Readers vs Critics

[coalescent]

[Poll #937877]

Comments

[razorsmile.livejournal.com]

I voted for the Bakker and of course, Blindsight. Both books cover surprisingly similar themes despite being so enormously different in genre and subject matter. Also, both were just pretty goddamn good books.

[owlfish]

I've only read one of the books on this list and felt ambivalent about it. I have several more lying around to be read, however.

I voted based on which list was more appealing, based on what I've read and heard about the books on them.

[stegoking.livejournal.com]

The readers list is ever so much better that it's absurd to even compare them. Any list of the best of 2006 that lacks Blindsight, The Lies of Locke Lamora, and The Thousandfold Thought is a list to throw away.

Granted, the Readers List ought to have Empire of Ice Cream and The Road, but the editors screwed up putting them 6th and 10th respectively, so they barely get any credit there. A biography as the best genre fiction book of the year, however good it may be, is bloody absurd.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Any list of the best of 2006 that lacks Blindsight, The Lies of Locke Lamora, and The Thousandfold Thought is a list to throw away.

It's a list of best books of the year, not best genre fiction of the year. And while I admire your dedication to objective truth in matters that many would consider subjective, I find it hard to fault anyone for thinking the Tiptree bio is a better book than any of those three. And I really, really like Blindsight.

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

The only ones I've read off this list are Girl Genius which I found mostly underwhelming with occasional interesting moments, and Farthing, which was only good once I got to the end (cumulative quality -- an interesting thing, were the book only really becomes worth reading once you've actually read it) and at that point was good, but not great. I normally love Jo's stuff, but I'm not sure why this didn't spark. It felt vastly less inventive than previous eforts, even though I know it had a lot of terribly clever stuff going on.

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

Temeraire and Forest Mage are books I am looking forward to reading, though I don't generally recommend Robin Hobb except to fantasy readers.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly surprised Farthing and Temeraire are beating the Tiptree bio, I have to say.

[wychwood]

Caveat being that I've only read three and a bit (I've read the Ford story, but not the book) of the books listed *g*. I'm looking forward to several more of them, though.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I anti-recommend Hobb's book, and I like some of her other books a lot. How shall I phrase this...?

HORRIBLE. AWFUL. DREADFUL.

Boring, slow, really slow, I hate the hero, and nothing happens in the entire VERY LONG book except every single person he meets berating him for being fat and occasionally trying to kill him because he's fat, while he has magical eating dreams and berates himself for being fat.

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. The first book had elements of that, and felt like a very long digression in places. You're making me wary of reading the second, now.

[kelyantar.livejournal.com]

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that of all of these, I've only read Forest Mage, and can't in any way recommend it. (Sad to say...I love Robin Hobb)

I've heard good things about the Susanna Clarke stories and Lies of Locke Lamora, from intelligent people.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I think this is the first time in four years I haven't voted in the editors' poll. I just don't read enough new stuff quick enough. The editors' poll is obviously better though.

[stegoking.livejournal.com]

Not at all. 6 and ten are good. The rest are questionable on the editors poll.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

It's weird that they insist on calling it an editors' poll when it's really a contributors' poll.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Also, as official arbiter of poll-related things, what's your take on this fancy-schmancy "view answers on same page" thing lj seems to have instituted?

[frogworth.livejournal.com]

Of course, the question is: to whom? I "recommended" all the books I thought were quite good, but there are some I wouldn't recommend to certain people: Girl Genius, in particular, I enjoy, but it's very fanfic-like really, quite weak in its writing; I just kinda like ol' Foglio. And the Grimwood for once I thought was quite weak, more incoherent and incompletely-realised than usual

[frogworth.livejournal.com]

.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Of course, the question is: to whom?

Well, yes. I suppose one way of looking at the first question is "which list do you think it would be better to recommend to A. N. Reader?" To which I think the answer has to be the editors' list, for variety if nothing else.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I've only read one and frankly, I wouldn't put Locke Lamora on a list of Best Books Featuring Dudes Called Locke Lamora.

Have you got a copy of Glasshouse for me to nick?

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I have if you want - review copy.

[yalovetz]

Argh argh argh! I was trying to look at the results of the poll and accidentally voted in the first question and I can't unvote! I don't know which list is better because I have read precisely none of the books and don't want to read the vast majority of them.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I admit I was wondering if your reading tastes had suddenly changed.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

*\o/*

I never met a poll I didn't like

[xraytheenforcer.livejournal.com]

I felt compelled to vote in the poll. From my perspective, both lists had some things right and some stinkers, but, to me, the Editors List felt contrived. That a biography nabbed the top-spot -- in a year where a slew of fantastic books was released -- just crystallizes all that was off about the list.

Now, individual books can be quibbled upon endlessly. I think Susanna Clarke is the most overrated fiction author to grace bookshelves since, oh, Jonathon Safran Foer, or maybe Bret Easton Ellis. But I realize that many people find her prose moving. Conversely, books like the Bonehunters and Temeraire are clearly the crowd-pleasers, with debatable merits as "literature."

But I guess my main assertion is while the Reader's Choice list is *always* going to be the books that fans *like* (and while that can't be discounted as invalid, it certainly doesn't always yield up the literary gems) I don't think the Editor's Choice list, this year, clearly distilled which books released in 2006 were the superior literary product. YMMV, and all those other disclaimers.