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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 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.