Worlds Without End Blog

Here at Worlds Without End we love lists.  Lists of great books that cover the many different aspects of genre fiction.  And from time to time we’ll add a new one to our ever growing list of lists that we get particularly excited about and this is one of those.  An LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Resource is our curated list of the best in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer speculative fiction.

This list was a project started by Uber User Stephen Poltz (spoltz) in reaction to our 2015 LGBT Reading Challenge when he could not find a good source for challenge books to read.  Steve cherry-picked the Lambda and Gaylactic Spectrum awards along with many other resources online and combined those books with some of our own member selections to create a list that we hope you’ll agree is a great resource that highlights the works of an under-served part of our genre community.

The list is 178 books so far and we’ll be adding to it as time goes on.  Check it out and let us know what you think.  Don’t forget to check out the reading challenge too.  The 2015 edition is winding down with the year but will be back again in January with a new challenge.

3 Comments | Posted in Recent Additions, WWEnd Updates | Tags: An LGBTQ Speculative Fiction Resource, Book Lists

I’m an occasional reader of The Art of Manliness blog, but somehow I missed a huge book list they posted last week: Fiction for Men as Suggested by Art of Manliness Readers.

Some of the genre book highlights from the list include:

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Posted in Novels | Tags: Book Lists

Due to popular demand, we have added a number of new books that have been adapted to film to our Genre Lit-Flicks list! See the full list below, complete with Instant Video links:

	Babylon Babies, by Maurice G. Dantec Adaptations: Babylon A.D. (2008)
	Battlefield Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard (hey, you asked for it) Adaptations: Battlefield Earth (2000)
	Different Seasons, by Stephen King Adaptations of Collected Novellas: Apt Pupil (1998) The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Stand By Me (1986)
	The Iron Man, by Ted Hughes Adaptations: The Iron Giant (1999)
	Legion, by William Peter Blatty Adaptations: The Exorcist III (1990)
	Planet of the Apes, by Pierre Boulle Adaptations: Planet of the Apes (1968) Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) Planet of the Apes (1974, Television) Planet of the Apes (2001) Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
	Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris Adaptations: Manhunter (1986) Red Dragon (2002) Hannibal (2013, Television)
	The Stepford Wives, by Ira Levin Adaptations: The Stepford Wives (1975) The Stepford Wives (2004)
	A Stir of Echoes, by Richard Matheson Adaptations: A Stir of Echoes (1999) Stir of Echoes 2: Homecoming (2007)
	We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, by Philip K. Dick Adaptations: Total Recall (1990) Total Recall 2070 (1999, Television) Total Recall (2012)

Do you know of more adapted books you want added to our list? Tell us in the comments!

3 Comments | Posted in Film and TV, Genre Lit-Flicks, Recent Additions | Tags: Book Lists, Film

Anyone paying close attention to our novel pages today may have noticed a curious thing. Many of our novels now have a section for “Film & Television Adaptations.” This was added to tie into our brand new shiny book list, Genre Lit-Flicks. This begins our project to build what we hope will be the definitive list of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror novels adapted for feature films and television. Here are some fun facts to whet your appetite:

Did you know…

…the children’s classic The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has been adapted a total of three times: once animated, once as live-action for the BBC, and most recently as a special effects extravaganza by Disney?

…John Carpenter’s horror film The Thing (1982) was adapted from the novel Who Goes There?, which also spawned the film The Thing from Another World (1951) and the prequel The Thing (2011)?

…legendary actor Marlon Brando’s most infamous role was in the critically panned The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)?

…the novel The Body Snatchers was adapted four times as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Body Snatchers (1994), and The Invasion (2007)?

…auteur director Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker was an adaptation of the SF Masterworks novel Roadside Picnic?

…the ur-Horror novel Dracula has been adapted to film so many times we didn’t even try to list them all?

These and many other fun facts await your perusal at the Genre Lit-Flicks list.

But wait… there’s more!

That’s right! In addition to providing our loyal WWEnd members with the most comprehensive and up-to-date list of genre novel adaptations, we are launching a new blog series entitled Hell is Adaptations (series is not yet rated), which will document our ongoing trudge through the mire of Hollywood’s idea of what makes for good genre storytelling.

