Veeky Forums approved reading list

>Gene Wolfe at #98

fucking kek

You're failing to learn the lesson of why you people need to be protected from populism. Want recommendations on what's good? Ask for the recommender's credentials. All opinions aren't equal. Hence Lovecraft. Seriously though: that should be a red flag. Or an air raid siren. It's not an opinion; dude was objectively bad at writing.

Lovecraft was not very good writer, but his effect on Veeky Forums is palpable. Lovecraft and his mythos are embedded so deep in rpg his influence rivals Tolkien.
Butcher is disposable but very fun, and that is the first thing people want out of genre literature, especially UF. His series also have this consistent power increase while keeping the problems at a good enough level to still be chalenging. It honestly feels like reading an rpg character going up a level per book.

Zelazny is on the list, but really deserves to be higher.

>Lovecraft and his mythos are embedded so deep in rpg his influence rivals Tolkien.
A. That's crap.
B. You meant Vance, who is currently #100 on that list, which is another shining example of why community recommendations are A.

>Vance
I meant in general not just D&D

There is no "in general" to RPGs without D&D. Every major RPG that isn't D&D either stands out because it isn't D&D, or because it does some aspect of D&D better. And all of them exist solely because of D&D. Which is why, if you want a list of books relevant to RPGs, you can start with Vance or just not bother.

>Ask for the recommender's credentials
You are posting on a site where anonymity is the default and nobody has any credentials whatsoever.

>why you people need to be protected from populism
Voting here is a convenient way to compile numerous opinions to find averages. Nothing more and nothing less. Nobody is saying that to belong to Veeky Forums you must read all these books, or that everybody must have the same opinions on things. It's just a tool to gauge opinions.

Panic status:
DON'T PANIC[]
PANIC[X]

>Michael Moorcock- Elric of Melniboné
He's the first Drizzt. But a great character. Moorcock's writing is a bit repetitive, but a neat story nonetheless.

Last thread
>I dunno, I'm concerned this will become more about the voting and book popularity rather than a collaborative list of Veeky Forums related books
>calm down man, it's just a feature of the site

This thread
>Vote for books
>here's the top ten books
>all comments are about peoples tastes in books

Is there a better site we can use?

>1. Douglas Adams- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Shit tries way too hard to be funny and just ends up being boring and kind of forgettable.

>10. Neal Stephenson- Anathem
Stephenson tries even harder than Adams, except at least Adams tries to be funny. Stephenson tries to be badass and fails miserably. And nerds eat that shit up because it validates them.

>(11.) Michael Moorcock- Elric of Melniboné
The only Moorcock that I picked up was the Runestaff series. I'd read Norman Spinrad's "The Iron Dream" the month before and about a third of the way into the first book I realized, "this is very likely the book that Spinrad was mocking"

this
do we acknowledge his other series?

you are my brother from another mother.

Want to make a recommendation to re-read the books you read as a little 'un.

I came back to Redwall and Howard Pyle after picking them up as a kid, and they're still as fresh as ever.

Part of that might be Brian Jaqcues' lavish descriptions of feasting and song, though. Howard Pyle does the same thing, but with clothes and !!!CHIVALRY!!! bleeding through the page.

Has anybody else here read John C. Wright's Moth and Cobweb books? That's some top-shelf material, man. Young boy becomes a knight in the court of Oberon, the Fairy King, squired to the Green Knight from Arthurian legend.

>Lovecraft is such terrible writing that it's only semi-legible.

That's a huge exaggeration. Many of his earlier works were crap, but his later prose was generally passable, if not good. It was just very 19th centuryish because he took so much influence from Poe.

If you want truly terrible, look up Lovecraft fanfics.

Needs Amber.
Lord of Light.
Dilvish, The Damned.
Damnation Alley.

Startide Rising.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

>Startide Rising.

