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

aw, you should have used the classic Tombot "MAGIC IS BAD FOR YOU UNLESS YOU HAVE TITS!!!!!" post

lol i forgot abt that post - it is p classic. i had known i wanted to use that tim f quote since it first started to look like the wheel of time wld chart tho

I voted "The Drowned World" number one. I found it haunting me for months afterwards - as much the atmosphere as the actual story.

I was a major Wheel of Time fan until the slow releases killed it for me - couldn't bring myself to vote for it after that.
I'm going to re-read it when Sanderson finishes the whole thing though.

i hope Alex in SF hasnt stopped reading cuz i was hoping for some HARD SCI-FI nerd rage @ how high the wheel of time ended up placing...

wait until A Game of Thrones hits the top 10

(btw is it just me or is this the most congenial, civilized poll thread we've had)

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee366/lamp11/19VALIS.jpg
19 Philip K. Dick - The VALIS Trilogy
125 points/6 votes/1 #1 vote

I can't say enough positive things about PKD (he inspired one of my email addressed and my AIM handle). Esp the Valis trilogy--brilliant on so many levels.

― Orbit (Orbit), Thursday, July 21, 2005 11:34 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark

AFAIK the Transmigration of Timothy Archer wasn't written as a part of any "trilogy" - it was only labeled so after Dick's death, because of some thematic similarities. Nothing really connects it to VALIS, so I think it should count as its own entry.

― Tuomas, Monday, February 7, 2011 2:48 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

^^ the best average placement for any title w/ 3+ votes btw, like almost every vote for it was in top 5

I enjoy the plot of Wheel of Time, and don't have any problems with the writing as writing, but I loathe the many, many repetitive interior monologues. Enjoyed Sanderson's two much more than Jordan's because he doesn't do it as much.

you idiots decided to put kafka in your sci fi poll and then have the freaking wheel of time and philip k dick placing higher than him

"you idiots" -- oh good, we're back to being a normal ilx poll thread

you idiots decided to put kafka in your sci fi poll and then have the freaking wheel of time and philip k dick placing higher than him

you should write an angry email to n+1 abt it

hahaha

I am writing a post to you

VALIS is the Dick novel I'd recommend to any reader coming from a "literature" background, as he'd actually learned to write by then. Or maybe it was that he had an editor and time for rewrites.

glad people are talking about books though

always liked this cover for the divine invasion (that's part of valis trilogy right?)

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/philip_k_dick_divine_1stus.jpg

Prediction : the congeniality of this poll will start to wear thin by the top 10.

"i hope Alex in SF hasnt stopped reading cuz i was hoping for some HARD SCI-FI nerd rage @ how high the wheel of time ended up placing..."

I'm pretty annoyed that Valis placed higher than three far superior Dick novels, but whatever.

Pretty sure I've already argued that people who think Valis trilogy is Dick's best are savages not to be trusted elsewhere.

Alex in SF, which is best : VALIS or Vulcan's Hammer?

I am writing a post to you

well you couldve voted & then complained abt gilbert sorrentino getting less votes than childern's books abt magic furniture

I misremembered the name of the book, googled for "the divine intervention dick" and got this picture of one of my bandmates in the results lol

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/4605423117_aea097986e.jpg

Alex, which PDK do you rate? I've never read Valis but always intended to; I think 3 Stigmata is fucking choice tho.

well you couldve voted & then complained abt gilbert sorrentino getting less votes than childern's books abt magic furniture

http://triangulations.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/mushroom-cloud.jpg

PKD could prolly use his own ILX poll

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

I don't vote ever

Prediction : the congeniality of this poll will start to wear thin by the top 10.

Weirdly I'm not sure about this - it's been very consensus-y so far in part bcz a lot of what's placing high we all read as kids - I didn't vote for Stars or Illuminatus or Snow Crash and I don't think I'd get that much out of them now but I still remember them really fondly?

well you couldve voted & then complained abt gilbert sorrentino getting less votes than childern's books abt magic furniture

The role of actual literature is v lols to me in this poll - like enough people dediced they weren't gonna vote for the lit fic stuff that it's all placed in kinda demeaning positions, it's like an alternate world in which PKD has just placed at #22 in a 'best books ever' list and everyone is like 'rly u guys?'

