ᴥᴕᴥᴥᴕᴥᴥᴕᴥ THE ILX ALL-TIME SPECULATIVE FICTION POLL - NOMINATIONS & DISCUSSION THREAD ᴥᴕᴥᴥᴕᴥᴥᴕᴥ

I nom'd Book of the New Sun already fyi

dunno whether lovecraft should be combined into the 'necronomicon' collection say?

I think his stuff should be nommed separately as not all of it share the same universe and even those that do are generally connected by theme and setting rather than plot and character. I mean I would probably vote for 'At the Mountains of Madness' but I don't love all his mythos stuff equally.

xp

Ah damn, I thought I'd checked all of them. Ok so replace Book of the New Sun with:

Robert Silverberg - Dying Inside

any work that was conceived as a single entity but published in separate volumes (e.g. the lord of the rings, the wheel of time) should be nominated for the TOTAL WORK, rather than in their component parts

Lovecraft doesn't seem to fit this, so yeah those should be separate imo

dan simmons - hyperion

glen cook - the black company
alastair reynolds - house of suns
joe haldeman - the forever war
m john harrison - viriconium
victor pelevin - omon ra

whoops forever war already nommed

julian may - pliocene exile

alasdair gray - lanark

clive barker - imajica
george r r martin - song of fire and ice
steven erikson - malazan book of the fallen

william gibson - burning chrome
samuel delany - babel-17

china mieville - perdido street station
china mieville - the scar

aren't his kind of related?

orson scott card - Ender's Game (first book only)
douglas adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (series)
jonathan lethem - Girl in Landscape
isaac asimov - "The Last Question"
kurt vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
tim powers - The Anubis Gates

This is out of control already. There's no clear genre here, and therefore no possible poll.

i don't see what the lack of a "clear genre" has to do with anything. and it's a poll because you vote in it.

Taco Bell: "I don't see what the lack of 'meat content' has to do with it. And it's food because you eat it."

i hear ya cluckin but that is maybe not a great analogy

Harlan Ellison would have this thread's head on a spike and paraded through the streets of Rome.

He's a bit of a dick, mind you. I do realize that.

Jonathan Lethem -- Gun, With Occasional music
John Crowley -- Little, Big
John Cristopher -- Tripods triolgy
Ursula Le Guin -- The Compass Rose
Larry Niven and Stephen Barnes -- Dream Park

lots of my faves already nommed, will put more later if i think of it

Lots of stuff I would have gone right for is already nommed (including Book of the New Sun -- twice -- does that mean I can vote for it twice?), but a few more off the top of my head:

Ray Bradbury - The October Country
Arthur Machen - "The White People"

Ray Bradbury - The October Country

Seconded.

Oh, we can do short stories! OK, so

Fritz Lieber, "A Pail of Air"
Tom Godwin, "The Cold Equations"

Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination
Stanislaw Lem - Solaris
Stanislaw Lem - His Master's Voice
JG Ballard - The Complete Stories (um does this count?)
Philip K Dick - Ubik
Philip K Dick - The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch
Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
Alan Garner - The Owl Service
Samuel R Delany - Nova
Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron
Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Flann O'Brien - The Third Policeman
Diana Wynne Jones - The Dalemark Quartet (Cart And Cwidder, Drowned Ammet, The Spellcoats, Crown Of Dalemark)

I was tempted to nom E.E. "Doc" Smith but thought better of it

russel hoban - ridley walker -- curse bless you, sleeves
stanislaw lem - the cyberiad
rachel carson - the autobiography of red
samuel r delaney - the einstein intersection
christopher priest - inverted world
larry niven - ringworld
jorge luis borges - ficciones
jorge luis borges - the aleph
franz kafka - the collected stories (esp "a country doctor", "the hunger artist", "the metamorphosis", and "in the penal colony")

ummm, more later...

Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination
Robert Silverberg - Dying Inside
Barry Malzberg - Beyond Apollo
Thomas Disch - 334
J.G. Ballard - High Rise
John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up
Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus
K.W. Jeter - The Glass Hammer
C.L. Moore - "The Vintage Season"
Alfred Bester - "Fondly Fahrenheit"
James Tiptree - "The Girl Who Plugged In"
James Tiptree - "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever"
John Varley - "The Persistence of Vision"

334 up above so replace that with Camp Concentration

Dying Inside also there so pop in Shadrach In The Furnace instead

Fifth Head also there so put in Frederich Pohl - Gateway, I guess

most of my favorite stuff has already been nominated, but

philip k dick - flow my tears, the policeman said
thomas m disch - camp concentration
aldous huxley - brave new world

Bah Stars My Destination also there but that's easy replace with Alfred Bester - "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed"

@ ismael & eaw - i'm going to roll the first three earthsea books into a single nomination for the trilogy (so a wizard of earth sea, tombs of atuan & the farthest shore)

