Vote For the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy in Two Separate Centuries
Posted on November 27, 2012 Posted by John Scalzi 27 Comments
Through the end of November Locus, the magazine of record for the science fiction and fantasy genre, is doing an online survey for the best science fiction and fantasy of the 20th century (1901 – 2000) and for the 21st (2001 – current). The survey includes best novels in both science fiction and fantasy, and combined ballots for novellas, novelettes and short stories. The 20th century gets ten slots for each category, while the 21st century gets five — which is still a bit of an oversampling, since as of this moment the 21st century is only about an eighth as long as the 20th. But, hey, good for us writing in the 21st century.
If you would like to add your votes, here is a link to the survey. You’ll have to fill in identifying information; anonymous ballots won’t be counted. Note that apparently how you rank the works counts, i.e., putting a work in first position has more weight than placing it fifth in overall scoring. So think about placement.
If you’re thinking of adding any of my works to your ballot, I would note a) all my science fiction has been published in the 21st century, b) “The God Engines” is a novella, c) “The Sagan Diary” is a novelette, d) all my other short fiction are short stories.
Happy voting!
Can’t wait to get home and go through my library, research my votes. This sounds considerably more fun than heading out into the cold for my evening’s exercise. Thanks for the link!
Starting with the 20th century, here’s my list. I decided on only one work per author. Also it’s hard to know what “best” means, since there are a lot of different meanings. This was hard.
SF:
Foundation Trilogy
The Sparrow
Startide Rising
Ender’s Game
Dune
Snow Crash
A Fire Upon the Deep
Stranger in a Strange Land
Neuromancer
1984
H.M.: Hyperion, Doomsday Book, Slaughterhouse 5, Grass, The Blind Assassin (not really SF but in their list), Use of Weapons, Memory, Cyteen, The Man in the High Castle, Metropolitan
I haven’t read Gravity’s Rainbow or Dhalgren, both of which are probably contenders.
Fantasy:
Lord of the Rings
Tigana
A Wizard of Earthsea
The Riddle-Master of Hed
Watership Down
Game of Thrones
The Last Unicorn
The Fires of Heaven (not listed in their list)
Last Call
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
This was hard.
21st Fantasy:
– Iron Council
– A Shadow in Summer
– Jonathan Strange
– Devices & Desires (KJ Parker – not on their list)
– The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern – inexplicably not on their list)
21st Sci-fi:
– Altered Carbon
– Spin State (Chris Moriarty – not on their list)
– Chasm City
– Windup Girl
– Spin
21stcentury Passages, Connie Willis
Also, not sure HOW to categorize these novels but both are thought-provoking and worth reading and neither are on the list: 21st cent. Kevin Brockmeier’s The Brief History of the Dead and The Illumination.
Thanks john for posting this because otherwise I wouldn’t have known about it and been able to vote. Unfortunately this is going to take a little time for me. It’s a little confusing for me because although set’s are usually considered as one choice like with LoTHR other’s like McCaffrey’ss DoP or King’s DT series were listed by book. I was a little surprised Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry wasn’t on there, but I’ll just write it in if I can. I figure it will take me a couple of days to work out all my choices. It’s amazing after reviewing the lists just how many books I’ve actually read from them. But it sure was fun.
It seems that Nov 27-30 is far too short a time to think through my over half-century of reading SF.
Aw, no categories for the nineteenth century? Mary Shelley and H.G. Wells get no love?
Matt W: I have never understood why Chris Moriarty is not at least as popular as Reynolds, Morgan or Asher. Same territory (particularly with Morgan), better writing (and I like all of those writers.)
What! Have I got lists? Yeah I got lists!
20th Century SF Novel
In some order
-Simmons, Dan : Hyperion
-Herbert, Frank : Dune
-Card, Orson Scott : Speaker for the Dead
-Pohl, Frederik : Gateway
-Stephenson, Neal : Snow Crash
-Haldeman, Joe : The Forever War
-Egan, Greg : Permutation City
-Brunner, John : Stand on Zanzibar
20th Century Fantasy Novel
-Zelazny, Roger : Lord of Light (Is is Science Fiction? Is it Fantasy? I don’t even know)
-Danielewski, Mark, The House of Leaves (Worthy of serious consideration)
-Pratchett, Terry : Small Gods (I suggest Discworld fans coordinate to vote up one of his books as emblematic of the series. I chose this one, though Reaper Man is better)
Only 3? Am I that Lazy? Yes.
