Roundtable on All-Centuries Novel Polling

Authors, regardless of genre

20th Century
Ursula K. Le Guin 10
J. R. R. Tolkien 10
Gene Wolfe 8
Ray Bradbury 5
John Crowley 5
Samuel R. Delany 5
T. H. White 5
Iain M. Banks 4
Alfred Bester 4
William Gibson 4
Shirley Jackson 4
Fritz Leiber 4
Philip K. Dick 3
Robert Heinlein 3
Aldous Huxley 3
Hope Mirrlees 3
Mervyn Peake 3
Mary Doria Russell 3
Olaf Stapledon 3
Jack Vance 3
Richard Adams 2
Edgar Rice Burroughs 2
Gabriel Garcia Marquez 2
William Goldman 2
Kenneth Grahame 2
Joe Haldeman 2
Frank Herbert 2
William Hjortsberg 2
Stanislaw Lem 2
C. S. Lewis 2
Walter M. Miller Jr. 2
George Orwell 2
Keith Roberts 2
Kim Stanley Robinson 2
Vernor Vinge 2

21st Century

Neil Gaiman 5
Ian McDonald 5
China Mieville 5
Susannah Clarke 3
Kim Stanley Robinson 3
J. K. Rowling 3
Jeff VanderMeer 3
Michael Chabon 2
Elizabeth Moon 2
Alastair Reynolds 2
Charles Stross 2

9 thoughts on “Roundtable on All-Centuries Novel Polling

  • January 11, 2013 at 7:31 pm
    Permalink

    Ellen – sorry, but you don’t get to cite “Alice”, published in 1865, as a 20th century book. (Otherwise I would have put it top of my list as well!) In fact, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz barely qualifies, published in 1900, but the Oz series extended well into the 20th century so that should be allowed.

    But you panelists are bending the rules like Gumby so I guess you can cite whatever books you want! Certainly the “Alice”‘ books could be considered as the most widely known and influential fantasy in English literature.

    Reply
  • January 11, 2013 at 10:57 pm
    Permalink

    Dan -going over my list (before seeing your comment) I suddenly realized-oh sh-t! wrong century. It was me being bad.

    Reply
  • January 13, 2013 at 1:28 am
    Permalink

    A Horror/Dark Fantasy category? Where are those lists of novels and stories?

    Reply
  • January 13, 2013 at 3:16 am
    Permalink

    Space27–Ellen Datlow and Jeff Ford sort of created that category on their own. The overlap (two votes) between the two of them are:

    The Wasp Factory (1984) Iain M. Banks 2
    The Haunting of Hill House (1959) Shirley Jackson 2

    It’s nestled between 20th C Fantasy and 21st C SF.

    Reply
  • January 13, 2013 at 6:27 pm
    Permalink

    Oh, that list. Just two items? I’m a little bit disappointed. But I did vote for The Wasp Factory.

    Reply
  • January 13, 2013 at 11:08 pm
    Permalink

    Speaking of the wrong century, I know two novels from the 1800’s that I could have put in the 20th Cent. vote and got away with it:

    Star, C.I. Defontenay (1854, in french)
    Two Planets, Kurd Lasswitz (1897, in german)

    They were first published in english in the 1970’s.

    Reply
  • January 15, 2013 at 3:21 am
    Permalink

    Great lists and remarks from everyone, but the focus on the almighty novel slights so many superb writers, from Cyril Kornbluth to Willam Tenn. to Fredric Brown to Harlan Ellison. One of my top ten SF books of all time is Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr/Alice Sheldon. I can’t think of a single SF novel, however fine, that I would be willing to give it up for. It’s as essential as Dune or Neuromancer or any other that I can think of. So Tiptree wasn’t comfortable with the novel form – so what?

    Reply
  • January 18, 2013 at 3:52 am
    Permalink

    Thomas – I think Karen felt it would be hard enough herding the cats on the panel to make their picks for novels, without trying for all the short fiction categories. You make a good point that there are short form masters like Ellison and Tiptree, and some of those masters are reflected in the short fiction lists: Ellison with 6 entries, Tiptree with 5. Both of them ranked as high as #3 in a category for the whole 20th century – not too shabby. (Harlan had both #3 and #4 in the 20th Century Short Story category.)

    My favorite example of a short form master is, of course, Ted Chiang, who seems to have no interest in publishing a novel but knocked down the top spot in three different short fiction categories. Nobody would consider him slighted because he can’t show up on the novel list.

    Reply
  • February 5, 2013 at 8:57 pm
    Permalink

    How can you not put REH on the list if not at the top? Best story teller ever. No Michael Morcook? YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *