The Books I Haven't Read

[coalescent]

Last night, when various OUSFG types were gathered in the Pink Giraffe restaurant in Oxford, a frustratingly familiar observation was made: that I am intimidating because I am so widely read. This post exists purely to prove to tinyjo and others that I'm not. For starters, it's a given that I haven't read the classics: no Dickens, no Austen or Bronte, no Salinger, no Wodehouse, no Proust or Joyce or Heller or Pynchon. But even within my chosen genres, sf, there are many, many notable authors that I haven't read. So: here we have the Top Ten SF Authors I Feel I Should Have Read:

10. Mervyn Peake. Suddenly, everyone's citing him as a reference point; describing an alternate history of fantasy literature that doesn't include Tolkien. But I haven't read Gormenghast. I've seen the TV adaptation, but I'm sure that's only a shadow of the book.

9. Richard Morgan. Purely through prejudice, this one: for a long time, nothing I read inspired me to pick up Altered Carbon. Slowly, enough people whose opinions I respect have suggested I might be an idiot for taking this view to convince me to at least borrow a copy.

9. Frank Herbert. I've never read Dune or any of its sequels, although again, I've seen the film.

7. JG Ballard. I haven't read Drowned World, or The Concrete Island or even, so far as I can recall, any of his short fiction.

6. Robert Heinlein. I think I might have read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, years ago, and possibly a short story here or there, but nothing else. No Stranger in a Strange Land, for instance.

5. Alastair Reynolds. I had an allergic reaction to the short story 'Galactic North' when it appeared in Interzone, and consequently avoided anything bearing Reynolds' name for years. Eventually, it was the novella 'Diamond Dogs', collected in Infinities, that changed my opinion, and since then I've sought out and enjoyed a number of his other short stories - but I still haven't read any of his novels. This year I at least want to read Chasm City and Century Rain.

4. Ursula le Guin. I read the Earthsea books when I was a teenager, and liked them well enough, but whenever someone mentions The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed, my eyes glaze over. I know they're books I should read at some point, but the will is lacking.

3. Dan Simmons. I don't have a word of this author. No Hyperion; no Endymion; no Ilium. Partly, it has to be said, because I feel culturally inadequate; since I've also never read The Canterbury Tales or The Iliad, I worry that I Just Won't Get It.

2. China Mieville. The big contemporary author, and the only story of his that I've read is the PS Publishing novella, The Tain. Perdido Street Station has been on my to-read list since its publication, but never seems to get any closer to the top of the pile.

1. William Gibson. I haven't read Neuromancer. Isn't that terrible? Arguably the most significant sf novel of the past twenty-five years, and I haven't got around to tracking down a copy. Hell, I only read Pattern Recognition because snowking forced it upon me.

I could pick more; for instance, I stalled half-way through Use of Weapons, which is the Banks novel that everyone raves about. The only Chris Priest I've read is The Separation; the only M John Harrison, Light. No Delaney or Disch, and precious little Dick. So when people tell me I seem well and widely read, I feel like a fraud; at best, through a subscription to Locus and regular visits to sites like The Agony Column and The Alien Online, I've read about most things, so I know where my gaps are. But it seems to me that that's a very long way from not having gaps at all.