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

btw the dog is my wife's, not mine, so he survives on a technicality

xp I haven't read Watership Down; I guess I should someday.

seriously tho, do ppl just not adore Watership Down the way I do or was that just outside of the boxes ppl were using to pick their votes?

― fat fat fat fat Usher (DJP), Wednesday, April 6, 2011 12:10 PM (1 minute ago)

it was in my top 5, i think?

I haven't read Watership Down since my early teens. Didn't care for it much then so haven't revisited.

i was just the right age for harry potter when the first few books came out but i suspect i'm at the lower end of the ilx demographic age-wise so i'm not that surprised it didn't show up. also probably major harry potter fatigue around now, i didn't even consider voting for it and have also pledged to myself upon finishing the 7th book that i will not re-read them for at least 10 years.

i did like watership down when i was 12 or so but didn't think of voting for it here

watership down is good, but it's no duncton wood.

OMG

SERIOUSLY IF YOU HAVEN'T READ WD READ IT IMMEDIATELY

I encountered it pretty much by chance when I was... 7? I just assumed it was a kid's book because it had a rabbit on the cover. It remains to this day the second-most enthralling reading experience I've ever had and is largely responsible for me reading fantasy and science fiction almost exclusively.

Shall we post and talk about our ballots here or in a separate thread?

even doing a GIS for "watership down" is sending serious shivers down my spine

I vote for a new thread for ballots

Oh wait, Lamp is posting #52-100 tomorrow, right? I'll hold off with my ballot until then.

xp Dan - that was about when the movie came out, wasn't it?

I've neither read it nor seen the movie. I heard it's about bunnies dying and that it's really sad. I don't want to subject myself to that! ;_;

a couple of notes:

- most ppl voted for at least some sci-fi novels, in fact of the single genre ballots all but two were sci fi (the others were fantasy)
- lost of entries got just as many votes as some really highly-ranked ones, it just seems like some more 'cannonical' pix were consistently on the lower end of ppl's ballots
- like half of the #1 votes ended up off the list, weirdly
- i think the fantasy and ya series were helped bcuz there wasnt any real vote-splitting
- lol: two entries (wells the time machine and tad williams memory, sorrow & thorn) got 5 votes but finished under 30 points
- all the titles w/ only one #1 vote & no others:

Guy Gavriel Kay - The Last Light of the Sun
Kingsley Amis - The Alteration
Michael Bishop - Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas
Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman - The Dragonlance Chronicles

Really enjoyed this - keen to read

Guy Gavriel Kay - Tigana
Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time

guess I should read the Wolfe as well.

my dad read the hobbit/lotr to me a chapter at a time for my bedtime stories when i was a little kid instead of childrens books, so i guess i could blame him for me becoming a SF/F nerd. but i won't because that was a pretty rad thing to do imo.

xp Dan - that was about when the movie came out, wasn't it?

The movie was a few years earlier. I don't remember if I read the book or saw the movie first but they happened in quick succession; I can't remember if the movie viewing was a special thing that happened at the library or if it was on PBS.

xp shakey, are you serious?!

about what

Whoever voted the Dragonlance Chronicles at #1 is my hero

aw, the Dragonlance Chronicles also fell off of my ballot at the last second

I don't remember if I read the book or saw the movie first

me neither, actually! I think I was 5 or 6. The next summer my family went to England on vacation, and my parents thought it would be really fun to find the exact locations of the book. So we spent the better part of a day driving through the countryside looking at fields of grass. It was kinda boring.

Watership was my #20 and was the highlight of my 2010 reading year. Srsly if you havent, READ WATERSHIP DOWN AND PLAGUE DOGS ASAP. Yes you will cry copious tears but you can't always hide from yr feelings!

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.