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Friday, November 9, 2012

What is the Best SciFi/Fantasy Series

Welcome to November's Poll.

I know the word "vote" is probably giving you PTSD, and right now you're having a flashback of watching someone you tried really hard not to defriend through their whole "Chick Fil A Pride" phase post every single Liberal Logic 101 meme in the space of about five minutes.  The fallacies are flying at you literally faster than you can point them out and the question of why in the Holy Flaming Pope Balls this person is even your friend is becoming more and more urgent as you hover over the "Defriend" button and think "This will make you the small minded cockbrain who couldn't stand another opinion."   So you try to hold on, but the memes just keep coming...one after another.  And in the end you break.  You try to respect all opinions but you just can't keep respecting the empathetic love-spouting Christian who says "every liberal is totally stupid and ignorant and I hate them (except you guys)," and you finally crack, defriend them, go take a shower with steel wool and bleach, and cry.

Or...maybe that's just me.  Either way, this should be a little less bitter and partisan than those polls.

What is the BEST SciFi/Fantasy series.  I'll give everyone five votes so that you can blow a couple confirming the sky-is-blue fact that The Song of Ice and Fire and Lord of the Rings are totally badass.  (Also apparently the trick to writing a really beloved book series is to have two R's for your middle names.  That's why I'm legally changing my middle name to Really Reginald, so that I can be C.R.R. Brecheen.)

This is about books and the quality of those books, not about movies or HBO shows.  BOOKS!  Please don't vote for Harry Potter if you thought the series made for eight awesome films and watching those gawky kids grow into blistering hotties was the highlight of your post Patriot Act existence, but you never really could get past Rowling's prose in Order of the Phoenix after her actual-veto-power editors were all replaced with yes-people proofreaders who knew that they were one release away from making more money in the first five minutes than most other authors--even bestsellers--would bring in ever.  However, what criteria you use to determine what the "best" books are is up to you.  Foundational? Well written?  Good characters?  Made you act like Chris Farley when he interviews someone?  ("That was....that was AWESOME!")  Screw the lit snobs.  If you want to love a trashy page turner, you fight the power!

If you do not see the best series here, add it down below in the comments.  Maybe if I get enough additions, I'll do a second poll and have the champions of each proceed to a final Awesome-Off.  Just remember, I'm asking for the best--not anything you can think of off the top of your head that wasn't awful. I'm sure you can impress and dazzle the interwebs with your extensive knowledge of the genre, but a fifty choice poll is not feasible.  If you think Asimov's Foundation series is one the best, please add it, but if you just thought it was okay, kind of a classic, and noticed it wasn't on the list, it's okay to leave it off.  And don't forget, Chris LOVES when you explain your answers.

But even if you put some answers in comments, you should still vote on THIS poll.  So at least we know which ones will advance to the final round.

The poll closes on Nov 30th.  I would say "at midnight," but that's past my bedtime.  It'll actually be the first thing I do when I wake up on Dec 1st.  (After I take a few potshots off the clock tower at writers running towards HarperCollins with their NaNo "novels, of course.)  So vote before then or be left t

The poll itself is down on the left, right under that cheeky bio.

17 comments:

  1. From a friend on Facebook who couldn't get her comment to post here:

    I do have a few that I think are badass:

    1) The Dark Tower (Stephen King)
    2) The Mayfair Witches & The Vampire Chronicles (Anne Rice & "dating myself," but this old lady liked them, so na na na)
    3) Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid (Seriously... after reading all these, I want write my own epic... I need some real heroic women protagonists... and by real, I mean not just there for boobies bouncing while they karate kick)
    4) The Battle Raids of Cooley (Irish mythology is filled with painful battle contortions --- its awesome! )

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  2. Another FB friend who can't make Blogger's comments work: CJ Cherryh's Chanur Saga

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  3. David Weber's the "Honor-verse" series, Charles Stross "The Library" series, Keith Lamuer "Retief" series, Randall Garrett "Lord Darcy" series, Harry Harrison "The Stainless Steel Rat" series, Glen Cook "Garrett P.I." series, Steven Brust "Jhereg" series...

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    1. All of these as "best" huh? Okay. Well it certainly looks like we're shaping up well to have second "semi-final" poll.

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  4. Larry Niven's "Known Universe" (ringworld) series, Elizabeth Moon "Serrano Legacy" series, Brian Daley "Jinx on a Terran inheritance" series, Steve Perry "The Matador" series.

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    1. You're giving ALL of these the "best" stamp? Cause the logistics of uberpolls mean that I have to try to get to "the best," not just "good."

      And if you are, you are. I'm just making sure.

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    2. Also, you should still vote in the existing poll! :)

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  5. But I want to vote for my choices!

    Fine I'll vote for those already existing choices... sigh... drags feet...

    Of the ones I listed that I think should also be given time in your Uberpoll: "The Matador" series by Steve Perry
    "Jinx on a Terran inheritance" series by Brian Daley
    "Lord Darcy" Randall Garrett
    "Garrett P.I." Glen Cook
    "Retief" by Keith Laumer

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    Replies
    1. It looks like what is going to happen is that I'll run a second poll, and the top performers of this poll and that poll will go on to a "final round." So you'll probably see all your choices here before too long.

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  6. Well, I only needed four votes to get all titles I think are "best". Including a DUH vote for Tolkien.

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  7. I placed two votes in the actual poll but I'd like to add the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss, the Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook, and S.M. Stirling's the Change Series (Nantucket/Emberverse). I don't have any more votes but David Edding's Belgarad is a guilty pleasure. Patrick Rothfuss' In the Name of the Wind floored me. The Black Company is weird. I don't think the writing is very good but I've read all nine books and re-read them. Maybe they don't belong on the list. However I love S.M. Stirling's books. They're Apocayptic Realism (or something) and I love watching humanity struggle to survive these world wide disasters in a real way.

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    1. Like I told Baronlaw, I'm pretty sure this is going to involve a second big poll and then the winners of each squaring off in a "final round."

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    2. Which is to say that I'll probably add all (or most) of these write-in suggestions to that second poll.

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  8. I do not feel qualified to participate in this poll. I haven't read any of these series in full and few on this list at all.

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  9. If graphic novels are allowed I would vote for Lucifer.
    From the current poll choices I would have room to vote for the Xanth trilogy.

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  10. I feel like series that are still in progress, e.g., GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire, shouldn't be part of the poll, because I'm nitpicky and think that it's impossible to judge overall quality of a series without knowing how it ends. There. Now I feel better. :)

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    Replies
    1. That's fair enough. I'm sure GRRM could die before the last book or go psycho and have Eddard wake up right before the climax is resolved and say "Damn, what a weird dream," or some shit that would make us all hate him forever.

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