
The Best Science Fiction Books (According to Reddit) - chaosmachine
http://blamcast.net/articles/best-science-fiction-books
======
templaedhel
I'm sorry not to see Accelerando by Charles Stross (cstross on HN) on the
list. One of the best singularity stories I have read, if not the best.

For those of you interested, it's available as a free ebook here:
[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/fiction/accelera...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html)

~~~
127
My problem with Stross is that while he has some absolutely fantastic ideas
and world-building, his stories fall short of keeping me interested or
entertained. It's like there's so much stuff crammed in that the story part
just falls out of the equation.

 __MINOR SPOILERS for Accelerando __

I thought Accelerando was great up to the part where it stopped making any
sense (about the time they were fighting some alien invaders parasites that
teleported from somewhere using communication channels). Maybe I'm just dumb,
but I really couldn't keep up with the plot and it got very nonsensical so I
stopped reading. Dealing with singularities, the divide between the physical
and the abstract is always very fluid. While Stross dealt OK with the abstract
reality, I thought his physical reality didn't make any sense to me. Hilarious
extrapolations, and such.

~~~
DanBealeC
His newer books (Jennifer Morgue etc) are better stories; with some of the
hell of modern office work.

------
chernevik
If you've dismissed any of these based on your reading as a kid, try re-
reading. I read Tolkien at 12, loved the wizards and orcs, but as an adult
remembered it as nonsense. When I re-read it (to be able to discuss with my 11
year old son), I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Likewise the
Dune books (all but the first are probably beyond any adolescent). Good
fiction is complex, and readings fascinated with wizards and swords and knife-
fights will miss a lot of thought-provoking stuff. Nothing wrong with a good
wizard, but don't miss the rest.

That said, I'm sorry to say that the Zelazny books, especially the later ones,
don't withstand re-reading. And I don't see how "Old Man's War" appeals to any
one but a teen or an ideologue. (I share the ideology! but the writing is
stale as yesterday's cornflakes, and the characters as unidimensional as
Heinlein's laziest pulp, without the Heinlein all-transgressive idiosyncrasy.)

Last note: "Starship Troopers" and "Forever War" ought to be read in sequence.
I can recall reading Haldeman at 15 and thinking "Hey! He's going after Rico's
Roughnecks!" It was my first moment of literature as Great Conversation. And
as I read some political philosophy, I could see Haldeman as a Chomsky /
Rousseau "it's all socialization!" response to the Locke / Hobbes rationalism
of Heinlein. It was an early experience of fiction as thought, and a
suggestion of why philosophy alone won't do.

Now I gotta go read the stuff on the list that I've missed.

~~~
gigawatt
I don't get how Old Man's War makes all these best of lists either. It's
simple, and not in a good way. It's the literary equivalent of Red
Dawn—awesome to 14 year olds, but lacking in anything deeper than "Old man
gets new body and has lots of sex."

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Old Man's War is pulpy fun that manages to also explore some interesting
aspects of what it would mean to be able to swap your consciousness into that
of a wholly redesigned younger "you".

------
pragmatic
Neal Stephenson really matures between Snow Crash and Diamond Age. I read snow
crash after some of his later stuff and it's almost hard to believe it's the
same author.

Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon are great books but each has their own style and
you would think it was a different author if you didn't know better.

That's why I like Stephenson so much. He takes a topic and researches it so
much that he brings it to life.

Whether he's writing for Wired about expats in South East Asia (which dove
tails nicely with Cryptonomicon) or extra dimensional aliens in Anathem, he
makes the world come alive and the technology and methodologies clear.

He also makes me laugh out loud. Very few books have done that.

~~~
r00fus
Agreed... I read Cryptonomicon first, then Diamond Age (my favorite from him)
then Snow Crash, and I found the third book a lot less mature and dated (I
read it in 2001, almost a decade after it was published).

Diamond Age painted a very deep and rich tapestry of future vision.

~~~
Roboprog
I found Cryptonomicon a painfully long slog. I enjoyed it overall, but only
read it because of having read Snow Crash and Zodiac first. I love
Stephenson's humor with technical issues. I suppose I should read some of his
longer, er, later books.

------
schiptsov
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep is really good book. The movie is also
nice, but it is almost independent masterpiece in itself. These dresses of
Rachel, these rainy streets. Never mind.

Btw, A Scanner Darkly is also good novel by Philip K. Dick, but it never
appear in any such ratings. It is almost that dark and depressive as Electric
Sheep. ^_^ [http://www.amazon.com/Scanner-Darkly-Philip-K-
Dick/dp/067973...](http://www.amazon.com/Scanner-Darkly-Philip-K-
Dick/dp/0679736654)

As for Zelazny, A Night In Lonesome October is very nice read.
[http://www.amazon.com/Night-Lonesome-October-Roger-
Zelazny/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Night-Lonesome-October-Roger-
Zelazny/dp/0380771411)

~~~
draegtun
PKD has written so many great books its not surprising everyone has their own
favourites. I personally prefer _Man in the High Castle_ , _Ubik_ , _Time out
of joint_ and _Martian time-slip_ to _Electric Sheep_ and _Scanner_. I'm
surprised none of these managed it onto the list :(

------
subwindow
Obviously with any list there's going to be quite a lot of nits to pick... At
any rate, here are mine.

Sad to see Stanislaw Lem completely left out in favor of some obviously
inferior books (Anathem!?). Also a curious choice for the obligatory Atwood
novel. Surprised that Gravity's Rainbow was not on there- I'd put it near the
top (maybe it wasn't "Sci-Fi" enough?)

Good to see Canticle for Leibowitz as well as a fair amount of Asimov and
Dick.

~~~
zavulon
Hear, hear. Any "Best of Sci-Fi" list that omits Solaris and includes Ender's
Game is worthless.

~~~
qjz
The demise of any social website also seems to coincide with the first mention
of Ender's Game. Could this be the end of HN as we know it?

~~~
cynest
I don't think that's a good rule at all. Ender's game a is popular children's
novel and is likely remembered fondly in any techie/nerd/geek setting. It just
shouldn't belong at the top of a "best of scifi" list.

------
sp332
I would add Permutation City. It's about: what's it like to be a digital
person in a virtual world? What are the psychological effects of knowing that
you're virtual; how do you experience time passing; what are the social
implications of changing your appearance at whim, etc.

And, how do different interpretations of data compete to become "real"? For
example, if you look at it one way it's a city, another way it's a collection
of data cells to be colonized, etc.

