Monday, November 21, 2005

Top 20 Geek Novels

So someone did a survey and came up with the top 20 geek novels. I have to say I'm underwhelmed by their choices, so here are mine:

  1. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
  2. Startide Rising* - David Brin
  3. Neuromancer* - William Gibson
  4. Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
  5. The Stainless Steel Rat* - Harry Harrison
  6. Nine Princes in Amber* - Roger Zelazny
  7. Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
  8. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
  9. Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
  10. Quarantine - Greg Egan
  11. Ringworld - Larry Niven
  12. Lord of Light - Roger Zelazny
  13. Dune - Frank Herbert
  14. The Eyre Affair* - Jasper Fforde
  15. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* - Douglas Adams
  16. 2001: A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke
  17. Magician* - Raymond E. Feist
  18. Pawn of Prophecy* - David Eddings
  19. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe* - C.S. Lewis
  20. The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
These are not my favourite books - I hate Pratchett, for instance - but they are imho the top 20 novels for geeks.

* - first book in a notable series

1 comment:

ToxicPurity said...

What qualifies as a "geeky novel" in the first place?
My thinking is it must have produced ideas that significantly impacted on geek culture, literature, and ideology in some way, or at the very least, be eminently quotable :)
Therefore, my list would've included Neil Gaiman's Preludes & Nocturnes as opposed to American Gods in the original list, for example, and Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland in either over say, David Brin's or Aldous Huxley's work. That's not to say they didn't write great science-fiction, but I don't regard great science fiction as being neccessarily the same thing as geeky.
And is there anything geekier than Monty Python? :)
That's it, I'm gonna make up my own list of Great Geeky Things. Novels is just too limiting.