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everyone has heard of.</li>
<li class="packed"><u>The Stand, by Stephen King</u>: See above about horror.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-553-56261-4.html">Snow Crash</a>, by Neal
Stephenson</u></strong>:
One of my favorite humorous SF books, plus features the trademark
Stephenson infodumping and some neat bits about building a virtual
world.</li>
<li class="packed"><u>The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury</u>: On the list to read.</li>
<li class="packed">Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut: Need to track down and read.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u>The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman</u></strong>:
Quite possibly the best comic book series ever written. Utterly
brilliant. The one set of graphic novels that everyone should read at
some point in their life.</li>
<li class="packed">A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess:
Huh. Not really on my radar to read, although of course I've heard of
it.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-441-78358-9.html">Starship Troopers</a>, by
Robert Heinlein</u></strong>:
Also overrated, particularly since it's not much of a story. It's an
extended and multifaceted political essay, which isn't as simple as it
appears to be. The movie, quite contrary to the negative impression
people have of it, is a delightful parody of how the book comes across
on its surface reading.</li>
<li class="packed"><u>Watership Down, by Richard Adams</u>: Yeah, yeah, I know I should read it.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u>Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey</u></strong>:
I loved the Pern books as a teenager up until the point when the just
became retellings of the same book from a new perspective. I'm afraid
to re-read them.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-425-03436-4.html">The Moon Is A Harsh
Mistress</a>, by Robert Heinlein</u></strong>:
Much, much better than <cite>Starship Troopers</cite>. One of the better
non-juvenile Heinleins. Still not as good as people think it is.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-553-37926-7.html">A Canticle For
Leibowitz</a>, by Walter M. Miller</u></strong>:
I was disappointed in this given how much people like it, but it
deserves some credit for being foundational to post-apocalyptic SF.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-517-26188-Xa.html">The Time Machine</a>, by
H.G. Wells</u></strong>:
More interesting than you might think it would be, given when it was
written and the emphasis on description rather than characterization.
But it still suffers from a lack of characters for me. Hard to come
to this fresh now, since the ideas have been so used elsewhere.</li>
<li class="packed">20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne:
I've seen the movie take on it. I've not felt a strong urge to read
the book, although I probably "should."</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-553-27450-3.html">Flowers For Algernon</a>,
by Daniel Keys</u></strong>:
Unforgettable and very strongly affecting (and depressing).</li>
<li class="packed"><u>The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells</u>: Will read at some point.</li>
<li class="packed"><u>The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny</u>: Will probably read soon.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u>The Belgariad, by David Eddings</u></strong>:
Yeah, I read this as a teenager and quite liked it. But I have no
idea what it's doing on this list; it is in absolutely no way one of
the best 100 SFF works of all time. (Well, that's not true; I know
what it's doing on this list. People have heard of it and read it.
But it shouldn't be on this list.)</li>
<li class="packed"><u>The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley</u>: On the list.</li>
<li class="packed">The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson: Want to read this.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u>Ringworld, by Larry Niven</u></strong>:
Interesting idea fiction with a great sense of scale. Shame the
characters aren't as good as the background. But it's a good book,
worth reading.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-441-47812-3.html">The Left Hand Of
Darkness</a>, by Ursula K. LeGuin</u></strong>:
A deserved classic of anthropological SF with profound things to say
about how culture and friendship are constructed.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u>The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien</u></strong>:
I love this book, but the first section is hard going if you don't
like reading mythology. Skip ahead if you're struggling; the gems are
later.</li>
<li class="packed"><u>The Once And Future King, by T.H. White</u>: Definitely on the list to read.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u>Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman</u></strong>:
I'm not sure I'd put it on this list, as there are better Gaiman (and
Gaiman is already overrepresented), but it's a solid "urban" fantasy
in the old sense of that term. Inventive, with a feel similar to some
of the <cite>Sandman</cite> stories.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u>Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke</u></strong>:
I read this eons ago and can barely remember it. I definitely need to
re-read it.</li>
<li class="packed">Contact, by Carl Sagan:
Liked the movie, have never had any particular urge to read the book.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-553-28368-5.html">The Hyperion Cantos</a>, by
Dan Simmons</u></strong>:
Some of my favorite SF novels ever. The third book is the weakest,
and the fourth book has problems, but I adore it.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/1-56389-470-X.html">Stardust</a>, by Neil
Gaiman</u></strong>:
Really far too much Gaiman on this list. But also a good book.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-380-78862-4.html">Cryptonomicon</a>, by Neal
Stephenson</u></strong>:
Fantastic stuff. Not SF in any traditional sense. It's a combination
of secret history and contemporary thriller. But it's written in the
Stephenson massive entertaining infodumping style, so it feels like SF
and makes it onto lists like this. It's very long, but I've read it
twice and don't regret it.</li>
<li class="packed">World War Z, by Max Brooks:
Have a hard time believing this really belongs here, but I haven't
read it so I couldn't say for sure.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-345-27505-5.html">The Last Unicorn</a>, by
Peter S. Beagle</u></strong>:
Eh, it's not a bad book, but I'm not sure it really belongs on this
list. But it does have an aesthetic that's hard to find in any other
book.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><u><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-380-70821-3.html">The Forever War</a>, by Joe
Haldeman</u></strong>:
A very important response to the whole sub-genre of military SF, and
very influential.</li>
<li class="packed"><u>Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett</u>: Getting to it.</li>
<li class="packed"><em><u>The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen
R. Donaldson</u></em>:
Read the first book, wasn't much of a fan. I might get back to it at
some point, but I'm not particularly eager.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong><a href="https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/reviews/books/0-671-87749-6a.html">The Vorkosigan Saga</a>, by
Lois McMaster Bujold</strong>:
I don't like the early books as much as some, but I love some of the
later books. The last few have been disappointing, but overall very
much worth reading, and belongs around here on the list.</li>
<li class="packed">Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett: Getting to it.</li>
<li class="packed"><strong>The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle</strong>:
Read many years ago and barely remember it. I need to re-read it,
particularly since there's a new sequal by Pournelle's daughter that
t/data/spin/output/journal/index.html view on Meta::CPAN
<p>
has no solutions for integer <i>x, y, z, n</i> and <i>n > 2</i>. It's
infamous for being very simple to state and understand, a variation on the
equation produced by the Pythagorean Theorem, but incredibly difficult to
prove. It's also infamous for Pierre de Fermat's maddening marginal note —
"I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition
which this margin is too narrow to contain." 350 years after Fermat wrote
this, the theorem was still unproven in the general case, although the
theorem for many specific values of <i>n</i> had since been proven.