@ kenan sure, ok

jorge luis borges - ficciones
jorge luis borges - the aleph

this is p corny but ok

Edwin Abbott Abott - Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

otm

Gateway has been nommed already

I got bored and compiled a list of all the nom so far. Hopefully I have got rid of all the duplicates:

robert jordan - the wheel of time
yevgeny zamaytin - we
urusla k le guin - the lathe of heaven
michelle west - the sun sword
robert w. chambers - the king in yellow
h.p. lovecraft - "the shadow over innsmouth"
kim stanely robinson - the mars trilogy
sean russell - moontide & magic rise
thomas ligotti - songs of a dead dreamer
stephen donaldson - the chronicles of thomas convenant
tad williams - memory, sorrow & thorn
sigizmund krzhizhanovsky - memories of the future
patricia a mckillip - the riddle-master trilogy
isaac asimov - foundation
philip k. dick - do androids dream of electric sheep
harlan ellison - "i have no mouth and i must scream"
ray bradbury - the martian chronicles
ray bradbury - illustrated man
margaret atwood - handmaiden's tale
william goldman - the princess bride
nevil shute - on the beach
neal stephenson - snow crash
stephen king - the stand
walter miller - a canticle for leibowitz
frank herbert - dune
JRR Tolkien - Lord of the Rings (I don't care if it's old/tired/obvious it's canonical for a reason)
Philip K. Dick - VALIS trilogy (VALIS, Divine Invasion, Transmigration of Timothy Archer)
Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly
Gene Wolfe - Book of the New Sun
Frederick Pohl - Jem
Michael Moorcock - Cornelius Chronicles (Volumes I, II and III)
H.P. Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu
William S. Burroughs - The Red Night Trilogy (Cities of the Red Night, The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands)
James Tiptree - Her Smoke Rose Up Forever anthology
Koushun Takami - Battle Royale
Michael Moorcock - Dancers at the End of Time (Dancers at the End of Time (An Alien Heat, The Hollow Lands, The End of All Songs, The Transformation of Mavis Ming, and Legends From the End of Time)
Frank Herbert - The Jesus Incident
Rudy Rucker - Software/Wetware/Freeware/Realware
Bruce Sterling - Islands In The Net
Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker
Tove Jannson - Moomin series
Philip K. Dick - Collected Stories Vol. 4
Philip Jose Farmer - Riverworld
Octavia Butler - Lilith's Brood
Richard Adams - Shardik
Susan Cooper - Dark Is Rising series
Lloyd Alexander - Prydain Chronicles
George Orwell - 1984
Cormac McCarthy - The Road
K.W. Jeter - Dr. Adder
Thomas Disch - 334
Ursula Le Guin - A Wizard of Earthsea
JRR Tolkien - The Hobbit
CS Lewis - The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe
CS Lewis - The Silver Chair
CS Lewis - The Voyage of the Dawntreader
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials
ted chiang - stores of your life and others
arthur c. clarke - childhood' end
arthur c. clarke - the city & the stars
alfred bester - the demolished man
ursula le guin - the left hand of darkness
kurt vonnegut - the sirens of titan
diana wynne jones - archer's goon
joe haldeman - the forever war
hp lovecraft - at the mountains of madness
hp lovecraft - the whisperer in darkness
Ursula Le Guin - The Dispossessed
Frederick Pohl - Gateway
Gene Wolfe - Book of the Long Sun
Gene Wolfe - Latro in the Mist
Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Iain M Banks - Excession
Michael Moorcock - Elric
JG Ballard - The Crystal World
Philip K Dick - The Man in the High Castle
John Wyndham - Day of the Triffids
M John Harrison - The Centauri Device
Jack Vance - Tales of the Dying Earth
Robert Silverberg - Dying Inside
dan simmons - hyperion
glen cook - the black company
alastair reynolds - house of suns
m john harrison - viriconium
victor pelevin - omon ra
julian may - pliocene exile
alasdair gray - lanark
clive barker - imajica
george r r martin - song of fire and ice
steven erikson - malazan book of the fallen
william gibson - burning chrome
samuel delany - babel-17
china mieville - perdido street station
china mieville - the scar
orson scott card - Ender's Game (first book only)
douglas adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (series)
jonathan lethem - Girl in Landscape
isaac asimov - "The Last Question"
kurt vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
tim powers - The Anubis Gates
Jonathan Lethem -- Gun, With Occasional music
John Crowley -- Little, Big
John Cristopher -- Tripods triolgy
Ursula Le Guin -- The Compass Rose
Larry Niven and Stephen Barnes -- Dream Park
Ray Bradbury - The October Country
Arthur Machen - "The White People"
Fritz Lieber, "A Pail of Air"
Tom Godwin, "The Cold Equations"
Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination
Stanislaw Lem - Solaris
Stanislaw Lem - His Master's Voice
JG Ballard - The Complete Stories (um does this count?)
Philip K Dick - Ubik
Philip K Dick - The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch
Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
Alan Garner - The Owl Service
Samuel R Delany - Nova
Norman Spinrad - Bug Jack Barron
Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Flann O'Brien - The Third Policeman
Diana Wynne Jones - The Dalemark Quartet (Cart And Cwidder, Drowned Ammet, The Spellcoats, Crown Of Dalemark)
stanislaw lem - the cyberiad
rachel carson - the autobiography of red
samuel r delaney - the einstein intersection
christopher priest - inverted world
larry niven - ringworld
jorge luis borges - ficciones
jorge luis borges - the aleph
franz kafka - the collected stories (esp "a country doctor", "the hunger artist", "the metamorphosis", and "in the penal colony")
Barry Malzberg - Beyond Apollo
J.G. Ballard - High Rise
John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up
K.W. Jeter - The Glass Hammer
C.L. Moore - "The Vintage Season"
Alfred Bester - "Fondly Fahrenheit"
James Tiptree - "The Girl Who Plugged In"
James Tiptree - "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever"
John Varley - "The Persistence of Vision"
Alfred Bester - "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed"
Robert Silverberg - Shadrach in the Furnace
philip k dick - flow my tears, the policeman said
thomas m disch - camp concentration
aldous huxley - brave new world
Edwin Abbott Abott - Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