See any glaring omissions in our list? Think we should add a book to our database that was made into your favorite movie? Let us know in the comments below! Just be aware that we are not planning to add adaptations to the list until they have a theatrical or (shudder) direct-to-DVD release. We do know that World War Z is on its way, thanks…

13 Comments | Posted in Film and TV, Genre Lit-Flicks, Novels, Recent Additions | Tags: Book Lists, Film, Television

I love a good list. From Letterman’s latest Top Ten to IMDb’s Top 250 Movies to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted I can’t get enough of them. Especially book lists! They fascinate and infuriate in equal parts and provide endless points for discussion and contention among fans. Especially when the list purports to be the "best of" something or other.

Genre fiction is replete with "best of" lists and based on your response to the 20 SF/F/H Lists we have here on WWEnd it seems you folks can’t get enough of ’em either. No sooner do we post a new one than we start getting calls for another! I love it. There are so many out there I doubt we’ll ever run out of new ones and since each list offers a different take on what’s best we’re perfectly happy to keep adding more.

We’ve added some new ones recently–including one just yesterday–that you guys asked for specifically and we wanted to let you know they’re up. Enjoy!

Damien Broderick and Paul Di Filippo’s book list, from their new book Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985–2010, is a continuation of David Pringle’s Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels. Pringle passes the torch in a foreword to the new volume: "Having been unable to keep up with all those new SF works myself, I am delighted that Damien Broderick and Paul Di Filippo have taken it upon themselves to do the job, and I am very happy to endorse their excellent book."

David Pringle has written several guides to science fiction and fantasy. His famous book, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, is a highly regarded primer for the genre. In 1988 Pringle followed up with his Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels (1946-1987). Primarily the book comprises 100 short essays on the selected works, covered in order of publication, without any ranking. It is considered an important critical summary of the field of modern fantasy literature.

Worlds Without End has over 800 reviews of some of the best books in science fiction, fantasy and horror. These reviews have been submitted by our members and range from simple opinions ("This book sucked!") to well reasoned technical reviews of some of your favorite genre books. We’ve created this list so you can find all the reviewed books in one place and, if you’re a logged in WWEnd member, you can use BookTrackr™ to easily find reviews for any of the books you’ve read.

6 Comments | Posted in WWEnd Updates | Tags: Book Lists, BookTrackr, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Earlier this month Locus Magazine published its 2011 Recommended Reading List. "This recommended reading list, published in Locus Magazine’s February 2012 issue, is a consensus by Locus editors and reviewers…" of the best books published last year. These books make up the core of the Locus Awards Poll.

We’ve just finished adding the missing novels to our database so you can’t say you have nothing new to read now. Check these out and let us know what you think of the list. What do you like on this list? Is there something missing that should be there? Dont’ worry, you can vote online until April 15th!

Novels – Science Fiction

• Daybreak Zero – John Barnes (Ace)
• Grail – Elizabeth Bear (Ballantine Spectra)
• Leviathan Wakes – James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Clockwork Rocket – Greg Egan (Night Shade Books)
• This Shared Dream – Kathleen Ann Goonan (Tor)
• 7th Sigma – Steven Gould (Tor)
• Deadline – Mira Grant (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Earthbound – Joe Haldeman (Ace)
• 11/22/63 – Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
• Wake Up and Dream – Ian R. MacLeod (PS Publishing)
• Firebird – Jack McDevitt (Ace)
• Embassytown – China Miéville (Ballantine Del Rey; Macmillan)
• All the Lives He Led – Frederik Pohl (Tor)
• The Islanders – Christopher Priest (Gollancz)
• Enigmatic Pilot: A Tall Tale Too True – Kris Saknussemm (Del Rey)
• Heart of Iron – Ekaterina Sedia (Prime Books)
• Rule 34 – Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
• Dancing With Bears – Michael Swanwick (Night Shade Books)
• The Children of the Sky – Vernor Vinge (Tor)
• The Courier’s New Bicycle – Kim Westwood (Voyager Australia)
• Zone One – Colson Whitehead (Doubleday; Harvill Secker)
• Vortex – Robert Charles Wilson (Tor)
• Home Fires – Gene Wolfe (Tor; PS)

