Geek Books

[sidravitale]

From browneyedgirl65: geek books

The Guardian's Top Twenty Geek Novels.

Bold what you've read and liked, strike what you've read and disliked, italicise what you want to read.

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson (is there a way to signify 'middlin'? I didn't dislike it.)
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman (I go back and forth in my opinion, I don't think it's his best work)
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson (Own it. Yet to read it.)
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham

But hey, if you ask me, there's a lot missing off this list. What the hell is a Geek Novel anyway?

Comments

[jcortese.livejournal.com]

Anything written by a man, apparently. No LeGuin, no Tiptree, no Russ, no Bradley, no Bujold. *pukes*

[sidravitale]

So much of it is very new work, or cyberpunk, and then a little Asimov for brand name appeal. Very strange. Where's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom? Why Watchmen and not any Sandman, like Death and the High Cost of Living? Or Sin City, which has the most amazing art? Where's the Left Hand of Darkness, or The Dispossessed? I can't tell what a Geek Novel is supposed to be, based on this list. (But honestly, I know she's not as popular anymore, but given how geeks seem more likely to be libertarian and/or objectivist...where's Atlas Shrugged or some other Ayn Rand?)

One Google later: Oh....they *voted*. It's not like a critic's compilation or something. Well, that explains a few things. It started from an ad hoc critic's compilation.

Here's the list the vote ran on:

Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley
Catch 22 -- Joseph Heller
Cloud Atlas -- David Mitchell
The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson
Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
Giles Goat-Boy -- John Barth
The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
The Left Hand of Darkness -- Ursula K Le Guin
The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick
Neuromancer -- William Gibson
Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell
Orlando -- Virgina Woolf
The Shockwave Rider -- John Brunner
Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar -- John Brunner
Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
Woman on the Edge of Time -- Marge Piercy

I like that Orlando's on there, I just (re)read it a couple years ago. This list is a little better, but I still don't know what a Geek Novel(tm) is. Some of the notes in the comments talk about cyberspace themes and some say the author has the right cred or did when writing XYZ. The blog author just says 'brain-challenging' and "rewriting your mental maps", and then asks if sf elements or something are required. The respondents seemed to move in a different direction.

Well, whatever.

*yawn*