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Flowchart Guides Readers Through the 100 Best SF Books
Hugh Pickens writes writes "T. N. Tobias writes that over the summer, over 60,000 people voted at NPR to select the top 100 science fiction and fantasy books of all time. The result? A list of 100 books with a wide range of styles, little context, and absolutely no pithy commentary to help readers actually choose something to read from it. Now SF Signal has come to the rescue with a 3800 x 2300 flowchart with over 325 decision points to help you find the perfect SF or Fantasy book to meet your tastes. Don't like to scroll? There's an interactive version that let's you answer a series of questions to find the perfect SF book."
You should try looking at the list - there are plenty of contemporary Sci Fi and Fantasy authors on it.
Culture is more than commerce
Current Sci-Fi hasn't been around long enough for it to be influential. It's also not been around long enough for the crap to be forgotten by history. For a neophyte if they pick something new off the shelf it's likely to be crap. If it's not crap, it's likely to borrow heavily from the classics. If it's completely novel (no pun intended), they won't have any context in which to appreciate that. In all these cases the reader benefits from being introduced to the classics first.
Notice that nothing about this argument is Sci-Fi specific. It applies to all cultural works.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
My cynical side wants to attribute it to the genre's turn towards the literary. Aficionados might rejoice that science-fiction finally matured and could claim to be great literature, but casual readers don't want to tax themselves with the challenging prose and labyrinthine plot of, say, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun when Golden Age science-fiction provides a simple tale that can be read in an hour or two.
Dozois's anthologies are a great place to find the standouts of the last few decades. It was his Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction that introduced me to Wolfe, Kate Wilhelm, Nancy Cress, (late-period) Robert Silverberg, Lucius Shepherd and others when I had previously known only pulpish science-fiction.
Not just the Silmarillion, two Stephan King books.
Good to know the middle school (and middle school reading level) was represented in this poll.
Also the red/green mars drek. At least that was low on the list. Stephan King was in the top half for fucks sake.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You might prefer such a strict definition of science fiction, but the list that is the topic of this Slashdot discussion contains not only books where science coexists with fantastical elements, but also outright fantasy. The term "Science fiction" is commonly used to encompass a wide range of genres.
And it has been like that for a long, long time. Wolfe's sequence is hardly more fantastical than e.g. Olaf Stapledon's work, but the latter is regularly seen as a classic of science fiction (and not fantasy). Indeed, it was the prevalence of fantastical elements in Golden Age science fiction that led some to use the term "hard science fiction" to emphasize works that didn't stray from our understanding of physics.
Er...
"I don't mind a few chuckles between explosions" leads to the Culture series (fine) but "I don't have a sense of humor that I'm aware of" and "I just like my action intense" goes to the Vorkosigan Saga? What the hell? Bujold is funnier than most sf on her worst day. And sure, there's _some_ intense action, but just as much, well, character comedy and romance. I'm, er, not sure if the person who did that bit of the flowchart ever actually read the books at all...
The lack of PKD on this list should be considered an embarrassment to the NPR marketing staff.
I realize that clicking links in the submission is considered bad form here, but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is in the upper right corner of the flowchart.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
The term "Science fiction" is commonly used to encompass a wide range of genres
Yeah, most recently as seen in video, Sci Fi is now wrestling, ghost hunting, and giant monster horror B movies. I am unimpressed.
Much like "begging the question" is commonly used completely inappropriately, mostly as a pompous "filler" rather than what it actually means. Again, an emphatic and vigorous "eh".
So back to Wolfe... am I right or wrong, the only thing sci fi about his book is likely to be playing with numbers so the date is in the future, and Maybe some Heinlein style wordprocessor search and replace work where absolutely nothing is changed but the word "telephone" is replaced with "videophone" and "India" is replaced with the word "Mars"? And there's sword fighting, feudal system, and maybe some magic? That's the impression I'm getting.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
For shame. It's probably the wittiest, sexiest, most thought provoking sci-fi novel of the last 40 years.
As has been pointed out numerous times already, it's really "The 100 most popular science fiction and fantasy books among listeners of NPR that could be bothered to vote".
As for the flowchart, which is really the point of the post, they did a pretty good job of it, considering what they had to work with.
