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Powell’s Essential List: 25 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of the 21st Century (So Far)
(www.powells.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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I've read schockingly few of the ones on the list, and from what I know, I feel torn. Some I'm happy to see: NK Jemisin is a great author, and although I haven't read Exhaltation by Ted Chiang, everything I've read of his has been incredible.
On the other hand, seeing Perdidio Street Station as the first entry really threw me for a loop. The book is totally fine, but it is extremely weird, and I definitely don't see it as a must-read.
Edit: typo
I haven't read Perdidio Street Statio; you thought it was bad?
I think "bad" would be the wrong word. I usually describe it as "weird". And it feels a bit smushed together somehow: lots of different things that don't really fit that well together, in my opinion.
It may well be worth reading, but as the first entry on a list of best science fiction and fantasy, it feels out of place to me.
I loved its depiction of a complete world, where elements are introduced only for the flavor. It made it feel so lively, while destructuring the usual “Chekov’s gun” expectation. Most of the side stories also tie back into the immigration/discrimination theme that runs through the book.
I would wholeheartedly recommend it.
I think it was a forerunner, I kept seeing it referred to as "the New Weird", and in that sense I can see that it was influential. More influential than good, I think.
But the followup, "The Scar", I thought was excellent, and was just as "New Weird" as Perdido Street Station. All round a better book, really blew my mind at the time - but seems to be rarely as mentioned because Perdido Street Station gets all the attention for being first.
I'll probably get around to reading it, just to see. I kind of like "weird."
I really didn't like Perdido Street Station. It seemed to me like the author has an obsession with bringing up poop which is ironic because I also felt like he has verbal diarrhea. I thought the world building was great, and it had some fantastic characters and concepts that I wish it explored more, but overall I disliked the writing, and it didn't pull me in. By the halfway point I was just waiting for it to end, in what I expected to be a grim and unsatisfying way.
Exhalation is a fantastic collection of novels. I think it is even better than The Story of Your Life
Perdido Street Station is SO not one of his better books. I think it only gets recommended because it is so very weird.