Novels – Fantasy

• The Heroes – Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz; Orbit US)
• The Dragon’s Path – Daniel Abraham (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Heartless – Gail Carriger (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Fallen Blade – Jon Courtenay Grimwood (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Alchemists of Kush – Minister Faust (Narmer’s Palette)
• Hidden Cities – Daniel Fox (Del Rey)
• The Uncertain Places – Lisa Goldstein (Tachyon Publications)
• Raising Stony Mayhall – Daryl Gregory (Del Rey)
• The Magician King – Lev Grossman (Viking)
• Redwood and Wildfire – Andrea Hairston (Aqueduct Press)
• The Kingdom of Gods – N. K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• A Dance with Dragons – George R. R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
• The Cold Commands – Richard K. Morgan (Ballantine Del Rey; Gollancz)
• Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles – Kim Newman (Titan Books)
• The Book of Transformations – Mark Charan Newton (Tor UK)
• Mr. Fox – Helen Oyeyemi (Picador UK; Riverhead)
• The Hammer – K. J. Parker (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• Snuff – Terry Pratchett (Harper; Doubleday UK)
• Briarpatch – Tim Pratt (ChiZine Publications)
• The River of Shadows – Robert V. S. Redick (Del Rey; Gollancz)
• The Wise Man’s Fear – Patrick Rothfuss (DAW; Gollancz)
• Deathless – Catherynne M. Valente (Tor)
• The Folded World – Catherynne M. Valente (Night Shade Books)
• Among Others – Jo Walton (Tor)
• Mistification – Kaaron Warren (Angry Robot UK; Angry Robot US)

Young Adult Books

• Abarat: Absolute Midnight – Clive Barker (Harper; HarperCollins UK)
• The Mostly True Story of Jack – Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
• Chime – Franny Billingsley (Dial)
• Red Glove – Holly Black (McElderry)
• Beauty Queens – Libba Bray (Scholastic)
• Eona – Alison Goodman (Viking; Angus & Roberson)
• Twilight Robbery – Frances Hardinge (Macmillan; Harper as Fly Trap)
• The Shattering – Karen Healey (Allen & Unwin; Little, Brown)
• Huntress – Malinda Lo (Little, Brown)
• Planesrunner – Ian McDonald (Pyr)
• A Monster Calls – Patrick Ness (Walker UK; Candlewick)
• The Akata Witch – Nnedi Okorafor (Viking)
• Mastiff – Tamora Pierce (Random House)
• Scrivener’s Moon – Philip Reeve (Marion Lloyd)
• Across the Universe – Beth Revis (Razorbill)
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs (Quirk)
• The Freedom Maze – Delia Sherman (Small Beer Press/Big Mouth House)
• The Highest Frontier – Joan Slonczewski (Tor)
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor (Little, Brown; Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making – Catherynne M. Valente (Feiwel and Friends)
• The Boy at the End of the World – Greg van Eekhout (Bloomsbury USA)
• Goliath – Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse; Simon & Schuster UK)
• Across the Great Barrier – Patricia C. Wrede (Scholastic)
• The Space Between – Brenna Yovanoff (Razorbill)

First Novels

• Debris – Jo Anderton (Angry Robot US; Angry Robot UK)
• The Girl of Fire and Thorns – Rae Carson (Greenwillow; Gollancz as Fire and Thorns)
• Ready Player One – Ernest Cline (Crown; Century)
• God’s War – Kameron Hurley (Night Shade Books)
• The Desert of Souls – Howard Andrew Jones (St. Martin’s)
• Of Blood and Honey – Stina Leicht (Night Shade)
• Soft Apocalypse – Will McIntosh (Night Shade Books)
• The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday)
• The Tiger’s Wife – Téa Obreht (Random House; Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
• Low Town – Daniel Polansky (Doubleday; Hodder & Stoughton as Low Town: The Straight Razor Cure)
• Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti – Genevieve Valentine (Prime Books)
• Blood Red Road – Moira Young (McElderry; Marion Lloyd)
• Seed – Rob Ziegler (Night Shade Books)

1 Comment | Posted in Awards | Tags: Book Lists, Locus Award

As part of our YA Genre Fiction Month on WWEnd we’ve added a new list of books for your reading pleasure:

Science Fiction for Young Adults: A Recommended List by David Brin

Why post a YA list by David Brin? Well, he’s David Brin for crying out loud – which is reason enough for me. And it’s a really good list. But mainly it because Mr. Brin has been actively working to spread the gospel of SF/F to younger fans for many years. I’ll let him explain:

For two decades I’ve been involved in projects to help engage young readers with science fiction, from the AboutSF and Reading for the Future programs to my own WoW Prize and helping establish the Andre Nortion Nebula Award for Young Adult SF. After years replying to personal queries I finally compiled my own recommended reading lists for Young Adults as well as elementary and middle school kids. I hope they prove useful. Good sci fi correlates with vigor, creativity and success, not only for young readers, but for any civilization!

