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Ask Slashdot: How Could You Statistically Identify The Best Sci-Fi Books?

Posted by EditorDavid on from the turning-thinking-over-to-machines dept.

jimharris writes: Over at SF Signal I wrote a piece "How Well-Read Are You in Science Fiction?" There are three databases that collect lists of popular science fiction books that try to statistically identify the best books of the genre, [offering] combined list that shows which books were cited the most. They use different sets of best-of lists, but their results are often similar. The final lists are, Classics of Science Fiction, Worlds Without End Top Listed, and Premiosylista Comparativas: Comparativas: Ciencia ficcion (Spain).
Interestingly, each list has a different book in its #1 position (though both "Dune" and "Frankenstein" make the top four on at least two of the three lists). But is this really a good methodology for determining the classic canon? What would be the best way to statistically identify the greatest sci-fi books? (And have you read any good science fiction novels lately?)

6 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. define your terms first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You need to define best, greatest, and classic before you can go further in your quest.

    1. Re:define your terms first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And not in the least decide what the definition of the term science fiction is (it's not as easy as it sounds).

    2. Re:define your terms first by TimSSG · · Score: 1, Insightful
      I agree with the below quotes; but, it might be easier to find the best of classic Science Fiction and Fantasy books instead. Tim S.

      You need to define best, greatest, and classic before you can go further in your quest.

      And not in the least decide what the definition of the term science fiction is (it's not as easy as it sounds).

  2. You can't by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Art/literature/music is subjective. You can't rank them, except personally. Next question.

  3. Re:Why Limit This Contrived Gimmick to Just SF? by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem is that you can't really state your preference.
    If they offered a choice to say "thanks for the recommendation, but I won't be buying this. Ever", the recommendations could be improved.
    On a site like Goodreads, you can state which books you like, and it uses that information to recommend others; worked quite well for me in the past.

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  4. Re:Looking backwards, not forward... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, the best you can do is just judge people by their individual merits instead of worrying about group X or Y.

    Unfortunately, people will look at a book and decide not to read it because a women wrote it. As several commentators on Slashdot has already mentioned: "the best science fiction is written by men." In fact, some women writers wrote under a pen name because of this obvious bias.

    http://io9.gizmodo.com/5077952/women-who-pretended-to-be-men-to-publish-scifi-books