The most significant SF novel ever?

[gully_foyle]

Is Dune the most significant and influential SF novel ever? I was musing on how the original Star Wars borrows liberally from it, and even thinking A Planet Called Treason by Orson Scott Card takes alot of its plot from it. I'm not suggesting it is the best, that is a case of taste, and Dune could do with a bit of editing and restructuring, but is it the most significant? I'm hard pushed to think of anything else, except maybe Bester's The Stars, My Destination which laid some groundwork for cyberpunk.

What do you think?

 

[iansales]

Most significant? Tough call. William Gibson's Neuromancer, perhaps, because it was the first cyberpunk novel and cyberpunk had a major impact on the genre. Or Dangerous Visions, which brought the US proponents of the New Wave into the public eye. There's also HG Well's The First Man in the Moon and Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, both of which inspired Georges Méliès' film...

While Dune remains popular and in print, its legacy isn't all that significant. Lucas arguably took more from Joseph Campbell than he did from Frank Herbert - and Lucas almost certainly set science fiction back by a decade or more. Furthermore, Dune had no real stylistic influence - if anything, its style would probably mean it would never be published if it were written today.

 

[Cayal]

and Lucas almost certainly set science fiction back by a decade or more.

Back? How so?

 

[iansales]

He reduced the public perception of sf to fantasy adventure tales set in outer space. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey had shown the non-sf-reading public what the genre was capable of... and Lucas undermined that with a return to Saturday morning serials. Even now, sf media tie-ins outsell real sf novels by a significant number.

 

[HardScienceFan]

have to side with Ian here.
on the one hand,Lucas put SF on the map.
He just put it on the wrong map.
Make a Venn diagram.
Space opera is a Subgenre of SF.
Lucas focused the attention on a subgenre
with the current Hollywood preoccupation with Gee-Whizz
CGI,things won't improve.
I,Robot :case in point
one very good melding of detective fiction and SF,almost totally ruined
by car chases,marauding robots,etc.
SF needs its David Cronenberg.

*and even he got it horribly wrong sometimes*

I'd like to put in a case for mid seventies Silverberg
Tower of Glass,e.g.

or the World Inside.
Dangerous Visions was an anthology,albeit a VERY influential one

 

[iansales]

Oops. Yes, Dangerous Visions was an anthology. I misread the thread title as "most significant sf book". Ah well.

Not sure I'd agree with a Silverberg novel, though. I've always felt his best was A Time of Changes, and I can't say I thought he had that much impact on others, readers or writers.

 

[Quokka]

Is Clarke's Childhood's End worth considering?

I'm not really all that well read SF wise so probably not the best judge but is there much earlier that develops the idea of first contact being such a social and cutural change, as opposed to the alien invasion movies of the 50's, in the way that Childhood's End does. It also ticks another science fiction standard in that it explores the future evolution of the human race.

Personally I wouldn't say Dune is, it's without question one of my favourite books but for each new or creative idea presented there's an idea or aspect derived from the medieval basis of the book. Now that doesn't detract from how good or bad a book it is but in my opinion it is a factor in considering it for the most significant science fiction novel ever.

 

[Gav]

I am not quite sure why anyone would think that Dune was the most significant* SF novel. It's Space Opera (as others have noted) and apart from the fact it's popular I don't really see it as signicant.

Not only that but people were writing SF before Dune...

In my opinion one of the most significant would be 1984**. It's ideas permeate so many modern concepts (even if they are becoming more and more corrupted): from language through to dystopian visions.

Even so I would hesitate to mark it as the most significant - even if it is one of THE novels of the 20th century.


* Can you clarify what you mean by significant?

** Ok. So some people say it isn't SF... but I would disagree. For its time it was remarkably speculative - as well as informing on the time it was written.

 

[Connavar]

I also wonder what he mean by significant?

For what the book genre? For mainstream speculative fiction?

For the book genre there are many important for their subgenres or for the hole genre.

19th century writers that made way and people like Wells,Verne etc


For its subgenre i would say Foundation is a very important for Space Opera. It opened way for many other good authors and books.

Military SF its Starship Troopers for me. Not only cause of the quality of the military adventure but the ideas and how it is written. You can read any modern Military SF and see traces of ST.


