What is the best work of American fiction of the last 25 years?

[Gene Ward Smith]

Here's the New York Times on that issue:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/fiction-25-years.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Gene Wolfe, Tim Powers, Vernor Vinge, Lois M. Bujold, Neal Stephenson
and many others all failed to make the cut. However, both Roth's The
Plot Against America amd Helprin's Winter's Tale got multiple votes. So
my suggestion is that if you wamt to write sf and have the literary
establishment take note of you, try alternate history.

[Mike Schilling]

"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1147379178.8...@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...

Or simply be known by the establishment for other things first.

[Gary Thompson]

I'm surprised Helprin made the list, but not Pynchon or Crowley.
Interesting.

[Ken from Chicago]

"Gene Ward Smith" <genewa...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1147379178.8...@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...

Best "how"?

-- Ken from Chicago

[horseshoe7]

... but DEFINATELY TRY Socialist BS.

The NY Times is full of Left Wing crap - only socialists and communists
read that rag.

- Stewart
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/California_Minutemen/

[johan....@comcast.net]

Looking at the list of judges, I see only two have any connection to
SF: Stephen King* and Jonathan Lethem. It looks like we weren't invited
to the ball.

Did any of the other types of genre literature (horror, romance,
mystery, ...) do any better?

Johan Larson

* I would give a fair sum to know who King voted for.

[johan....@comcast.net]

Just for yucks, what books would make the shortlist for Best American
SF Novel of the Last 25 Years?

Johan Larson

[johan....@comcast.net]

Best at reinforcing the reader's conviction that he and others like him
are a small but vital force fighting for truth, wit, and liberty
against vast lowbrow hordes with really bad dental hygiene.

Johan Larson

[Ingeborg Denner]

"horseshoe7" <horse...@yahoo.com> schrieb:

>
> Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>>
>> Gene Wolfe, Tim Powers, Vernor Vinge, Lois M. Bujold, Neal
>> Stephenson
>> and many others all failed to make the cut. However, both Roth's The
>> Plot Against America amd Helprin's Winter's Tale got multiple votes.
>> So
>> my suggestion is that if you wamt to write sf and have the literary
>> establishment take note of you, try alternate history.
>
> ... but DEFINATELY TRY Socialist BS.
>

Yeah, *that* would explain Helprin.

inge

[Ken from Chicago]

<johan....@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1147403581.1...@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Natch.

Which is why I hate those generic "best" lists which never state HOW
something or someone is the "best".

-- Ken from Chicago

[Ken from Chicago]

<johan....@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1147403034.7...@j73g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Best how?

-- Ken from Chicago

[Randy Money]

King and Lethem have the most direct connection.

Harold Bloom is aware of genre, seems open to writers like John Crowley
and Ursula Le Guin, inlcuding works by both and by Mervyn Peake, I
believe, in his list of the great works of the Western Canon, and even
more openly and publicly has disdained King. Similar things could be
said about John Leonard, who used to have a 5 minute segment on CBS'
Sunday Morning show and occasionally used it to say good, erudite things
about mysteries.

Michael Chabon wrote _The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay_ which
has ties to comics fandom, a character from which now has his own comic
book. His _Summerland_ was a YA fantasy, I believe, and his last novel,
_The Final Solution_, was a Sherlock Holmes pastiche. At least one of
his short stories appeared in a Datlow/Windling Year's Best. Ditto
Louise Erdrich.

Carlos Fuentes wrote an fine ghost story (novella), "Aura."

Alice Hoffman's _Practical Magic_ is a fine fantasy novel with flashes
of horror. Much better than the movie version; though the movie was very
well cast, after that they apparently couldn't afford a script writer.

Stewart O'Nan has flirted with genre: _Speed Queen_ is, from the blurbs,
a hard-boiled thriller; _The Night Country_ is a solid ghost story in
homage to Ray Bradbury; _A Prayer for the Dying_ is arguably one of the
most affecting horror novels of the past 25 years.

Cynthia Ozick has written some fantasy, but danged if the titles are
coming to mind. I think short stories, though maybe one of her novels --
the one that won a fairly major lit. award -- also applies.

George Saunders is weird. Nice guy, but his stories are weird. At least
the stories in _CivilWarLand in Bad Decline_ tightrope walk between
fantasy, horror, surrealism, post-modernism, and just silliness.

So, not exactly a strong representation of genre, but a list of judges
not entirely unaware of it, either. I'd be curious to find out all the
titles that came up.

Randy M.