It'd be nice if I could make it re-list by weighting the votes.
I like Vernor Vinge, Neil Gaiman, Bujold, George RR Martin, and Neal Stephenson.
I don't like Kim Stanley Robinson, Anne McCaffrey, David Eddings, Dan Simmons, or Arthur C. Clarke (blasphemy! I know!)
If you feel the opposite, kudos to you, but don't complain, my idea will work for you too.
I'd love to be able to have it weigh the votes of the people who liked the same stuff as me more heavily and the people who like the stuff I don't like less heavily and then see what the new top 100 looks like, and maybe pick out the highest placed book/series that I haven't already read from the new list.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
So you already work in Hell.
Quite honestly, I am stunned and shocked that the Gormenghast books are not in there. http://www.amazon.com/Gormenghast-Novels-Titus-Groan-Alone/dp/0879516283
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
I really don't like how Bujold's Vorkosigan series comes after a path where one says no to humor. Sure, they can be pretty serious at times. Bujold has explicitly said that she thinks one of the keys to good literature is making characters have a miserable time (not her exact wording but pretty close). But the light-hearted bits are terribly funny. And even when things are going wrong, a lot of the characters, especially Miles, have such delightfully sardonic attitudes that this shouldn't be there. Frankly, a lot of these paths should lead to the same books as options. Overall, amusing but not a great actual flow chart for the purpose intended.
I think the reason is that they do have much in common, and a large overlap in readers.
Compared to just about any other genre of literature, science fiction and fantasy present an author a blank slate, and let them construct any setting, scenario and backstory they want. Want to explore what relationships would be like in a world where peoples gender changes with the seasons? Go for it. Want to examine what happens to humans when omnipotent Gods choose to be terrifyingly real? Have at it.
Those kind of fundamentally changed worlds can't happen in any other genre, but are the basis of much science fiction and fantasy.
Why is it that people keep lumping science fiction with fantasy?
-- Arthur C. Clarke
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I know that people get very passionate about their Science Fiction writing, but reading some of the responses here you'd think that there was some massive, genocidal weapon aimed to exterminate SF readers.
Get a grip, people.
It's a list. Did you vote? Remember, your favorite author, well, it might not be everyone else's favorite author. The list is based on what people voted for.
Personally, although I've heard of many of these titles, I've read only a small handful, the rest being on my list of things to do when that precious free time returns at some point in the unknown future. And I thought the flowchart was really very entertaining and insightful. Well done, I say! Hear, hear, I say -- perhaps this list will result in a few more people picking up a classic Science Fiction book and reading it, perhaps even enjoying it. Is that really so bad?
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Have you really read Heinlein?
You and I obviously differ, as I enjoy the authors viewpoints coming through their work, so long as it isn't also prothletising, which neither Heinlein nor Ringo are really guilty of.
If the book seems preachy then I quit. But in Palidin of Shadows, while obviously Right leaning, the bias does not harm the storyline, in fact I would argue it helps develop the ghost/kildar character.
Clancy, he gets preachy...
If the sex in PoS get to you then do not ever read Phillip Jose Farmer...
Humans are gritty, fiction tends to outsize our quirks, good and bad, thus there is hero, demon, sex, everything that makes us human is accentuated. To me and my tastes that is fun reading.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Given how much I liked most of the books I *have* read on the list, it makes me feel good about reading a lot of the others. I see it not as a way to find what I like, but rather to find new things to like.
It's been pointed out many times that SF&F actually outsells many of the books listed on say the NYT list of bestsellers. It's just that the editors of those lists exclude certain genres from what they will list. Harlequin romances for example.
Three Squirrels
Get your stinkin' elves off the bridge of my starship!
He is popular for the same reason USA today was once a popular newspaper.
Simple stories, no big words.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I see a lot of complaining about the lack of newer Sci-Fi and Fantasy books in the list. This can be easily explained. It's not specifically because the older authors and series are more well known, though that is definitely part of it. The reason is simply that this was a NPR poll. If you stop for a second, you would realize that NPR's audience trends towards an older demographic. As such, they are more likely to select authors that they have enjoyed over the years. When you get older, you tend to have less time to read (unless you are and avid reader and make time) and are more likely to select books based on proven authors.
