# What is the quintessential science fiction novel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 28, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022 "2005-01-28T00:37:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022/61 "2012-12-09T13:27:04Z")
But despite Heinlein’s limited view of women, what Charlie Tan says is basically correct: he all but singlehandedly created modern SF. And for the quintessential SF story, I’d have to split my vote between Heinlein’s _The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress_ and Joe Haldeman’s _The Forever War_. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022/62 "2012-12-09T14:24:37Z")
To nominate a dark horse: “Sargasso of Space” by Andre Norton. A juvenile, very accessible, but it’s got great SF elements: space travelling traders, advanced alien technology, mysterious extinct alien races who are so alien that staring at their art too long can drive you insane. It’s got “out there” capitalism with corporations and independent contractors competing to bid on exploration rights to newly discovered worlds, addicts of strange new drugs … really, an EXCELLENT book to introduce a new reader to SF, especially a young one. Does not represent all of SF, but then, nothing can. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022/63 "2012-12-09T16:11:43Z")
> [@SusanStoHelit](#): > > I don’t mind the women-in-traditional roles thing much - most stories from the “golden age of sf” (ie the 50’s) have that to some extent, and it has been a male-dominated field. What makes me mad (and I’ll admit that I am probably overreacting) is that when Heinlein wants to write a strong, positive, and sympathetic female character, he makes her act _just like a man_, like it’s the ultimate compliment, something that every woman should strive to do and be. It is gender equality of sorts, but it misses the point entirerly. > . How the hell do you _want_ her to act? If she acts like a woman, she is too girly. If she acts normally, she is to manly. Perhaps you want her to be martian? Look, if I grab a gun and go out and shoot a pack of dogs harassing my sheep, am I acting manly, should I cower in the house and let the pack kill off valuable animals? Should I call some manly man and whimper and squeel at him to come save my sheep? Or should I just get the damned job done. [I will confess that I did call animal control to haul the bodies off. With husband out to sea, you simply _deal_ with shit.] So, if a woman jumps into her spaceship and tears off after some BEM that took her kid, is she being a man with tits or just a woman getting the job sorted out? ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022/64 "2012-12-09T16:32:18Z")
A serious Delany suggestion: Nova. Nova is strong on traditional story telling (in essence it is both a treasure hunt and a grail quest). It presents a galaxies wide human society that is beautiful and strange, civilised and wild. The people of this society have lives full of possibility, they plug themselves directly into their machines for work so they can work at anything anywhere… In theory, among these bounteous worlds there are still divisions of class, of wealth of health. Delany places his exotic, human characters into this story, a synecdoche of this society. Mouse, a gypsy who acquired his plugs and his place in society late has an unfixable congenital neurological condition of the voice. Prince Red, heir to riches has a similarly crippled arm, unlike the Mouse he can never be plugged in. The bigger problem of Prince Red however is that, like former spacer Dan, he is a madman. In other ways merchant adventurer Lorq Von Ray is maddest of all. He seeks the most valuable substance in the human universe, in the heart of a nova, at the instant the star blows. If he succeeds he will overturn everything that holds the worlds together. Nova, a product of the New Wave embedded in the traditions of classic Science Fiction, reaching back to legend, expresses in wonder and beauty and terror all that SF has to offer, everything I, at least, look for in a novel, in 1968 and now. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022/65 "2012-12-09T17:18:16Z")
Two votes against: 1. The _Foundation_ trilogy. Really? The characters are somewhere between wooden and cardboard, and the underlying premise has since had its butt kicked by chaos theory. 2. _Dune_, in addition to being long and boring, is one of the most morally repugnant novels I’ve read. Let’s unleash the jihad on the galaxy, because the slaying of hundreds of millions will be good for galactic civilization or some such. Early in the second half of the book, an alternative is briefly presented, discarded as even more morally repellent to Paul Atreides for reasons never made clear to the reader, and then dropped. There’s no indication of whether this alternative would result in the death of anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022/66 "2012-12-09T18:09:04Z")
Since other people are listing several novels each in their posts, I’m going to go ahead and list my twenty favorite science fiction works that are longer than 25,000 words: 1. Olaf Stapledon _First and Last Men_ and _Starmaker_ 2. Philip Jose Farmer _The Riverworld Series_ 3. Frank Herbert _Dune_ (and maybe its sequels) 4. Walter Miller _A Canticle for Leibowitz_ 5. Alfred Bester _The Stars My Destination_ 6. Ursula K. LeGuin _The Left Hand of Darkness_ 7. H. G. Wells _The Time Machine_ 8. Philip K. Dick _The Man in the High Castle_ 9. Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth _The Space Merchants_ 10. Theodore Sturgeon _More than Human_ 11. Roger Zelazny _Lord of Light_ 12. Arthur C. Clarke _Against the Fall of Night_ 13. Stanislaw Lem _Solaris_ 14. Ken Grimwood _Replay_ 15. Joe Haldeman _The Forever War_ 16. Clifford Simak _City_ 17. Michael Frayn _The Tin Men_ 18. Larry Niven _Ringworld_ 19. Robert Heinlein _Stranger in a Strange Land_ 20. Isaac Asimov _The End of Eternity_ ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022/67 "2012-12-09T18:35:25Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > IMHO, one of the best windows into RAH’s thinking about women is how he sees and portrays his own wife in _Tramp Royale_, his account of their trip around the world together. In some ways, he views her as an equal, but in other ways, he’s all but patting her on the head in condescension. That’s how I feel about Heinlein. I get the impression from a lot of his stories that he thought women could do anything they wanted; be cops, astronauts, executives, etc., _even though they’re only women_. It’s first-generation feminism. And the lecturing on the wonders of libertarianism bring me down too. I’ve read a lot of Heinlein, and I want to like his work, but he doesn’t make it easy. As for the Quintessential Science Fiction Novel, I’d suggest David Brin’s _The Uplift War_ or maybe _Brightness Reef_. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2012, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022/68 "2012-12-11T11:45:21Z")
I missed this thread the first time round, but Jules Verne - _From the Earth to the Moon_ Hard science (for the time), good detail and realism pushed beyond the known. Great stuff. Si [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-quintessential-science-fiction-novel/287022.md?page=3)