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Writer lists are hard to make

The SFX Magazine list of science fiction and fantasy’s top 100 writers surprised me, especially when I scanned the full 100.  These sorts of lists always degrade into a sort of desert island scenario for me, and I spend more time rearranging people than reading more good books (which is all I want the list for anyway, to find more great writers).  So I’m not really paying attention to rank order, because how do you measure Harlan Ellison’s screed of invasive, inflammatory, beautiful spleen against Neil Gaiman, who’s quieter, but just as deep, wise, and scary?  I love both their work, and I’m not going to place one over the other.

They’re aimed at the same mark in the end, and that mark is you, dear reader, though Harlan Ellison is more of a surface-to-anything missile with micro-surgery attachments, and Neil Gaiman contents himself with pulling your gizzard inside out by way of your nostrils, after which he very politely gives you a crown of daisies he wove himself.  These men have different methods, that’s all I’m saying, and it might not be fair to judge Douglas Adams by the same stick as Issac Asimov.  Not talking about quality, but about catagories and terms, and what they set out to do.

And, because I’m troublesome like this, some part of me is asking, “Where’s Borges on that list?”

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