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What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Jo Walton, Patrick Nielsen Hayden

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As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading-about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volume presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambitious series. Among Walton's many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by mainstream; the underappreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers. Editorial Reviews For readers unschooled in the history of SF/F, this book is a treasure trove.-Publishers Weekly - From the Publisher *11/18/2013 For anyone whose to-read pile is not quite tall enough, this collection gathers 130 of Walton's blog posts from science fiction site Tor.com (July 2008 to February 2011) about her favorites works of sci-fi and fantasy. The books she discusses are not the latest to hit the market, but those that novelist Walton (Among Others) has reread time and again, because something only worth reading once is pretty much a waste of time. These brief essays are perfect for picking at random; binge on too many and the books cited might blur together. In the transition from Web to print, something is lost in translation: it's disconcerting to see questions such as, So, what sort of series do you like? without accompanying comments. At the same time, the themes of the essays interweave nicely; many are meditations on the genre as a whole more than reviews of specific works, and Walton often ties her points back to earlier posts (most notably in the extended review of Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga). Walton intentionally approaches these works as a fan rather than a critic, and she successfully captures the sensation of reading on a personal, sensory level. For readers unschooled in the history of SF/F, this book is a treasure trove; for those who recognize every title, Walton evokes the joy of returning to a well-worn favorite. Agent: Jack Byrne, Sternig & Byrne Literary Agency.(Jan.) - Publishers Weekly
Publication Details

Title: What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy

Author(s):

  • Jo Walton
  • Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Illustrator:

Binding: Paperback

Published by: Tor Publishing Group: , 2016

Edition:

ISBN: 9780765331946 | 0765331942

448 pages. 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.50(d)

  • ENG- English
Book Condition: Very Good
3357y

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Foxing - Wikipedia
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