That seems like a pretty good list of speculative fiction so far. I've not read absolutely everything on there, but most of what I have indisputably comes under the umbrella and stuff like Flann O'Brien, Borges, Kafka, Cormac McCarthy that is a bit more borderline, probably isn't worth making a fuss over, as you do see them crop up in these sorts of contexts from time to time.

Ted Chiang - The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
John Wyndham - The Chrysalids

Now I think about it my nomination for Alan Garner - The Owl Service should be taken out, as it's more in the ghost / horror fiction category. In its place I nominate

Theodore Sturgeon - More Than Human

robert heinlein - stranger in a strange land
philip k. dick - martian time-slip

that's 4 for me so far

"Gateway has been nommed already"

Sigh fine Pohl & Kornbluth - The Space Merchants

I got bored and compiled a list of all the nom so far. Hopefully I have got rid of all the duplicates:

uh

John Crowley - Engine Summer
John Crowley - 'The Great Work of Time'
David Lindsay - A Voyage to Arcturus
Christopher Priest - The Affirmation

Clans of the Alphane Moon - Philip K Dick
The Alteration - Kingsley Amis
The Drowned Word - JG Ballard

Is trad ghost horror legit for the poll? Will nom:

M R James - Complete Ghost Stories

If so. Mad to leave it out.

uh

― just woke up (lukas), Saturday, February 5, 2011 2:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

What are you uh-ing, Lukas?

will do the sorting & listing probably tomorrow when im less brutally hungover but... BUMP to encourage ppl to keep nominating books!

wheres ilx poster thomp, i wouldve thought he'd be all up in this

In my limited Angela Carter experience it seems like her short stories own her novels.

^^^
Completely the case in my experience too.

Most of what I'd written down last week has been put already.

GK Chesterton - The Man who was Thursday
Cynthia Ozick - "Puttermesser and Xanthippe" (part of The Puttermesser Papers)
Stephen King - "The Mist"
Hope Mirrlees - Lud-in-the-mist
A E Van Vogt - Slan (I mean, can't have an SF poll without this. "Fans are slans" etc!)

thoroughly baffled at the respect for that chesterton.

I put LUD-IN-THE-MIST on my reading list like 5 years ago but never actually found it anywhere and then got distracted by a shiny object, I guess. Good reminder!

i have tried to start reading that ~ half a dozen times in the past week and got nowhere, btw

Well, I've had the Gormenghast trilogy under my desk for over a year (I should return that) and got nowhere with IT, either.

Abortions for some, tiny American flags for others.

wrong thread?

What, does no one here watch Futurama?? I must have stumbled on the only thread in all of ILX where that is the case -- ironic that it's the spec fic poll, eh?

i lolled despite not getting the reference tbh

To be honest, I felt a bit unsure whether to nominate Lud. Although it's just five years since I read it, all I can remember at this point is that I enjoyed it a lot. Perhaps not the greatest basis to nominate something, but being a latecomer I find I have nominations to burn in any case.

Can totally understand not liking the Chesterton book -- it's so very silly and religious. The sequence where people reveal who they are is so obvious, but the farce of it is humorous enough for me. The Christianity clearly bothers a lot of people. As luck(?) would have it, I'm too obtuse to be bothered by such things, just having a grand old time with Chesty's fine language and Symes' vigorous romp with the anarchists.

Feel like I should nominate some scandinavian SF, but I don't think I've read any! Always meant to read Karin Boye's _Kallocain_, which is another one of those old dystopian messes.

hmmm to nominate the last of the renshai or not....

As oystein says, more indicative of being late to the party than any real belief in the great quality of the books

Bugger! Have bought Gormenghast, only to find I had actually already bought it about 10 years ago, and never got around to reading it.

THEY'LL MAKE NICE BOOKENDS FOR STUFF YOU'LL ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO WADE THROUGH IMO

holy shit, sorry! i should look up more when typing

ok nominations are closed i will put up a voting thread tomorrow once i figure some things out