~~~
tadfisher
For a more complete extrapolation of this concept, check out _Diaspora_ by
Greg Egan.

~~~
betageek
Disapora is a semi-sequel to Permutation City, both are written by Egan

------
Androsynth
If anyone is interested, here is the list of joint winners of the Hugo and
Nebula awards:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_joint_winners_of_the_Hu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_joint_winners_of_the_Hugo_and_Nebula_awards)

I always find this list tremendously useful when I don't know what to read
next.

~~~
asymmetric
Another very valuable source of new material for me has been The Year's Best
Science Fiction anthologies[1].

Perfect for finding new interesting writers (Bacigalupi was one of the nicest
discoveries)

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_Best_Science_Fiction>

~~~
krasmark
Dozois has a knack for picking great stories. The saddest part is that it's
tricky to get past editions; when I find an old edition I don't have at a used
book store it's terribly exciting, especially since the quality has been so
consistent over the years.

~~~
iamscanner
I've had pretty good success picking them up in digital formats - not sure if
you prefer the paperback version, but if you're okay reading it on a screen
you can get all of them digital.

------
ilamont
I'm glad to see Gene Wolfe just squeaked onto the list, but IMO the New Sun
series ranks up there with Dune.

Pohl's "Gateway" and Gibson/Sterling's "The Difference Engine" would have been
nice additions, too.

Otherwise, it's a nice starting point. There are a few titles I hadn't heard
about that I'll be reading, if I can find the time.

~~~
Jacquass12321
Agreed, I spent the entirety of the list going "Yes, this is a good book, but
where's Gene Wolfe?" Anyone who loves literature is doing themselves a
disservice by not reading it.

~~~
colomon
Though I think I prefer Long Sun and Short Sun. :)

------
ColinDabritz
One omission that may fit this crowd well is "Daemon" and it's sequel
"Freedom(tm)" by Daniel Suarez

<http://thedaemon.com/>

These books are very well written and billed as a 'techno-thriller'. I think
they are also near-term science fiction, and have a lot of very interesting
ideas.

The books chronicle the rise of a very digital culture and a revolution driven
by technology. The technology is amazingly well researched and believable, and
the writing is entertaining and fun. At the moment they are quite recent and
the technologies aren't there yet, but I wouldn't be at all surprised for some
of the technology to fall into that 'oddly prescient' category within the
decade.

~~~
betageek
Love those, probably the only books I've read that deserved the "techno-
thriller" label that publishers love. Best extrapolation of the networked
society yet.

------
gcv
What? No mention of Lois McMaster Bujold and her excellent Vorkosigan series?
Bujold won four Hugo awards for her work, just behind Heinlein (who won five),
and I'm always surprised that she isn't better known.

~~~
onedognight
Bujold has a noteworthy digital philosophy as well. The entire Vorkosigan
series is available online
<http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/24-CryoburnCD/CryoburnCD/>

_... all of it beautifully unencrypted and unencumbered. What’s the catch?
This disk and its contents may be copied and shared, but NOT sold. All
commercial rights are reserved. That’s it._

~~~
starwed
From her novel _Barrayar_ :

>" _The people’s right to access information shall not be abridged. It’s the
first item in the Constitution._ "

------
jvdh
The Foundation series was a great read, I read it when I was young and it
influenced a lot of how I viewed the world around me.

Having just reread it, I must say that it shows that Asimov did not really
want to write the last parts of the series (i.e. Prelude to the Foundation and
Forward the Foundation). Forward the Foundation especially is just trying to
tie everything together by whatever means necessary. That being said, the
original first four parts are awesome.

~~~
jholman
Foundation, the book, was absolutely brilliant. Brilliant concept, brilliant
structure to the book, and even the sentence-to-sentence writing is better
than Asimov's usual (I normally find the actual wordcrafting to not be
Asimov's strong suit).

But ugh ugh ugh. Every single book thereafter gets worse and worse, and by the
end it's so bad that I actually welcomed the blatant fanservice reappearance
of you-know-who.

~~~
Eliezer
Voldemort vs. the Foundation? Don't go giving me ideas.

------
dennyabraham
Original thread

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k70dh/whats_the_b...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k70dh/whats_the_best_scifi_novel_you_have_ever_read/)

------
T-hawk
How about more modern science fiction? I loved the Golden Age series by John
C. Wright, published around 2004. It's refreshing to read sci-fi where
computers and connectivity are ubiquitous, rather than the old masters who
didn't foresee the internet. ( _Stranger_ has flying taxicabs using magnetic
tape for storage, a jarring juxtaposition to the modern reader.)

Golden Age raises some real philosophical questions, as good mind-expanding SF
should. Suppose you have an adversary in some endeavor, and you have the
technology to perfectly simulate your adversary's mind and predict what he
will do. Does that simulation have consciousness? Does it have civil rights?
What if it's forked? Very interesting stuff, grounded in real science (no FTL
travel.)

~~~
ableal
Thank you. I believe Golden Age is the series I was trying to remember in a
conversation a few weeks ago as an example of extreme use of augmented
reality.

I'll toss in my recent favorite space opera: the Polity series by Neal Asher.
Similar to Banks in that it has governing AIs, but less omniscient; good
adventure stories, with a dash of horror in original hostile species, sentient
and otherwise.

~~~
radley
I'll 2nd Asher. Just read the prologue of Gridlinked. On par with Game of
Thrones.

------
latch
Dune _is_ great..in fact, the original 6, except maybe God Emperor, are all
great.

Hyperion is a good book, as is the 2nd in the series The Fall of Hyperion.
However, the two last books are really quite bad. Personally, i found
Ilium+Olympos to be his best work.

I found the Culture novels disappointing. Except for Consider Phlebas and
maybe Excession, you quickly realize that they are pretty much gods and that
there's absolutely 100% no risk...it makes it all quite dull/pointless.

I hated Stranger in a Strange land..maybe I should re-read it. All I remember
(and it's been about 10 years)..was that I liked the start, an then it turned
really weird...all about drugs and sex and cults.

~~~
jonnathanson
Something Dune accomplishes really well -- and which very few sci-fi books or
movies have ever pulled off quite as effectively -- is weaving a lot of
background, and culture, and esoteric terminology, into the story without
disrupting the story's flow. There aren't lengthy, disjointed sidebars about
what X means, or why Y exists. Instead, X and Y are woven into the narrative
via context, allowing the reader to pick up quickly on what they are. (There's
also a glossary at the back of the book, of course, which helps).

