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

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.

I would love to read that book!

and 9/11 never happens as a result

picked up 10 books I wanna read from this thread already

anticipating/dreading the 52-100 reveal

I voted for Watership Down very highly on my Ballot! Also that one #1 vote for Neuromancer was mine I think...

I missed all of this!

random comments-

Pychon´s "V" is unreadable imo, his worst.

There's like a three-page bit where one character pedantically corrects another for not pronouncing Welsh properly. f u, Susan Cooper

gtfo that part is awesome

everybody should read "Riddley Walker"

thanx Lamp

I put the Baroque Cycle on my ballot. Definitely worth the effort

I wonder what the handwritten manuscript for the Baroque Cycle would auction for.

agree that everyone should read Riddley Walker

There's like a three-page bit where one character pedantically corrects another for not pronouncing Welsh properly. f u, Susan Cooper

gtfo that part is awesome

O!T!M! There's a even a line where Will says, "I expect Welsh babies dribble a lot." And that book is the only reason why I know that the name Bran isn't pronounced like the cereal.

kinda surprised about no harlan ellison

haven't read the guy in many many years but remember digging shatterday

no dahl either

I nominate Lamp for running all ILX polls from here on out
I nominate Lamp for running all ILX polls from here on out
I nominate Lamp for running all ILX polls from here on out
I nominate Lamp for running all ILX polls from here on out

No Heinlein either! xp

or Bradbury

Heinlein's terrible, Ellison erratic, Bradbury mostly boring/outdated, Dahl uh waht would qualify there? Not sure what yr thinking of

Not complaining one bit abt lack of old dudes.

Yeah Lamp ran this awesomely. Why did you say it was 'ultimately heartbreaking' Lamp?

perhaps 52-100 will make that more clear

I think The Past Through Tomorrow is a fantastic brick of nonstop sf ideas -- much of the best of the Golden Age between two covers. I agree Ellison is overrated. Never read much Bradbury so no comment.

Dahl uh waht would qualify there?

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was nominated (and was on my ballot)

so i have most of the data here - enough to do a TOP 100 anyway & its sorta anticlimactic to do bottom half run down all day tomorrow - so heres the TOP 100 with point totals for the TOP 70. as you can see it was a really tight race a single first place vote for 'The Forever War' wouldve moved it ahead of 'We' @ #50.

100 Iain M Banks - Excession
099 Theodore Sturgeon - More Than Human
098 Robin Hobb - The Farseer Trilogy
097 Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous With Rama
096 Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels

095 Daniel Keyes - Flowers for Algernon
094 William Gibson - Pattern Recognition
093 Roald Dahl - James & The Giant Peach
092 Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth
091 Thomas Disch - Camp Concentration

090 Kurt Vonnegut - The Sirens of Titan
089 H.P. Lovecraft - "The Colour out of Space"
088 Roger Zelazny - The Chronicles of Amber
087 Octavia Butler - Lilith's Brood
086 Christopher Priest - Inverted World

085 Gene Wolfe - Book of the Long Sun
084 Flann O'Brien - At Swim-Two-Birds
083 Joe Haldeman - The Forever War
082 Russell Hobon - Riddley Walker
081 Cordwainer Smith - The Rediscovery of Man (1993)

080 Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man
079 Michael Moorcock - Dancers at the End of Time
078 J.G. Ballard - High Rise
077 Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
076 Dan Simmons - Hyperion

075 Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren
074 John Crowley - Engine Summer
073 Lloyd Alexander - Prydain Chronicles
072 Iain M Banks - Consider Phlebas
071 Ursula K. Le Guin - The Lathe of Heaven

070 Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange 59
069 J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter septet 59
068 Italo Calvino - Cosmicomics 60
067 Edgar Allan Poe - Tale of Mystery & Imagination 60
066 Jack Vance - Tales of the Dying Earth 61

065 Gygax & Arneson - 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide 61
064 James Tiptree - "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" 61
063 Glen Cook -The Black Company 64
062 Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Life and Others 66
061 John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids 66

060 Richard Adams - Watership Down 66
059 John Crowley - Little, Big 67
058 Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 68
057 Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities 70
056 China Miéville - Perdido Street Station 70

055 Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett - Good Omens 72
054 Adolfo Bioy Cesares - The Invention of Morel 72
053 Terry Pratchett - Small Gods 73
052 Kim Stanley Robinson - The Mars trilogy 73
051 Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination 74

050 Yevgeny Zamaytin - We
049 Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
048 Guy Gavriel Kay - Tigana
047 Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
046 Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash

045 Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time
044 Stanislaw Lem - Solaris
043 Walter Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz
042 Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49
041 Edwin Abbott Abbott - Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

040 Isaac Asimov - The Foundation Trilogy
039 Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
038 Alasdair Gray - Lanark
037 Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
036 Philip K. Dick - Ubik

035 Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
034 Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising Sequence
033 H.P. Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
032 William S. Burroughs - Naked Lunch
031 Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

030 Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale
029 M.R. James - The Collected Stories of M.R. James
028 Fredrik Pohl - Gateway
027 Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
026 Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

025 Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master & Margarita
024 J.G. Ballard - The Drowned World
023 Iain M. Banks - The Player of Games
022 Franz Kafka - The Collected Stories
021 H.P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness

020 Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time
019 Philip K. Dick - The VALIS Trilogy
018 J.R.R. Tolkein - The Hobbit
017 Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly
016 Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

015 George R R Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire
014 Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
013 Jorge Luis Borges - Ficciones
012 Philip K. Dick - The Man in the High Castle
011 J.G. Ballard - The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard

010 Frank Herbert - Dune
009 William Gibson - Neuromancer
008 C.S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia
007 Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness
006 Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials

005 George Orwell - 1984
004 Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
003 Gene Wolfe - Book of the New Sun
002 Ursula K. Le Guin - The Earthsea Trilogy
001 J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings

oh my god that IS heartbreaking

065 Gygax & Arneson - 1st Edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide 61

lol

I also placed Octavia Butler´s "Lilith's Brood" very highly, those books are amazing. Glad to see it made it into the top 100.

AT SWIM-TWO-BIRDS?? WHAT DID YOU PEOPLE DO WITH YOURSELVES, VOTE BY THROWING DARTS AT A BALLOT??

I can't believe how close Good Omens and Small Gods came to the top 50!

Wait so how many pts was a #4 ballot placement worth? I am stung that Aegypt didn't even make the top 100

xp Yeah what's wrong people.