THE ILX ALL-TIME SPECULATIVE FICTION POLL RESULTS THREAD & DISCUSSION

OMG sara i'm jealous!!!!

Also bcuz there will never be a similar opportunity let me give MAD PROPS to Angela Morley for her awesome wonderstruck score to the Watership movie.

Did Ballard get the most number ones?

xp shakey, are you serious?!

about what

placing LOTR #1 on your ballot

Only 2 of my top 10 made it into this ;_;

No Vance = FUCK YOU ALL IN THE EYE-HOLE

but the pleasure of the novel wasn't about that! Like, as a 7 year old, I really was not interested in seeing the real "watership down." The most enjoyable part of that excursion was teasing my parents with, "Oh look! It's another grassy hill! ... Hey, it's a grassy hill with a sheep! .... Oh, another grassy hill, no sheep."

I placed 3 of 10.

If you had told me to guess which 2 out of my top five would place, I totally would have picked Watership Down over Flatland, lol

I had 4 of my top 10 place

I'm also guessing that not as many ppl have read The Forever War or The Black Company series as I thought...?

Placed 4 of my top 10, 11 of my whole ballot.

Forever War was my #15

I thot Black Company had a pretty big stanbase on ILX.

Black Company was my #12.

I don't think I've ever even heard of the Black Company series...?

6 of my 10 placed

my #1 was A Canticle for Leibowitz

I hit 10 out of 25

My #1 was The Diamond Age (Snow Crash is great but this one is just all around better front to back)

Did Ballard get the most number ones?

yeah ballard had the most with 3 - there were a few with 2 #1 votes that didnt chart (in fact 'riddley walker' got 2 #1 votes & no other votes, lol) - there were also 1/5 of the ballots that came unranked

almost all the books in 52-100 had just as many votes as the novels 51-28 (& VALIS finished @ 19 w/only 6 votes) they just didnt get enough top 5 placements on ppls ballots.

I hit 11 overall, 6 of those are in my bottom 10.

I'd put Diamond Age over Snow Crash too, but went with Anathem as my lone Stephenson.

placing LOTR #1 on your ballot

uh wow this is moving fast.

yes I am serious!

xp

I'm really sad that Sturgeon didn't make the top 50.

Hey Dan, did you ever read his first book, The Big U?

I didn't, and I really don't know why.

(Or if I did, I've forgotten it.)

i re-read it recently, and it still held up, but it wasn't as funny as when i first read it in college.

The Big U was like the hardest book to find for years, after loving Snow Crash and Diamond Age the serious hunt was on, but gave up. Is it sci-fi?

it's definitely speculative fiction. Our college library had a copy. I got a paperback copy a few years ago.

So, having never read any Stephenson, Baroque Cycle y/n?

not to start! I'd probably start with The Diamond Age.

I love the Baroque Cycle, but really consider it outside any definition of speculative fiction. I love Anathem, myself; don't remember much about his earlier works to be able to give recommendations.

After looking at his bibliography, I realize I've never read Snow Crash.

tbh I strongly strongly recommend reading Snow Crash before The Diamond Age as I don't think I would have liked the latter as much without having read the former

Cryptonomicon is also great.

I read them in opposite order and it didn't cause issues. To each their own.

hahaha this is the part where dan kills me for not voting considering diamond age would have been my #1 and watership down my #2

O U BICH

If you now say that Dying Earth or Neveryon would be your #3 I will have to kill u on my next mplstpl trip

16/25 of my votes placed. Apparently I have canonical tastes, yay.

Enjoyed Snow Crash, but the awkwardness of the infodumps stayed with me more than the plot or anything else; thought The Diamond Age a lot better, & it made my ballot. Keep looking at that Baroque Cycle, but I fear it will basically be x,000 pages of me shouting 'NO NO NO WRONG NO NOT LIKE THAT' at the book, since I am ok at Europe 1640-1740 (and I didn't enjoy Cryptonomicon so much. It was ok).

i am safe then, my #3 was lot 49, altho dan will be here in 5 weeks so you prob wouldnt have gotten the chance anyway. xxpost

i was totally down w/snow crash up until the super creepey sex scene and uh pretty much the ending in general.

I thought the super creepey sex scene worked really, really well!

I like how the climax of Cryptomonicon was literally NERD GETS LAID

I can kinda take or leave Stephenson in general. my wife loves him tho

at least thomas covenant didnt place eh

do you feel like you've been bamboozled

― ℳℴℯ　❤＼(◕‿◕✿ (Princess TamTam), Tuesday, April 5, 2011 5:51 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no, I feel like I've participated in an ILX poll lol

― in my world of loose geirs (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, April 5, 2011 5:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

So are we doing another thread to just post lists?

I think we're waiting for tomorrow, when #52 - #100 is getting posted

Never doubted Earthsea would be top five but delighted to see it do so well - it's a kind of book that I can't imagine existing now, a book about a child, written for children not adults, but children with adult reading ages? I read Atuan again a month ago when trying to decide where to place it (#2 in the end) and it was astonishingly written still, better than I ever remembered.

I like how the climax of Cryptomonicon was literally NERD GETS LAID

Haha well that will be my first Stephenson then, since it's the only one I already have a copy of.

Thanks to whoever else voted for the 1st Edition DMG incidentally! It is the best book out of all the books.

woof's post about how he'd stan for LOTR constantly if it had been unsuccessful is my takeaway from this poll I think? Never thought of it that way but it is v. true!

Will now write an alt history novel in which the cultural receptions of LOTR and Gormenghast are swapped.