My favorite book of all time, from my favorite series of all time. Maybe it doesn't deserve it (Brin's always been more of a world-builder than an author), but I am absolutely in love with the Uplift books and have been since I first read them as a child. Startide Rising is the clear winner of the series, and involves a considerable time-jump from the previous book, Sundiver, meaning you can jump into it without missing much else than some history and a few character references.

I would recommend anyone who's ever wanted to run a Space Opera game do so immediately, and then I'd recommend anyone who has learned to read do the same. It has space dolphins that speak in haiku for chrissakes. Get on it.

Plus, it has a GURPS supplement that Brin actually wrote the foreword to. Never played GURPS but I read the supplement, it's pretty neat. The dimensional travel mechanics were a bit much, but they were all grounded in the fiction which was cool.

...

>People can't comprehend reading 200 pages in a single sitting, and it baffles me.
Be me. In college. Start Dune late one night, when I'm already tired. Get about 40 pages in before I start passing out. Wake up the next morning, roll over and grab the book. Skip my classes and read the book until I'm done, only interrupted by a few bathroom breaks and a couple of trips to the kitchen for something I can eat while I'm reading. Feel smarter for the next week. Everything is plans within plans.

>Lovecraft is such terrible writing that it's only semi-legible.
I love Lovecraft's writing. It can be a stilted and hard to digest, but it's wonderfully evocative. But I rarely read stories for the prose in any case.

Dammit, user, now my glasses have gone dark.

>Needs Amber.
>Lord of Light.
>The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
They're on the list.

>Startide Rising.
Generally, folks are putting just the first book in a series so as not to junk things up with a thousand sequels. The Uplift books aren't as connect as most series (you aren't following the same characters... at least not until you get to the second trilogy), but there are already two of them there.

>Gene Wolfe at #98
Only one person voted for Shadow of the Torturer. If you voted for it, it would surge ahead. I personally found the book to be incredibly dull and pointless, and don't at all understand the hype.

>Wait, we need to get female authors as far down the list as possible, just to piss off RPG.net.
That's retarded.

Reminder for the people who are voting: it's the order you rank your books in that matters as far as how far up the list they go. If you rate a book 1 star and put it at the top of your list, it will rank higher than a 5 star book that you put immediately below it on your list.

Dummy account that anybody who's too lazy to make up their own can claim.
name: tg-user
email: [email protected]
password: magicalrealm

It just asks for your email and password to log in, so you probably just want to copy and paste the email.

Is the Dark Tower book supposed to be #7 in the series?

So as it stands now:

1. Dune -- Frank Herbert
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
3. The Shadow Over Innsmouth -- H. P. Lovecraft
4.* A Wizard of Earthsea -- Ursula K. Le Guin
4.* Neuromancer -- William Gibson
6. At the Mountains of Madness -- H. P. Lovecraft
7. The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath -- H. P. Lovecraft
8. Storm Front -- Jim Butcher
9. Starship Troopers -- Robert A. Heinlein
10. The Fellowship of the Ring -- J. R. R. Tolkien
11. The Hobbit -- J. R. R. Tolkien
12. Anathem -- Neal Stephenson
13. Elric of Melnibone -- Michael Moorcock
14. The Shadow Out of Time -- H. P. Lovecraft
15. A Fire Upon the Deep -- Vernor Vinge

*tie

Only a single point separates 1st and 2nd place.

Dune: 370 points
Hitchhiker's Guide: 369 points

>No guilty pleasures
ok

How is the Dresden Files TV series?

>Dresden Files

I've heard about those, but not much, and nobody ever gave their opinion.

Would you guys say it's worth a read?

First few books are a bit dull, but readable. Book 4 is where the series hits its stride. Consistent power increase, believable characters (In a modern fantasy world at least) and some pretty funny jokes at times. I enjoyed them, but that's My opinion .

I do, it was my intro into the fantasy genre. Not as solid, but still had great characters. I read that he may return to Night Angel after finishing Lightbringer but who knows

>The Raven Rings is not yet translated to English
>Shouldn't add it because only 0.1% will be able to read it
I feel bad for you guys

I think Book Three is where it takes off, but hey that's me.

