Jody Wurl's Top Ten Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

Here's my entry on my ten favorite books (in no particular order) at this point in my life.

• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
  Pizza delivery will never achieve the standard set by this brilliant and funny cyber punk novel, but a girl can hope...

• Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold:
  A Miles Vorkosigan book that explores the complete disintegration of his life when his alter ego, Admiral Naismith, "dies", and how he starts to put the pieces back together again. You laugh, you cry, you can only call it a great book.

• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card:
  A fascinating and respectful look into a frighteningly mature child's mind. People have attempted to ban this book from school libraries because it makes the daring assumption that children have the same social impulses that adults do, including a capacity for violence.

• A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin:
  He builds a politically intricate and compelling world, with characters who keep your interest. Like Guy Gavriel Kay's amazing books (which reflect real history and places in a rippled mirror), and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time (before he lost the thread of prophecy and any sense of brevity).

• The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip:
  McKillip has a gift for beautiful and evocative prose, and she tells a subtle and at times painful tale of an isolated woman with great power who collides with her society. She also wrote The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy, and a number of other gorgeous books.

• Deerskin by Robin McKinley:
  This is a retelling of the fairytale about a princess who flees her father, who wants to wed her. It deals with the subject of sexual abuse honestly and eloquently. McKinley also wrote the book Beauty, a retelling of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast. Disney lifted a lot of her story elements when they wrote their own version. If you love the old tales, you'll love this woman's writing.

• The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien:
  I read these books once a year, and plan on timing my next read to right before December, 2001 when the first of Peter Jackson's film trilogy is released. World building at its literary nexus point. No one had ever done what Tolkien had done before, and many people have tried (some have succeeded) since.

• Any anthology edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow:
  My particular interests are the fairytale anthologies (6 total) that started with Snow White, Blood Red. I love short stories, and many fine writers are represented in these books (the most recent one includes a story by Leah Cutter, former convention volunteer and MN fan). The Armless Maiden is an anthology that focuses on fairytale retellings through the filter that abuse exists, and must be acknowledged. They also edit the annual The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror collections.

• Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue:
  This lyrical book (prose poetry) interconnects the heroines of thirteen fairytales, exploring the roles of these women in a sensual and fascinating way. The most "literary" of my chosen books in the sense that it challenges any preconceptions you have about how to write a story...

• Sunglasses after Dark by Nancy Collins:
  Introducing Sonja Blue, who has become my favorite literary vampire. With a cyber punk look and a horror novel feel, it contains the best of both worlds in its protagonist, the Blue woman, an entertaining mix of vulnerability and violence. Laurel Hamilton's Anita Blake novels, set in an alternate universe that contains similar creatures, do the same for her human heroine.