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Our Lists Are Different – castaliahouse.com

Our Lists Are Different

Friday , 27, January 2017 9 Comments

You’ve seen their lists. They’re all the same, full of works that everyone in the newspapers, magazines, and author panels seem to agree are the most significant.

But something is off. It’s like there is a whole swath of awesome books that have been weirdly and arbitrarily excluded from the conversation. Just as one example, I see hard core fantasy addicts that always always ALWAYS have their book readers in hand. I talk to them… and it’s like their entire concept of the field runs from Brooks to Donaldson to Jordan to Martin… and that’s it. It’s hilarious because they’ll even complain about it. They’ll tell you straight up that they have a hankering for something they’re not sure exists, something shorter… punchier maybe. Something that actually has an ending or a payoff of some kind…! They have no idea that the fake fantasists replaced some truly awesome works and creators that have not been surpassed to this day. It’s just like the science fiction fans that have no idea what the fake “Big Three” was intended to subvert and displace.

If we want to fix this, we have a lot of work to do. Fortunately, Jagi Lamplighter Wright is leading the charge:

We are actually beginning our Superversive Book List! Our goal is to have a suggested reading list that can be shared about, listing books–from all time periods–that are worth reading! Hopefully, this will eventuall lead to a Year’s Best list and a Superversive Award.

But for now, we are merely compiling a list. The results will be posted in a special Superversive Reading List place.

What is a Superversive book, you ask? A book that lives up to the motto: Good storytelling, great ideas.

Declan Finn is already on board. You should be, too! If you have anything remotely like a book blog, please boost the signal on this. And if you haven’t done so already, please drop your suggestions in the comments!

9 Comments
  • David VanDyke says:

    I think you’d get a lot more signal boost if you had the usual suite of reblog, facebook, twitter and so on buttons at the bottom of each blog post. Most blogs have this so people can share and reblog with one click. Otherwise, people have to copy and paste URLs, etc. which does not always work.

    • Jeffro says:

      You know… I honestly never thought of including those things…!

      I even hide the Amazon links behind an image that doesn’t even look like an ad.

      It’s like some kind of weird internet modesty or something….

  • icewater says:

    Ah, “Handmaid’s Tale”, that classic piece of totally science fictiony science fiction…

  • deuce says:

    I notice that nobody on that list has mentioned H. Rider Haggard yet. Just because he was ABSOLUTELY a “superversive” writer and admired by Arthur Conan Doyle, ERB, Merritt, Tolkien and Robert E. Howard doesn’t mean he should be on the list. SMH.

    This cultural amnesia has to stop.

    • Anthony M says:

      I don’t get your point. If you had actually went onto the site and said “Add Haggard” Haggard would, in fact, be on the list.

      The whole point of what we’re doing is so people could make those types of recommendations.

      • deuce says:

        It looks as if about the time you posted, I was posting over there. I suppose my tone sounded a bit aggrieved. I shouldn’t be shocked that HRH wasn’t on there. I, myself, didn’t start seriously reading Haggard until a couple of years ago.

        It was a revelation. Besides being a truly fine author possessed of outstanding imagination, his influence upon so much later fiction became obvious. It wasn’t just the authors on the Appendix N list that Jeffro talks about. Haggard, the father of them all, was shoved down the memory-hole as well.

  • John E. Boyle says:

    I would recommend H.Rider Haggard and also Talbot Mundy.

    Mundy was a big influence on Robert E. Howard and a very popular author during the 20’s and early 30’s.

  • L Jagi Lamplighter says:

    Please do go add things, folks!

    Jeffro, I third the Facebook/Twitter button idea. I’ve looked for them here before.

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