Why not try remembering them?

I do, but there's 100 on my read list and 150 titles on my to-read list, and I'm not going to bother memorizing them all.

I think Elric gets a bit of a pass for being emo before emo was really a thing.

I vote for Librarything
Goodreads is normie cancer

>Conan is #31
This list is gay

What does Veeky Forums think of Childhood's End?

I'm personally conflicted. On one hand, it definitely feels bittersweet as a piece, in the sense that while humanity may be moving on to greater things, something has definitely been lost along the way. I feel like this is what the piece sets out to do and it achieves this admirably.
But I can't help feel like there's something missing, in a way I can't quite articulate

>doesn't mention Elizabeth Moon

I get that way, too. When I get sucked into a book, I get so focussed on it that I just stop functioning. It's not a tg book, but I remember the first time I read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I was about 1/3rd of the way through it and decided to read a little before bed. Well, bed never happened, the book was finished, and I had to get ready to go to Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house.

That's just how I was, even in school like I said. I can't just read pages 20-41 or chapters 3 and 4. Like, bitch, that's like asking someone to only watch 20 minutes of a movie. There's shit happening here, and I need to find out what..

>Conan is #31
Now it's #10.

I feel like that's where I dropped it, some town right?

No love for Legend of theGalactic Heroes?

Its basically Austro-Hungarian vs USA naval battles in space.

No love for Legend of the Galactic Heroes?

Its basically Austro-Hungarian vs USA naval battles in space.

Same. I remember senior year of high school and buying the years reading list for Lit. Read the whole list, about 8 books, in a week.

Or when the last Harry Potter book came out, I got the book at 12:01 AM and didn't sleep until I finished. Not because it was particularly good, but because I just wanted to end it.

They're very popcorn movie type books. Pretty formulaic, but done competently. I wouldn't call them literature, but every so often I check and am saddened because Butcher hasn't finished the next one. 7/10

They're pretty great desu

>3. Ursula LeGuin- Earthsea series
Is it actually worth reading or is it meme-tier Electric Lit recommended "womyn are better get over it"-kinda shit?

Why is The Lord of the Rings always separated into its volumes? That really triggers my autism.

Because that's the way it was originally published?

Was enjoyable if you didn't read the books and can handle the weaker special effects.

Seemed like lots of mary sue wank to me.

For the most part, series of books are represented by the first book in the series. Lord of the Rings does have a single-volume edition entry though (see below), and could be entered like that. At this point, however, it's probably too late as people have already voted, and adding it would mean that the individual volumes would be on the list right alongside it.

goodreads.com/book/show/33.The_Lord_of_the_Rings

>Is it actually worth reading or is it meme-tier Electric Lit recommended "womyn are better get over it"-kinda shit?
A Wizard of Earthsea is great and is nothing like that at all. It's a good stand-alone book too. You absolutely do not need to read anything else. The Tombs of Atuan is a different kind of book (think Speaker for the Dean in relation to Ender's Game). It's good, but not on the order of A Wizard of Earthsea, in my opinion. The Farthest Shore feels like it moves back in the direction of A Wizard of Earthsea, but isn't quite as well put together, in my opinion. Still a good read though. Tehanu, which was written almost two decades after The Farthest Shore, didn't impress me at all, though I'll admit that I didn't get very far in it. It seems like it might be the sort of thing you're worried about, and at the very least seemed very "womany" to me, and about feelings and gender relationships and shit (but then, maybe if I had read further, I would've been proven wrong). But you should be good reading the first three books, or just the first one, if you prefer.

Pretty mediocre, 6/10. There is so much better stuff out there that if you have even a shred of ambition about literature you should read the other stuff first.

Hell yeah brother. Top tier stuff

Fun popcorn books. Worth checking out, don't expect high lit, but not bad either.

