Sue Blue, Rosel George Brown
The Mountains of Mourning, Lois McMaster Bujold (on my read-everything-by list)
*War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
Wild Seed, Octavia E. Butler (on my read-everything-by list)
Naamah's Curse, Jacqueline Carey (why, oh why, is this the Carey on the list??? The second book in the third trilogy of the series???)
*The Fortunate Fall, Raphael Carter
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers
*Red Moon and Black Mountain, Joy Chant
The Vampire Tapestry, Susy McKee Charnas
Gate of Ivrel, C.J. Cherryh
Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho
Diadem from the Stars, Jo Clayton
The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper
Genpei, Kara Dalkey
Servant of the Underworld, Aliette de Bodard
*The Secret Country, Pamela Dean
*Dhalgren, Samuel Delaney
*The Door Into Fire, Diane Duane
On the Edge of Gone, Corinne Duyvis
Spirit Gate, Kate Elliott
Enchantress from the Stars, Sylvia Louise Engdahl
Golden Witchbreed, Mary Gentle
The Dazzle of Day, Molly Gloss
A Mask for the General, Lisa Goldstein
Slow River, Nicola Griffith (on my read-everything-by list)
*Those Who Hunt the Night, Barbara Hambly
*Winterlong, Elizabeth Hand
*Ingathering, Zenna Henderson
The Interior life, Dorothy Heydt writing as Katherine Blake (this looks relevant to my interests, I'll have to make a note to look for it)
God Stalk, P.C. Hodgell
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
Zero Sum Game, S.L. Huang (I used to read this author's blog! I have no memory of why though. I feel like it was for the math?)
Blood Price, Tanya Huff
The Keeper of the Isis Light, Monica Hughes
*God's War, Kameron Hurley
Memory of Water, Emmi Itaranta
The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin
Cart and Cwidder, Diane Wynne Jones
Daughter of Mystery, Heather Rose Jones
Hellspark, Janet Kagan
A Voice out of Ramah, Lee Killough
St. Ailbe's Hall, Naomi Kritzer
Deryni Rising, Katherine Kurtz
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
Magic or Madness, Justine Larbalestier
The Disposessed, Ursula LeGuin (on my read-everything-by list -- but I've got a LONG way to go)
*Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Don't Bite the Sun, Tanith Lee
*Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee
*Wizard of the Pigeons, Meghan Lindholm
Adaptation, Malinda Lo
*Watchtower, Elizabeth A. Lynn
*Tea with the Black Dragon, R.A. MacAvoy
The Many-Colored Land, Julian May
The Outback Stars, Sandra McDonald
China Mountain Zhang, Maureen McHugh
Dreamsnake, Vonda N. McIntyre
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia A. McKillip (on my read-everything-by list)
Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees
Pennterra, Judith Moffat
The ArchAndroid, Janelle Monae
Jirel of Jorey, C.L. Moore
Certain Dark Things, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The City, Not Long After, Pat Murphy
Vast, Linda Nagata
Galactic Derelict, Andre Norton
His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik
*Dragon Sword and Wind Child, Noriko Ogiwara
Outlaw School, Rebecca Ore
Lagoon, Nnedi Okorafor
Alanna: The First Adventure, Tamora Pierce
Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy
Godmother Night, Rachel Pollack (this looks relevant to my interests, I'll have to make a note to look for it)
Goblin Market, Christina Rosetti
My Life as a White-Trash Zombie, Diana Rowland
The Female Man, Joanna Russ
Stay Crazy, Erica L. Satifka
The Healer's War, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
*Five-Twelfths of Heaven, Melissa Scott
Everfair, Nisi Shawl
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
A Door Into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski
*The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart (I'm really not into Matter of Britain, though, so this will languish on the TBR pile for a loooooong time)
*Up the Walls of the World, James Tiptree, Jr. (on my read-everything-by list)
*The Thief, Meghan Whalen Turner
The Snow Queen, Joan D. Vinge
All Systems Red, Martha Wells
The Well-Favored Man, Elizabeth Willey
Banner of Souls, Liz Williams
Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson
Ariosto, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Ooku, Fumi Yoshinaga

So it took someone snarking in the comments on the post for me to realize the list is 96% female authors -- I knew that women were well-represented, but hadn't quite clicked that there were only three men (all non-white). (Someone in the comments claimed to count only 92 female authors, but I think they're confused by a few of the distinctly male pseudonyms.) Also, I got all the way to the "W"s before I realized it was alphabetical by author! Clearly I am not at my most observant today.

I've only read fourteen, which seems very low for me. I can only add ten more counting the entries where I've read other books by that author, just not the specific one on the list. Another fifteen are waiting patiently to be read on my bookshelves, but that still doesn't bring me to even half. If I included books I have access to via my parents' library, which is chock full of SFF paperbacks from the 60s and 70s, I think I'd finally break the halfway point.

But looking through the entries where I have nothing marked. . . there's a lot of subgenres I'm just not into. Apocalypses, dystopias, cyberpunk. . . they just really aren't my thing, and I'm not going to be adding these books to my to-be-read pile when there are so many more books that *are* more my thing already on it.

Which is to say, while I very much admire the intent behind the list to highlight non-white, non-male authors (in contrast to all the other year-end lists that are invariably overwhelmingly white and male), it still is not the list *I* would make, if I were to make a list of a hundred SFF titles people should consider reading in the coming year. :)

Comments

[enemyofperfect]

You know, I hadn't noticed they were in alphabetical order either!

I'd love to know what you think of The Goblin Emperor if/whenever you get around to it -- it's in quite a different genre from either The Doctrine of Labyrinths or the Booth stories (at least based on what little I've read of the latter), but I feel like there's a thread of commonality between all three.

