Greatest SF novel of all time? And why?
POSTED BY: FREESOUP
UPDATED: Monday, August 10, 2026 16:37
VIEWED: 25112
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Originally posted by bobothebrave:
I'm gonna have to second freesoup and vote for Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (I haven't read Urth of the New Sun, the coda volume; but from what I've heard the first four were the ones originally conceived of as a single long novel, with Urth being a separate continuation). I don't think that there's a single SF novel (and very few "literary" ones) that can match it for the sophistication of its telling, the richness of its world, and the depth of its feeling. As the layers of the story are peeled away and the world's secrets revealed, there's just an indescribable sense of exhilaration.
Have I ever mentioned how talented, intelligent and wise you are? EXCELLENT choice!
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Quote:
Originally posted by bobothebrave:
I'm gonna have to second freesoup and vote for Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (I haven't read Urth of the New Sun, the coda volume; but from what I've heard the first four were the ones originally conceived of as a single long novel, with Urth being a separate continuation). I don't think that there's a single SF novel (and very few "literary" ones) that can match it for the sophistication of its telling, the richness of its world, and the depth of its feeling. As the layers of the story are peeled away and the world's secrets revealed, there's just an indescribable sense of exhilaration.
Have I ever mentioned how talented, intelligent and wise you are? EXCELLENT choice!
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Ayuh. "If it's good, it can't be SF. If it's SF, it can't be good."
See: Logic, circular.
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I was rather torn myself. I ended up coming down on the line question of 'book as art' in terms of best SF novel ever, and for my money nothing Heinlein did exceeded Dune artistically.
Now there ya go. I just could not get into Dune. I did not see the big themes he was trying to espouse on, or anything. The whole Messiah stuff, well, that puts a craw in my gullet anyway.
[Essentially, you can wait around for someone to save you. Or you can get up of your butt and save yourself. I have a lot more respect for the latter over the former.]
Different folks like different things for different reasons. I mean I like Dali, but Picasso looks like crap to me.
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Now, as me who my favorite SF author of all time is, and his initials would happen to be RAH. However, I would lean toward The Moon is a Harsh Mistress over Starship Troopers, but then my family got out of the military and became anarchists.
Both great. And someone's gotta keep the anarchists from being eaten
"Moon" is a great handbook for how to start a revolution.I have read Beyond This Horizon, however I thought it was Beyond the Blue Event Horizon. I think we are talking the same book, (genetic engineering, "an armed society is a polite society")
"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"
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Quote:
Originally posted by Talonpest:
Personally I think that they're all a bunch of literature snobs who have marginalized the genre of science fiction so much that they can't accept that something they liked could possibly be scifi, regardless of how many corpses are reanimated without use of magical powers.
As a reforming literature snob, hey, sorry. That bites that they wouldn't even let you have an opinion. It's very sad that a novel that is both science fiction and artistically brilliant can't be considered "literature" because it is popular or uses nonfamiliar genre tropes. I think we all know people who are those literary snobs who wouldn't be caught dead reading Hitchhiker or anything like that but also never read anything that truly moves them.
Does anybody else read Douglas Coupland? He struck it very big with books like Generation X and Life After God. When he moved on to books like Mircoserfs that edged a little into science fiction (just a little) and Girlfriend in a Coma (Can we hear it for the Smiths!?) that's a little fantasy and a little scifi, the critics reamed him. He'd lost his jaundiced eye for zeitgeist and started telling actual stories. I think that's a lot of what that is-- so many of the literary tastemakers wouldn't know what to do with a good story if it walked up and gave them a nuclear wedgie.
And learning about the genre as a whole now that's what I see-- a lot of really good stories that are, for the most part, deeply engrossing and strikingly well written. And they're often written with hope--even Heinlein at his most didactic is writing toward a more perfect future rather than wallowing in the perceived distresses of the present and past.
And I don't know if there's anybody else out there like me who's just discovering this stuff-- didn't read Tolkein until two years ago and didn't read Heilein until this summer-- but these threads are great. It's good to have a reference so that the next time I go to the bookstore, I can get a specific book or author and not just wander aimlessly around the scifi section looking like a dork.
And since Bamadave isn't around to say it, I'll say that I really liked Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson, even though the ending is really disappointing. On deck for me: Neuromancer, Stranger in a Strange Land, and something by Neil Gaiman.
I'm a dying breed who still believes, haunted by American dreams. ---Neko Case
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First on my list: Heinlein's Starship Troopers.
Great story, really made me think and put into words things I had already believed for some time. There is a good chance I wouldnt have considered the movie an overflowing septic tank if they called it something else. What a rotten load of bilge.
Also very well done are Weber's Honor Harrington series as stated in a previous post here. Another worth mentioning is one of Weber's first novels; "The Path of the Fury". Great sci-fi adventure. Nothing that really stirred conciousness, but a seriously fun read.
Some of the more rabid Heinlein fans should read "Grumbles From The Grave" which is essentially a memoir. It will put the misguided souls who turned "Stranger in a Strange Land" into a religion into a better perspective, along with giving major insight into what kind of person Heinlein was.
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I'll throw in a curveball -- it's not a hoity-toity book, and I don't even think it's the greatest of all time, but it's in my top five:
Neuromancer by William Gibson.
That man has his finger on the throbbing pulse of pop culture. The guy not only coined the term "cyberspace," but his brilliant work and gritty Tokyo-universal-brand-name-pop style spawned an entire decade's worth of cheap crappy knockoffs (Shatner's "Tekwar," anyone?). His prose has a unique rhythm and great visual/tactile descriptiveness. ("The sky was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.")
He's since moved away from Cyberpunk, but his new work continues to gel out our collective conciousness. I don't want to use the word "prophet," but the way his 25-year-old science fiction unearths the values of today's society (not the technology so much, but the emotional feel) is eerie cool.
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I'm really up in the air about this. I'm going tohave to say that there's a tie in my head between Moving Mars by Greg Bear and Redliners by David Drake.
Moving Mars has an intricate storyline that builds it's roots in the first few pages where most other novels are just introducing characters. The technology and environment used in the novel create a complex and wonderful topography for the plot to play out on. The politics that play a large supporting role in the book are beleiveable but also easy for a laymen to follow, and all of the above intertwines beautifully with the story of two individuals as they shape together a world they hope is better.
Redliners is a military SF book about war and the infantrymen who wage it, ala Starship Troopers. And, like Heinleins masterpiece, although the technology and the setting make this novel science fiction, the characters and the story have analogs that could be found anywhere, anywhen.
That's my two cents. If you haven't read these books, find them, they're worth a try.
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I am so torn. I would have to say, Brave New World, Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep, and 1984. I am a huge fan of books with a distopian/anti-utopian setting.
Fox sucks! Viva Firefly!
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I don’t read much sci-fi but fantasy’s kinda like sci-fi, right? Ah well, my favorites would have to be Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen, by Garth Nix. They might be a little young for most of us around here, but they were great a few years ago. 1984 was good too, but kinda depressing and irritating as hell.
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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
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