The Paladin of Souls, which I think is perfect. I’ve only read 11, most of them Bujold.
Dune. Love that book. Have reread it more than any other.
I don’t know if it’s the best, but my favorite is definitely Neuromancer.
I see I misread the list, genuinely thought they handed out a few each year :smack:
So, reading it properly, I’ve only read ten so not enough for a meaningful choice. Probably go with The Diamond Age which was uneven-but-very good, but I wouldn’t really put it forward as a classic.
I love so many of these. My favorite is Lord of Light, though **Moon is a Harsh Mistress **and Stranger in a Strange Land I might have reread more times. Dune is brilliant, Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls I’m planning to reread soon, enjoyed To Say Nothing of the Dog. Love John Crowley… it’s a good list!
I haven’t read them all but I have read over thirty so when I say that my favorite is still probably Dune, it isn’t because that’s the only one I ever read.
Runners up include: The Demolished Man, Canticle for Leibowitz, Stranger in a Strange Land, Ringworld and The Forever War.
But Dune remains breathtaking in its scope and world-building.
IF the “retro” awards are not included, THEN the answer of “all-time best” is (IMHO) Dune. For a variety of reasons. I have always found it ridiculous that the barely remembered Zelazny novel …And Call Me Conrad shared that year’s award. Proof that the voters don’t always see the quality of what’s in front of them.
If the “retro” awards ARE included ('39, '41, '46, '51, ‘54), then I might well change that answer to Fahrenheit 451. The trouble with the “retro” awards is that they are, indeed, voted on in retrospect. I think there might be more than a couple years’ results that would be changed if we all voted on the years '53-'66 now.
As for my favs, well, there simply are too many of them to list. There are a lot of very, very good award winners there. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is not one of them. 
PS: C. J. Cherryh has been my most favorite science-fiction/fantasy writer for a long time now. Needless to say, Downbelow Station is very, very high on my list. Not so much Cyteen, though.
Misread list. Sorry. Going with Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold.
I think it was the case where there were just a lot of fans of Astounding that year. Note that it won all the awards (Kelly Freas did a ton of interior art for them that year) except for Best Fanzine. They’d Rather Be Right was the only full novel serialized in Astounding that year (there were a couple two part serials). So the magazine’s fans had only one choice.
And “Allamagoosa,” which won that year, may be the worst short story to win the Hugo. It’s based on people not noticing what should be obvious to the reader the moment it’s introduced.
And while The Wanderer may not have been Lieber’s best, it’s a perfectly good novel and the template for most disaster films.
I read so many of these books 50 years ago that I’m sure I’d change my rankings in a hurry if I read them today. But I am surprised nobody mentioned Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. I remember it as being magnificent, far and away better than anything else he wrote.
As for Dune, you have to look at the situation in 1966, not what we remember today.
Dune World was serialized in Analog from December of 1963 through February of 1964. It was nominated for the Best Novel Hugo in 1964. The Prophet of Dune was serialized in Analog from January through May of 1965. Dune combined them into one book and was published in a tiny, impossible-to-find hardcover edition in December of 1965, although it was reprinted in 1966. No paperback until 1967, though.
The voters had a tough issue facing them. What should they nominate: the novel that was serialized in 1965 or the omnibus, half of which they had already nominated separately? Was it even fair to put Dune rather than The Prophets of Dune into nomination? Did they know what Dune the book comprised?
Roger Zelazny, however, was having possibly the best year of any young writer ever. “And Call Me Conrad” was serialized in F&SF (October and November 1965) and went right into paperback in July 1966. “He Who Shapes” (Amazing, January and February 1965) tied for Best Novella in the 1966 Nebulas (covering 1965). "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth” (F&SF March 1965) won Nebula Best Novelette. “Devil Car” (Galaxy June 1965) made the Nebula Best Short Story ballot. But the Hugos that year had only one category, called Best Short Fiction. “Doors” made the short list but lost to Harlan Ellison’s juggernaut, “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman”, which won the Nebula too. So a lot of voters probably decided that rewarding Zelazny over a novel that maybe shouldn’t have made the ballot and couldn’t be easily read as a whole was the fair and sensible decision.
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. They couldn’t see the future. Nobody can, not even science fiction authors.
I could choose the entire 1970’s if I was of a mind to.
5th–Orson Scott Card Ender’s Game
4th–Joe Haldeman The Forever War
3rd–Arthur C. Clarke Rendezvous with Rama
2nd–Larry Niven Ringworld
1st–Robert A. Heinlein The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
I’ve also read a few more of the Hugos–30, give or take two on either side, since I can’t remember exactly which Niven or Asimov I read in my adolescence.
The winner, obviously, is Left Hand of–kidding! kidding!
No, the winner is The Dispossessed, which I love beyond all measure.
The Dispossessed. tough to choose between that and Left Hand, but there you are.
Interestingly, I easily picked The Graveyard Book for the Newberry thread but it wasn’t even in the running here (American Gods was)
Nice, thanks for that. I knew the basics but not with that context.
I have mentioned on this board that I used to* have a first edition of Dune, yes, published by Chilton, the auto repair manual publisher back in the day. They were so far away from the fiction sector that they had no convention for noting print edition on the copyright page. Other than year, who gives a fig whether that VW Beetle manual is a first edition, first state?
Some sci-fi collectors and dealers established a bibliographic line for the first edition. Similar to Huck Finn, another book published in an unorthodox way via subscription, the “first printing” was an evolving thing, with several states along the way. The clincher for true firsts was the number of cities listed under Chilton’s publisher logo on the dust jacket’s back flap ;). Ah, book geeks.
*sold to fund an old guitar. I have moved most of my old books, mostly for guitars - you get the buzz of a great old object and an amazing musical tool. Of my old firsts, however, Dune is the one I look back on most fondly. My favorite story + quirky publishing history = fun book.
The Left Hand of Darkness edges out Gateway as my favorite. I’ve read about half of them.
Agreed. Otherwise they never would have voted for Dune. 
“Dune” for me.
Surprised the Mars books won twice, I really didn’t enjoy them and they were up against better books IMO.
Huh, it won both the Newberry and the Hugo? Impressive-- I’ll have to track that one down.
It’s a tossup between A Canticle for Liebowitz and Dune, but looking at the long row of Herbert on my bookshelf I’ll have to go with Dune.
How did **Redshirts **get on this list?