Top 10 Best — or Worst? The Art of the Fan List

I always perk up when I run across a fannish list. Best horror scenes, best sci-fi, worst comic-book heroes — I love it. But have you noticed how often these lists disappoint? Clearly we need some criteria for writing them. Or at least an excuse to highlight some fun lists from around the Web.Which this is, also.

1) Quirky topic. Top 10 Servers in the Movies. Real Men Love Fifth Element. Top 10 (And Bottom Eight) Sci-Fi Midgets. Worst Videogame Haircuts.

2) Not too long. Rotten Tomatoes’ Journey Through Sci-Fi is 100 entries long! That’s just work.

3) Brisk, insightful commentary. I like The Best and Worst Sci-Fi TV Show Openings.

4) But not too much of it. Top Shootouts should be a great list, but the author talks too long. And is boring.

5) Still, there should be some. Why would anyone want to read through Sci-Fi Lists’ List Of The Best 100 Sci-Fi Books? It’s just a bunch of titles! I guess maybe if you’re the kind of person who cares passionately about the ranking of Dune in relation to Ender’s Game … but if you’re that kind of person, you need to try GeoTrekking or something. Or just read some new stuff. A similar failure: Yep, Rotten Tomatoes’ movie list (See item 2).

6) Entries you wouldn’t have thought of yourself. Lists should give you ideas about stuff to check out or revisit, as with Best Comic Book Adaptations.

7) Pix. Viz: Top 10 SF Films That Never Existed (my perennial fave)

WHAT DOESN’T MATTER:

1) Intro. Like, The Top 10 Superhero Deaths of All-Time starts off with a story about the guy’s dog. Bleah.

2) Authority. Professionally-written lists seem to have been conceived as a way for the writer(s) to avoid penning an actual article that week. Pajiba.com is a well-regarded film site, but its list of the Top 10 Worst Blockbusters is workmanlike.

2) Well-justified choices. If you need to justify your choices with more than a short paragraph, you shouldn’t be making a list. You should be writing a 3,000-word, spun-out rant about how obsessed you are with the item in question.

Random fun lists:
Best Nerd Getaways
Top 10 reasons to hate Star Trek (It always comes back to Star Trek…)

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