The book's most glaring weakness, however, is that many of its characters
suffer from I'm-going-to-spell-out-precisely-what-I'm-about-to-do syndrome
(Harkonnen, in particular, has a James Bond Villain-esque penchant for such
speeches.)

Regardless, the book has been absolutely foundational to the genre. Nearly
every convention of the modern space opera can be traced back to Dune.

It's a pity that no one's ever been able to crack the book's code on film.
Understandable, though, as so much of the action is psychological and the
drama internalized.

~~~
anatoly
I only read Dune last year (I'm in my thirties), and really disliked it. Your
comment, however, emphasizes a virtue I did not sufficiently acknowledge at
the time. It _is_ true that Dune was able to weave a lot of background into
the story without resorting to technical infodumps. And at the time it was a
rare and impressive achievement in SF, deserving of praise. But I don't think
I'd agree that things haven't changed since; nowadays careful weaving of
background isn't rare. The first two examples that pop into my mind are Banks'
books (the Culture series or _Fearsum Enjinn_) in SF and Martin's _A Song of
Ice and Fire_ novels in fantasy. It may be reasonable to say, however, that
Dune has been foundational in teaching later authors the necessity of doing
this.

(Ultimately, I just couldn't handle how bad the writing was. All the
characters are utterly cardboard flat. Cliched tags follow them around the
book. One character has an inkvine scar on his jaw that eventually ripples in
any scene he's in... and then again in the next scene... and again... I felt
like instituting a drinking game based on the rippling of the scar. The main
hero's mind is filled with a _terrible purpose_ whenever the author feels the
need to emphasize a clue or a plot point. And the author just can't handle the
flow of information (who knows what how, and whether the reader also knows
that and how). This leads to the I'm-going-to-spell-out-precisely-
what-I'm-about-to-do syndrome you mention, but goes deeper than that, creating
plot holes and distortions, and causing most of the characters to learn most
of the important knowledge they need basically by staring into space and
having a revelation).

~~~
jasonkester
Try again in a year or so. Dune is one of those books that takes a few tries.
I think it was my 3rd attempt before I really got hooked and made it through
(and savored every page from there on out).

It's kinda like Lord of the Rings in that respect. If you're in the right
frame of mind, it's awesome. If not, it's the most boring piece of dullness
you've ever seen in print. But once you're in, you're in for good.

------
cletus
Probably the most surprising thing about this list is that whoever made it
didn't insert Amazon affiliate links into it.

Anyway, these lists always raise the question of what does "good" mean
exactly? Inevitably they're dominated by books that were, in their time,
incredibly significant.

You see the same things in computing books. Someone will always recommend
"Design Patterns" but (IMHO) it is the dullest, driest book you could ever
read. The _ideas_ were important. As a book it's terrible.

Science fiction falls into a number of categories.

The first is space opera. This is basically a tale of adventure in a science
fiction environment. Sometimes these books have some kind of message but most
of the time they don't. They're typically the "Terminator 2" of books: they
can be hugely entertaining, sometimes even really significant, but often don't
have much substance.

Don't take that as a criticism. Stephen Donaldson's "Gap" series was, for me,
a fantastic series but it really is simply space opera style entertainment.

The second is what I call "hard science fiction". It's the sort of sci-fi
where the story is a backdrop for some physics. Ringworld is an example of
this (as are most of Niven's works).

This is a genre I thought largely dead (with its height in the 60s and 70s)
until I read Alastair Reynolds. His books have more of a story than, say,
Niven's but they're still largely rooted in our current understanding of
physics.

The third is what I call "literary science fiction". Literature,
traditionally, was used as a means of talking about something that normally
couldn't be talked about. Plays in the Shakespeare's time filled this role.
Nowadays it's not so much that talking about these things is verboten, it's
that the story can be an accessible way of discussing a topic that an essay
never could.

Stranger in a Strange Land is very much in this category. It's almost only
sci-fi by association. It does have the hallmarks of its age, most notably
mental powers (a common zeitgeist in 60s sci-fi). This book probably had the
same effect on society that, say, Pacific cultures did on Victorian English
society.

In the 80s cyberpunk was born. Cyberpunk is largely an expression of fears
about an Asian (Japanese more often than not) "takeover" of Western society.
It's actually very xenophobic but it does reflect the dystopian fears of the
time. Cyberpunk has waned in recent years as the xenophobia has and the
realization that this isn't the future.

Does this make pioneering books in this field like Neuromancer "good"?
Personally I thought that if you ignore the pioneering part, it was a fairly
average book. Here again is the power of nostalgia I think (as I read it some
years after it came out).

So I find many books on this list that are (IMHO) overrated, largely for
nostalgic reasons.

I also find some authors missing that really should be represented, most
notably the prolific CJ Cheeryh whose books Downbelow Station and Cyteen are
both noteworthy and stand the test of time.

Some books on this list stand the test of time very well. Ender's Game, any of
the Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, Hyperion to name a few.

~~~
Alex3917
"Cyberpunk is largely an expression of fears about an Asian (Japanese more
often than not) 'takeover' of Western society."

I would argue that this has largely already happened. There is sort of a
battle between liberal jewish culture and fundamentalist christian culture for
being the official US mythology, but on a day to day basis Japanese culture
and values are largely what have filled the power void. I would argue that
most of our mainstream institutions, from schools to jobs to pop culture, have
become and are increasingly becoming largely Japanese in nature.

~~~
rgrieselhuber
Can you offer some examples? I was surprised by this statement.

~~~
Alex3917
So I think the fundamentalist christian thing is pretty self explanatory if
you've been paying attention. In terms of Jewish culture, it's not really a
secret that most of Hollywood, the media, and much of progressivism and
culture in general is organized around liberal jewish values.

I'm not really an expert on why this is, but from what I can see protestantism
sort of hit its high water mark shortly after WWII. Around this time we had an
enormous rise in summer camps, spiritual retreats, folk music, sort of a pre-
environmental movement, etc. that was all basically a reaction to the atomic
bomb. Not to mention the birth of rock & roll, which came out of protestantism
as well. All of this eventually led to the counter culture, which
protestantism sort of pulled back from. These loosely affiliated movements
were then basically embraced by liberal judaism. So today even though judaism
proper is in the background, many of its values have still shaped those of the
progressive movement to the point where liberal jewish values and
progressivism are largely intertwined.

In terms of Japanification, one pretty clear example in schools is high stakes
testing. In the workplace it's characterized by how bureaucratic large
companies have become, and the way the people at the bottom are treated. I
think it's in the movie The High Cost of Low Prices that there are videos of
Wal-Mart employees doing their morning dance or whatever that corporate makes
them do every day when they open the store, stuff like that is straight out of
Japanese business culture. In general you see an increasing amount of abstract
ideas being productized so that they can be sold as part of new fads, whether
we're talking about rock band, credit default swaps, politicians, etc. It's
essentially a glorification of surface appearances.

From everything I can see, the U.S. is basically becoming like Japan except
without the ideas surround honor and the other spiritual norms, and without
enough money to facilitate the same level of pop culture fads. Again I'm not a
historian so if you want to call bullshit on me then go for it, I'm just
calling it as I see it.

