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

Wd go for his science fiction trilogy personally.

^^^yes

that's a perfect storm of awful, E!

Yes Le Guin! Was my #7 vote too.

"you would hope people have moved beyond looking at le guin as a sci fi writer"

hahaha

x-post - Trust me, I know. I had a solo too. It was so mortifying.

huh didn't expect LHOD to place so high but I'm cool with that. LeGuin is great, book is phenomenal, etc.

a panpipe solo?

xp

I still haven't read that Le Guin, largely because my wife had to read it for a class in college and thoroughly detested it. (Then again, she also hated Snow Crash which I ended up loving; I don't remember why she was getting assigned all of these SF books but it was kind of severe bait-and-switch on the part of the professor, lol)

Actually re-read The Last Battle relatively recently to see if it was as insane as i remembered. Yeah, pretty much

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06 Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials
219 points/12 votes/2 #1 votes

I think this is a magnificent series. I expect they work beautifully as adventure stories for children, with the daemon idea being very charming, and intelligent polar bears in armour are another winner. However as an allegedly intellectual adult, I loved the richness of the underpinnings and thematic content, the radical ideas spun off from the fringes of modern physics, and the astounding central meaning: even if religion is 100% true (as it can be and is in this fantasy world) it is still a very bad thing, to be opposed. This is a daring and original theme, especially for a young audience.

I don't care about Harry Potter, and these aren't that market - they're much more in the Lord of the Rings sector, but I think they are superior in every way to that, and (urgent and key point) immensely more enjoyable to read.

― Martin Skidmore, Friday, July 19, 2002 7:00 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark

I had two Heinleins on my ballot, a case of loving the work even when I know the creator is a dickhole. I can see one of them sneaking in top-6, but not the other.

xpost, top-5 rather

Another one I left off despite loving the first book. Thought the second okay but hated the last one.

xpost

this just barely missed my ballot

have to admit the overwhelming love for pullman on ilx (not just on this poll but when searching for quotes ppl fukken adore him) surprises me... have no h8 for this series or anything but its 'ideas' seem p tedious & its sorta cross & didactic in an unappealing way

My #1 - voted for the alternate world which I think is the best and best-done I know. I was a little surprised that I thought this, but only a little.

06 Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials

I haven't read this but gtfo with this atheist propaganda angle being a selling point

x-posts Yeah I loved the first one but didn't even like the 2nd one enough to finish it.

but it's really fun atheist propaganda!

xp

First one great, second one is fine, third gtfo.

Lost interest in Pullman after the second book. Daemons are a pretty cool idea tho

well that's a better selling point, but I hate aesthetics that privelege ideology

xp

too bad the film adaptation was poor. the only good things in the film were the daemons and the bears.

Pullman was apparently my #2, not quite sure how that happened. though I do love it.

Strongly disagree that the first book is the best. Though I think we can all agree that the movie was garbage.

xp

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05 George Orwell - 1984
223 points/14 votes/0 #1 votes

do the actions of winston and julia change the world ?

does it matter ?

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, November 23, 2002 2:22 PM (8 years ago) Bookmark

He's a pragmatist as only a disillusioned idealist can be. How can you not be when you've lived through the collapse of several ideologies in the course of ten years?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, July 25, 2007 8:54 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

Some unfortunate omissions, but genuinely innovative and effective.

― the Orwellian scholar, Sunday, June 15, 2003 5:06 PM (7 years ago) Bookmar

*whew* back on track

I don't know whether anyone's read his teenage female detective books, but I thought all four were superb. woah xpost wrt pullman

Somehow I have never read 1984, I guess I should?

xxxxpost try the audiobook which is a "full cast" radio drama type thing, it's a blast.

i just read that despite the disappointing box office of that movie in the u.s. it still hit nearly $400 million worldwide, which is pretty amazing.

too bad the film adaptation was poor. the only good things in the film were the daemons and the bears.

Never read the book but saw them film. Was there any atheist propaganda in the film? None that I can remember.

The most striking image in the Pullman series for me (aside from the daemons) was the revelation of God near the end. I wish he had ended with that.

1984 is great but somehow not on my ballot...?

pretty sure that Steve Aylett's Shamanspace - about an assassin hired to kill God - is more entertaining

Well, I think they had to tone it down for the movie, which is one of the reasons it sucked.

xp

Tiptree better be in there

does anybody anywhere rate Aylett? His name never seems to come up on these threads.

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04 Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
254 points/17 votes/0 #1 votes

More importantly, however, is that after many years away from the book versions of the story -- I usually dig out the radio series once a year for a listen -- I realized two clear things about Adams' work. First, a large part of my writing style in terms of humorous fiction writing comes from him and his various picaresque spins, grotesques and playing with the language. I say this not to claim I'm equal to his writing ability or that I'm slavishly following in his footsteps, but to note with a pleasant shock as to how clearly and carefully his work was inculcated into my way of working with words. I'm quite positive I use the word 'bemused' in general from a part where Adams wrote: "'Catch it?' said Arthur, then frowned in bemusement...' -- read very well by Moore and instantly returning to memory upon replaying it.

