What is the single best science fiction novel of all time?

[Ruin Explorer]

The only science fiction author today where I preorder their books, sight unseen, is Becky Chambers, but again, I'm not sure if I could say her work is the pinnacle of the genre. (Although it's very, very good.)

I would say her characterisation and story-telling is superb, but I wish she would just elide the science elements of her science fiction because like, she sometimes get basic science wrong, and there was no reason to, she could have just elided it - most authors would have! There's an lengthy and entirely unnecessary (nobody asked!) and irrelevant explanation of how a robot's power system works in one book, and how it's not a perpetual motion machine - except it completely 100% is a perpetual motion machine! Because she's doing science by analogy not science by science, and like why not just say it has a basically de facto eternal power supply? I would never have questioned that.

That said if I really care that much about getting science right there's always Mary Robinette Kowal and the Lady Astronaut series, which have almost depressingly hard and accurate science.

 

[Richards]

My first thought was also Dune, but upon reflection I might have to go with Expendable by James Alan Gardner, merely because it's a book that really reeled me in to the science fiction universe it laid out: basically, an "Anti-Star Trek" universe where there is a Federation analog (the League of Peoples), but with a super-powerful alien race that keeps those races (like humans) who still reside in a physical form from doing harm to other species outside their own solar systems. (Basically, they'll let us be as nasty as we want within our own systems, but anyone who has harmed a sentient being simply dies upon leaving their home system - the overlords won't let us spread that nastiness elsewhere.) Thus, you have a bunch of allied races with no lethal weapons on their starships, so there's pretty much no space combat.

The Explorer Corps are basically the red shirts of Star Trek, but they're made up of the "imperfect people" - the Space Admiralty has learned that the rest of the crew gets pretty bummed out when a good-looking Explorer gets killed while checking out a new planet, but if the Explorer happens to be disfigured, the crew tends to get over it much faster. The main character, Festina Ramos, is perfectly healthy, but she was born with a wine-colored birthmark on one cheek, so it was an Explorer's life for her. Expendable covers the story of her life, and of a particular mission where she's accompanying a retired Admiral to the "planet of no return" - so named because nobody who's ever landed there has been heard from again.

As I said, the universe is simply fascinating, the characters are top notch, and I've probably read the novel at least four times since it was published in 1997 (and it still makes me cry - manly tears, of course! - at the end every time). I enjoyed Dune, but I have to say I've gotten much more enjoyment out of Expendable, so it would have to get my vote.

By the way, there are a half a dozen sequels to Expendable, and some of them are quite good, but none is as top-notch as the original.

Johnathan

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

"The Mote in God's Eye" - The first contact novel. Niven & Pournelle together at their best (helped by some suggestions from Robert A Heinlein)

 

[DemoMonkey]

The Bible.

 

[Clint_L]

Dune is fantasy with scientific trappings. Thematically, it is a fantasy novel, with warring royalty, magical powers, and magical prophesies to be fulfilled. It is very similar to Game of Thrones, in fact. Science, such as it is, is applied as lipstick, so that technically instead of magic the prophesies are "chemistry" (of an imaginary, magical sort) and so on. In this sense, it is much akin to Star Wars, which might have spaceships and androids, but is really a very conventional fantasy narrative. Both are excellent, epic fantasy, but neither is really interested in exploring the implications of science and what it means for the human condition.

Well, mostly. I would argue that Andor is the only true science fiction work in Star Wars. Maybe that's why I like it so much.

Ultimately, this is a subjective distinction, yet at the same time I think there is a pretty clear distinction between science fantasy like Dune and science fiction like, say, Solaris or Neuromancer. Or for a more recent example, Children of Time.

 

[MGibster]

OK, that is an extremely spicy take to start things off with.

I see what you did there.

In the spirit of the thread, I'm going to give this a true. But what make a story the best? You could argue that being influential is what makes a book best and Dune has certainly inspired a lot of other work. Warhamer 40k would be very different without Dune. I'm going to go with a classic, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelly.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The Bible.

Mod Note:

I’m a practicing Catholic, and one of my favorite classes in college was “Biblical Themes in Literature”. In it, Prof. Bates Hoffer went into great detail to illustrate how writers have found inspiration in the pages of various versions of the Bible. It was well thought out and educational. It didn’t shy away from the many negatives found within its pages, nor how some have abused its teachings, and how writers found inspiration in those instances as well. I‘ve even found some of the lessons taught in it have applications in certain RPG settings.

Your comment, OTOH, comes across as a sarcastic jab at Christianity in general with no redeeming value. As such, it is a textbook example of why real-world religion is usually not discussed on ENWorld.

Time for you to take a permanent vacation from this thread.

 

[MGibster]

As an undergraduate, I took a course called Gender & Science Fiction. One the first day, our professor told us we weren't going to get bogged down quibbling about what is and isn't science fiction. We were certainly aware people have differing definitions of science fiction, some more strict than others, but to debate whether a work widely considered to be science fiction was in fact science fiction wouldn't have added anything of value to the class discussions. And I don't think it adds a whole lot of value to this thread. Perhaps a discusison of genre definitions would be better suited to another thread?

 

[MGibster]

Damn, does anyone else think @Dannyalcatraz could run a dope game of Kult?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Damn, does anyone else think @Dannyalcatraz could run a dope game of Kult?

I’ve never played it, not known anyone who had a copy.

But I always thought it would be a good system/setting to run a game based on Clive Barker’s Imajica. Or Hellraiser. Well, anything of Barker’s.