~~~
jerf
While an interesting thesis, and I would never claim Japan has completely
failed to influence the US, none of your examples strike me as evidence of
Japan -> US influence rather than either convergent evolution, or things that
just flat out come from different sources. High stakes testing is a result of
the bureaucracy; the bureaucracy requires something to test and measure, and
it will create it even if it's impossible, damn the consequences. The US is
adopting it due to an increase in sclerotic bureaucracy, many Eastern cultures
has histories of sclerotic bureaucracies longer than Western culture itself.
Team building exercises and the term itself predate any conceivable Japanese
influence. If "productizing abstract ideas", or perhaps rather, "productizing
culture" flowed in any direction, it was from US -> Japan, not vice versa! See
also the concept of "soft power".

~~~
Alex3917
"either convergent evolution, or things that just flat out come from different
sources"

I more or less agree with this. At the same time, when you look at Japan
everything just looks better -- even though it isn't. So while I think much of
it is convergent evolution or things that come from different sources, just
having Japan being the way it is vaguely over there seems to be giving US
leaders more self confidence to make these sorts of reforms.

Part of it also though is that Japan has a history of taking ideas from other
cultures and then perfecting them. E.g. germany invents scientific management,
Henry Ford popularizes and commercializes it, and then 60 years later it's
getting shipped back to us as TQM and Kanban. So yeah it's definitely all
tangled up, all I'm saying is that we're becoming more like Japan currently
is, regardless of why we're becoming that way or why Japan is that way.

~~~
mindcrime
_Part of it also though is that Japan has a history of taking ideas from other
cultures and then perfecting them._

As one example, a lot of the "japanese management techniques" stuff can trace
its roots back to an American, W. Edwards Deming.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming>

 _Deming made a significant contribution to Japan's later reputation for
innovative high-quality products and its economic power. He is regarded as
having had more impact upon Japanese manufacturing and business than any other
individual not of Japanese heritage. Despite being considered something of a
hero in Japan, he was only just beginning to win widespread recognition in the
U.S. at the time of his death._

~~~
mentat
It doesn't necessarily matter what the culture of the person who had the idea
is. It matters who has the courage to do it. Execution trumps idea.

------
mactitan
Wow, no classics that so far stand the test of time. Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein (unbelievable at 18 in 1818!) and as others have mentioned Verne,
HG Wells(his insight inspired physicist Szilárd's neutron chain reaction).

Still an interesting list that shows what the mob is looking at. I guess I'll
have to give neuromancer another chance(i only skimmed it) also hated
heinland's stranger (the jesus complex was unconvincing). And it's easy to see
how a list can be skewed by something like hitchhikers (which is so funny &
readable) But in 200 yrs how many from this list?

------
jtbigwoo
I was pleasantly surprised to see two Neal Stephenson books on the list, but
why did the second have to be Anathem? I thought Cryptonomicon and The Baroque
Cycle were much better books. Anathem's plot seemed like book-nerd wish
fulfillment.

Of course I still read all thousand pages of Anathem in, like, four days. :)

~~~
andrewparker
favorite stephenson books in order: 1\. snow crash 2\. diamond age 3\.
cryptonomicon 4\. zodiac 5\. baroque cycle

~~~
brown9-2
is Anathem kept off your list on purpose ? :)

~~~
andrewparker
yes because I couldn't finish it so I don't have a comment.

------
betageek
Someone who never appears on these list but is one of the rising stars in
Scif-Fi isis Ted Chiang. He's not written a full length novel yet but his
short stories and novellas are mind blowing, best stuff I're read since early
Egan. Check out:

Stories of Your Life and Others [http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Ted-
Chiang/dp/193152...](http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Ted-
Chiang/dp/1931520720/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1))

The Lifecycle of Software Objects* [http://www.amazon.com/Lifecycle-Software-
Objects-Ted-Chiang/...](http://www.amazon.com/Lifecycle-Software-Objects-Ted-
Chiang/dp/1596063173/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315602763&sr=1-2)

*if there's a more HN title for a novella ever I haven't heard of it!

------
hesdeadjim
I have two give two huge thumbs up to a few books on that list:

* A Fire Upon the Deep - This book manages to capture both galaxy wide conflict and intense personal narrative in a manner that kept me riveted to the end. That and an extremely unique type of alien life form that gains its personality based upon a telepathic summation of individual consciousness of it's members, made for some really interesting reading.

* The Forever War - Take one part Starship Troopers (the book), add a dash of conscription and another of superluminal travel with full time dilation effects, and you end up with this superb novel. I've read it a few times already because it's so damned good and concise.

------
martinkallstrom
Missing: Eon by Greg Bear <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eon_(novel)>

~~~
Flemlord
Anvil of Stars is my favorite Greg Bear book. It's the sequel to Forge of God
which is also a great read: <http://www.amazon.com/Anvil-of-Stars-
ebook/dp/B003XRERB0>

~~~
FilterJoe
Anvil of Stars also my favorite Greg Bear book. Nobody read my review of this
book on Amazon, so perhaps this is a better place for it:

I've read hundreds of science fiction books where humans have military
conflict with aliens (though not yet the Forge of God). In nearly all of them,
there are World-War-II-Naval-like space battles with weapons/ships/shields at
near parity. I have always thought this to be highly implausible, and I
thought an interesting aspect of this book was to consider three possible
battle situations in space:

1) Your ship encounters a ship at a vastly higher tech level. If they detect
you before you detect them, you are dead. Period. Your only possibility to win
such a battle is to detect them first and destroy them instantly - and your
chances of being able to do that are slim.

