The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010 Meme

[jsburbidge]

From Wisse Words::

Which one of those below have you read (italics), do you own (bold) or dislike (struck through)?

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
Ender’s Game (1985)
Radio Free Albemuth (1985)
Always Coming Home(1985)
This Is the Way the World Ends (1985)
Galápagos (1985)
The Falling Woman (1986)
The Shore of Women (1986)
A Door Into Ocean (1986)
Soldiers of Paradise (1987)
Life During Wartime (1987)
The Sea and Summer (1987)
Cyteen (1988)
Neverness (1988)
The Steerswoman (1989)
Grass (1989)
Use of Weapons (1990)
Queen of Angels (1990)
Barrayar (1991)
Synners (1991)
Sarah Canary (1991)
White Queen (1991)
Eternal Light (1991)
Stations of the Tide (1991)
Timelike Infinity (1992)
Dead Girls (1992)
Jumper (1992)
China Mountain Zhang (1992)
Red Mars (1992)
A Fire Upon the Deep (1992)
Aristoi (1992)
Doomsday Book (1992)
Parable of the Sower (1993)
Ammonite (1993)
Chimera (1993)
Nightside the Long Sun (1993)
Brittle Innings (1994)
Permutation City (1994)
Blood (1994)
Mother of Storms (1995)
Sailing Bright Eternity (1995)
Galatea 2.2 (1995)
The Diamond Age (1995)
The Transmigration of Souls (1996)
The Fortunate Fall (1996)
The Sparrow/Children of God (1996/1998)
Holy Fire (1996)
Night Lamp (1996)
In the Garden of Iden (1997)
Forever Peace (1997)
Glimmering (1997)
As She Climbed Across the Table (1997)
The Cassini Division (1998)
Bloom (1998)
Vast (1998)
The Golden Globe (1998)
Headlong (1999)
Cave of Stars (1999)
Genesis (2000)
Super-Cannes (2000)
Under the Skin (2000)
Perdido Street Station (2000)
Distance Haze (2000)
Revelation Space trilogy (2000)
Salt (2000)
Ventus (2001)
The Cassandra Complex (2001)
Light (2002)
Altered Carbon (2002)
The Separation (2002)
The Golden Age (2002)
The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003)
Natural History (2003)
The Labyrinth Key / Spears of God
River of Gods (2004)
The Plot Against America (2004)
Never Let Me Go (2005)
The House of Storms (2005)
Counting Heads (2005)
Air (Or, Have Not Have) (2005)
Accelerando (2005)
Spin (2005)
My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (2006)
The Road (2006)
Temeraire /His Majesty’s Dragon (2006)
Blindsight (2006)
HARM (2007)
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007)
The Secret City (2007)
In War Times (2007)
Postsingular (2007)
Shadow of the Scorpion (2008)
The Hunger Games trilogy (2008-2010)
Little Brother (2008)
The Alchemy of Stone (2008)
The Windup Girl (2009)
Steal Across the Sky(2009)
Boneshaker (2009)
Zoo City (2010)
Zero History (2010)
The Quantum Thief (2010)

I'm rather dubious about the list.  Some of the works I have read don't seem to me to be candidates for the best books in that 25-year period (The Golden Age, for example).

The structure also suggests that it's been constructed by choosing 100 different authors and then choosing one novel per author; this means that by definition it's going to exclude many novels which should be on the list, those produced by the really good authors who have produced several works at the height of their powers during that time frame.

Even then, the works selected are not always the best choice for that author: The Diamond Age instead of Cryptonomicon? Is A Fire Upon the Deep really better than A Deepness in the Sky?  If you're going to have one Bujold, then Mirror Dance would be a better choice than Barrayar, and I can think of several Stross books which I'd consider to be better than Accelerando (notably Halting State).

I haven't marked any works as "disliked", although I think some of them rather weak (e.g. The Golden Age (I read that, but have successfully avoided the third novel of the trilogy, which I understand goes all wonky and Objectivist, which may give me an unduly positive view of the first volume on its own)).