Selig will ake eon thy sale next’ ine: uc om@pouseqend Uni s1appr on vi aucin ade cach] scant sa tal eeu ‘ Tes, ibis snducied al an ay adil Ly Cee, angun athe war deli wilal sale nt Ven appedr Bail ace on int Weedbesd: ise agf ine on won [rads rameef aud. M eoualfe ine oy hfe a Tes wih WS nd an Wh sale wr ol G aaah newany . se the ‘the auction "I apy c11on oR he “1 whined. What Makes A Book Great? by Dr. John Flynn (NAPS)—As the millennium drew to a close, dozens of organizations released lists of their respective “100 best.” Of these summaries, few drew morecriticism than the Random House Modern Library’s ranking of the top 100 English language novels of the 20th century—a list which waschosenby their board. Readers, on the other hand, had a different view of 20th cen- tury literature. For example, amongtheir top ten are books by Ayn Rand, L. Ron Hubbard, J.R.R. Tolkien and George Orwell. I Science fiction and fantasy novels top many readers’ lists of the best books of the 20th century. my own personal “100 best”list of the heroic Frodo battles manyevil wholeheartedly agree with these choices, since most of them are on authors and titles. Two emphatically stood out, particularly in field Earth and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (which, for many people, includes The Hobbit). In both of these novels, there creatures, including the sinister Gollum and his master Sauron, to save his fellows from the menace represented by thering. In these times of cynicism and an evident lack of heroes, these books makeclearthat the striving insurmountable odds through the selfless achievement of a noble obstacles, is a trait to be admired and, indeed, emulated. their genres: Hubbard’s Battle- exists a compelling and wellthought-out story of overcoming objective by a very strong charac- ter. In Battlefield Earth, the hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, leads a bat- tle with the remnants of humanity against an armyof intergalactic conquerors, the alien Psychlos. Despite 1,000 years of domination by the Psychlos, Jonnie is able to prove himself by an indominatable determination to make mankind survive. The result is storytelling gold: an action-packed sciencefiction adventure. Likewise, in Lord of the Rings, for and the attainment of a noble purpose, however daunting the This was strikingly reaffirmed when USA Today ranked Battle- field Earth and The Hobbit at the top of their list of best-selling sci- ence fiction and fantasy novels for the year 2000. All of which serves to prove my point—that a book is great when it is irresistibly captivating and carries you swiftly and with a noble objective, from its opening line to its closing statement. Dr. Flynn is a professor ofliter- ature at Towson University.