2) Your ship encounters a ship at a vastly lower tech level. Using the logic
above, all that matters is you being able to detect them before they detect
you. The technologies of stealth, electronic counter measures, detection, etc.
are therefore all extremely vital in order to never be defeated by aliens with
a lower tech level.

3) There is a possibility that you encounter an enemy close enough to your own
tech level that the battle could last more than a split second. It is only in
these instances that all the other things often written in other science
fiction stories might matter - amount and type of shielding, weapons systems,
quality of personnel, etc. But such battles are very unlikely, because
technological progress is so fast. Consider what it would be like for any of
today's industrialized nations with a substantial military to combat the most
powerful nation on earth from 200 years ago - there would be no contest at
all. The universe has been around for billions of years, so the chance of two
races encountering each other that are within a few hundred years of each
others' technology level is very low.

The above logic also applies to planetary defense as well, though with even
more emphasis on not being detected.

This is the only SF book I've read that envisions future military conflict
this way, and for that I give the book 4 stars. In my mind, this clearly
deserves a place among the top 10 science fiction books in the military SF
genre.

However, I did not care for the characters and character development and
dialog which occupied the sluggish first half of the book. It wasn't until
they started exploring the killers home system that I had trouble putting the
book down. I did enjoy the dialog about ethical considerations of what the
human ship was going to do, and the aliens they joined forces with were an
interesting twist to the story and well done.

Bottom Line - the key to this book for me was an exploration of military
encounters in space that struck me as vastly more plausible than the typical
SF novel. Rewrite the book to remove most of the first half - and it would
have been 5 stars for me.

------
ColinWright
Not surprised to see that "Quantum Thief" isn't on the list - it's probably
too new:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quantum_Thief>

Highly praised by Charlie Stross
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross>), and recommended by me. Be
warned, though, bloody hard work - the criticism mentioned in the "Reception"
section of the WikiPedia page is accurate. I think it adds to the experience.

------
zalthor
I think Speaker for the dead should have made that list. Or at least they
should have listed it as Ender's game + Speaker for the dead.

------
wccrawford
There were a few 'everything by X' comments that got massive upvotes (Philip K
Dick comes to mind) that aren't really represented here. The authors appear,
but only 1 or 2 of their works. It's worth keeping in mind that this wasn't
just a list of books, but of authors as well.

~~~
eru
And he wrote lots of good short stories, too.

------
quickpost
The only guide you'll ever need (also courtesy of reddit!):

[http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/brm9y/have_you_seen_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/brm9y/have_you_seen_this_its_a_really_good_guide/c0o8kah)

------
jwallaceparker
I highly recommend the science fiction of Eric Frank Russell. Especially Wasp
(<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0575070951/>)

Russell is a great writer. And funny.

The Great Explosion (<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/088184991X/>) is
another good one.

------
dlikhten
Some others I'd recommend:

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. Loved it.

Flatland. o.O

Isacc Asimov short stories collection (specially "Jokester" "The Golden Man"
and "The Last Question")

~~~
silvajoao
The Last Question is perhaps the short story with the most mind-bending
finale. Highly recommended.

<http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html>

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I prefer the last answer.

~~~
kilian
I found both to be some of the most rewarding stories I read. With both, upon
finishing them, I spent another hour just thinking about it. Highly
recommended!

------
Qz
A pretty stellar list, except for Altered Carbon which I found cheap and
utterly predictable. I'm really not a fan of Revelation Space/Alastair
Reynolds, but that's more due to the flaws in the fiction writing, whereas the
sci-fi aspect of that book and most of his subsequent books is truly
impressive (save for Chasm City).

------
jnsquire
I'm really surprised Charles Stross didn't get into the list. One of the best
futurists currently writing, IMHO.

I also highly recommend M. John Harrison's 'Light'
<http://www.amazon.com/Light-M-John-Harrison/dp/0553382950>.

------
acabal
While I thought Alastair Reynold's _Revelation Space_ was just ok, I really
loved his standalone book _Chasm City_. I picked it up randomly at a book
exchange and was blown away. The universe is fiercely imaginative and
colorful, the dialog is snappy, the characters are flawed and interesting, the
science is just hard enough to be vaguely plausible, but on the whole there's
enough silliness for the book to not take itself completely seriously. The
mysteries are compelling and the plot winds up nicely.

I highly recommend it over his other Revelation Space books--it's truly a
brilliant, self-contained space opera in every sense of the word. It was the
first book of his I read and I haven't since read something so brightly
imaginative.

~~~
r00fus
Chasm City is my favorite book, but not by far... The first book (Revelation
Space) set a very nice backdrop for the character development and story in the
2nd book (Chasm City).

My only gripe with Chasm City is that there is an (not essential to story)
interlude which breaks hard sci-fi canon (ie, superluminal travel).

------
daralthus
I really miss Stanislaw Lem from this list.

~~~
eru
Or any other non-English writer.

~~~
ableal
Really, they could have tossed Pierre "Planet of the Apes" Boulle in there, if
they knew the name.

Although my favorite Boulle story was "Les Jeux de l'esprit", where scientific
rationality takes over the world, and, for entertainment, contests between
physical and biological science teams are broadcast. They quickly progress to
all out war ...

------
sciurus
Metafilter has a list of lists of the best science fiction books:
[http://ask.metafilter.com/127327/What-is-the-best-list-of-
Sc...](http://ask.metafilter.com/127327/What-is-the-best-list-of-Science-
Fiction-books)

------
Jun8
This is a really interesting list! You've got the predictable ones, e.g. _Snow
Crash_ (man, did the conclusion of that one _suck_!) and juvenile SF, like
_Startship Troopers_ (an example of Heinlein's early phase), but really niche
ones toward the end (not many would think Atwood as a SF writer).

Two gaping holes: Any SF list that doesn't include Stanislaw Lem (e.g.
_Cyberiad_ ) is incomplete. Also missing is James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon),
who was Le Guin's mentor (read her _Love Is The Plan The Plan Is Death_ ,
it'll stay with you for weeks.)

Also a series I really enjoyed is Chalker's Four Lords of the Diamond Series,
very creative.

~~~
cellularmitosis
Indeed, I've been enjoying "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" (an anthology of
Tiptree's short stories). I'm short on free time lately, so the short story
format makes them feel more accessible.

~~~
Jun8
I _loved_ that anthology and was so intrigued by her Wikipedia page that I
bought and read her biography, which is excellent. Would have loved to meet
her before she was undone by depression, what a woman!

------
zachgalant
I'm working on a website called Raunk that crowdsources rankings of anything
(including Science Fiction books) and allows you to view best of lists from
different perspectives.

