Geek Book Meme

Gwenda points to where The Guardian has come up with the Top 20 geek novels. This becomes a meme when you bold the ones you’ve read. I’ll take it a bit further with some comments, since there’s only one I haven’t read.

1. The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams

I guess this really does have to be here on a geek book list. Quoting this is just as common among the genus geekius as quoting Monty Python. My rocket scientist pal used to always go on and on about still thinking digital watches were a pretty good idea. And the ’42’ joke is beyond overexposed.

2. Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell

I’m not sure this one is actually a good fit for the geek list, what with the current U.S. administration using it as a playbook.

3. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley

You know, I don’t actually know a ton of people who have read this one. I have, and I have knowledge of a couple of other people, but it doesn’t seem to come up in conversation in geek circles as much as you might expect.

4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — Philip Dick

Finally, a selection I can get firmly behind. This isn’t my favourite PKD, but it’s still pretty good. (Valis and Radio Free Albemuth. Thanks for asking.)

5. Neuromancer — William Gibson

Every deep geek of my generation in who works in high tech has read this book. It’s a fairly reliable indicator of who will ‘get it’ and who won’t.

6. Dune — Frank Herbert

Dune was a great book. The following two books were pretty good. And then it started going downhill. And it kept picking up speed on that downslope. Dune was a pretty shocking experience, but the lesson that the continuing series taught me about knowing when to stop was perhaps the more profound effect…

7. I, Robot — Isaac Asimov

Man, Asimov couldn’t write character at all, but he was decent at the puzzle story. (I should totally track down those old Black Widowers collections, I always liked those.) Asimov also helped drive home that whole ‘know when to stop lesson’–in my world there are only three Foundation books, and the robot book stopped with Robots of Dawn.

8. Foundation — Isaac Asimov

This was the first adult science fiction novel I read. Hell, it was the second adult novel I read. I have to like it.

9. The Colour of Magic — Terry Pratchett

I am a bad geek, I guess, since I didn’t go as nuts for this book as conventional geek wisdom says I should. It was OK, but Discworld didn’t really start to work for me until the later books where the social/political satire becomes more pronounced and more entertaining.

10. Microserfs — Douglas Coupland

I have no idea why I actually read this, since I had a pretty bad reaction to Generation X when I was supposed to think it was brilliant. Still, this one does seem to have been required reading for the high tech cubicle dwellers.

11. Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson

The world’s deadliest pizza guy. Swords don’t run out of ammo. Reason. The biker with a nuke wired to his heart. How could this book not be on the list? And that’s without even considering the updating of Gibson’s cyberspace to a complete virtual reality.

12. Watchmen — Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

I think both V For Vendetta and Promethea are better works, but I can understand why this is on here–it’s kind of the final word in superhero comics, and that’s a lot geekier than reflections on the nature of fascism and freedom, or treatises on Magickal Thought.

13. Cryptonomicon — Neal Stephenson

The year this came out, it was my favourite book. The person I was that year was the exactly the target audience of the book. (I did not, though, correct the Perl source code in my copy. I am less a geek than Ian Goldberg).

14. Consider Phlebas — Iain M Banks

I was quite late to the Banks party, but in the last couple of years I’ve been working my way though the Culture novels and loving them. LOVING them. That is all.

15. Stranger in a Strange Land — Robert Heinlein

Is this still a ‘geek’ novel? Didn’t it become a more general counterculture book? Or was it just ‘grok’ that got absorbed into the zeitgeist?

16. The Man in the High Castle — Philip K Dick

Still not my favourite PKD, but it’s nice to find him on the list twice.

17. American Gods — Neil Gaiman

So, both Pratchett and Gaiman are on the list, but the book Gaiman and Pratchett co-wrote is not on the list? Come on, just for that joke about every tape turning into Queen’s Greatest Hits it should be here.

18. The Diamond Age — Neal Stephenson

So, apparently Stephenson is the kind of the geek books. This one was enjoyable to read in a sensawunda way, but God I wish Stephenson could write an ending.

19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy — Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson

Repeat question about general counterculture vs. geeks. This is a great book to have read, if you managed to read it at the right age–preferrably in your teens, when you are fascinated with “heavy ideas” that you will later deride as being “sophomoric”. Drugs also help. Still, I’m glad I did read it at the time when I could enjoy it, if only for all the Adam Weishaupt, 23, and “No spitting –The Management” jokes I haven’t missed in the general pop culture.

20. Trouble with Lichen – John Wyndham

Afraid I didn’t read this one. Chrysalids, yes. Triffids, yes. But not this one.

There is also some question about why there are no women authors on the list. I don’t know if I can come up with the top 20 geek books by women, but I bet I could come up with a list of 20 good ones with no trouble. Let’s try it off the top of my head (and then put into alphabetical order) and see:

1. K.J. Bishop – The Etched City
2. Emma Bull – Bone Dance (I know that lots of people would say “War For The Oaks”, but I prefer this one.)
3. Pat Cadigan – Mindplayers (One of my favourite books.)
4. Pamela Dean – Tam Lin
5. Karen Joy Fowler – Sarah Canary
6. C. S. Friedman – Madness Season (Again, I expect lots of people would argue for the Coldfire stuff, or In Conquest Born, but this is my favourite. )
7. Mary Gentle – Ash
8. Lisa Goldstein – The Dream Years
9. Eileen Gunn – Stable Strategies and Others
10. Margo Lanagan – Black Juice
11. Ursula K. LeGuin – The Disposessed
12. Kelly Link – Magic For Beginners
13. Julian May – Intervention
14. Maureen McHugh – China Mountain Zhang
15. Linda Nagata – Memory
16. Melissa Scott – Trouble And Her Friends
17. Sherri Tepper – The True Game
18. Joan D. Vinge – The Snow Queen
19. Martha Wells – Death Of The Necromancer
20. Connie Willis – Doomsday Book

That was pretty easy. Of course, to really be in the spirit of the other list, I should probably have included some people like Bradley, Hambly, L’Engle, McCaffrey, Norton, etc.