Local Library Competition on Best Sci Fi Novel

[Leiali]

My Local Library has a competition on and I can't decide what to pick:

http://www.forms.norfolk.gov.uk/sci_fi_vote.htm

Um...Not sure the link worked so here is the list:

My favourite Sci-Fi title from the shortlist is:

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams

I, Robot | Isaac Asimov

The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood

The Algebraist | Iain M Banks

Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Philip K Dick

Neuromancer | William Gibson

Stranger in a Strange Land | Robert A Heinlein

Dune | Frank Herbert

Slaughterhouse 5 | Kurt Vonnegut


I haven't read Neuromancer or I Robot, And the Algebraist is on my to read list, but I am interested in finding out what people here would vote for?

[Yobmod]

I love Handmaid's Tale, so would vote for that.

But Slaughterhouse 5 and Do Androids Dream... are both amoungst my favourites, so it would be a close one.

farenheit 451 is good too, but a bit too slight for a truly great novel. Neuromancer was OK, but didn't really impress me, no matter how influentual it is. Similarly Hitchhiker's Guide... was mildly entertaining, and had some good ideas, but was too aimless and occasionally annoying.


I wonder how the shortlist was devised? Algebraist seems out of place, its too new, and while it got good reviews, the most common opinions i heard were "not as interesting as a culture novel", and "good, but not Banks' best". I certainly never heard anyone say its the best SF novel ever, or even a top 10 contender.

[ArthurFrayn]

It's a strange list.
I suppose I would pick Dune by default.

EDIT
I'll add a ranking, since it's the lastest craze;


Dune | Frank Herbert
Slaughterhouse 5 | Kurt Vonnegut
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Philip K Dick
Neuromancer | William Gibson
-at one point this was a fav, the lackluster sequels like Count Zero took the shine off for me.
Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury
The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood
Stranger in a Strange Land | Robert A Heinlein
I, Robot | Isaac Asimov


Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
-is not my favorite anything. If humor were beer, HGttG would be a Coors Lite.
Mildly, mildly,mildly amusing. Humor flavored.
I' m always amazed when people pick this as their favorite SF book. How is that possible?

The Algebraist | Iain M Banks
-haven't read it . But this year I plan on reading Use of Weapons

[Mugwump]

With its omnipotent corporations, decaying burghal slums, Machiavellian AIs, retro fashions, lurid, digital vistas and a pervasive sense of paranoia and human impotency in the face of technology increasing beyond the boundaries of control all woven together with thick and evocative prose, it has to be Neuromancer.

[Banger]

Here's how I'd rank 'em:

Dune | Frank Herbert
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Philip K Dick
Slaughterhouse 5 | Kurt Vonnegut
The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood
Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury
Neuromancer | William Gibson
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams
I, Robot | Isaac Asimov
Stranger in a Strange Land | Robert A Heinlein

(I haven't read The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.)

[Dwemer]

I'd pick Dune from that list, too. I, Robot is an interesting pick. I loved that book, but it's basically just a narrative on issues that come up with thinking machines and the laws that they have been programmed with. It's not so much a "novel" in that there's no one story that plays out, but more like several stories with a common theme.

[Krypter]

Dune or Neuromancer.

I too am puzzled by the inclusion of The Algebraist. I suspect the library is trying to drum up interest in recent titles by placing it there. I just finished reading it and have a lukewarm appraisal. It's a good space opera, better by far than most of what you would find in American mass-market bookstores, but nothing special and certainly not Banks' best work. Very padded and meandering, without any of the introspection that marked Use of Weapons or The Player of Games.

[Ropie]

Of that list I've read Dune, Slaughterhouse 5, I, Robot and HHGTTG. Of those four I'd say I enjoyed I, Robot the most. It has an intelligent way with an idea and some of Asimov's strongest spartan prose, and a certain naivety that adds to its appeal. Still, it's some way below being amongst my favourite SF novels.

[Rob B]

My Rankings
Dune | Frank Herbert
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas AdamsDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? | Philip K Dick
Stranger in a Strange Land | Robert A Heinlein
The Handmaid’s Tale | Margaret Atwood
I, Robot | Isaac Asimov


Haven't Read
The Algebraist | Iain M Banks
Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury (I read it well over 20 years ago, so I can't really form a good opinion on it)
Neuromancer | William Gibson
Slaughterhouse 5 | Kurt Vonnegut

[Mugwump]

Glossaries!?!

[Leiali]

LOL - people always seem confused when I suggest it but I really do think that anything Willaim Gibson writes needs some kind of Glossary for the likes of me who are uninitiated in the technicalities of cyber punk. Most other things like this, you can figure out the gist by what context it's in, and I don't think I am really really stupid either. However I did have my doubts when I read a paragraph of Neuromancer and didn't understand the words when they were put together. I loved Snowcrash when I read that recently, but again, the context made it easy to figure out what I had trouble understanding.

[ArthurFrayn]

Can I ask if people would like to elaborate on why not The Handmaids Tale?

It's a fine,fine book, but I'm suprised-The Handmaid's Tale is anyone's favorite Science Fiction book!!.
It's interesting that you view Dune as a low brow read. At the time it was written, it was a big college read. It's about the politics of consumption, the Middle East, the Cold War, colonialism, the exploitation of native populations,mind expansion through the use of drugs and a lot more. I think it's an intellectively rich SF text.
You can get to talking about a lot of things when you begin to pick apart Dune.

I'm not sure how much politics is allowed on these forums, but for me it's because The Handmaid's Tale is a tendentious, feminist and leftist attack on rightist ideology using a straw-man technique that's been much overused. An attack so commonplace and banal that it really doesn't deserve mention.

And I maintain, that is NOT what it is. The use of an exagerated extremist religious right patriachal police state in the US, was only a means by which; Atwood's admittedly feminist concern was to take the kind of subordination that women go through in parts of the muslim world, and put it in a context that we could understand on a personal level in the west. She goes to great pains to create a specific scenario in which such a hothouse flower like this government could exist.
The satirical aspect is just icing on the cake-not the central purpose of the book.

[Banger]

Plus Dune is more exciting!

The Handmaid's Tale needed more giant worms in it

[WilliamLexner]

Dune, Stranger In A Strange Land, Neuromancer, Fahrenheit 451 -- any of these could win and be reasonable choices.

They do not list Heinlein's best, nor Asimov's, Dick's or Vonnegut's. The Left Hand of Darkness is conspicuously absent as well.

[Krypter]

Originally Posted by ArthurFrayn

And I maintain, that is NOT what it is. The use of an exagerated extremist religious right patriachal police state in the US, was only a means by which; Atwood's admittedly feminist concern was to take the kind of subordination that women go through in parts of the muslim world, and put it in a context that we could understand on a personal level in the west. She goes to great pains to create a specific scenario in which such a hothouse flower like this government could exist.The satirical aspect is just icing on the cake-not the central purpose of the book.

So you're saying that Atwood's biblical Christian theocracy of Gilead, which she described in minute detail, is actually an allegory for an Islamic theocracy? Highly unlikely, if only for reasons of Occam's Razor. Do you have quotes or interviews to support this? Hardly anyone was concerned about the Muslim world's treatment of women in the 1980s, especially not "post-colonialist, anti-imperialist" feminists who supported any Third-world regime that attacked the US. Only recently has this become an important political issue.

If that is in fact what she intended then I missed the point of the book completely, but I'd like to see the evidence.