Cynically, when I think of Larry Niven’s iconic characters, I think of the settings, not the “people.” So I vote for the Ringworld, the Smoke Ring, an Integral Tree, and a General Products hull. Maybe the Kzinti, the Puppeteers, the Pak, and the Moties? I guess add the Organ Banks and the tasp.
Does Frankenstein count as science fiction?
Doctor Moreau.
That might apply to SF in general: what it lacks in iconic characters, it makes up for in iconic settings (and iconic alien races, devices, concepts, etc.).
Absolutely Frankenstein counts as SF. I’ve read that it may be considered the first true piece of SF, in fact. So let’s have Frankenstein, his Creature/Monster, and, oh, let’s throw in Igor.
I see what you mean; I was just making a back-handed comment that the best fleshed out features of his worlds aren’t the people: it’s the places.
Not that he’s the only SF writer for whom that’s true…
Igor? Ain’t no Igor in the book, or in the plays, or even in the movies until Son of Frankenstein. The first play adaptation had Fritz as the Doctor’s assistant (although, oddly, he didn’t help out in the lab). By chance or design Fritz was also the name of the twisted assistant played by Dwight Frye in the 1931 film version. Frye came back as a similarly twisdted assistant named Karl in 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein (the Monster offed Fritz for excessive cruelty in the first pic). Only in 1939’s sort-of-reboot Son of Frankenstein do we get Bela Lugosi as Ygor, who wasn’t hunchbacked, but had a twisted neck. He was killed in that, but you can’t kill Ygor – he was back in Ghost of Frankenstein three years later. We finally got a bona fide hunchbacked assistant in House of Frankensdtein in 1944. But his name was the depressingly ordinary “Daniel”
Still, there’s no doubt that “Igor, Frankenstein’s Hunchbacked Assistant” is iconic, but it’s no more real than the line “Play it Again Sam” – he wasn’t really there until he already existed as a trope, and he was put it to fill the need, as in the relatively recent movie Van Helsing.
They’re not literary characters, but the MOST iconic sci-fi characters of all time have to be Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.
Another one for Neal Stephenson is Enoch Root.
Main player in Cryptonomicon and in the Baroque Trilogy
We can? I mean, maybe some of Spade’s quotes have made it out to general discourse and I’ve quoted him, but if so, I don’t know of it. What are some of his more widespread lines?
Tim R. Mortis predictably and properly mentioned a Jack Vance character, but, I would toss in the Five Demon Princes from the Demon Princes novels.
Attel Malagate from Star King
Kokor Hekkus from The Killing Machine
Viole Falushe from The Palace of Love
Lens Larque from The Face
Howard Alan Treesong from The Book of Dreams
Okay…if you haven’t read the books, these are all just names. But when you actually get to meet these…monsters…you can’t help but be amazed at how grandiose, how audacious, how vastly larger-than-life they are. Yet they avoid (well, mostly) being caricatures.
We’re talking Darth Vader level villains.
Ursula K. Le Guin: Sparrowhawk/Ged
Arthus C. Clarke: Hal
Philip K. Dick: Rick Deckard.
Daniel Keyes: Charlie Gordon.
As you probably surmised, I LOVE LOVE LOVE all of those Vance characters. But i wouldn’t call them “iconic.” They are great characters, but they are one-offs. Not the type of character that would ring through the years in a multitude of situations. That was Vance’s genius: he would create a world unto itself, and then create a character that could ONLY exist in that particular world. You could almost call his characters “anti-icons,” because they are so bound up in their designated milieu. But, that said, I don’t mean to disagree with you; those characters are all awesome.
Grin! Fair enough. I was operating on a slightly different definition.
(ETA: Oops, I also see I misspelled your name. Apologies! The tipo monxter strikes again!)
Also, some are more iconic than others… Malagate perhaps least, Falushe and Larque the most. Falushe is actually close to likeable, at least some of the time!
I was also going to name Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but they’re fantasy, not SF. Still, doggone, they do stand out as incredibly memorable characters.
They won a Hugo. Close enough.
Molly and the Finn from Williams Gibson’s Neuromancer trilogy.
Hal 9000.
Well, so did Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. There are lots of iconic characters we could name if we open the thread up to fantasy.
Technically, didn’t the STAR WARS novel come out half a year before the movie?
Yes, but it’s a terrible, terrible book that’s based on the script, regardless of the release timing.