Personally, I read a lot of Sci-Fi and fantasy when in university. I went to the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, NB, Canada and they had one of the largest Sci-Fi collections in Canada, if not the Northeast (ranked 10th in the world in 2009). I even got to read the special collection books as I worked as a temp in the library to make some money. It was cool having access and it is only recently, with the development of the kindle and the amazon bookstore, that I've gotten back into reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy as I now have access to more interesting stories than the popular Vampire/Magic/Star (Trek/Wars) that lined the shelves in most book stores.
1) They are the two main ways of doing "imagine if the world was different" fiction.
2) Because of this, there is a large amount of very good fiction (less so in literature perhaps, which seems to attract the purer forms of each, but certainly in media generally) which combines the two. Drawing a line between them would be impossible.
3) And combining the two is actually a quite good idea, because each counters the weaknesses of the other. Science fiction which gets too hard can lose drama by becoming unrelateable and missing dramatic opportunities which don't seem plausible enough, and fantasy which gets too soft can lose drama by making cause and effect too arbitrary, which undermines narrative.
'Ender's Game' the novel is butter scraped over too much bread.
'Ender's Game' the short story was much better. IIRC it was in Pornelle's first 'There Will Be War' collection.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Stephen King is popular because he knows how to tell a good yarn
He used to, long time ago, but he lost the knack - now he mostly just tells a long yarn
Perhaps they should have a top 100 of each decade, as well as a top 100 of short stories.
The early Asimov stories seem timeless, like the one about the kid who avoids the "transporters" that have replaced school buses, and prefers to walk home along the sidewalk and past robotically maintained gardens. Then his parents take him to a psychologist, who gives some common sense advice, and decides himself to walk home to see what it is like.
Different era's were framed by the different war and social situations. 1950's had the fear of overcrowding in cities (before urban sprawl and the suburbs), plus the cold war. Several short stories had the nightmare of people living until they were 300+ years old, allowing accidents between pedestrians and motorists to keep the population down, or families fighting each other to have more kids.
1960's had the space race and many stories then were based on humanity colonising the nearby stars. They projected the idea of biker gangs into space as trading companies.
1970's had the Space Shuttle, fear of pollution killing the Planet (Logan's Run), nuclear war (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), 1980's had space exploration (Rendezvous with Rama, V'Ger, ST:TNG)
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Seems people are simply not aware of the classics very well
Classics like Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, those kinds of classics? You surely can't be talking about this stuff. Please tell me Slashdot's readership is more enlightened than this...
shame on NASA for making space boring
How old are you? NASA put a man on the moon. Think about that for a moment. They put a man on the moon...over FORTY YEARS AGO. You seriously can't see THAT and get goosebumps? There's something wrong with you.
I personally prefer the "it's this world allright, but there is something sinister/secret you don't know about it." Types.
Lovecraft was good for that part, but I eventually wanted yo scoop out my eyes after the umpteenbillionth time I read the word "cyclopean." (That and "fungoid". Really, what's so scary about fungi? Well.. other than the 9ft tall 'stuff your brain in a jar' kind anyway.)
To me, good fantasy and good science fiction do all they can to obey the normal world around the reader, but with a plot that is engaging. If there is a radically overboard hidden detail about the world, it had better be explained why people don't see or report it. (Eg, harry potter's universe has the ministry of magic tampering with memories quite regularly.)
Good science fiction should use technically plausible plot devices, avoid the use of jargon and technobabble (reverse the polarity! That should do it!) and avoid explaining things overtly. Frankenstien is a story that skirts the border between fantasy and science fiction. The monster being revived by electricity was considered possible at the time, due to observations that severed tissues responded to electrical stimulation, but this is not heavily stated in the story.
The trope of "in the future anything can happen!" Should be avoided.
If you are going to use time travel in your sf story, try to follow prevailing wisdom on the science of it. Eg, your "time machine" is really your little spaceship getting caught in orbit of a black hole for a few passes, before using a controlled gravity shot to escape (and subesquently being subjected to highly distorted spacetime, followed by a significan fraction of C in velocity.) Result: you end up in "the future".
