We’ve tallied your votes from 933 comments so far in the Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Novels of the Decade Poll and from that we’ve got some new frontrunners! Check the list out below the cut.
Please do not vote in this post. The voting thread is here. Votes in this post’s thread will not be counted.
We present the Top 20 voted novels as of 6:00 PM EST on Wednesday, January 12th.
- Old Man’s War by John Scalzi – 235 votes
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman – 194 votes
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss – 166 votes
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke – 120 votes
- Anathem by Neal Stephenson -105 votes
- A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin – 102 votes
- The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson – 99 votes
- Perdido Street Station by China Miéville – 88 votes
- The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch – 75 votes
- Spin by Robert Charles Wilson – 70 votes
Following them…
- Night Watch by Terry Pratchett – 65 votes
- Blindsight by Peter Watts – 63 votes
- Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling – 59 votes
- Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson – 58 votes
- Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson – 56 votes
- The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold – 55 votes
- Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan – 53 votes
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – 52 votes
- The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi – 51 votes
- Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan – 50 votes
Not much change in today’s numbers. Jon Scalzi continues to run away with the current Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Novel of the Decade, while Neil Gaiman went on his honeymoon overtook Patrick Rothfuss for second place. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins continue to show speedy upward movement, as well.
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I feel sorry for whomever has to (apparently) manually tabulate these results from nearly 1,000 (so far) postings…. Hats off to you. :-)
Pandora’s Star
Judas Unchained
Dreaming Void
Temporal Void
Evolutionary Void
All writen by Peter F Hamilton
Cosmonaut Keep
Dark Light
Engine City
By Ken MacLeod
Look to Windward
By Iain M. Banks
Quiet War
Gardens of the Sun
By Paul McAuley
Revelation Space
House of the Suns
By Alastair Reynolds
Debatable Space
By Philip Palmer
Automatic Detective
A Lee Martinez
Star Trek Destiny
Gods of the Night
Mere Mortals
Lost Souls
By David Mack
I have an imge of one guy sitting in a large empty warehouse with an old fashioned stock ticker in front of him steadily making his way through it all.
The Name of the Wind outshines American Gods by a massive margin. I say this with great respect for Neil Gaiman, But Rothfuss hit a grand slam on his first at-bat in the big leagues.
I can understand The Way of Kings not being in the top 5, though I think it’s a remarkable work. Not all SFF readers care to wade through 1,000 pages for just a single installment of a massive story. But I’m with Brandon, who always felt that for a similar price you were paying less per page, and if you’re going to write an epic, it might as well be…epic. I’m sure Brandon takes some consolation in the fact that he alone appears three times in the top 20.
Blindsight. Peter Watts. My vote.
I’m as big a John Scalzi fan as anyone else but the content of Old Mans War isn’t nearly as sophisticated as Blindsight.
My vote – Blindsight
Considering this is all about favourite books, it’s impressive how many people can’t read…
Votes in this post’s thread will not be counted.
Peter watts – Blindsight.
The only book I still think about, years after reading it…
That is all.
Hey everyone, I love Blindsight, too.
SO PLEASE DON’T WASTE YOUR VOTES FOR IT IN THIS THREAD, WHERE THEY WILL NOT BE COUNTED.
GO TO THE VOTING THREAD.
Mike and Trench: My hat goes off to our guys Chris and Adam every day. (just part of the team but the part that drew the straw for tallying.) They have been keeping the score and it is quite a feat. But we wanted people to be able to express themselves a little more than a simple survey form would allow. We’re having a lot of fun following along.
I am quite surprised by American Gods topping the list… I tried several times to read it and simply could not. In fact, it hardly qualifies as SF…
So an Internet poll is being led by the book of an author who first made his name as a blogger, has (probably) the most popular blog of any eligible author on the Internet, and unabashedly promotes voting for his book multiple times. Who’da thunk?
@xi’an101 : apparently Neil Gaiman mentioned the poll on Twitter…
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
If this was a real election, about 10% of the electorate would have posted their polling card through the letterbox of a nearby house, or voted for their favourite politician from the previous century rather than picking from the current candidates, or nominated “anyone from Party X” instead of picking a specific politician, or unilaterally decided it was an election to pick the best politician from Party Y and complained that the front-runner was “hardly from Party Y at all”.
Also, there would have been an enquiry into how the candidate who came 10th somehow had 5 more votes than the 9th-placed candidate.
xi’an101 @11/ObviousReally @13: American Gods has been in the top five from the beginning, I think, and he only just re-tweeted about it a couple days ago.
And, xi’an101, no one considers it SF. Why would they?
@mike Grupa
Sophistication is not always what make a book great, a well told story that captivates your heart and mind and draws you into its universe is what makes a great book.
I always considered American Gods to be a modern fantasy, akin to some of the works by Tim Powers, James Morrow or James Blaylock rather than Science Fiction. Glad to see it’s among the three of my five nominations that made it into the Top 10, though.
Paladin of Souls and The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold.
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
Well, I’ve had my laugh for the day. People who are reading books can’t read simple instructions that are posted. Not only at the top but in the comment thread by people who are not amused by simple failure to follow instructions.
Votes in this post’s thread will not be counted.
Whoa! I cannot believe that there is not a single Steven Erikson title in the Top 10, let alone the Top 20. What’s the margin of error on this poll, 95?
A big vote for Blindsight! One of my new favourite authors!