"Best science fiction novel ever written" Topic

All 32 of them, probably more, they're all the bestest ever written!

This poll will go on for months and months…

The best? Not the top 100 or top 10. Tough.

I think I'm with Andrew Walters on this one: Dune.

While I will always love Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has replaced it as my favorite Heinlein novel.

That's it, Robert. My first response was teleported to an unknown thread. There's probably someone in the Dreadnought group wondering what my comment is about.

Diaspar "The City and the Stars"

Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. (Technically a series I guess, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to read just one of them.)

OK, so 56 posts into this thread and so far no one has suggested a definition of "best" (of course, "science-fiction" and "novel" could also bear multiple meanings). I believe it's more than likely that one's definition of "best" probably determines one's answer to "which is best?" Does it mean:

(1) My favorite?
(2) Best-selling?
(3) Greatest cultural impact?
(4) Most highly regarded by science-fiction critics?
(5) Most highly regarded by literary critics in general?
(6), (7), etc – many other definitions possible

I suggested "Frankenstein" based on definitions 2 and 3, though it is far from my favorite (that would be the just-mentioned "Book of the New Sun", which I readily admit is an acquired taste). So how are you defining "best"?

Good question, Eumelus. My criteria were simple:

1. Which Sci-Fi books do I remember enjoying the most?

2. Which do I read every few/couple of years, to enjoy again?

As for the opinions of critics, sales, cultural impact and other issues, I didn't even consider them. I read Sci-Fi selfishly, for my own pleasure, no other reason.

Fair question. Mostly they made my list by endurance. They're the ones I continue to read, and expect to go on reading. Bonus points if, reading them after an interval of five or ten years, they seem to be about something different.

Only exception was A Canticle for Liebowitz. I keep a copy, but mostly it was just too good a book not to include, and I hadn't seen it mentioned yet.

As for the opinions of literary critics, all our most prestigious ones assure me that no work of science fiction is worthy of favorable notice, which makes the whole thing moot. Of course, my opinion of the literary critics is not a great deal higher than theirs of SF.

My criteria is based on which ones I like the most.

Since the poll is about one's opinion, I think it would be rather obvious that it becomes one's own preference— favorite in this case would be a synonym. Though I suppose someone could think that a novel is incredibly well-written, moving, and ground-breaking, and have it not be one's personal favorite for other reasons, and so declare it "best."

As for science fiction, that literally means fiction which as a key element includes scientific principles or science-like technology— even if impossible. Basically, whatever is claimed to be "science" is essential to the story in some fashion, but is not common technology (at least at the time of writing).

Thus, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, though about an atomic submarine, is science fiction because at the time it was written, neither submarines nor atomic power existed as functional, common technology.

Similarly, I Am Legend, while about vampires (which are not scientifically real) explains the "vampires" as the product of a fairly well-rationalized viral disease. Thus, it is science fiction, even if the science is probably impossible.

And, as always, things like time travel, spaceships, extraterrestrials, robots, androids, etc., etc., are "science fiction" even if the technological rationales are impossible.

one's own preference— favorite in this case would be a synonym

A person can have (signifcantly) different personal criteria for "best" and "favourite".

My best miniature paintjob is not my fave. My favourtie song to play on guitar is not my best one. Wonder Woman is the best superhero; Spider-Man is my favourite (YMMV). And so on …

I'm with eto on this one. I'd hate to be pinned down to one book, but my favorite 10 would certainly not be identical with my best 10. Keith Laumer's Retief stories, for instance, are some of my literary comfort food, and I'll reread scenes in David Drake's "Leary & Mundy" series. But I wouldn't place either series or any book in the series--hedging a little on "With the Lightnings"--anywhere near a "ten best" list. Probably not a "50 best" list.

And I will repeat my earlier kvetch. "Novel" is not "short story" "short story collection" or "series."

I will put up "Nightworld" by David Bishoff (1979). First of two novels about a certain planet. He wrote a number of good books but has been forgotten by time. I'll give a second to Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

It was a very subdued kvetch, but it did keep me from putting I, Robot as my Asimov choice. I think it really is his best (scifi), but even with the stitching together, IR is still a collection of short stories.

Parzival, science fiction usually involves extensions of existing science into a fictional future. It is usually completely outside current science, and needs a suspension of disbelief to be, well believable.

I, too, am a fan of Asimov, Clarke, etc.

Except when it involves time travel into the past. For example Bring the Jubilee by Clement Moore involves time travel into the time of the US Civil War… but oddly enough it is time travel from an alternate Universe where the South won. The time travel device itself is the result of that Universe's history, matching up with the present day. So there is no future, though there is a great deal of "outside current science" in the novel.