If you use some trickery, like "negative energy" to create a time machine that can go into the past (say, via a wormhole), then you should, through the use of the narrative, either establish that your character has lost free will due to a closed time like curve, or that the many worlds hypothesis holds sway. (Rather than preempting your own light cone, you actually landed in a different universe, in order to preserve causality.)
For hard sf with ftl, your ftl should be plausible. It shouldn't be run on magic crystals, for instance. As such, ftl capable vehicles should be large enough to contain the energy source large enough to affect space in the proscribed manner. (For instance, you could have an ablucair (however you spell that) warp drive like system, where you create a linear accelleration field by manipulating the density of vacuum fluctuations. (Even a small deviation from random distribution would create a tiny spacetime ripple, from the difference in the mass of the vacuum. Virtual particles have mass, which is why hawking radiation should work.) Start going fast enough, and you will naturally drag some of your reference frame with you as a result of GR treating accelleration the same as gravity.
The less handvavium in the story the better, but at the same time, you shouldn't get all cerebral about the how's and why's of the plot device. It's a delicate thing many authors screw up.
Really, less is more. That's about the sum of it.
Well of course. Otherwise we would have nothing to talk about, friend. :)
I think you're treading dangerously close to a definition that's going to give you a nasty conclusion: that it's all fantasy and no work of hard SF has ever been written.
For example: got space colonies? Then you must have some magical economic force in your story.
Got highly-accurate genetic predictions? Oh please, your characters have magically accurate embryology models and magically powerful computers to run simulations of those models in better-than-real-time.
My point being, you're going to always be drawing a line somewhere, saying that isn't believable enough to be anything other than magic, whereas this is believable enough so that it doesn't need to be explained in detail. And yet ultimately, that lack of detail is what makes it fiction rather than a patent application. Somewhere within those glossed-over details, there is very likely a Devil. The position of the line is subjectively intuitive.
Let's say we have a 600-page story with apparent telekinesis in it.
In one version of the story, on the last page, the "telekinetic" character finally confesses his fraud to another character and shows the gullible fool the electromagnet under the table and the control switches under the toes of his shoe. The gullible character exclaims, "Damn, you sure fooled me! I'm a little angry, but since the same trick bluffed the spacebugs and ultimately saves all our lives, I guess I ought to be glad." You'd agree this story could be hard SF, right? (Could be, as long as I don't mention the spacebugs are actually dragons and that one of them was slain with a "laser sword.")
In another version of the story, everything is the same, except the fraud is never revealed. The gullible character, and the reader, never find out about the electromagnet. It's left unexplained. Not hard SF? It's the same story!
In a third version of the story, the author is a total bastard. He doesn't reveal the fraud or leave it unexplained. Instead, he lies! And not just to the character, but to you the reader. "Oligonicella looked under the table, and to his surprise, there was no electromagnet. 'It was real magic all along!' he exclaimed with amazement." Damn, what a fucking lie. Fortunately, you the reader don't believe it (even if the gullible character did), because you know there's no such thing as telekinesis. Does the author's damn lie make his story not hard SF? Well, maybe. That's a tough one. What if he sprinkles in a clue or two, such as somebody noticing on page 532 that the table had a scratch mark, as though possibly from the end of a wire?
Shit. That scratch mark could have been left by anything.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Here's a question: How does it make a SF title any better to have been written in the last hundred million seconds out of 100,000 years? Isn't keeping up with the present the domain of the Twitterverse?
Because part of the purpose of the SF genre is to explore what authors think may be the eventual outcome of current trends. Obviously, in doing so, those who are exploring the latest trends are likely to be writing stories that are more relevant to the thoughts of their readers with regards to the same trends. So when I read, say, a Charles Stross story, I might find the authors thoughts about the future importance of virtual economies insightful, and it might provoke me to think myself about what is likely to happen in that direction. On the other hand, if I read an Asimov story about robots, all I get is the story, because the dialogue concerning the development of AI has already progressed well beyond the thoughts that were embedded in those books.
The sense-of-wonder that many of us seek in SF can only be provoked by truly novel ideas, and those are more likely to come from modern books.
Here's something that can be highly frustrating. When a work fantasy has more hard rules that govern how the magic of the world works (which aren't typically broken) than some of the science fiction that is written.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork