/lit/ - Literature

What about Ursula K. Le Guin? Left Hand of Darkness was very big in feminist circles

>>>/mu/

I feel some quality novellas or short stories should be included

>>4593387

1.) Left Hand of Darkness is a must.

2.) Tangental: Three Novels by Samuel Beckett should be on the exit-core list.

>>4593387
>Atwood
Why not Le Guin?
I'm seriously regretting not finding her years ago

>>4593390
Poke you owe me a Coke

>>4593409
>>4593405
>>4593390
Is she really a good author, literary wise? If a list is being made that patrician snobs can read and its still science fiction, does it qualify both? (pretty much unanimous though)

Full list is now:
>Gene Wolfe
>Phillip K Dick
>Margaret Atwood
>Kurt Vonnegut
>Stanislaw Lem
>Ursula K. Le Guin
>(undecided Non-Sci-Fi authors writing it)
>(undecided big sci-fi names like Heinlein or Asimov)

>>4593421
I think Orson Scott Card deserves a consideration, unless if you are looking for strictly heavy literay sci-fi. At the very least, I think the ender's series provides a good entry to the sci-fi genre for most people.

>>4593426
>a good entry to the sci-fi genre
that is precisely what I'm not looking for. I'm thinking Science fiction books that English departments would feel are respectable and quality enough to regard well, despite the stigma of the genre. Speaker for the Dead I would put on a list before Ender's Game, but I still pause to include that.

>>4593414
I really like her. She takes her time in telling these stories (from what I can tell by half a book and a film adaptation) It's immersive and beautiful, this book.
The Dispossessed is a social-science fiction that presents a working anarchistic world and compares it the other political systems on the sister world. The sci fi element is just as valid as Atwood's "speculative fiction" and Le Guin's characters are more lively, fleshed out than either Asimov's or Clarke's.

You realize all these charts are on the wiki? There's absolutely no need to dump them. Everyone has access to them at all times.

We actually already have a few SF guides, but if you're wanting to make a subgenre specific one or a "best of the best" that might be nice.

http://4chanlit.wikia.com/wiki/Recommended_Reading/Genre_fiction#Science_fiction

>>4593450
And here's the SF guide we already have. I think you'd be hard pressed to do better, though I'm sure there is room for improvement. We generally just add on to the charts already there though.

>>4593397
Why is Mann's Magic Mountain put so high up when the style is realist in nature?

>>4593450
I know, but I'd say only 40% of people are aware they're there, most people that see them see them in threads. That's where I found 'em, so I don't think threads like these do any harm. They're just images to bump with anyway, could be using art or anything else for what its worth.

>>4593456
I actually hadn't seen that, though I'm more trying to make a digestible one the size of pic related with a focus on "Science fiction books that English departments would feel are respectable and quality enough to regard well, despite the stigma of the genre) as I said in (>>4593440)

I am questioning if it's worth the effort now, though (I've also never made a chart, but how hard can it be?)

>>4593472
(tried to repost this (>>4593390) pic)

>>4593472
I just can't understand why people don't check the sticky when they want recs, seeing as it specifically says to check there for recs and the page is even called Recommended Reading. Is there really no way to get a board's users to get help from the wiki of their respective board?

And it's not hard to make charts - I made the last two you posted and added half of the exit level one. Pretty much all I do is resize cover images to the same sizing and paste them all together in Paint.

If you're going for something that specific, you can do research on places other than /lit/. Google for syllabi for science fiction literature classes from respected universities - they're required to have all syllabi publicly available, so you have a ton of recs available to you through that method.

But really, after you've figured out the books you want to put on it, it's like an hour tops to actually make the cover montage.

>>4593414
Absolutely. She's a much better writer than most of the big name sci-fi authors.

Suggestions.

Borges. Your choice of title(s)
Is this where we put Sirens of Titan?
Are Bloom's books really all that bad?

Sci fi from /lit/ that I have taken note of
-Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon
-Stations of the Tide - Michael Swanwick
-Stand On Zanzibar - John Brunner
-Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
Sea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly Stories - Leigh Brackett
-Embassytown -China Miéville
-Excession/Consider Phlebas - Iain M. Banks
-Cities in Flight - James Blish
-Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang
-2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson

>>4593488
And as for personal thoughts on what should be on it, definitely William Morris, Canticle for Leibowitz, The Dying Earth, Riddley Walker and Gene Wolfe.

>>4593387
Nix the vonnegut or you might as well include orwell and if you would would include orwell you just shouldn't do the whole thing. As for literary people stepping in sci fi nope. Gravity's rainbow doesn't belong on the list you're trying to make. I would also not include the heavyweights, they're genre fiction despite how good they are. Lem is tricky but I would include... Wolfe and Gibson and maybe dick are the only people I see clearly allowable on this list, though I have not read Atwood.

>>4593488
Thanks, this is helpful and I'll do a course search.
>>4593506
Don't know how Canticle slipped my mind, I actually haven't read Morris though.

>>4593497
>Are Bloom's books really all that bad?
He only has one, as far as I know, and he's done the whole Alan Smithee routine around it. Considers it terrible.

>>4593515
GR was up for a Nebula award, but I can see where you're coming from. I find it odd you would drop everyone else so quicly but include Gibson. Solaris is far more literary to my senses than Neuromancer

>>4593543
> Neuromancer

I just tried reading this the other day. Couldn't even make it through the first through chapters.

>>4593543
>He only has one, as far as I know
Ah.
For some reason I took this title to be his. Published 1920. Sounds interesting

>>4593543
>He only has one, as far as I know
Ah.
For some reason I too this title to be his. Sounds interesting

>>4593397
Zettel's Traum should be higher up. It's the final boss of literature.

>We - Zamyatin
What about the most scifi of dystopias (that's not dry boring crap like Fahrenheit)
>Dan Simmons - Hyperion series
Book 2 is subpar, it goes to shit after 3.
>>4593497
>Dhalgren - Samuel R. Delany
Yes, not sure what's the best Delany (Tales of Neveryon was ok).

>Borges. Your choice of title(s)
Could you name one shot SciFi story by Borges?

>>4593506
>Canticle for Leibowitz, The Dying Earth
Yes.

Also, OP, as maker of 3 other charts, I suggest you do your collage on PS/AI or whatever, and wait until tomorrow. Give the thread a little rest so more people can review the ideas and throw some new titles.
Too many versions are useless (c/lit/s get v1 and never get the later ones).

For covers, try to pick ones that have the title very visible as opposed to the more fancy ones (some balance can be achieved here), or put captions or the full list in text form (maybe a link to some Pastebin).

Love me my Asimov.

*but*

I'd like to see what is considered to be the stories and authors with the highest literary value. Who is the Nabokov of SciFi, then and now?

I've been meaning to give Ursula K. Le Guin a spin. Checking out Left Hand of Darkness now ...

Also ... Nabokov's Ada? Is that really a SciFi thing?

>Feminism!

>For Charles, sine quo non

Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog" would be a good one to include.

Oh great.

Now I feel like I better take a spin with the book of Enoch sometime.

Thanks a lot Le Guin.

Stranger in a Strange Land

>>4593463

Esoteric conversations, knowledge of history is vital, symbolism, symbolism, symbolism

>>4593727
>>Borges. Your choice of title(s)
>Could you name one shot SciFi story by Borges?

He doesn't write Sci-Fi, but he's so influential to the genre you have to put him somewhere. In the "almost sci-fi" section, I guess.

C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy:
>Out of the Silent Planet
>Perelandra
>That Hideous Strength

It's been years since I've read them, but they're fucking brilliant.

Huxley?

Thomas Pynchon maybe

>>4593390
>borges

>no one mentioned the Strugatsky bros

>>4596114
yeah the way the specific characters and the overall mindset of the sanatorium was portrayed as a microcosm of European relations completely went over my head until about the last 20% of the book
its definitely a book that requires multiple readings

>>4593397
What's the novel to the right of The Recognitions?

>>4593727
The Aleph. It's a Twilight Zone kind of sci fi. I have a short story collection of his and I've only read two so far. Unfortunately it doesn't have Library of Babel, which I think would also be a good choice.

Another Twilight Zone kind of book I've heard of was Locos here.