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee366/lamp11/18TheHobbit.jpg
18 J.R.R. Tolkein - The Hobbit
125 points/7 votes/1 #1 vote

Charming, genial, convivial. Prefer it to LotR, which i often think is boring apart from the Mines of Moria section, which never fails to get the heart racing. Still incredulous how long it takes them to get to Rivendell

― Gamaliel Ratsey, Saturday, March 26, 2011 11:25 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark

so thats the last one for today. could a mod possibly fix the numbering on the VALIS post? - should be #19 obv, lol doing this while holding office hours, sorry job.

so is #1 going to be a toss-up between Hitchhiker's Guide and Watership Down?

"Alex in SF, which is best : VALIS or Vulcan's Hammer?"

I'm not likely to re-read either, but VALIS trilogy is better, sure.

This was what I posted on the POX thread.

POX Phillip K Dick

#1 will probably be either dragonquest or harry potter you non-hard-scifi DOUCHES

Yeah I'd mostly agree with that, I remember nothing of Radio Free Albemuth tbh. I tried to limit the amount of PKD on my ballot, still ended up with 4 though I think, which is more a reflection on how few sf writers I've actually read in any depth.

xpost to alex in sf

the story so far...

51 Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination

50 Yevgeny Zamaytin - We
49 Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle
48 Guy Gavriel Kay - Tigana
47 Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
46 Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash

45 Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time
44 Stanislaw Lem - Solaris
43 Walter Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz
42 Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49
41 Edwin Abbott Abbott - Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

40 Isaac Asimov - The Foundation Trilogy
39 Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five
38 Alasdair Gray - Lanark
37 Mary Shelley - Frankenstein
36 Philip K. Dick - Ubik

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

30 Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale
29 M.R. James - The Collected Stories of M.R. James
28 Fredrik Pohl - Gateway
27 Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
26 Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

25 Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master & Margarita
24 J.G. Ballard - The Drowned World
23 Iain M. Banks - The Player of Games
22 Franz Kafka - The Collected Stories
21 H.P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness

20 Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time
19 Philip K. Dick - The VALIS Trilogy
18 J.R.R. Tolkein - The Hobbit

Radio Free Albemuth is a better VALIS imo. Similar themes, but a more interesting framework.

I've read 14 of those and given up on around 3 or 4 others, one of which was Lovecraft's "At The Mountains of Madness" due to my second-hand copy having some unpleasant stains on it.

the stains were only unpleasant? You sure they weren't "unnameable and utterly wretched"?

Yes that's a better description

stuff from my ballot that placed:

50 Yevgeny Zamaytin - We (05)
48 Guy Gavriel Kay - Tigana (19)
31 Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (10)
29 M.R. James - The Collected Stories of M.R. James (16)
20 Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time (04)

this is probably true for many others but every one but mr james i first read as a teenager or younger.

Ha, I am actually in the middle of reading M.R. James for the first time RIGHT NOW. (though I had read a couple of stories before).

Stuff that's placed for me so far,
Lanark,
We,
The Hobbit,
Frankenstein,
MR James,
Susan Cooper (tried to think about why it was good. didn't get very far, but sheer juvenile affection got it a vote).
Foundation, probably incredibly boring and dry to read now, but loved all that psychohistory schtick when I was younger.
The Call of Cthulu,
The Drowned World.

A couple of mine have placed, but I'm happiest about The Drowned World.

Interesting poll! Philip K. Dick heavily represented, predictably, but a good spread of other stuff too. Wish I'd voted!

I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.

― Nelson (Muntz), Sunday, 31 March 1996 6:49 (15 years ago)

lol nicely done

it's been very consensus-y so far in part bcz a lot of what's placing high we all read as kids

it's been consensus-y cuz I was in a 4 hour meeting that kept mre from complaining about people placing fucking Master and Margarita and the Illuminatus trilogy and other silly ass nonsense

Margaret Atwood? gtfo

glad to see Pohl place though (Gateway is canonical but imho Space Merchants and Jem are both waaaaaay better)