</p>
<p>
<cite>Fermat's Enigma</cite> is a popular history of Fermat's Last Theorem and
the attempts to prove it, the partial successes and famous failures. It's
also the story of Andrew Wiles, a Princeton mathematics professor who
finally proved the theorem in a complex, brilliant proof that builds on
much of the power of modern mathematics and almost certainly did not
follow the same path that Fermat himself did. If, in fact, Fermat had
truly proven the theorem at all, something that we will probably never
know.
</p>
<p>
Singh comes to this subject with a serious structural problem: he's trying
to write a popular account that's accessible even to people who are hazy
on algebra and unfamiliar with basic proof technique, but he's trying to
tell the story of one of the most complex proofs in modern mathematics.
He tries to avoid the problem by talking about personalities instead of
mathematical details, mostly successfully. It helps that Fermat's Last
Theorem has been tackled by a collection of colorful geniuses, and even
the soft-spoken Wiles has a subtle dramatic charm. Still, he has to cover
enough of the mathematics for the reader to follow, and I found those
sections tedious and a little overdramatized. For example, I can see
using a domino analogy once to explain inductive proof, but Singh belabors
the analogy until it's painful and talks about infinite chains of infinite
dominos as if he doesn't understand that such setups are common in even
simple inductive proofs.
</p>
<p>
An excess of drama, cliche, and reptition are the largest problems with
this book. Explaining why Fermat's Last Theorem is so interesting
requires diving into areas of math that many readers have never paid
attention to, and I got the impression that Singh felt he had to create as
much drama as possible to keep people reading. Occasionally this works.
The circumstances around Wiles's proof are inherently dramatic, a great
conclusion to the story. But at times it feels forced, such as when Singh
goes on about the wonder of absolute mathematical proof and the supposedly
unique way that mathematicians are more rigorous than any other
profession. I enjoyed the bits of history and connection he uncovers and
explains despite his tone, rather than because of it. The book is based
on a TV documentary, and I started wondering if some of the dramatic tone
of television carried over into the book where it's more obvious and less
useful.
</p>
<p>
Another difficulty of aiming at such a broad audience is that Singh can't
dig too deeply into the aspects of this proof that make it so important to
modern mathematics. Too much background in very difficult math would be
needed, so his choice makes sense, but I have some of that background and
I was wanting more. Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem by proving the
Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, a fifty-year-old conjecture about a
connection between elliptic curves and modular forms that had previously
been shown to be equivalent to Fermat's Last Theorem, but which is
considerably more important to the structure of mathematics. The
Taniyama-Shimura conjecture covers a portion of the Langlands program, a
series of conjectures about a deep unity between very disparate sections
of mathematics that, if proven, would permit techniques of one branch of
mathematics to be used to attack problems in a very different branch.
Singh does cover this, but not in as much detail as I would have liked (I
would have loved a good description of modular forms, for instance), nor
does he talk much about the other aspects of the Langlands program or
about the usefulness of the other theorems Wiles proved in the course of
proving Taniyama-Shimura and Fermat's Last Theorem.
</p>
<p>
More detail here is probably a difficult request. From a quick glance
through Wikipedia, it's not clear whether Singh could adequately explain
the impact of the math even to someone with my mathematical background,
and that would be abandoning much of his audience. Still, <cite>Fermat's
Enigma</cite> left me a bit unsatisfied.
</p>
<p>
Worth reading, though, particularly for the last portion of the book. The
detailed story of Wiles's proof is engrossing, dramatic, and matters for
more reasons than just solving a long-standing puzzle. I'm not a big fan
of Singh's writing style, but he does make the story accessible and
includes several interesting nuggets of mathematical history.
</p>
<p>
Rating: 6 out of 10
</p>
<p class="footer">2007-01-14 21:30 —
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