It's also a great way to keep track of your favorites and compare them with
your friends and the entire internet.

Check it out at <http://raunk.com>

Log in to make your best Science Fiction Books list here:
<http://raunk.com/create/82,268>

Or view the list here: <http://raunk.com/list/82,268>

We just launched and are still in Beta, so we'd love to hear any feedback on
the site.

------
jaredor
Thank you, John Forsythe, for taking the time to do this. This crowd-sourced
bestof list is a nice update to David Pringle's "Science Fiction: The 100 Best
Novels". I love all such lists that have some passion in them, since more
often than not I'm introduced to a book and an author that are good reads.

Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, fan site
<https://www.worldswithoutend.com/lists_pringle_sf.asp>

Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels, amazon
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786704810>

------
BillSaysThis
This thread points out the problem with Top 100 lists, of SF or other large
bodies of things judged subjectively, which is that there are far too many
good ones to stop at 100. In the real world of course one would hope to have
the time to read far more than 100 SF novels; fortunately for me I've read
several thousand over the past 40 years.

Personally, though, I wouldn't put Dune or any Gene Wolfe on my Top 100 SF
novels. Could never get past the first pages. Banks, Stross, PFH, MacLeod,
Rudy Rucker, Kage Baker, of the recent vintage, would all be there though ;)

~~~
lobster_johnson
> Personally, though, I wouldn't put Dune or any Gene Wolfe on my Top 100 SF
> novels. Could never get past the first pages.

Try Wolfe's _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_ and see if you might change your
mind. It's very readable, and it's pleasantly short. It's half Borges, half
Sturgeon, with a pinch of Ray Bradbury.

------
the_happy
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is out of place.

It's a good book for what it is: young adult absurdist comedy. But it honestly
never occurred to me to classify it in the same genre as the other books in
the list.

------
knotty66
Thought I might see 'Flowers for Algernon' on here.

~~~
microtherion
The problem there is maybe that the novel length treatment of the idea is not
quite as amazing as the original short story.

One author that I find sadly missing from the list is John Brunner. Each of
"Stand on Zanzibar", "The Sheep Look Up", and "Shockwave Rider" would arguably
deserve a place on this list.

~~~
liquidcool
Completely agree on The Shockwave Rider, which I feel is a great precursor to
cyberpunk. Extremely prescient book considering it was published in 1975.

------
Rinum
Amongst my favorite SciFi books (not on that list) I loved The Lathe of Heaven
by Ursula K. Le Guin

------
draegtun
Many moons ago i was recommended to read _The Last Starship from Earth_ by
John Boyd with it being referred to has the often overlooked SF classic. It
does occasionally squeak onto a list but is still sadly often overlooked :(

Also no HG Wells, Verne, Silverberg or Bob Shaw books on the list? Certainly
would have _War of the Worlds_ and _A Time of Changes_ on mine.

------
IgniteTheSun
An aside that may be of interest:

From the linked page: "Ever wonder where the term 'Avatar' came from?"

Still amazes me that people think the word Avatar arose out of recent
technical advances.

One educated in a perspective beyond just the Western should know that its an
ancient Sanskrit word.

More information: * <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar> *
[http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/17/bet-you-didnt-
know-a.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/17/bet-you-didnt-know-a.html)

By the way, both references use the word 'descent', and Wikipedia quotes two
western sources claim that 'descent' is more correct than 'incarnation'. I
checked with at least two Indian contacts that claim the opposite. [Its a
Hindi word also; for those that don't know, Hindi is a derivative language
from Sanskrit (just as many Western European languages are derived from
Latin).]

------
johnohara
I liked the idea of outfitting Zeb Carter's Ford with a "continua" device in
Heinlein's Number of the Beast and programming it so it would move through
parallel universes via voice command to the onboard computer.

Can't tell you how many times I've sat in traffic and wished I could say "jump
deety" and immediately be in the parking lot.

------
sid6376
While I am a voracious reader, I have just started reading sci-fi. (Just
finished dune, Starting with stranger in a strange land). Just in case
anyone's interested, here's a list of the books mentioned in the article and
some famous hackers and entrepreneurs who like the books:

Snow Crash - Sergey Brin

Dune - Michael Arrington

Stranger in a strange land -Michael Arrington ,Linus Torvalds

Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy - Michael Arrington

Ender's Game- Mark Zuckerberg

Anathem - Michael Arrington

Source: my hobby site <http://vipreads.com>

Links to individual people:

<http://vipreads.com/sergey-brin>

<http://vipreads.com/linus-torvalds>

<http://vipreads.com/mark-zuckerberg>

<http://vipreads.com/michael-arrington>

------
nazgulnarsil
Alfred Bester check.

Greg Egan check.

No Peter Watts, understandable Blindsight is relatively recent and unknown.
(Seriously though drop everything and read this now:
<http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm>)

No Stanislaw Lem you best be trolling.

------
wazoox
IMHO Jack Vance should be in the list, be it the Tschai series or some other.
Really loved it.

~~~
hoodedswan
Jack Vance, the forgotten grand master. I love his stuff as well. My choice
would be the Cadwal Chronicles trilogy. The problem may be that his signature
work, the Dying Earth stories, are generally categorized as fantasy rather
than SF.

------
dewarrn1
Lots of great suggestions have already been made (I'm particularly intrigued
by _The Quantum Thief_ ), but I believe that _Startide Rising_ has gone
unmentioned so far, and that's a shame. The rest of the Uplift Trilogy is also
great fun.

------
alimbada
I'm a big fan of Iain Banks since reading Excession (which still remains my
favourite). Also loved Dune, but haven't read any of the sequels yet. I'd also
recommend Catherine Asaro's saga of the Skolian Empire to anyone that is into
physics/maths.

~~~
davedx
Read the 6 books by Frank Herbert, skip the other spin offs by his son and the
other guy - they're terrible in comparison.

~~~
neutronicus
I never though much of Dune 2-5 either, but I guess I'm in the minority on
this one.

~~~
jon_dahl
It took me two or three tries, but now I put 2-6 up there with the first book.

I think the reason people have trouble with 2-6 is that they're ultimately a
reversal or deconstruction of the Hero myth. The first book is a fairly
typical "Rise of the Superhuman Hero" tale, and that's why it's accessible.
Book 2-6 explore the dark side of this myth, which is why they're unique,
somewhat inaccessible, and really interesting.

