
Re: The Left Hand of Boredom? LOL
Most of the time I think the book is a classic of the genre and worthy of accolades. Their is a sci-fi motif in which the author creates a world much like our own and changes only one important fact to explore the effect this change has on everything.
Other times I think they were just eager to find sci-fi book written by a woman to place on the classics list and show the genre is not completely dominated by White Males.
The other books you mention are, in my opinion, simply great. In particular I'd like to thank you for mentioning
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. This is one of my favorite books and Robert A. Heinlein is often unjustly overlooked when listing the grandmasters of the genre. He was the first writer to put a sci-fi book on the NY Times Bestsellers list; for a time he was the only sci-fi writer capable of placing a book on that list. For example: "Stranger in a Strange Land won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Novel and became the first science fiction novel to enter The New York Times Book Review's best-seller list. In 2012, it was included in a Library of Congress exhibition of "Books That Shaped America".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_ ... range_LandOff the top of my head I remember Heinlein had #1 Bestsellers with
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and
To Sail Beyond the Sunset¹. But, again in my opinion,
Stranger in a Strange Land cannot be considered anything but one of the top ten classics of the genre.
¹As an aside, this title is taken from the poem
Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, which reads, in part:
Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die. Always been a big fan of that poem.