What are the top 20 “geek novels”? from Guardian Unlimited: Technology

October 28, 2005 by wfzimmerman | No comments

What are the top 20 “geek novels”? from Guardian Unlimited: Technology:

Time magazine has produced a list of the all-time 100 great novels published in the English language since 1923, and it seems a reasonable collection, as these things go. What’s interesting is that it includes a few “geek novels” such as Philip K Dick’s Ubik, William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. I’d expect any self-respecting geek to have read these books, but have they really reached an “all time greats” market that includes Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind and Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire?

So, what are the top 20 greatest “geek reads” since 1923? I think they have to be brain-challenging, but do they have to have a science fiction or fantasy element? Do they have to have any literary merit?

Here’s my quick dozen suggestions, in alphabetical order:

Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
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
Neuromancer — William Gibson
Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell
Orlando — Virgina Woolf
The Shockwave Rider — John Brunner
Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson
Stranger in a Strange Land — Robert Heinlein
The Man in the High Castle — Philip K Dick

Yes, I know (say) Mervyn Peake’s Titus Groan is incomparably better than Heinlein, but is it geeky enough?

Add:

Isaac Asimov’s FOUNDATION series
DUNE by Frank Herbert

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