I didn’t vote

So there’s this poll from NPR on the best science fiction and fantasy books of all time. (So far!) Both books and series are on the list; you are supposed to vote for up to ten of them.

I couldn’t do it.

For one thing I’m not thrilled with the list – there’s a lot of stuff missing, and apparently they deliberately decided to exclude YA. (Y?) This means for instance the Narnia books and The Hobbit are missing, but the Out of the Silent Planet series and LOTR are there. There are a few other obvious omissions, for instance Good Omens and Godbody just in the G’s. Then there’s inclusion of two Discworld books, but not the series. There’s a note saying they listed books by series if they’re consecutive stories but not if they’re more loosely connected. This methodology makes sense to me, but any selection of best Discworld books that doesn’t include so much as a disdaindul sniff from Granny Weatherwax is certainly not my selection.

There’s also a more subjective factor: I have some trouble in voting for Dragonflight because I know how bloated the series has become. That’s unfair because later books shouldn’t take away from how awesome the first few books were. There’s also the tendency to want to share the love, but if I think that, for instance. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers are two of the best, should I only pick a token Heinlein and then choose stuff by someone else, since I have limited votes?

But what really made it impossible for me was Old Man’s War. I think that’s a better book than a bunch of the older ones on the list, but it couldn’t exist without them.. So do I vote for the one I think is better or the one that’s more influential? Connie Willis also made it difficult; I love To Say Nothing of the Dog, and I don’t love The Doomsday Book, not being a fan of darker works. However, I do think most people would say the latter is probably artistically better. So do I vote my own taste or my sense of artistic consensus? And am I just being deluded by the misperception that something fun can’t possibly be as good as something serious? I don’t believe that when I think about it, but I am susceptible to it as sort of a background assumption.

The other point is that I just don’t feel qualified to pick! I am a bad skiffyperson, because I’ve read less than half the stuff on that list.

ETA: OK, OK, I voted, because enough people told me I was overthinking (apparently “enough” = 3). Basically I took a quick run through the list and checked off the ones where I know I muttered “wow” or sat stunned for a minute when I first finished the book. Or dived right back into it again.