I havent read 1000 SF like most of you but that is what i see far reading classic and modern authors.

 

[iansales]

I'm assuming Gully meant "significant" in terms of a book's impact on the genre and on other writers in the genre. The problem is that so much of the influence of early works has been subsequently buried under second and third generation influences that it's difficult to tell what impact they had.

 

[Gav]

Text deleted becuse I wasn't making myself clear.

It's a great book, in fact one of my favourites, but it's not a book I would define as being that significant.

But not THE most significant.

 

[Connavar]

I'm assuming Gully meant "significant" in terms of a book's impact on the genre and on other writers in the genre. The problem is that so much of the influence of early works has been subsequently buried under second and third generation influences that it's difficult to tell what impact they had.

Exactly why i think its impossible to single out one novel.


The legends from the first half 20th century are not first generation SF greats and they were inspired by those that dominated SF in their youth.


I think assuming the most populars ones is significant is very wrong. I mean Dune has prolly outsold many books that have meant more for the genre. Hitchhiker has sold 20 mill+ and it was a parody that didnt do much for the genre other than drawing in fans like me. Yep my first SF book.

I think its wiser nominating books that created subgenres or made existing subgenres richer and bigger. Like Cyperpunk and people that wrote about it before it was a known subgenre.

 

[JDP]

I'm yet to write it.

 

[iansales]

I like Dune a great deal, but other than being one of the first sf best-sellers I don't see it as a particularly significant genre novel.

 

[High Eight]

War of the Worlds has got to be up there. First alien invasion story, first use of lasers as a weapon, anti-imperialist allegory, One of the first (and still just about the best) 'dead London' story, influenced Wyndham ('Day of the Triffids'), Christopher ('Tripods') and, oh, just about everybody since..........

 

[olc]

Furthermore, Dune had no real stylistic influence - if anything, its style would probably mean it would never be published if it were written today.

I have to dis-agree here. It is very subjective, but to me there is before Dune and after Dune. If it was not Dune then I would say before 1965ish and after 1965ish. The style of scifi changed (among other things (to me) books were easier to read). The length of scifi novels changed (got longer). It was not only Dune (some of the change probably falls under the so called new wave - Zelazny shared the Hugo that year). But Dune was a major work then and it is ridiculous to say it was not a major influence. It was not the only influence and it was not a sharp obvious influence like Neuromancer.

1984 was a major novel. But do you really think it was a major influance on scifi?

Significant is not the same as influential (I just realized the title of the thread).
Dune would be at least in the discussion.
Neuromancer is more influential than significant.
1984 is more significant than influential.

 

[iansales]

Influence on what, though? While US fiction moved more and more to third-person limited PoV, there had been many sf writers using that in the years before. Certainly the 1960s saw the size of novels grow - not just Dune, but also Stranger in a Strange Land. But Dune was first published in three parts in Analog magazine. I like to know what else you believe changed in the genre after Dune was published.

 

[tangaloomababe]

Gosh a big call, the most signifigant sci fi novel ever!!!!! I mean there are a number of books that would be signifigant for different reasons. High Eight I love Triffids it remains a firm favorite and it was signifigant in its own way. I think I would have to nominate 1984 - George Orwell though. A brilliant book, depressing and in the end without hope.

I think there will be great debate on this though.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Toss up between The Time Machine and 1984

 

[gully_foyle]

Truly Neuromancer was a significant SF novel. In my mind there is pre Neuromancer and post Neuromancer SF.

While I don't want to discount 1984, I see it is as being a significant piece of literature rather than a significant piece of SF. Don't forget it was a parable for the times.

I agrees with Ian in that Star Wars put SF back 10 years in that the audience for SF suddenly got alot younger, but maybe it lifted us out of the nuclear gloom that hung over our heads and took us back to more innocent times, like the times of Flash Gordon, and I don't fault it for that.

But Dune captured elements of space opera, adventure, politics, intrigue, that echoed through SF at least up until cyberpunk. I can't see Asimov having that impact. Maybe Clarke's collected works, but no one work, in my mind.

However, maybe War of the Worlds should claim the title. It was certainly the most significant of the "Oh My God! We're All Going To Die!" genre.
Perhaps we need a most significant author thread.