~~~
neutronicus
I thought they suffered too much from "scope creep". The scope of the first
book was nicely limited, but the later books made the story's consequences so
far-reaching I couldn't take them seriously.

As regards deconstruction, I think Gene Wolfe does it so much better than
Herbert that I don't really consider it a selling point that Herbert tries to
do it.

------
lardarz
Good list, and I've read nearly all of them.

Getting past the first chapter of Pandoras Star is well worth it -
Morninglightmountain is one of the most original, minblowingly awesome all
time alien baddies, and the trepidation and sense of impending doom in that
book and its's sequel Judas Unchained are superb. Would also recommend the
Void Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton too - strong mix of scifi and an alternate
fantasy world.

Missing in my view would be: Greg Bear - Eon (as people have mentioned, but
also: M John Harrison - Light James Blish - Cities in Flight Battlefield Earth
(awesome book, hopeless film) Brave New World for my ultimate "classic"

------
geuis
Out of all the scifi I've read over the years, one really stands out to me.
Lilith's Brood by Octavia Butler. The reason isn't that I enjoyed it, but
rather that by the time I finished it I was inherently disturbed by it.

I've often read stories I enjoyed. Sometimes I read some that are boring. But
it's very rare to actually finish something that makes you physically
uncomfortable most of the way through.

The story is excellently written and I recommend anyone willing to experience
scifi in a different way to read it.

Would also throw in The Windup Girl as another first rate recent novel.

~~~
YogSothoth
Definitely second the recommendation of Lilith's Brood, I also found it very
moving. I bought it based upon the strength of her (much) earlier short story
Bloodchild which I found myself thinking about for weeks after I'd read it.

~~~
geuis
I'm very interested in how the book affected you. When you say you find it
moving, can you describe in what ways?

For me, the word "moving" means that I was emotionally tied to the
character(s). When they succeed, I succeed. When one dies, its heart breaking.
But that's not how Lilith's Brood affected me. At some deep level I was very
disturbed by the overtones of rape and subjugation by the aliens, but that at
the same time these creatures loved the humans they bonded with in the same
deep way we feel when we love another person. There was a big amount of
alienation in that humans in the bondings were physically repulsed to be near
each other even though they were deeply in love. That human beings could only
be close via the alien partner, there was just something deeply wrong with
that.

One of the reasons I respect that novel and can recommend it, but can't love
it, is that Octavia Butler did such a magnificent job in telling the story in
a way that it makes me feel as I do. That's rare.

------
droz
Interesting to compare it against goodread's list:
<http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/science-fiction>

------
brainlock
I just finished the Commonwealth Saga + The Void Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton,
loved it. Both set in the same universe, the first two in the relatively near
future (about 300 years from now), the trilogy in the far future (about 1500
years from now).

The trilogy can get a bit abstract, verging on the fantasy genre at times, but
in the end the author manages to give an explanation that "makes sense" for
everything, which is the thing I really like about his stories. Highly
entertaining.

~~~
shabble
It's a bit of a dubious explanation of The Void, to be honest (although the
"Think of it as an 8-dimensional onion" kind of makes up for it), and the
ending is a little weak, but overall I enjoyed the series a lot. The
alternating of space opera/fantasy chapters is also done pretty well, and
keeps things interesting.

------
gordian
Curious that Roert Silverberg's "Up The Line" did not make this cut. It was
the inspiration for Back to the Future and is an entertaining time travel
story.

------
eru
I'm a bit disappointed to only see English books on there.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
If you know of any (translated, given my lack of non-English speaking
capability) non-English-origin sci-fi, I'd love pointers. I realize a lot is
lost in translation, but I love the viewport into other cultures that fiction
can provide.

~~~
fractallyte
Largely ignored in all these comments is the enormous legacy of Soviet SF.
During all the years of SF's Golden Age and the decades after, the main
ideological and technological competitor to the US was the Soviet Union.

We're so familiar with the tropes and concepts of US-centric SF, but imagine a
_whole new world_ of science fictional ideas - separated only by language!
That's Soviet SF...

The finest series of translations was Macmillan's Best of Soviet Science
Fiction in the 1980s. Some of the books are now very rare and expensive, but
if you're a seeker of ideas, they're priceless (especially any stories by
Genrikh Altov).

As an introduction, I particularly recommend World's Spring, edited by
Vladimir Gakov. And one of the finest SF novels I've read is Self Discovery,
by Vladimir Savchenko (freely available online here:
[http://lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_ok-
en...](http://lib.ru/RUFANT/SAWCHENKO/savchenko_selfdiscovery_ok-engl.txt)).

~~~
icebraining
I have a copy of a collection of soviet stories, including two by Altov (and
his wife). It's a Portuguese translation of a French translation, but it's
still great (although I wonder how much was lost).

------
missy
Based on the books I have seen a movie , the key theme is that the charachters
resembles perhaps us founders a bit. They feel threatend in their current
existance (user issues) and have to venture out into space (Silicion Valley) ,
into the unknown (the market) to usually defeat something (problems and
competition) and in the end become victorious and have peace (some founders).
Its Hollywood so in reality many fail.

------
_mayo
I'm surprised Slaugher House Five wasn't on the list.

~~~
shrikant
I think I can understand why it wasn't on the list - but I'd rather not
explain the reasoning here for fear of spoilers. (...or has the statute of
limitations on this book run out?)

FWIW, I _loved_ Slaughterhouse Five, and had nightmares about it.

------
buff-a
No Greg Bear???

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)>

------
hoodedswan
I see many comments in support of favorite authors here. I'm gratified to see
several for personal favorite CJ Cherryh & 1 for another personal favorite,
Jack Vance. So in the interest of variety, I'll state this - Hamilton's
Pandora's Star doesn't belong on this list. Read it, enjoyed it, but it's just
not all that.

------
rmajor
Thanks for the list. Nice to see some old friends on there. My all time
favorite is Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I think it is his best.
First time I read it I was in the sixth grade. That was 45 years ago. I've
read it many times since, and will no doubt read it again.

------
dbingham
That discussion of Science Fiction heavily disappointed me because it lacked
any mention of some books that are full to overflowing of amazing ideas and
insights. And well written to boot.

The Uplift Trilogy (the first one) by David Brin

------
zwilliamson
What about Stephen King's Dark Tower Series? Or is this just best single book?

------
LesleyPervis
Good list, thanks.

