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The only ones that are weird not to see are Foundation (though I’ll allow that since I, Robot is here), Left Hand of Darkness and Consider Phlebas.
Other than that, this is great.
I can think of others, like 1984, brave new world, flowers for algernon… it’s an opinionated list. They shouldn’t call it “the best of all time” without a credible source.
The Martian made this list? There was nothing thought provoking about that movie, completly forgetable.
The book was interesting, partly because of how it came to be (it was originally self-published and gained notoriety and support afterwards; quite the opposite of how publishing normally goes).
Outside of Fifty Shades, that’s not common, especially in modern mass market literature.
Well, books are always better that Hollywood adaptations. But other than watching him sort out how to survive, it had no deep sci-fi thought probing that I would think would warrant it as a much watch scifi classic.
Caveat about Ender’s Game and Orson Scott Card: dude is a fucko whackjob irl, just pirate it lol
He also used to be the editor of Compute!magazine.
But you’re right, he Scott Adams’ed himself before Scott Adams did.
The heck. How can an intelligent person writing such amazing books have such misinformed and hateful views?
The quality of his books had been going down for a long, long time before I found out he was a bigot. Also, waaay too many child marriages.
Adding Foundations from Issac Asimov
Can someone explain the draw of foundations. I found it incredibly boring in terms of prose, structure and overall concepts.
I will admit that I straight up don’t vibe with the main gimmick, the fact that they can essentially predict the future by knowing enough about the past. Chaos theory throws a massive wrench in that idea and I found it hard to get in to the novel when so much relied on a concept that makes no sense practically.
For my part I like how psycho history is like thermodynamics. Harry seldom is not predicting the future as much as tweaking a closed system’s evolution. The galaxy is huge and populated enough to be governed by statistics, yet estill limited to be closed system. The “Mule”? I know only the French name Mulet" does throw a wrench in the whole thing aka chaos. That is why there are two foundations the second one manages the unpredictable events.
As for the writing style well that’s a matter of taste, I love Asimov’s style but am not literate enough to explain why.
This is going to be spoilers:
It doesn’t work in the books either. Chaos takes over and throws the long term predictions out of the window. Seldon’s plan doesn’t stay alive on its own because his math was prescient, it is actively kept alive by certain people’s deliberate actions and careful interventions to make sure the “predicted path” becomes a reality. It’s practically a millennium long social engineering project that needs constant supervision and babying from people who use a very effective statistical model to make decisions.
I second this motion.
I third this motion
Lol Slaughterhouse Five isn’t science fiction.
!Billy has severe PTSD and dementia, “traveling through time” is him reliving the trauma in his mind. All the shit about aliens (which takes up a very small portion of the book) is his hyperactive imagination acting as a coping mechanism!<
I was wondering if I was reading the book right with that description.
I hated SH5 so much, I am disappointed to see it take a spot on this list that could have gone to an enjoyable novel.
Hyperion, anyone?
No. While it’s an interesting read and certainly quirky, I don’t think it stands as a timeless classic.
Definitely to early to give it classic status but Hyperion is the most exciting book I’ve read in a long time. I feel like a couple of the stories are weak but some of them are absolutely riveting and the overarching mystery is quite compelling.
It’s a shame the sequels only got worse and worse.
No, this is just Canterbury Tales in space.
What constitutes “Iconic SciFi”? I get that your not including “The Bible”, but what about “Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health”?
Presumably books that describe themselves as fiction is part of the criteria.
Being promoted as fact while clearly not being is disqualified
I’ve read 14 of those. Do I get a prize now?
🏆
Yay!
That looks like a pretty significant spoiler in the fun fact of Slaughterhouse Five
That’s a very odd selection.
Spoiler alert on some of those fun facts.
Seen some pretty bunk top sci-fi lists lately while looking for new stuff. I figure the ad-bait sites have binned their low-pay intern writers for ChatGPT.
Frankenstein is a much better synopsis than it is a novel.
No Roadside Picnic.
No Solyaris.
No Voyage of the Space Beagle.
No Mars Trilogy by KSR.
No Starship Troopers.
I didn’t think the vogons were the ones with the answer to the ultimate question in H2G2
For something intended for people who haven’t read these books, there sure are a lot of spoilers.
