chaosmachine Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 An article I put together a few months ago (the one about the best sci-fi books) has been making the rounds again on StumbleUpon, and it looks like Forbes just picked it up :D http://www.forbes.co...fi-novels-ever/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 thats awesome, i wonder why the Forbes writer thanks Cliff something or other and not you for putting it together? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaosmachine Posted December 8, 2011 Author Share Posted December 8, 2011 thats awesome, i wonder why the Forbes writer thanks Cliff something or other and not you for putting it together? Second paragraph ;) And because the internet is a wonderful place, John Forsythe at Blamcast collated the upvotes on Reddit and ranked them to produce a crowdsourced list of the best sci-fi novel ever. You can check out the full list here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaini Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 not only that, but cliff pickover (a brilliant mathematician who's a big name in fractals) turned them onto the link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awepittance Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 thats awesome, i wonder why the Forbes writer thanks Cliff something or other and not you for putting it together? Second paragraph ;) And because the internet is a wonderful place, John Forsythe at Blamcast collated the upvotes on Reddit and ranked them to produce a crowdsourced list of the best sci-fi novel ever. You can check out the full list here. nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Franklin Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 high five chaos that's fucking awesome. of all of the people on here I always think of you as one of the more intelligent and "most- likely- to- succeed" types Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest iep Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 checken' out cliff pickover now.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Coalbucket PI Posted December 8, 2011 Share Posted December 8, 2011 I remember reading this article and I ended up just shutting the window because I found the number of books I wanted to read that instant was overwhelming. I did just read Neuromancer recently and I think it was because of you saying it was your favourite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaosmachine Posted December 8, 2011 Author Share Posted December 8, 2011 I remember reading this article and I ended up just shutting the window because I found the number of books I wanted to read that instant was overwhelming. I did just read Neuromancer recently and I think it was because of you saying it was your favourite. cool :) what did you think of it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zephyr_Nova Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 Very nice. The few of those that I've read were all excellent, and this reminds me that I need to continue reading the Foundation series. Mote in God's Eye is one of my all time faves, and Niven/Pournelle's followup novel The Gripping Hand is also really good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
essines Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 I've consulted this list prior to every library trip i've made since i first read the article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanakori Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 Charge them!! did they pay the rights to you??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoodie Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 You're so cool, chaosmachine. Congrats on being recognized for it :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lumpenprol Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 This is all well and good, but when are you going to start playing minecraft on the watmm server? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baph Posted December 9, 2011 Share Posted December 9, 2011 This is legitimately awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhonny Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 awesome stuff. what would be your recommendation for someone who hasn't really read much sci-fi? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baph Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 I bet Teve Torbes was like this upon reading the article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaini Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 awesome stuff. what would be your recommendation for someone who hasn't really read much sci-fi? if i had to pick three off the top of my head kim stanley robinson - red mars (the first volume of a trilogy about the colonisation of mars. often cited as the most realistic portrayal of it ever written) neal stephenson - snow crash ('cryptonomicon' is a better book but not really scifi, and 'anathem' is my favourite book of his but it's fucking dense) daniel keyes - flowers for algernon (devastatingly sad) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhonny Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 brilliant kaini, thanks! fingers crossed for a Kindle for xmas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chenGOD Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 Is Anathem really sci-fi? I found it pretty easy going after the first couple of chapters. I've read most of that list - how's the Gene Wolfe book? or the Alastair Reynolds? The Greg Egan? I really like hard SF if it's well written, but so much of it is just uuuuuuungh, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaosmachine Posted December 10, 2011 Author Share Posted December 10, 2011 Is Anathem really sci-fi? I found it pretty easy going after the first couple of chapters. it gets more sci-fi towards the end, i guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baph Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 Is Anathem really sci-fi? I found it pretty easy going after the first couple of chapters. it gets more sci-fi towards the end, i guess. How is Anathem not SF? It's speculative fiction that posits a fairly complete social structure, and involves scientists discussing science, and it ends in space (after a lengthy narrative lesson on How to Get There), on a spaceship inhabited by humans from alternate realities, who are also interested in science, at which point the narrative actually follows the course of multiple divergent universes according to the many-worlds interpretation with a plot based speculation on how such "Narrative Shifting" might occur I think it probably fits the Hard SF definition, even. David Brin's Earth is called Hard SF, it was nominated for the Hugo and Locus, and despite glossing over some speculative technology (and getting a few things right), its plot is sillier than Avatar and twice as implausible. edit: I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm just interested in how you define "science fiction." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chenGOD Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 Larry Niven's "Ringworld" is hard SF. I guess I'm a little fussy about it - I think most of the stuff that gets classified as SF should really just be fantasy. Anathem is more like discussion on how societies interact with knowledge. It just happens to be set in space partially. I guess there are some SF elements to it. Reading it I never got the impression that it was a science fiction novel, it was more a sort of philosophical fiction. It's a damn good book though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baph Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 'tis a fair enough point. Anathem certainly wasn't a straight genre exercise (which one of its many lovable elements). I haven't read much good straight sf in years. Feels like an itch I need to scratch-- but my god is the state of actual prose in this genre miserable. I also have a low tolerance for fantasy being called science fiction, which limits me to the aforementioned tin-eared hard stuff. Looking forward to filing in some gaps with good stuff via the OP though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chenGOD Posted December 10, 2011 Share Posted December 10, 2011 Sounds like we're much in the same boat baph. Especially with the level of the prose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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