21st Century SF Novel
-Peter Watts, Blindsight (it’s the best novel)
-Dexter Palmer, The Dream of Perpetual Motion (Most criminally underrated piece of genre fiction of the decade)
-Bacigalupi, Paolo, The Windup Girl (2009)
-Stross, Charles, Accelerando (2005)
-Wilson, Robert, Charles Spin (2005)
21st Century Fantasy Novel
-Mieville, China, Perdido Street Station (Obviously, what even is an ‘Iron Council’? It’s a less good book is what it is)
-Yudkowsky, Eliezer, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (What? WHAT?! Is this a fanfic? Why yes, yes it is. I will stand by it as being one of the best works of Fantasy of this or any other century)
-Clarke, Susanna Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (it was this or American Gods)
-Grossman, Lev, The Magicians (Almost swapped this out for The Blade Itself, but Abercombie’s magnificent deconstruction only works as a trilogy, otherwise it’s just a mediocrity. This beast stands on its own)
-Pratchett, Terry Night Watch (A second one!)
I voted for some short fiction stuff too, the only important vote was for
21st Century SF/F Novelette
-Blindsight by Peter Watts.
Cause it’s the best.
Also voted for Three Worlds Collide by Yudkowsky because its hilarious and his page was open on my computer at the time (see above).
Matt W has a good list except for the odd oversight by which it was made to differ from mine. Also, Iron Council? SRSLY?
@Brendan Tastes differ:) PSS is a 2000 release, which disqualifies it for the 21st century list, or I would have used it instead. However, I do like the tone of Iron Council better: lyrical, almost like a fable. Also, too, flesh golems. I mean, flesh. golems. How can that not be a win?
Oh and The Magicians, yes. I would probably have to switch something out for that.
@PrivateIron Word. Her new book comes out in April, I think. Can’t wait.
20c Best SF Novels:
1. Book Of The New Sun
2. Stars My Destination
3. Dispossessed
4. Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
5. Stand on Zanzibar
6. Man in the High Castle
6. Way Station (Simak)
7. Courtship Rite (Donald Kingsbury)
8. Distraction (Bruce Sterling)
9. Carve The Sky (Alexander Jablokov)
20c Best Fantasy Novels:
1. King Of Elfland’s Daughter (Dunsany)
2. The Worm Ourobouros (Eddison)
3. Moonwise (Gilman)
4. Waking The Moon (Hand)
5. Warhound And The World’s Pain (Moorcock)
6. Tigana (Gavriel Kay)
7. On Stranger Tides (Powers)
8. Iron Dragon’s Daughter (Swanwick)
9. Rats and Gargoyles (Gentle)
10. A Song For The Basilisk (McKillip)
Do you know if I have to lie about my gender to get counted? I’m worried that if I say anything other than “male” or “female” they might delete my vote.
sojournerstrange: I work for the print version of Locus, not the website, so I don’t have anything to do with this poll directly, but I suspect you can put whatever gender you like without fear of deletion. We’re interested in demographics, sure — but we don’t have a strictly binary view of those demographics. (I mean, our headquarters is in the San Francisco Bay Area.)
I voted several weeks ago (I visit the Locus site about once a week and have done so since 2005 although not a writer myself). Any number of responses are accepted; you are free to skip lists or to provide fewer than 10 rank-ordered entries in a given list.
With all respect to our host and his works, I didn’t provide any entries at all for the 21st-century categories; I found that I could only vote for stories and novels I’d reread over a period of 15 to (gulp!) 43 years, and probably would want to reread again – basically, a desert-island list.
@Tim Pratt: Great :’D I am already marshaling my listiness. Alas that I gave up on that youthful endeavor to record every single book I had ever read; my memory could do with all the promptings in the world, aha.
Sorry John. It took me an hour to read the first two lists. I voted for best novels of the 20th. And gave up. I thought it might be fun, then it turned out to be One HELL of a lot of work.
Maybe if they organize the categories better next time. Like only putting in SF novels for the SF voting and not all the fantasy with the sf. Just my opinion.
By the way, I decided to put Erikson’s “Mazalan Book Of The Fallen” in the 21st Century Fantasy list, since the first book was published in 1999 and the other 9 books were published in the next century.
