MobyD's Science Fiction/Fantasy Lenses

I've been reading science fiction most of my life. Although I do read other stuff, I'd say probably 80% of the bookshelf space in my apartment is devoted to science fiction collected over the years.

I remember reading a short story collection my sister had. I was in my mid-teens. But it wasn't until I was 18 that I checked out the science fiction shelves in the local library. I borrowed Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, read his other robot stories and went on to his Foundation trilogy (there were only the three novels in that series back then). I went on to read Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and many more authors active up through the 1960s. I kept reading SF almost exclusively through the '70s and into the '80s. I broadened my interest over time, but never really stopped reading SF.

When I moved to the Portland, OR area in 2000, one of the first places I went was Powell's Books downtown. They have a huge selection of SF and Fantasy, probably more than I'd ever seen in one store before. The nice part is Powell's sells used books right alongside the new books, so occasionally I'd come across some rare gems. Since 2000 I've been reading more SF.

When I got interested in Squidoo, my first lens was about Spider Robinson because I've been involved in some online forums devoted to his books and his philosophy of "Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased" that is part of his Callahan's Saloon series. I created lenses for a few other SF authors who didn't have them yet, plus Jasper Fforde, whose "daft novels" as he calls them, have science fiction elements in them. When I got a Nook e-reader in September 2010, I got interested in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books and created five lenses for them which I soon combined into one multi-page lens. Because of that and some other recent reading, I've chnged the title of this lens to include fantasy.

In December 2007 I created a couple of series of lenses, one for the Hugo Awards and one for the Nebula Awards, with each category divided into full or partial decades. In January 2011 I replaced the Hugo lenses with one six-page lens, Hugo Award Winners: Novels with an expanded listing of other awards each winner and nominee has been nominated for or won. I've found that both the combined Discworld lens and Hugo lens do far better in Squidoo's lensranking than any of the separate lenses did.