>racing genre fiction

All these pleb shits

>>4596869

Petersburg by Andrei Bely

>>4596878
SciFi? I pictured the stuff made of stone, mortar and wood, it even has jungles and huts. People fight with knives and firearms, not weird SciFi devices.

Borges can't be put in any genre but I think he's closer to fantasy anyway.

This is cool. More charts please. I want to get into literature.

>>4593387
>literary science fiction

>Stoner

I believe we can definitively erase that one from the list. I have witnessed common plebeians reading it by the street, as well as amongst top sales books in hip and somehow left-winged oriented libraries. It's a pity, because it is a good book in fact, but not obscure nor sybilline enough to be considered exit-level.

I suggest "Laura the Warholic" for post-modernism

>>4598109

Exit level doesn't mean obscure or sybilline

Exit level refers to exiting life

i.e. suicide

Blindsight by Peter Watts is a good one.

A Voyage to Arcturus, Lindsay
Shikasta, Lessing
Book of the New Sun, Wolfe
His Master's Voice, Lem
Last and First Men, Stapledon
VALIS, Dick
The Lathe Of Heaven, Le Guin
Dhalgren, Delaney
Self-Reference ENGINE, EnJoe

>>4598111
Then, how would you explain the fact that there are many books in the mentioned list which aren't explicitly themed towards suicide?

I think we should configurate a solid and elaborate basis of what exit-level means.

>>4598114

They aren't really about suicide, they make you want to commit suicide.

>>4598109
Yeah, it really blew up in 2013 for some reason. Was it recommended by Oprah or some shit? My aunt gave it to my dad for Christmas, and to put that in some context, the year before she bought him The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.

>>4598118

Tom Hanks and BEE and Ian McEwan all said good things about it.

>>4598111
Couldn't it mean both suicidal books and obscure books? A sort of double entendre?

>>4598120
I'd imagine that was because of the hype rather than the cause of the hype, though. I mean on Amazon Stoner has more user reviews than the works of Dickens now. When I tried to buy it after first hearing about it on /lit/ and worldliteratureforum a few years ago it wasn't even stocked by Amazon.

Ian Banks
Yevgeny Zamyatin
Ursula K. le Guin

>>4598121

Maybe. I've only read three books on there, and the others that I've heard are supposedly depressing. Having an old study about Depression on there is fitting.

Never read any Lem, where should I start?

>>4598147
Solaris is his most famous but it hasn't been given a decent English translation. His Master's Voice and Fiasco are probably the best options open to an English reader.

>>4593387
I'm sorry, but how would a book "exit-level" qualified?

>>4598186
>I'm sorry, but how would a book be qualified as "exit-level"?

>>4593447
The Dispossessed is a fucking masterpiece.

bump

>>4598118
It made Waterstone's Book of the Year for 2013, which, all things considered, is fucking awesome seeing as it was published in the 60s.

How fitting that the book, and Williams, never received the recognition they deserved. It went out of print after a year for Christ's sake

>>4593547

>books are hard

For the love of god, what's a exit-level book????

>>4598111

No, it refers to works that one would read when realizing /lit/ is far more plebeian than its denizens think, thus exiting this virtual community. Though, most probably stay beyond that point.

> PKD
> Atwood
> Vonnegut
> Heinlein
> Asimov

I thought your list was supposed to be exit-core, not entry-level.

>>4599562
You finally read everything you were supposed to read in high school. You read the "classics", liked some, stopped reading others. You started really liking literature, beyond what your friends could provide conversation for. Young adult books you used to rush through became less and less enjoyable. You keep going back to dead writers for prose that makes you in awe and emotional charge that makes you wonder why these books are not read and reread by every human with a heart. Your tastes developed and evolved, it makes you sad you don't like your old stuff but more and more avenues opened to your consumption. You keep reading. /lit/ got you into fine literature, but you keep seeing the same discussions on entry-level books. You already read those! You find a discussion here or there about new books you really like, but you find you've outgrown this board. You hesitate to call the readers pleb because they're just in the position you were in a few years ago. You see this list and finish it extremely fast, but there's no discussion on the books here, save a few. Your tastes are too different and outlook more developed than the one 4chan caters toward. With fond memories of the place, you stop going on /lit/, not consciously, you're just done with what it offered. Toward better pastures and something, you exit.

