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Top 20 Geek Novels
Malacca writes "The Guardian's computer editor Jack Schofield has posted a list of the Top 20 Geek Novels in English since 1932. The polling method is unscientific, but it throws up some interesting choices. Definitions of 'Geek Novels' aside, the usual suspects like Neal Stephenson and William Gibson feature, but Terry Pratchett's 'The Colour of Magic' at #9? Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" at #17?" What would you put on that list?
RTFA... its freeking #1 on the list.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
I was thinking the same thing. The movie is actually closer to "Caves Of Steel" by Asimov. (i.e. murder, detective, robot etc. etc. etc.)
Brunner's Shockwave Rider should be there, as should be the Adolescence of P-1.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'm glad someone mentioned "Good Omens". For anyone who has heard of Neil Gaiman OR Terry Pratchett and hasn't read this book: you're really missing something. It happens that my favorite author for a while was Pratchett, and a good friend of mine was into Gaiman... we recommended the book to each other with serendipitous timing, and it's been a favorite ever since. Highly recommended.
Great 70's book on a computer program taking over. Worth a read.
While I love all the discworld books, "Going Postal" would definately be the one that I think belongs on this list. It even has a bunch of hackers named the GNU(which is still a recursive acronym), talks about packet space and involves a very low tech spoofing exploit.
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I think they polled a not-so-well read segment of the geek population. Anyone who loved 1984 and H2G2 (which made spots 2 and 1 on the list) should have also read Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan. It fills the space inbetween those two seemingly disconnected books we love so much; in many ways it is the literary bridge from 1984 to H2G2, and one of the greatest works of modern fiction on its own. A fan of either (or both) would see the connections readily, and appreciate it, and it certainly belongs in that list with them.
11*43+456^2
Actually, there was no story named "I, Robot" in "I, Robot". The stories in "I, Robot" were:
There is a story named "I, Robot", but it is not an Asimov story. It was written by Eando Binder and published in 1939.
"Bruce Schneier invented a crypto system based on playing cards for the novel."
Ah, yes, Solitaire. Not that I really believe you're going to use it, but FYI, it's broken.
It's not by chance, either. Paul Crowley, the guy who broke Solitaire, also tried to invent a strong manual encryption algorithm and failed.
Not that I'm in the league of those guys, but I've been working on the problem myself and it's not easy.
Boffin
"The word appeared during World War II, where it was applied with some affection to the people who invented radar, early digital computers, the atomic bomb, and other technologies that gave the Allies an advantage over the Axis during the war."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin
I've always prefered and will continue to use Boffin. It's a good word that encapsulates all the good of geek and nerd, is a bit more academic. It also has none of the baggage, except perhaps for absent mindedness.
--
Colm
More to the point, he invented five languages as a hobby, and then wrote a book to go with them.
Definately a geek...
This sig all sigs devours
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a must-read, IMO. It raises some points about war that hold true even on today's tiny scale (who started it? why is it still going on? what the hell are we fighting for?)
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Ahem, not quite. It's Christopher Plummer, and the original quote goes something like this...
"You have not heard Shakespeare until you have read it in the original Klingon!"
Guess who's coming to dinner...
He is fairly open about being gay. He won a court case against the british newspaper which made the pedophilia allegations against him.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Another geeky author I can recommend is Jasper Fforde. The Well of Lost Plots, the penultimate book in the series that started with The Well of Lost Plots would appeal to many Slashdot readers (read the earlier ones first though) dealing, as it does, with the topic of DRM. Set in the book world, the world inside fiction, Thusday Next, litterary detective, discovers that the next version of the book OS (an upgrade from the old 8-plot system to a new, improved, 32-plot system with all sorts of extra features) contains a system which prevents a book from being read more than three times. It's full of references to classic literature and more geeky references (a large number of comments about old versions of the book OS, for example, held for old versions of MS DOS). A good read for anyone, and the book to use to explain DRM to your less technically inclined friends.
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To quote my wife, who has read them all (ender's game, speaker for the dead, xenocide, children of the mind, ender's shadow, shadow of the hegemon, shadow puppets, as well as Songmaster, the call of earth, and probably more - she reads alot):
"Orson Scott Card is an author who can't write a sequel to save his life."
~Will
sig?
Interesting. If I remember correctly, the first words of the book were There was Eru. Now, Fangorn tells us that in Old Entish any name is actually in itself the story of what it names. He himself, as perhaps the oldest living thing in Middle-earth (AFAIK only Bombadil, the Maiar and maybe Cirdan are of the same kind of age) has a truly spectacular name that would take days to read in full.
Now, given Entish naming conventions, what would the name of Eru Iluvatar be like? It seems to me that the Entish name of Eru would in fact be a complete history of Creation, including the entire Silmarillion, because the whole thing is part of Iluvatar's story. It would, then, certainly take several weeks just to read the first page - but you'd be finished after word number three.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
RTFA: since 1932. Hence, no Verne either.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."--Feynman
And if you like pTerry, but you're pretty sure you're not getting all of the jokes (or, better yet, if you actually think you are), you have to check out LSpace (ie: Library Space) and read the annotations. Woefully out of date, they're worth spending a couple of hours on in no uncertain terms.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Apparently you read it in school. Please reread (especially "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", which is the author talking directly to us) and learn more than the schools want you to know.