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

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)

and I'm dreading the top 10, honestly, with all the best PKD stuff already placing so low. yikes

fingers crossed for my favorite Moorcock stuff lol

Illuminatus was high on my ballot. I concede it's silly ass nonsense, but for this 14-year-old, it was huge fun. Different books went on my ballot for different reasons. ::shrug::

Stuff from my ballot that has shown up:
Drowned World
Naked Lunch
Alice
At the Mts of Madness
Gateway
Illuminatus trilogy
Frankenstein
Slaughterhouse-Five

ahhh, fuck Moorcock ppbbbbtttthhh

Although I almost nommed/voted for the Cornelius Chronicles

So far this list has been rather "SF and F is something one reads in one's formative years but not as an adult" IMO

yeah and I find this kind of annoying tbh. I certainly didn't formulate my ballot this way.

'the master and margarita' is a genuinely great work and even better in the more recent translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky (Ginsburg's is spotty and i guess from a censored version of the work.) i probably would not have voted for it here just b/c i'm not sure for my own personal definition of this genre it would fit.

yeah and I find this kind of annoying tbh. I certainly didn't formulate my ballot this way.

― in my world of loose geirs (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, April 5, 2011 5:34 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

do you feel like you've been bamboozled

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

I really do not understand the near-universal adoration of Master & Margarita. It was okay, but it wouldn't even place in my Top 10 Russian Novels list.

stuff i voted for

Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time

my number one! thx you mum for giving me such great books to read when i was young

Philip K. Dick - Ubik

only just getting into PKD at the moment (recently I've read martian time slip, a scanner darkly and ubik). his writing is incredible but ubik stands out for me for being so fun

M.R. James - The Collected Stories of M.R. James

another one i read when i was really quite young! 'casting the runes' is so dope

Fredrik Pohl - Gateway
J.G. Ballard - The Drowned World
read both of these in the last year. gateway is such a cool concept - is this book part of a series? i read the drowned world on holiday lying on the beach in the sun dreaming of swimming out into primordial swamps <3 AWESOME <3

H.P. Lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness

my favourite lovecraft story

needed a new book today so picked up 'lanark' thx to this thread

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSFkGKBG-LiS6T5aT8FyKd4wmUrlLLjAz2Gjy1JxOrj1G8yUF0Blw

tpp, yes --

Pohl's novels featuring the Heechee are:

* Gateway (1977)
* Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980)
* Heechee Rendezvous (1984)
* Annals of the Heechee (1987)
* The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel of Gateway (2004)

Pohl has also released a collection of short stories in the series:

* The Gateway Trip (1990)

http://i.imgur.com/eZVoY.jpg

Are any of the other Heechee books good? Love Gateway.

oooooooooh will try and get around to checking those out thanks xp

they're all pretty good imho, although I haven't read the most recent two

They're all good.

Like so many other novels where the author had more ideas than he could fit into the first novel, the Heechee series has diminishing returns, but I remember the first three being really good. I don't think I read past the first three.

Actually the fourth one is just okay now that I refresh myself with the plot points.

So happy to come online and find the countdown! Please/surprised to see some of my noms so high, and also pleased to see love for some I felt bad for not being able to include.
But no power on earth will make me read Robert Jordan.

I for one am totally stoked with this melange of YA stuff and 'grown up' sci-fi and fantasy and po-faced adult 'not scifi or fantasy at all nonono' books.

3 of my picks charted so far (frankenstein, lovecraft, m.r. james), pleased to see the kafka in there, and definitely gonna check out pohl.

Stuff I voted for starting to turn up. MR James, 3 Stigmata, Valis, &:

26 Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson - The Illuminatus! Trilogy

One of those things I couldn't quite believe I was voting for - annoying, loved by wake-up-sheeple types, not especially important to me (read in my mid-20s, so about ten years too late). Think it's the relentlessness cheap thrills, the way it throws ideas, jokes, bullshit around non-stop, pointless cerebral sugar rush & narrative fairground.

still nothing i voted for, i think? kind of holding out, now

Five of mine are in. I'm pleased to say I pulled Brave New World after submitting so I could get a far better book in. BNW has good ideas for sure, but as a novel it is terrible. Nowadays I'd rather have great stories and the author can keep his ideas to himself, thanks. Maybe this Illuminatus! sounds like just the ticket, actually.

i dunno, Illuminatus! is a total fking mess as a novel, and pretty pleased with itself for being such a mess.

Couldn't get more than 20 pages in. Hate conspiracy theory.

It's garbage.

It's one of those books (like Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, in a different way) that seemed like the most profound thing I'd ever read at the age of 15, and embarrassing nonsense 5 years later.

so is the top half all delany all the time or did vote splitting leave us w/no delany, i wonder

also like that for me, with lags of varying lengths:

• The Alchemist
• most books by journalists (if they ever seem profound)
• Chomsky
• any tract predicting the downfall of the west
• experimental fiction

so is the top half all delany all the time or did vote splitting leave us w/no delany, i wonder

I've only read Nova, but didn't vote for it in the end.

I'm thinking the same about Michael Moorcock (who I voted for three times!)

enjoying the slightly unpredictable, all-over-the-shop this is rolling - thinking Ballard should pop up again. Expecting to see LOTR, Scanner Darkly, Lion in my Wardrobe, Forever War, Book of the New Sun, Hitch-hikers Guide.

Was a lot of Moorcock nominated? He seems a natural vote-splitter.

Maybe if I show you a picture of Vernor Vinge he'll place higher. http://www.gbn.com/images/people/46_vernor%20vinge.jpg

Starting to think from now on it's all going to be butterflies and zebras, moonbeams and fairy tales.

i predict the #1 will be a book that most teenagers are forced to read in school.

The list so far, like SF as a whole, has too much Dick.

can't take exception to PKD, the placing of The Hobbit is some bullshit tho imo

Just see at as a sweet-natured 20th century fairy tale really. It was also the first book I properly read. But I'm feeling a bit guilty now. It's nowhere near as good as some stuff I left off.

i like it well enough but JRR is a clunker of a writer imo and I would've place more or less every book that finished below it above it

The list so far, like SF as a whole, has too much Dick.

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, April 6, 2011 9:31 AM (4 minutes ago)

otm

I have halfling-fatigue like every other right-thinking person, but Tolkien had to make the list somewhere.