Weird to make the equation (writers / Margaret Atwood) = (bands / (Celine Dion
| Nickelback)). I would make the right side (bands / (Tragically Hip | Rush)).
There's nothing light weight about Margaret Atwood.

------
babygenie
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson should be on there as well! THAT is a book
that made me sorry I had finished it. I had lived in it half a year, reading a
bit every night before sleeping.

------
Symmetry
Everybody is going to have their own opinions. For Clarke I would have put
_The Fountains of Paradise_ way ahead of _Childhood's End_ , for instance, but
to each their own.

------
LadyM
Neil Stephenson wrote "The Diamond Age", an amazing sic-fi book as well.

John Twelve Hawks "The Traveler" is also deserving of this list.

There are some great books on this list and they truly speak for themselves.

------
IMJURGEN
Great list. Only missed four titles. So glad to see "The Stars My Destination"
on the list Wish it had included Zelazny's "Lord of Light". No arguments about
the rest of it.

------
pragmatic
I read some of these as a teenager and some more recently.

Some really have staying power and some really don't hold up. I found
Foundation and Mote in God's Eye rather disappointing.

------
IMJURGEN
Great list. Only missed four titles. So glad to see "The Stars My Destination"
on the list Wish it had included Zelazny's "Lord of Light". No arguments about
the rest of it.

JURGEN

------
nazgulnarsil
Steel Beach begins with perhaps the best ad copy I've ever seen.

WIN FREE SEX!

------
smallblacksun
I was disappointed not to see any of the real classics (20000 Leagues Under
the Sea, The Time Machine, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc.) on the
list.

------
aroberge
While they may be old, and show their age, I would have thought that the
Lensmen series, by E.E. Doc Smith would/should have made the list.

------
0003
Not one of Peter Watts' [1] books made it to the list.

[1]<http://www.rifters.com/crawl/>

------
j_col
Dune number one, yay! I love all six books.

~~~
jobu
The first book is definitely one of my favorites, but I can't say I would
recommend the rest of the series.

------
richieb
This must be the runners up list. The best list is mostly Stanislaw Lem with a
sprinkling of Philip K. Dick. :)

------
bendehghan
Sirens of Titan is on the list hence I feel the list is valid. The relative
position might be wrong though...

------
joeyh
This kind of list makes me sad, because I've read every book on it (except the
classic military SF one).

------
ajuc
I wonder if Jacek Dukaj is known outside of Poland? He writes very
philosophical SF.

~~~
ajuc
Probably he's not, because nobody translates him. What a shame.

There are some excerpts translated by fans:
<http://dukaj.pl/English/ReadingRoom/BlackOceans>

------
jkeesh
if you are looking to easily keep your own list of best science fiction books,
check out raunk <http://raunk.com/list/82,268>

------
0x12
Personal favorite: The Space Merchants, by Pohl & Kornbluth.

------
zafka
"Time enough for Love" belongs very close to the top.

------
orenmazor
I don't see anything to argue against here, actually.

------
IMJURGEN
Great list. Only missed four titles. So glad to see "The Stars My Destination"
on the list Wish it had included Zelazny's "Lord of Light". No arguments about
the rest of it.

JURGEN

------
discipline
No Dhalgren or Triton, by Samuel R. Delany?

------
angelortega
I miss "The earth abides".

------
geogra4
sort of dissapointed to not see any Stanislaw Lem on there

------
mathattack
Thanks for sharing

------
hackermom
I missed Huxley's Brave New World in the list, and I noticed that the list
contained only English writers. I wonder why the crowd the list was sourced
from hasn't been exposed to writers of other nationalities.

~~~
rmc
Several of the authors on the list are American (e.g. Orson Scott Card,
Asimov, etc.). Or do you mean "english-langauage" only.

------
dtbx
The first half of "Stranger in a Strange Land" is wonderful, but the second...
God in that novel actually exists.

For a truly atheist like me, sometimes I want to read a fanfiction of the
Stranger, but without god and the religion bullshit. Centered in the economics
and the power.

In science fiction, the sole purpose of God is to be mocked, criticized or
denied.

~~~
VanL
Do I understand you correctly that you cannot even stand the idea of someone
talking positively about God?

I am trying to think of another context in which your sentence (In <genre>,
the sole purpose of <noun> is to mocked, criticized, or denied.) would make
any kind of sense whatsoever.

Is there a particular, articulable reason that this is anything more than
running away from concepts that challenge your preexisting mindset?

For example, I disagree with slavery, but I also disagree that in modern art,
the sole purpose of slavery is to be mocked, criticized, or denied.

I am a fan of Python and not so much of Java. Nevertheless, I would never
agree that in web development, the sole purpose of Java is to be mocked,
criticized, or denied.

I tend to disagree with the Republican party on a number of issues, but I
would never say that in political discourse, the sole purpose of Republicans
is to be mocked, criticized, or denied.

Finally, I spend all day, every day working against patent trolls. They make
me frustrated and angry, and are, in my opinion, the symptoms of a broken
system. Yet I seek out people who advocate for the current system so that I
can understand it. I can't afford to have the patent literature I read
circumscribed so that the sole purpose of patent trolls is to mocked,
criticized, or denied.

Am I missing the point?

~~~
dtbx
Just try to imagine something so awful, so harmful to <X>, and your horrible
generalisation would make sense :)

In particular, what happens when the genre is sci fi and the noun is god?

Clearly, that noun is not to be adored. Religion is for that.

Should sci fi say something nice about that noun? That He really exists, after
all? Science is for that, and science until now...

I really think that sci fi should take a clear stance against god.

~~~
eavc
God has yet to be disproved by science; it's unlikely that will ever happen,
actually, no matter the fact of God's existence.

There's also no general framework from science that makes God incompatible
with known laws.

So God, in the context of a sci fi book, belongs to the class of things that
have yet to be discovered but which are still consistent as possible
discoveries.

Even aside from that, you can have concessions made to the willing suspension
of disbelief. There are limited concessions made in all but the strictest of
science fiction for the sake of making a compelling story.

I can understand if you have such a strong distaste for those kinds of ideas
that it ruins a story for you, but that's a matter of taste, not any necessary
quality of the genre at large.

~~~
icebraining
"God" will never be disproved by science since there's no real definition of
God. Between the thousands of conceptions of God and the eternally moving
goalposts (under which god will eventually be (or already is) defined as
'something impossible to test by science'), it's completely meaningless in an
empirical pov.

------
r4vik
So hackernews is having a discussion about a blog post about sci-fi books that
were recommended by a reddit discussion?