Those are the books you take when you go, the ones geared toward where you are now, at the confluence between /lit/ and what is to /lit what /lit/ is to when you and your friends talked about fantasy novels. You go on your way.

>>4593387
>Machado de Assis
nice.

Not read the thread but it would have to include Delany, LeGuin, Harrison, Wolfe, James Tiptree, and Disch. And probably Swanwick. And not in a million years Atwood or Vonnegut or any of the classical golden-age Big Names.

I think 'exit-level' literary fantasy would be more interesting since I think the oddities and the more literary things are more interesting in fantasy, but I also violently disagree with the tastes of most fantasy fans so it's a bit of a dilemma

>>4599676
This is one of the best posts I've seen in a long time

the stars my destination

It doesn't sound to me like OP meant to create an exit-core SF list, but just a literary SF list. He posted the exit-core list, but wasn't that basically pic not related?

>>4599729
love the book & its well worth reading but it's not particularly literary nor is it especially obscure

the main thing that's good about it is the color and power of the imagination in it

>>4599710
You're saying Atwood and Vonnegut are not literary?

>>4599746
Well I don't think they're especially good but I also thought it was more an exit-level thing, not a specifically literary thing

>>4599676
...fuck, brother

for how much I call you all faggots I love you guys

I would add Frank Herbert.

>>4599676
I love you.

>>4599676
>what is to /lit what /lit/ is to when you and your friends talked about fantasy novels

what is that, other than Friday beers with a group of English professors at dark bar

Consider adding PKD's The Last of the Masters. It's a collection of short stories. Some of them are pretty bad but some are great. And they're all short; a good thing for someone who's trying to get into sf.
By the way, what's /lit/'s take on Dangerous Visions? Is Again, Dangerous Visions better? Some of the stuff feels dated or pretentious, but there are really quite a few gems. And I like the idea that I finally get to read something about the authors and their take on their own work. Afterwords should be excercised more often.

this is one of the best threads I've seen in awhile

>no Atomised

It might not be good, but it's straight up kill-yourself-core

>>4593497

>Excession/Consider Phlebas
>Not Use of Weapons before either of those

>>4598109
I'm really pissed off that it got so popular. Someone on the BBC recommended it as far as I'm aware and then it started cropping up in book-shops everywhere, even in shop windows.

>>4599841
so what? Its a great book and you can be a hipster if you want and say you liked it before it was cool

It deserves some recognition, its a great book

>>4599817
Read the OP first.

>>4598173
They released a new translation, but its only available digitally/on Amazon.

>>4593390
Borges is not post-modern.

>>4593387
>wolfe
no
>dick
no
>atwood
no
>vonnegut
yes
>lem
yes!

Clarke and Asimov aren't very literary

>>4600293
How can you say Asimov is not literary? He does bring up philosophical questions in his works.

>>4600305
he doesn't have muh purple prose ergo not literary

How has no one mentioned Harlan Ellison yet?!

>>4600335
I disagree. Asimov's prose is certainly purple by today's standards.

Kobo Abe (The Ark Sakura and Inter Ace Age 4) should also be included in SciFi canon.

>>4598112
This. Possibly Spin by Robert Charles Wilson too.

Assuming OP is just doing a literary SF list and not exit-level.

Also, don't ever include Never Let Me Go in these lists. A lot of people seem to think it's some groundbreaking masterpiece just because it's written by someone that doesn't typically delve into SF, but it is utter shit.

Mann but no Musil?

The Man Without Qualities is a definite must, the best book of ideas I've read so far.

I had to scroll halfway down the post before I saw Huxley. If you're going for cerebral sci-fi (with PKD and Vonnegut I assume that's what's going on) you got to include Huxley.

Definitely Alfred Bester. His 'The Stars My Destination' is a favorite. Read it, you'll love it. Bradbury's 'Martian Chronicles' and his 'Illustrated Man' short stories are fantastic as well. He's got a different style as opposed to Asimov or Heinlein.

Niven's 'Ringworld' and most of Arthur C. Clarke