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?

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?

[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.

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.

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.

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.

Re:Ringworld...

[aldeng]

They re-did the story and called it Halo.

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.
.