Other existing lists:

fantasy100.sffjazz.com/lists_books.html

scifilists.sffjazz.com/lists_books_rank1.html

American Gods has surged into the lead, though Dune and The Hitchhiker's Guide are close on its heels. With scores in the upper 300s, only 3 points separate 1st and 3rd place.

There's a three-way tie for 5th place between A Wizard of Earthsea, Fellowship of the Rings (up 5 places since last count), and Neuromancer. And Terry Pratchett has broken into the top 10.

Lovecraft still has the most books in either the top 10 or top 15 (3 books in the top 10 to only 1 by anybody else, or 3 in the top 15 to 2 by Tolkien).

Elric keeps get pushed back. Having once been at number 11 (and possibly even higher, I can't remember), he's down to 17. Also, Dresden is down from 5 to 11.

>4 people voted

Not exactly a huge turnout to base anyone's decisions on.

No Tales from the Flat Earth.

Pathetic.

No more than 4 people voted for a particular book. 11 people voted overall. But, no, it's not a prodigious number of people. I didn't set the thing up, but I would tend to view the list more as a "here's some shit you might want to consider" sort of thing rather than a "this is the definitive ranking of the best science fiction and fantasy books" thing.

Add it, motherfucker. You have the power.

Tehanu is terrible.

"What are Dragons? What is a Dragonlord? Let us ponder this for a while"
"What is women's work? Why are women treated differently? Let us ponder this for a while."
"What is love? What is family? Let us ponder this for a while."

It goes on like that for a while.

The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov

>Speaker for the Dean
Hah! Or Speaker for the Dead, even.

Foundation is currently sitting at #25.

Ah, I missed that.

How about The Gods Themselves. Same author?

HGttG was the second book I ever read on my own volition.

First one was Clash of Civilizations or some shit, in 7th or 8th grade.

But did you like the uplift storm trilogy?

I can't find her at my library

It's a short one and perhaps for a younger audience but "The Last Unicorn" really ought to be on that list.

1 - The Gunslinger
2 - The Drawing of the Three
3 - The Wastelands
4 - Wizard and Glass
4.5 - The Wind Through the Keyhole (read post-series)
5 - Wolves of the Calla
6 - Song of Susannah
7 - The Dark Tower

I'm not sure about him, but I preferred it for its alieness. I mean, it ultimately went full-out crazy, but I kind of appreciate that.

I was just asking if the selection for the list should've been book 7 or if that was a mistake.

Ordinarily I would agree, but the Gunslinger (Book 1) is hardly representative of the series and is probably the weakest book.

Then again, we have other awful 1st books from great series on the list like the Color of Magic, Consider Phlebas, and The Eye of the World...

Does no one read "The White Company" or it is just not Veeky Forums "enough"?

>Foundation tied with GoT
>Foundation behind Ender's Game
I want you to die

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

Now Lovecraft is dominating. #1 book and 3 in the top ten.

1. Shadow Over Innsmouth
2. Neuromancer
3. Dune
4. Hitchhiker's Guide
5. Fellowship of the Rings
6. American Gods
7. Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
8. Coming of Conan
9. Wizard of Earthsea
10. Mountains of Madness
11. Ender's Game
12. Hobbit
13. Final Empire
14. Elric
15. Color of Magic

Is Foundation less juvenile than Hubbard's other books? I found Starship Troopers very disappointing.

Hitchhiker's Guide was mediocre at best.

I literally can't think of a funnier book.

Foundation was written by Asimov, m8

Because he managed three good jokes into 14,000000000000 pages?

Starship Troopers was Heinlein's military Junta utopia. Pretend he's writing a political circle-jerk for marine jar-heads.

His political circle-jerk for libertarians ala "The moon in a Harsh Mistress" is a little more entertaining, but about equally bullshitty.

Isn't SciFi about exploring ideas? Why can't those ideas be political rather than just lasers and aliens and shit?

>Because he managed three good jokes into 14,000000000000 pages?
That would imply the book was long when it's actually pretty short. Are you sure you didn't just watch the movie? Because the movie was shitty.