par-tay

[jazzfish]

With a good deal of assistance from the amazing uilos, my apartment was made to look more or less presentable and well-stocked in time for the housewarming yesterday. We got to spend some time with selki, pooka798, heptadecagram, scraun23, fishy1, elf, airncbuh, Mo, and pictsy, wonderful people all. Played some games, baked some ziti, watched that Christmas classic Santa Vs. the Snowman, and in general enjoyed the company. I should do this again sometime. Partly because, well, I've got all this snacky food left.

And then I woke up this morning and had a pretty good omelet, and tea, and checked the mail to find a paycheck from the freelancing job I did three weeks ago. And once the first load of laundry comes out of the dryer I'm heading out to pick up airncbuh, and we shall raid the Tower Records at Fair Lakes for Xmas presents. Life is good.

---

According to the SFBC (bastion of literary merit and taste that it is), these are the fifty most influential spec-fic books of the back half of the twentieth century. Or something. I could bitch about the presence of certain eighth-rate Tolkien rip-offs on this list, or the absence of various works, but in general I think they did alright.

Bold the books read, italicise the ones unfinished, strikeout the ones hated and put an asterisk next to the ones loved.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov* (sentimental reasons; I'd probably like it less coming to it fresh today)
Dune, Frank Herbert
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin*
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick (this is only on here because of the movie)
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe*
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett (though I've read other Discworld)
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison (I've read one or two of the stories from this)
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison (ditto)
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card*
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling (waiting on number seven before I get started)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley (it's on the List)
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny*
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien* (. . . the hell?)
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer (this one was okay, but Riverworld went quickly downhill)

Huh. Missing more than I'd thought.

Comments

[elf.livejournal.com]

Somewhere in there I missed that it was a housewarming type party, else I would have mentioned that your place looks great. Thank you for including me/letting me crash - 'twas much fun.

Also, since you're handing out game names: what is the name of the fabulous buildy game of much destruction that brings joy to my inner dinosaur?

[jazzfish]

Aw, thanks! And you're most welcome; was fun indeed.

That would be Villa Paletti, although there's also a larger (2x? 4x?) version called Palazzo Paletti.

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

Perhaps there should be a gargantuan version played at Origins. With a ladder.

why uilos originally wanted to play Villa Paletti on Satyrday :

[jazzfish]

'Rocky, you've really gone all-out this time . . . '