20th SF
Hyperion: Dan Simmons
Ringworld: Larry Niven
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams
Dune:Frank Herbert
Forge of God: Greg Bear
Spock’s World: Diane Duane
Titan:John Varley
Gateway: Frederick Pohl
Speaker for the Dead: Orson Scott Card
The Final Reflection: John M Ford
20th Fantasy
The Hobbit: JRR Tolkein
High Deryni: Katherine Kurtz
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: JK Rowling
Nine Princes in Amber: Roger Zelazny
Lord of the Rings: JRR Tolkien
Tigana: Guy Gavriel Kay
Assassin Apprentice: Robin Hobb
Thieves World: edited by Robert Aspirin
A Spell for Chameleon: Piers Anthony
Jhereg: Stephen Brust
21st Fantasy (I have read next to no SF so far this Century… I can’t honestly say why)
The Curse of Chalion: Lois McMaster Bujold
The Briar King: Gregory Keyes
The Thousandfold Thought: R Scott Bakker
The Scar: China Meiville
Issola: Stephen Brust
@gottacook, The Curse of Chalion is on my desert Island list ;)
I spotted this several weeks ago and dived in. It did turn out to be a lot of serious thinking, always the hardest work. I tried to strike a balance between Good, Important, and My Faves, the latter parameter leading to a certain continuity of authors between categories.
As a dedicated fan of short fiction, I’ll skip my novel choices and the entire 21st C to keep the post merely massive:
20th C Novellas
The Persistence Of Vision – Varley
Logic Of Empire – Heinlein
The Shadow Over Innsmouth – Lovecraft
There Beneath The Silky-trees And Whelmed In Deeper Gulphs Than Me – Davidson
We Print The Truth – Boucher
Rumfuddle – Vance
True names – Vinge
The Night We Buried Road Dog – Cady
Coventry – Heinlein
The Last Castle – Vance
20th C Novelettes
The Sources Of The Nile – Davidson
Gonna Roll The Bones – Leiber
Jackpot – Heinlein
The Colour Out Of Space – Lovecraft
In The Bowl – Varley
Flowers For Algernon – Keyes
Petra – Bear
The Little Black Bag – Kornbluth
Fondly Fahrenheit – Bester
Spud And Cochise – Lafarge
20th C Short Stories
The Open Window – Saki
Uncle Einar – Bradbury
Space-time For Springers – Leiber
The Pink Caterpillar – Boucher
Narrow Valley – Lafferty
The House The Blakeneys Built – Davidson
The Cloud Sculptors Of Coral-D – Ballard
The Pusher – Varley
The Game Of Blood And Dust – Zelazny
Faraway Eyes – Rucker
So, trying to chase down the awesomest short fiction? there was WEEPING and GNASHING OF TEETH. I need to keep track of these things from now on or I will only be able to remember one or two absolute unbeatable favorites per…. like….. decade of readership. Max.
Please vote everyone. A tough (took a couple of hours) but rewarding exercise. It was a matter of honour to fill all the categories. The one that gave the most problems was the short story category for either century, for opposing reasons. For the 20th century it was too easy to come up with 20-25 stories that ‘couldn’t’ be left off the list, reducing them to 10 was painful. On the other hand it was difficult to come up with 5 21st century short stories that were good enough. A couple of my immediate choices turned out to be novelettes, leaving me searching online and my library for candidates. Have writers not been particularly memorable at the shortest lengths this century or am I just not in touch?
Another reflection on going over the ballot. Only 10 percent of my choices for the 20th century turned out to be written by women (Shirley Jackson, Ursula LeGuin, James Tiptree Jr., Octavia Butler and Connie Willis), while in the 21st century it was much closer to 50-50. An accurate reflection of the history of the field or my own prejudices? I can’t tell.
Interesting. Tigana shows up on three of our lists. I guess that bodes well for Kay.
I only did SF novels, since that’s the bulk of what I read. I based my votes on the books I recommend the most to fellow fans. I am SO pleased to see Blindsight showing up on others’ lists – it needs more promotion! By the way, I had no compunction about including more than one title by an author. If I love more than one book, then in they go!
20th
Demolished man
Stars my destination
Dune
Fire upon the deep
Deepness in the sky
Foundation trilogy
Doomsday Book
Gateway
Moving Mars
Uplift war
21st
Spin
Blindsight
City & the City
Old man’s war
Little brother
Oh – follow up to my previous post – maybe I should mention that I consider The City & the City to be science fiction rather than fantasy. It just felt conceptually SF to me.