# Best Speculative Fiction Novels Ever Written



## Violanthe (Sep 7, 2005)

I'm an editor for a new online magazine, and I'm working on a feature article on the most influential novels in speculative fiction (i.e. scifi, fantasy, horror, historical, etc.). The article (set to be published in December) will be a ranked list of the top 10 speculative fiction novels ever written. In order to test the validity of the list, I'm going around to online speculative fiction communities like this one to solicit your opinions.



So, what do you think? What are the most important speculative fiction novels ever published? The best written? The most compelling stories? The most fascinating characters? The most revolutionary concepts? The most influential?



Thanks for your input! 



-Violanthe



P.S. If anyone here would like to participate directly in the compiling of the list by voting for your favorites(http://p068.ezboard.com/farwzdicussionforumsfrm1.showMessage?topicID=1032.topic ) we'd welcome your opinion. If anyone from this page votes, I'll be happy to give the page credit for participating with a link at the end of the article.


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## e.Blackstar (Sep 7, 2005)

Orson Scott Card's books are definitely up there: I'd vote for the Ender and Bean serieses.


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## Violanthe (Sep 7, 2005)

I imagine Ender will be on the list. I did some preliminary research by checking out the Amazon bestsellering in SciFi, and Card's Ender ranked pretty high there. Not sure if anyone has voted for it yet.


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## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 7, 2005)

Of course my vote for the best fantasy of all time goes to _The Lord of the Rings_ by J.R.R. Tolkien. On the back of the books that I own the text says that the series is "called by millions of readers the greatest epic fantasy of all time."

Also _The Chronicles of Narnia_ by C.S. Lewis.

And _The Wheel of Time_ series by Robert Jordan. He may be milking the series for all it's worth, but his writing itself if phenomenal.


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## e.Blackstar (Sep 7, 2005)

I agree; _Narnia_'s good stuff.

Also, _A Song of Ice and Fire_ by George R.R. Martin is EXCELLENT (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and several more books upcoming.)


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## Talierin (Sep 7, 2005)

*gratuitously steals your thingy off the other forum cause she doesn't feel like registering*

These aren't really in any particular order....

1. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Comments: The book that spawned the entire genre of epic fantasy

2. I, Robot/The Empire/Robot/Foundation Series - Isaac Asimov
Comments: The book that started robotic sci fi, and his wonderful series

3. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Comments: The first book to ever win both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, excellent

4. Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Comments: The most random books in the history of the world

5. The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
Comments: A classic

6. Dune - Frank Herbert
Comments: Another classic, but the rest of the series is ****

7. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
Comments: Possibly the most influential children's series of the 20th century

8. The Sandkings - George R.R. Martin
Comments: One of the best, and scariest, short stories eer

9. War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
Comments: Classic

10. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Comments: Frankly I hated this book, but it is one of the first sci fi stories ever written



And my vote for the 5 best sci-fi shows are:

Star Wars
Star Trek
Dr. Who
Battlestar Galactica
MST3K


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## Violanthe (Sep 8, 2005)

I'm a huge fan of GRRM myself. I hope one of this novels places high on the list. But I won't do the editorial tampering to get him there.


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## e.Blackstar (Sep 8, 2005)

I'll vote as many times as is necessary to get him there!


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## Violanthe (Sep 9, 2005)

Please do. Simply placing him at #1 on this list, will go a long way. The rankings are weighted. For more information, please check out the link below:

http://p068.ezboard.com/farwzdicussionforumsfrm1.showMessage?topicID=1032.topic


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## Barliman Butterbur (Sep 9, 2005)

Violanthe said:


> What are the most important speculative fiction novels ever published? The best written? The most compelling stories? The most fascinating characters? The most revolutionary concepts? The most influential?



Well, being an old geezer, I would name Ray Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon as my personal favorites. They certainly held me rivited to their pages back when I was in high school!

Barley


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## ingolmo (Sep 10, 2005)

Seeing that we're in _The Tolkien Forum_, I'm bound to vote for The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien.
Apart from that in no particular order, 
-Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code
-Paulo Coelho's the Alchemist
-Some of Oscar Wilde's books like The Picture of Dorian Gray(I'm a big fan of his,
and, (though it'll seem childish)
-Rowling's Harry Potter series.


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## Eledhwen (Sep 10, 2005)

By 'Speculative', do you mean novels that perceive the way in which the world is going?

My list would have to include Manalone by Colin Kapp (which few have read) and also The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressle (which was banned in the UK when it was first published in the early 20th C, and so was read by many).

But my favourite reads remain Tolkien, Rowling, Lewis etc. for sheer can't-put-it-down-ability.


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## Violanthe (Sep 11, 2005)

"Speculative Fiction" is a term that was coined (I believe, by Harlan Ellison) to refer to the three big genres of otherworldly fiction: scifi, fantasy, and horror. I would also include historical fiction in that category, because it speculates as to what was going on with historical actors at the time of major historical events.


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## Violanthe (Sep 11, 2005)

For those interested, I found this on wikipedia.org:

_*Speculative fiction* is an all-encompassing term which includes __science fiction__, __alternative history (fiction)__, __horror__ and __fantasy__._

_The term is often used among writers and publishers who wish to break out of what is commonly called the "__sci-fi__ghetto__". There is an unfortunate tendency, among both many publishers and a large segment of the reading public, to expect only science fiction stories from a person who has once written science fiction. Writers such as __Harlan Ellison__ (an outspoken advocate of the term) have deliberately rejected identification as a science fiction writer for precisely such reasons; they don't reject the science fiction genre (in which Ellison, for example, still participates) but they do reject pigeonholing their work._

_The abbreviation "sf" (usually spelled in lowercase, but occasionally uppercase) is often used to indicate either speculative fiction or what is traditionally known as "science fiction"._

_This term is coming into more frequent usage among younger fans who wish to break down the literary barriers between the horror, fantasy, and science fiction genres._

_The term is also sometimes used without any implication of breaking down barriers or breaking out of the ghetto, simply as a convenient shorthand way to refer to multiple genres at once. A variation of this term is "Speculative Literature"._


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## Eledhwen (Sep 13, 2005)

Thanks, I found that definition useful, as I'd never come across the term before (our library still uses 'Science Fiction' and 'Fantasy')


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## Violanthe (Sep 13, 2005)

Certainly, "speculative fiction" isn't a subsitute for the individual genre headings. They aren't meant to be replaced. "Speculative" just provides a larger classification to link them together. Scifi, fantasy and horror share a fan base with one another in a way they don't, for example, with detective fiction.

I think that it is truly the otherworldly nature that connects them. If I had the liberty, I might call them "otherworldly fiction" but "speculative" is a fairly widely accepted term.


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## Violanthe (Nov 9, 2005)

I suppose, considering the title of the magazine, I could always call it "Alternative Reality Fiction" but so many people already know the term "Speculative" I'm resistent to giving it up completely


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