Quote Originally Posted by Pengwin7 View Post

(Oh, and FWIW, when I said top 25 fiction yesterday, yes... I meant all-time, all-fiction, not just fantasy... but that's my opinion. It's the best story I've ever read... and I've read the Odyssey, the LOTR trilogy, War & Peace, Crime & Punishment, Catch-22, Grapes of Wrath, 1984, Moby Dick, most of Dickens' work, and probably 25%-30% of the all-time revered classic works. Though literary critics won't put it up in the top of lists too soon - they'd all be afraid to be chastized for jumping him there with a finish of the story still pending. And even then, it's like somebody has to die before they can be esteemed into literary hall-of-fame.)
I agree it'll probably be in that area in terms of 'voted by the fans' and in some ways that's all that matters. I doubt it'll ever hit top 100 in terms of where Literary critics place it, but I don't think it's because critics are afraid. It's because they use a different criteria for making their decisions. But who knows, ultimately if people are entertained and love the story (and that much seems clear) then it's done exactly what it sets out to do. I'm not one to place much value in what anyone else thinks when it comes to literature, movies, television etc. My ranking is based 100% of whether I enjoy it/am entertained by it. It doesn't need to have underlying moral questions, or interwoven symbolism and metaphor to rank highly for me. If I love it then I rank it high - full stop!