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?

Comments

Show some love for Arthur

[Newrad]

Where the hell is the Arthur C. Clarke?

Re:Show some love for Arthur

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Somewhere in Sri Lanka, I presume.

Re:Show some love for Arthur

[IngramJames]

Forget Arthur, and forget Pratchett!

Are they seriously trying to tell me that "The Complete ZX Spectrum ROM Disassembly" doesn't make the list?

OK, it's not fiction, but the sheer beauty...

</uber geek>

Enders Game

[Catskul]

Where is "Ender's Game"?

Re:Enders Game

[Otter]

Tolkien? Jules Verne? (I'm not a devotee, but she has a huge geek following -- Ayn Rand?) That other woman who writes those coma-inducing books the sci-fi buffs drool over, ummm, Ursula LeGuin?

Re:Enders Game

[Anonymous Coward]

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

What?! No J.R.R?!?!

[Pastey]

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!

Re:What?! No J.R.R?!?!

[afidel]

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.

Ringworld...

[mikael]

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?

Re:Ringworld...

[aldeng]

They re-did the story and called it Halo.

What about Tolkien?

[j1m 5n0w]

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?

Re:What about Tolkien?

[JeremyALogan]

...I myself am wondering about the conspicuous absense of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Is the Lord of the Rings not geeky enough?

I think that counts as the Geek Bible.


Shamelessly stolen from Chris in the original thread.

Re:What about Tolkien?

[snookums]

I've personally re-read it 4 times in two different languages

It doesn't count unless one of those languages is the original Quenya.

Re:What about Tolkien?

[nizo]

You haven't read the Silmarilion until you've read it in the original Elvish.

Anyone who knows the similiar Star Trek quote this is derived from can safely assume right now that he will die a virgin by the way.

Re:What about Tolkien?

[Anubis350]

I even have the wife and kid to prove it!

Ahhhh.. so you mean you're not getting laid *anymore*?

Burn karma, burn!

Re:What about Tolkien?

[meringuoid]

You haven't read the Silmarilion until you've read it in the original Elvish.

Nobody alive in the world has ever read the Silmarillion in the original Elvish. JRRT read it in the Red Book of Westmarch, where it was included as Bilbo's Translations from the Elvish; this would have been written in Westron, the common language of the countries of northwestern Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age. He translated the Red Book into the English with which we are familiar, and later published Bilbo's diary There and Back Again and Frodo's The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King as fiction because nobody would take all this elf stuff seriously otherwise. The Translations from the Elvish seemed to have posed more difficulty in translation to English and in editing, though Christopher has done a pretty decent job in cleaning up the conflicting versions to give us the Silmarillion we know today.

Before there were geeks

[Quirk]

E. Abbot's Flatland

s/Stranger /Moon Is a Harsh Mistress/

[bcrowell]

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.)

Re:s/Stranger /Moon Is a Harsh Mistress/

[trurl7]

I must respectfully comment on a few of your claims. While I agree with you that Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a wonderful book, I find that your comments about it being "better" than Stranger in a Strange Land, and that Stranger is "a less mature work" to be a little bit...let's say highbrow. First - what are your qualifications in judging one work "less mature" than another? Second, you say Heinlein "succumbs" to the authorial mouthpiece temptation. Whether it is something that one "succumbs" to is, I feel, debatable, but let's consider this from a different angle:

If Jubal is an "authorial mouthpiece", and this is bad, then please elaborate on the roles of Lazarus Long in Time Enough For Love (and almost any other novel he's in), Lt. Col Dubois in Starship Troopers, Prof. De La Paz in Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Boss in Friday, the main character's friend (can't remember his name, he eventually becomes a major) in Revolt in 2100. The list goes on. In almost every serious book that Heinlein wrote (and many of the less-serious, pure fun ones), there is an older/mentor type character that is, effectively, the author's voice. Sometimes this function is distributed (consider Number of the Beast - which almost explicitly switches the authorial mouthpiece), it is sometimes absent initially, but then comes out at the end (e.g. Job: A Comedy of Justice, with the Devil being the mouthpiece). If you feel the "authorial mouthpiece" is a failing, I wonder how you regard the rest of Heinlein's work. And I emphasize - Prof. De La Paz is yet another "mouthpiece".