My own feelings about The Interior Life are mixed, but it might be worth noting that you can download a free ebook from the author's website.

[juushika]

Thank you for that Interior Life link! It also ended up on my TBR because of this list, so I really appreciate it.

[enemyofperfect]

Oh, you're very welcome!

[phoenixfalls]

Thanks muchly for the link!

And I shall try to remember to poke you for a chat when I read The Goblin Emperor -- or who knows, maybe I will get back into writing book reviews by that point! (We can dream, eh?)

[enemyofperfect]

You are very welcome! And while book reviews by you make for a lovely dream, I think I will be ever more pleased if it becomes reality.

[grrlpup]

Now I am curious about your read-everything-by list! Is it an actual list as opposed to just knowing those authors when you see them, and how many are on it?

I’ve read only about a dozen on this list, and it would be worse if it weren’t for the children’s/YA titles! SFF hasn’t been my main genre, though it’s been creeping up in the last few years.

[phoenixfalls]

It's not quite a formal list, more like. . . different boxes in my head, that help determine my behavior when in bookstores or when making Christmas/birthday wishlists. Categories are something like:

-Read everything by -- authors that I've read enough by to know that even if a particular book isn't exactly my thing, it will have something that I can value in it
-Grab whatever comes out next -- authors that I've read a few books by, that I loved enough to flag as potential read-everything-by authors
-Grab if synopsis looks interesting -- authors I've enjoyed but who don't always write things I'm interested in or who have tendencies I am wary of
-And then there are all the specific titles by authors I've not yet tried that go in a giant messy mental bin

So my current slate of read-everything-by authors is something like:

Kage Baker
Elizabeth Bear
Lois McMaster Bujold
Octavia Butler
Jacqueline Carey (though I've bounced off a couple recent books, and if there are a few more poor results she may have to come off this list)
Agatha Christie (I've done all the mysteries published under her name, but I'm still tracking down some of her pseudonymous works)
Nicola Griffith
Barbara Hambly
Georgette Heyer
Ursula LeGuin
Patricia McKillip
Robin McKinley
Sean Stewart
James Tiptree, Jr.
Catherynne M. Valente
Kurt Vonnegut
Jo Walton
Connie Willis

Sharon Shinn used to be on this list, but there seemed to be a law of diminishing returns with her, so a few years ago I stopped buying her books. C.J. Cherryh and Kate Elliott are both on the verge of breaking onto it, though I hesitate with Cherryh just because there's SO MUCH I'd need to catch up on. (Also, I read the first Foreigner trilogy and it was fine, but I don't know that I would want to read a further 15+ books set in that world and featuring those characters.)

I am utterly unsurprised that there are only two male authors on this list. And really, the Vonnegut is a legacy thing -- he's my dad's favorite author, and I enjoy him too, so I might as well read them all. :)

(I am working on making the list less white. There are quite a few non-white authors who are in that second category of grab-whatever-comes-out-next, but who haven't published enough yet for me to say that I really want everything they will ever publish.)

[grrlpup]

I saw Kate Baker’s name on your list and my heart immediately fell all over itself going KAGE BAKER KAGE BAKER! ... I guess that’s my version of the read-everything-by list, LOL. I don’t know if I could list the names easily, but when I see them I go into either ears-up mode or grab-it mode.

And some, like Octavia Butler, give me a feeling like “I need to reread everything and get to the one(s) I haven’t read yet,” but the effort threshold is high enough that I only actually do that slowly or partially, even though the payoff is good. (I reread the Xenogenesis trilogy this last year.)

I am struck by how few authors are truly read-everything-by for me. Once we start getting into interlibrary loan territory for the out-of-print stuff, or multiple series or genres I don’t gravitate toward (picture books by my favorite kid lit authors, for example), there are hardly any I’ll pursue as far as I can. I tell myself that doesn’t mean I love the work I’ve read any less.

I definitely met all the authors of color on my list as an adult, and most fairly recently— Jason Reynolds, Cytnthia Kadohata.

Anyway, I’m going to look up the names I don’t know on your list. Thanks! :)

[phoenixfalls]

Oh yes, there are some authors I adore dearly who have just written too much in genres that I have little or no interest in, so they don't go on this particular list. (Isaac Asimov, for instance, is a longtime fave, but I'm certainly not going to track down all his random now entirely outdated nonfiction.) LeGuin is unusual on the list for having written in several different fictional genres and nonfictional genres as well, yet still maintaining my interest -- everyone else writes pretty strictly within the genres I love best, which makes it easier for me to say I'm going to read absolutely EVERYTHING.

Let me know if you want suggestions for where to start with any of these authors, if they look interesting! I have many opinions. :)

[juushika]

I had no idea until now that the list was alphabetized! Welp.

"Ursula LeGuin (on my read-everything-by list -- but I've got a LONG way to go)"
I feel this feel very much. I like to concentrate on specific works/series to make an expansive body of work more manageable, and by that metric (just the Hainish Cycle), I'm doing great--but that's barely a drop in the larger bucket. It's not a complaint, really, though, to still feel like there's always more Le Guin. I had to take a break reading her when she died, because that sense that there one day wouldn't be more, that I'd run out, was such a component of my grief. This is the better alternative.

[phoenixfalls]

Yes, that thought that there won't be any more to read by LeGuin some day definitely makes me want to slow down and really savor each new-to-me book by her that I read.

I'm actually holding onto a couple Kage Baker novels for the same reason -- I blasted through most of her work when I first discovered her, and then she died, and I haven't been able to bring myself to read the last couple of novels since.