Somebody else's list

A catalogue assembled to prove a point proves nothing. So the works here are pulled out of lists compiled by other people, for other reasons — popularity rankings, a bookseller's canon, readers' own recommendations.

Every entry is read against the same two questions. Does it contain a functioning artificial general intelligence? Anddoes it show you what an ordinary person does with an ordinary day? Anything that answers the second one gets catalogued. So far that is 606 entries across twelve lists.

The point is to find works, not to rank the lists. One good answer in fifty is worth the reading — Ring Around the Sun and Rainbows End each turned up exactly once, and both are among the best entries in the catalogue.

59 of the 69 catalogued works were found this way. The remaining 10 came from elsewhere. More lists mean more works — suggestions welcome.

Suggest a list

Any list compiled by someone else can be read here — awards shortlists, syllabuses, other people's recommendations. The only requirement is that it was not assembled to make this site's argument. Of the entries read so far, 87 are marked with a dash: unreleased, or simply unread, and left unassessed rather than guessed at.