Bravo, Mr. Brin. Be sure to visit the author’s blog, Contrary Brin, to read the original post of the list which contains short intros and commentary for each of the books.

So what do you think of this list? Anything you would want to add or take out? How many of these have you read? Check your reading stats to see. I’ve only read 16 out of 89 but I’ve got a half dozen more on my reading list.

2 Comments | Posted in YA Genre Fiction Month | Tags: Book Lists, David Brin, Science Fiction

Today we added a new book list to WWEnd: Easton Press Masterpieces of Science Fiction. From the Easton Press website:

Masterpieces of Science Fiction spans the entire history of the genre and encompasses an extraordinary range of work… from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and more.

Easton Press puts out those amazing leather-bound books you’ve probably lusted over at one time or another. I’ve got a few in my collection and I’m always on the lookout for more – if the price is right. I shudder to think what the whole set must cost!

While we don’t have the actual Easton Press cover images for the list the 139 books on it represent some of the best in genre fiction under any cover.

Take a look and let us know what you think. How many of these have you read? How do you think it compares to some of our other Book Lists?

No Comments | Posted in WWEnd Updates | Tags: Book Lists, Easton Press, Science Fiction

As part of our relentless efforts to add every celebrated genre novel to our site, we have finally begun adding novels explicitly in the Horror genre to WWEnd. While many books in our database have arguably been more Horror than Science Fiction or Fantasy, our excuse was that they could still be labelled as Dark Fantasy or that they had some elements of Science Fiction. October, appropriately enough, is going to see an expansion of WWEnd into the Horror genre, and while we haven’t quite yet added enough books to fill the historical records of any Horror awards, we decided to go ahead and gather together a genre reading list, and the Horror Writers Association’s Horror Reading List fit the bill perfectly. Here’s how they describe the list:

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) was formed, in part, to foster a greater appreciation of dark fiction among members of the general public. Whether you are new to Horror, or simply want to become familiar with some of the classics and ‘bests’ of dark fiction, the following books are a wonderful place to begin.

Also be on the lookout for an upcoming series of blog posts starting this week from Rico and I about some of our favorite scary books.

3 Comments | Posted in Recent Additions | Tags: Book Lists, Horror

Last month we posted the NPR: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books list to WWEnd. The list was built from over 5,000 nominations and voted upon by over 60,000 SF/F fans on NPR’s website. The resulting list is an odd one to say the least and has received mixed reviews from fans – both for the books it contains, or does not contain, and for the strange construction of the list.

The list includes entire series counted as one "novel" like the massive 33 volume Xanth Series and the 14 volume Vorkosigan Saga along with a couple incomplete series such as The Kingkiller Chronicles, so far only 2 volumes, and George R. R. Martin‘s A Song of Ice and Fire which currently, and likely for a couple years longer at least, stands at 5 books. There is also the inclusion of the Watchmen and The Sandman comics into a list of best novels to contend with too. I won’t even get into the books and authors that are missing!

Despite some strange choices and other peccadilloes, it’s been the general consensus here at WWEnd, and with many fans that we’ve talked to, that it’s a perfectly fine "fan favorite" list but not really a serious contender for a "best SF/F novels of all time" list. Compare it to a more sober and wider ranging list like Guardian’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels or The ISFDB Top 100 Books to see what we mean.

The best thing that the NPR list has going for it is the newly minted and extremely geeky awesome decision-matrix-flow-chart-info-graphic-thingy™ from SF Signal. Click the image to read the article and to see this thing it all its full size glory. I’ll wait… Back? OK, is that amazing or what? It actually makes me care about the NPR list now. This is a work of mad genius! I love following the decisions through all the gyrations and the pithy, sometimes snarky, comments along the way make it wicked good fun. I especially like the thread that leads you to Military SF that ends with "Who shall we fight? –> Everyone –> Old Man’s War." Calls in the comments section to make this into a poster have quickly been answered so you can get an 11×17 printed version for your very own. Schweet.

So what do you guys think of the NPR list and the SF Signal’s art work for it? What other lists would you like to see get this kind of treatment?

Update 10/03/11: In a successful bid to out-do themselves, the guys at SF Signal have turned their excellent flowchart into an excellent interactive guide. Now you can click through the decision matrix one step at a time until you get to a book you want to try. You can traverse up and down the line and chase down different paths like a choose you own adventure for adults! Clear proof that the SF Signal nerds are more nerdy than you.

5 Comments | Posted in General | Tags: Book Lists