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Top 20 Geek Novels

Posted by Zonk on from the stephenson-has-a-posse dept.

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?

20 of 563 comments (clear)

  1. Show some love for Arthur by Newrad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where the hell is the Arthur C. Clarke?

    1. Re:Show some love for Arthur by PokerAndroid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Rendezvous with Rama

  2. Enders Game by Catskul · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Where is "Ender's Game"?

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    1. Re:Enders Game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
      A previous post by Jack Schofield clears up this omission.
      http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/20 05/10/26/what_are_the_top_20_geek_novels_updated.h tml
      I'm in two minds about Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's a brilliant story, no doubt about that. Orson is also geeky enough -- in the 80s, he even worked for a computer magazine to which I contributed. But Ender's Game is a straightforward story with a twist. It doesn't force you to keep rewriting your mental maps, like, say, The Eye in the Pyramid.

      Seems like he defines a great geek novel as one that expands your horizons instead of confirming your expectations and worldview.
      On a related note, here's a list of books that will induce a mindfuck. http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1016251
  3. What?! No J.R.R?!?! by Pastey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comon, a list of the top 20 geek stories and Lord of the Rings isn't on it?! This is a list made about nerds, not BY nerds!

    1. Re:What?! No J.R.R?!?! by afidel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A guy who writes FIVE seperate languages just for a book is a hardcore geek. I mean he invented Elvish (including Quenya and Sindarin), Dwarvish (Khuzdul), Entish, and Black Speech. He might not have been a technology geek but he was definitly a geek.

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  4. Ringworld... by mikael · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I thought the "Ringworld" series by Larry Niven would have been worth a mention.. whatever happened to the movie that was supposed to be in production?

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  5. What about Tolkien? by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Where the hell is the Arthur C. Clarke?
    That is a good question, but I myself am wondering about the conspicuous absense of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Is the Lord of the Rings not geeky enough?
    1. Re:What about Tolkien? by General+Wesc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I consider the Silmarillion that.

  6. Bruce Sterling by mr.henry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wah, no Bruce Sterling? But he has a powerbook and writes for Wired! Surely this is enough to be in the pantheon of geek writers! I am shocked and apalled.

  7. s/Stranger /Moon Is a Harsh Mistress/ by bcrowell · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is a much better book than Stranger in a Strange Land. (Heinlein himself thought so.) He started working on Stranger back in the 40's, and didn't publish it for a long time --- partly because he thought the world wasn't ready for it, and partly because he wasn't sure how to execute it successfully. It's a less mature work that really doesn't show him at the peak of his powers. He succumbs to the temptation to have Jubal Harshaw act as the authorial mouthpiece all the time, and both the minor characters and the major ones are flat and unbelievable.

    The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is in some ways a recap of the same idea: replace the human raised on Mars who doesn't understand normal humans with a newly sentient computer who doesn't understand normal humans. Although both are satires, Mistress is the more effective one, IMO, because it concentrates on satirizing one thing (republican government) rather than everything all at once. (And don't make the mistake of missing the satire in Mistress, as many people do. Life in the original penal colony as portrayed as a kind of anarchist utopia, whereas the revolution screws everything up by creating the evils of government.)

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    1. Re:s/Stranger /Moon Is a Harsh Mistress/ by kn0tw0rk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There should have been Starship Troopers - ok the movie adaptation was crap, but the book was so much better.

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  8. Re:The Colour of Magic is a weird choice... by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Discworld needed to be represented in the list and TCoM was simply the first one in the series. I agree though that it should have been a better Discworld book. I'm not sure which one, but Small Gods is definately in the top 3.

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  9. chronicles of narnia by Odocoileus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where many young geeks got their start.

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  10. Rant by viksit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Usual rant about Tolkien and Clarke. But are we seeing only Sci Fi type novels here? I thought a lot of people would've loved stuff like Robert Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick's books. The moon is a harsh mistress, and Riverworld are amazing books.. And who in the world voted AGAINST the king of cyberpunk - Neuromancer?!

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  11. "books by rating" at iblist by j1m+5n0w · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is not quite the same thing, but iblist maintains a list of top books by rating. Geeks are disproportionally represented in their user base, so this is a not entirely unlike a "favorite geek books" list.

  12. Re:The Colour of Magic is a weird choice... by Z0mb1eman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Small Gods was indeed amazing... though the night watch books tend to be my favourites.

    I'm not at all surprised to see Terry Pratchett on that list. Part of what make his books so enjoyable for me are all the small geeky touches... a magic manual whose name has the acronym MS-DOS (never actually spelled out for you... only noticed it on my second read)... pretty much anything that has to do with Unseen University - most of it rings oh so true for anyone who's ever been at an engineering or science university... All the references to technology, quantum mechanics, evolution, communications (heck, he's practically got an entire networking book in Going Postal)... Our society's technological history (and not only technological, to be fair) can all be found, in the context of a world where magic exists, and IT ALL MAKES SENSE - in its own twisted Discworld fashion.

    Yeah, you could say I'm a Terry Pratchett fan :p

    And my guess is the Colour of Magic is on the list because it's the first of the Discworld series. You can't really put all of them... they wouldn't fit in a top 20 :p

    Ahh, just noticed that the poll is from the UK... it makes a lot more sense now. Discworld is - for some reason - not quite as popular on this side of the pond. So if you haven't read any of the Discworld books, do yourself a favour and pick one up - yes, it's technically fantasy, but it's the funniest and most intelligent fantasy you're ever likely to read.

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  13. No Umberto Eco?? by jedZ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Foccault's pendulum should definitely be in any top 10 list worth the name

  14. Missing: Egan, Stross, Sterling by Nova+Express · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Two notable absences are Greg Egan's Permutation City (among others) and Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archive and the stories in Accelerando (among others), and Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire and Distraction (among others). All are hardcore Geek works of real brilliance. Permutation City in particular was published about the same time as Snow Crash, and is both a better and more important novel.

    http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/lame.html

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  15. Not only is it unscientific... by bob+whoops · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe the list would be better if more than 132 people had voted. Hell, it looks like there are more comments on that page than people who voted.