Lorcan Dempsey's weblog: Geek novels

Geek novels

November 26, 2005 • Categories: Books, movies and reading ...

Jack Schofield, pioneering technical journalist, and Guardian blogger, has polled his readers for their top 'geek novels'. Check out his results. Here is his top fifteen:

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85% (102)
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79% (92)
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69% (77)
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64% (67)
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59% (66)
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 53% (54)
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 52% (54)
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov 47% (47)
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett 46% (46)
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland 43% (44)
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson 37% (37)
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons 38% (37)
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson 36% (36)
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks 34% (35)
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein 33% (33)

A couple of things about the list. Would the result have been different if carried out from a US base? There are no women novelists. Ursula Le Guin? I am not sure what to make of this.

He has moved on and is looking at movies: you can leave a comment with candidates to go forward to the next stage.

Bookmark:

2 comments so far

Posted by John Kirriemuir on November 27, 2005

The film nominations so far, even more than the book list, shows that there is a divergence of views as to what a "geek" is.

My top film choice (Princess Mononoke) hasn't been nominated by anyone else. Guess I'm clueless about geek culture.

Posted by Dorothea Salo on November 28, 2005

Oh, for heaven's sake. Where's the Tolkien?

As for "no women novelists," most soi-disant geeks are male, and as I understand it, women read male novelists rather more than men read female ones.

I suspect, also, that context may have overdetermined answers somewhat. "Hi, you're a geek, so what do you read?" will tend to elicit works perceived as geeky. What else explains the overloading of cyberpunk in the above list?