Finally, I believe your thesis is confused. MIAHM is primarily a political work - it examines the moral and practical questions of political and ruling structures. SIASL is primarily a work on individual morality - one's relationship to oneself, his surroundings, and humanity in general. Likewise, Time Enough For Love examines aspects of morality in love and sexuality, and Starship Troopers examines an individual's responsibility to his country. I feel that they can not be compared in terms of which is a "better" book. I can acknowledge that we can discuss how polished, complete, or "mature" if you will, a work is. And in some sense, I do agree that Stranger is a bit rougher than Moon is a Harsh Mistress. But I hope you will agree that in discussing the works of such a great master, we should exhibit a bit more circumspection in our speech, rather than postulating blithely that A is a "much better book" than B.

Re:s/Stranger /Moon Is a Harsh Mistress/

[michael_cain]

Especially since this is "geek novels". SIASL is a geek fantasy -- grow muscles by thinking them, beautiful women falling over themselves to have sex with you -- where TMIAHM's leading character is, well, a grown-up geek. I would be reluctant to lose either of my real arms but there have certainly been times when jobs would have been easier if I could just pop on the old "number three arm". Besides, the ending of SIASL was obvious and no one really dies. Two of the central characters don't make it in TMIAHM, a much more grown-up treatment.

Re:The Colour of Magic is a weird choice...

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

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.

Summary of Comments

[NilObject]

Let me save us all a great deal of time and summarize the oncoming flood of comments:

My literary preferences are better than yours!

chronicles of narnia

[Odocoileus]

Where many young geeks got their start.

"I, Robot" not a novel

[harlows_monkeys]

"I, Robot" was not a novel. It was a collection of short stories.

"books by rating" at iblist

[j1m 5n0w]

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.

Start Neal Stephenson

[Comatose51]

I just started Cryptonomicon recently and was persuaded to do so after reading this Wikipedia article. It's incredible. Bruce Schneier invented a crypto system based on playing cards for the novel. It's this depth that I find so fascinating with Stephenson. It may be fiction but there's a great deal of fact/truth underneath.

Re:The Colour of Magic is a weird choice...

[Z0mb1eman]

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.

Roger Zelazny

[farker haiku]

The Amber Chronicles. That is all. If you haven't read it, do so.

Not bad as top 10 lists go...

[H0p313ss]

I've read 8 of the first 10 but only two of 11 - 20. Since I've been reading S.F. for 25 years I find that a little odd.

What would I add? Off the top of my head:

1. Utopia - Thomas More
2. News From Nowhere - William Morris
3. Startide Rising - David Brin
4. A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge
5. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
6. Little Fuzzy - H. Beam Piper
7. The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Leguin
8. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
9. Ringworld - Larry Niven
10. To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Philip Jose Farmer
11. Inherit the Stars - James P. Hogan

And what about Tolkien? Can't have a geek list without a Hobbit or an Elf getting in the way!

Good Omens

[ZahrGnosis]

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.

Re:The Colour of Magic is a weird choice...

[hotzeyboy]

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.
.

Missing: Egan, Stross, Sterling

[Nova Express]

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

Hyperion...

[gmuslera]

.. by Dan Simmons. As with Dune, Enders Game (also missing), etc, the rest of the serie could not be as good as the 1st book, but still, is one of the best sci-fi books i had read so far.

Why Stephenson is great

[typical]

Stephenson is great because he writes about technology in a way that doesn't shatter the illusion for anyone who knows anything about technology. Unfortunately, most writers do this, because they don't know beans about technology. Stephenson is an ex-hacker (though since he is now in the business of propagating memes, and he described this in his first book as "neurolinguistic hacking", maybe he still considers himself a hacker).

Re:The Colour of Magic is a weird choice...

[TheRaven64]

I think my favourite geeky touch was the cryptographical engine whose acronym was E.N.I.G.M.A. (also not spelt out, and also only spotted on the second reading). The geek references have always been there though. In The Colour of Magic (I believe, possible The Light Fantastic) there is a druid talking about people wanting to upgrade to the latest 33 Megalith stone circles - published when a 486 DX 33 was top of the range.

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.