Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books

[Lawrence Bryan]

I don't know any more about Houllebecq then what I read in the URL you posted, so my first opinion is probably way off the mark. (At least I will entertain that as a distinct possibility.) It would seem that a lot of sensitive souls, as they enter adulthood, discover the emotion of sadness, of hopelessness, of deep despair and revel in those feelings. For many it is a phase which one outgrows with the help of one's children, but for some it is a lifelong addiction. How many of you, in your youth, spent hours alone thinking deep tragic thoughts, usually with the feelings of how incredibly astute you were to have discovered this dark secret, and with a faint feeling of pity for those poor unfortunates who had not and may never make this discovery, felt the chill bumps rising along your arms and into your neck? 

I did. An amusing memory, now.

Lawrence
 
On Aug 13, 2011, at 3:26 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:

> 
> Another book I miss on this list is "The Possibility of an Island" by Michel Houellebecq, who also wrote an illuminating essay on HPL ("H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life").
> 
> http://www.houellebecq.info/english.php
> 
> (His latest novel - "La Carte et le Territoire" - hasn't been published in English yet)
> 
>> 
>> No HPL? Only one PKD? Well ...
>> 
>> And "Animal Farm" is, imo, neither Fantasy nor SciFi, yet a (cheap) political parable.
>> 
>> But while we're at it: Is Ursula Le Guin an author you would recommend? And if so:
>> Are "The Dispossessed" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" good books to start with?
>> 
>> "The abyss, it seems, had shelving shores of dry land at certain places, but the Old Ones built their new city under water --- no doubt because of its greater certainty of uniform warmth. The depth of the hidden sea appears to have been very great, so that the earth's internal heat could ensure its habitability for an indefinite period. The beings seemed to have no trouble in adapting themselves to part-time --- and eventually, of course, whole-time --- residence under water, since they had never allowed their gill systems to atrophy. There were many sculptures which showed how they had always frequently visited their submarine kinsfolk elsewhere, and how they had habitually bathed on the deep bottom of their great river. The darkness of inner earth could likewise have been no deterrent to a race accustomed to long antarctic nights."
>> H.P. Lovecraft: At the Mountains of Madness (online for free at manybooks.net)
>> 
>> On 11.08.2011 23:48, Dave Monroe wrote:
>> 
>>> http://www.npr.org/2011/08/09/139248590/top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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