Secondly...he was, quite simply, an extremely fine writer. In the same way that something like Peanuts reads one way at one age and then another way later on, moments in the books that once seemed only amusing or slight take on newer casts, suggest new depths, reveal that Adams definitely had a lot on his mind but was able to deftly suggest many things as a result, in a framework that he more or less stumbled into after Hitchhiker's initial success on the radio, and which eventually became his core metier. From a distance, for instance, the seeming 'disappointment' of So Long not being a 'classic' Hitchhiker's story becomes an appreciation of the book's own virtues, at capturing feelings of desire and love, of suggesting something as awesome as a break between two near identical worlds, of creating a whole new conception of reality out of an instruction on a toothpick box. There's a part near the start of the book where Arthur looks out from his house and finds himself connecting with all around him, almost being able to sense other minds, in a way that's both empathetic and regarding from on high, that's very captivating to me.

Then there's something as imaginative, sad and amusing as the story of 'the Reason' in the epilogue from Life, the Universe and Everything, which somehow reduces the story of stupidity and war into a simple but sad fable, one without resolution. Listening to it was almost like heaving a great sigh, one with both warmth and melancholy, the latter predominating. Ed on one of the movie threads noted that Adams' universe in his fiction was one where humanity wasn't at the center, not even on the barest fringe, in a larger construct of existential action -- it reminds me, very much, of H. P. Lovecraft's similar conceptions, but Adams had so much which Lovecraft lacked. If Agrajaj is a Lovecraftian horror down to the name, his scenario of being constantly killed by Arthur Dent is still cosmic japery, and Lovecraft could never capture at all the simple joy of being in a beautiful park with someone you love on a late summer afternoon.

All that and he can be just so funny, making me laugh out loud when talking about the sun shining down on the burglars of Islington.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, April 18, 2005 11:53 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark

ooh so close re: my prediction

(this was my #2)

(also curse all of you who voted for Harry fucking Potter)

Another series that faded as it went on. Love the first two though.

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03 Gene Wolfe - Book of the New Sun
261 points/14 votes/2 #1 votes

Gene Wolfe thirded - his Book of the New Sun novels are a far-future fantasy which can be very cryptic because it's written first-person and the perspective shift is often quite unforgiving (this is also how it gets round the "magic" thing). Beautifully done, though, easily my favourite fantasy novels.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, September 7, 2005 6:55 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark

Book of the New Sun! Shit this is weird. I was going to start a thread on this the other day. Reason being - you know when something reminds you of a book you read, until you realise, "Wow, a LOT of things lately have reminded me of scenes in the same book so therefore the book must be kinda good?" Well the description in 'SotT' of the world where layers of civilisation are lost underfoot and minutely-calibrated-pain-exchanges = society-distilled-to-essence (sort of 'Songs of [collective] ExperiencexUltra'] - reminds of (u KNOW what I'm going to say right?) Also I remember being in luv w/ Dorcas but feeling like an asshole about it right? I think one is supposed to. I dunno, I'm not very good with this 'emotions' thing. Wassit like? I read this book when I lived in prefab W Canadian community w/ no 'collective memory' or whatever, and 'SotT' made me wonder, "What must it be LIKE to be in a world like that?" (Now I'm in one and it's - giggle - TORTURE! heh heh) Then a few years later I lived in NYC and I thought "This must kinda be like 1% of what the Citadel-world is like", and I actually met some chick called Dorcas and I did have a bit of a weird thought like "Am I only talking to this person because of that name?" (I didn't tell HER that tho, I mean c'mon). Man, I'm trippin' out on the sci-fi thing, thanx! Here's the worst bit though, I finished 'SotT' in my teens and I think that when I started 'CotC' it unfortunately coincided with me moving away from home the first time (we're talkin' triple-digit mileage here N. American style, not the UK 'moving to the garden shed, wow what an adventure in self-reliance' thing), so amidst all that upheaval I never got any further, but if I ever get a chance to do some guaranteed uninterrupted reading (highly unlikely except in case of a) confinement to nuclear bunker b) MASSIVE cash windfall coinciding with crippling accident, c) something else of that nature) I'll tackle the whole New Sun thing. Thanx for the reminder!

― dave q, Saturday, December 7, 2002 6:02 AM (8 years ago) Bookmark

reading book of the new sun again theres a lot of words in it

― jveggra va pbqr (Lamp), Friday, August 21, 2009 1:08 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

New Sun is amazing.

really, I only have issues with Mostly Harmless and that is mostly because there are times when you can sense palpable waves of hatred and disdain emanating off of the page directed squarely at you, the reader

xp: okay this is a massive blind spot, never read this

Nice! New Sun was my number one. Possibly the only book I've ever felt compelled to re-read.

also i know using that cover for book of the new sun is childish but it made me lol so hard i cant even

wow i guess i need to read this

RIP Watership Down, you should have been ranked much much higher

That cover is a hoot. I still have all my "timescape" paperbacks.

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02 Ursula K. Le Guin - The Earthsea Trilogy
302 points/19 votes/1 #1 vote

search: first earthsea trilogy as near-perfect fantasy, 90s earthsea as elucidation/exploration of why it's not really possible to write that sort of fantasy anymore; the lathe of heaven (hey-i-could-be-philip-dick-if-i-wanted); the dispossessed (ish); always coming home, but not to actually you know read

― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, December 24, 2003 4:28 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

Earthsea rules them all - Le Guin spare prose is truly outstanding and still reads well with my adult sensabilities (I probably appreciate her artistry more now).

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Wednesday, October 12, 2005 7:30 AM (5 years ago) Bookmark

Wolfe! yes. Figured this would place high. lol he always has the worst cover art, for the most part.

I dunno how I feel about a genre parody placing in the top 5, seems kinda... wrong. And I say this as someone who thinks that first book is really great.