Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books

Now, I’ve always said that imagination is very closely tied to irreligion—for me, it gave the imagination to imagine God not being real.  In this NPR list, it turns out that many non-religious or irreligious authors are among the most loved in the genres of sci-fi and fantasy.  Granted, it is on NPR, so we would need to take into account liberal bias (i.e. more liberals voting their favorite books) and it really doesn’t say much about my argument that fostering imagination can lead to less religion.  Nonetheless, I find it exciting.  One thing I am trying to figure out: where is the Chronicles of Narnia? 

Of course nobody can beat Tolkien, so he obviously has the top spot (he was very religious).  But in the top 10 alone, we have: Frank Hubert, Orwell, Asimov, Huxley, Neil Gaiman.  Considering about 8-9 out of 10 people are religious, that’s exciting in my opinion.

well I’ve seen about half of them in movie form but have only read about 4-5 of the books on the list.

I’ve read about half of that list, and I don’t think about half those deserve to be there.

SkepticX - 14 August 2011 08:24 PM

I’ve read about half of that list, and I don’t think about half those deserve to be there.

Ditto.

J Kapp - 14 August 2011 02:27 PM

Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books

Now, I’ve always said that imagination is very closely tied to irreligion—for me, it gave the imagination to imagine God not being real.

That, however, presupposes a prior indoctrination in and acceptance of religious dogma, from which one subequently frees oneself by means of imagination. In the absence of any prior belief, I would argue that, on the contrary, one would need a vivid imagination to have any idea of a ‘god’ in the first place.

Well, Orson Scott Card definitely acknowledges his LDS background, and Heinlein was rumored to be a closet Roman Catholic. IMO, religious background is irrelevant to any of the stories, except as critical detail, unless there is a blatant attempt at proselytization. Religious background also does not appear to hinder the imagination across the board, but might have an effect on how imagination is expressed.

When I first visited the southern part of the U.S. (in 1979), I was almost immediately struck by the lack of science fiction titles in the mass-market bookstands. The proportions of other genres seemed to be the same as the places in the northeast, upper midwest, and southern Canada that I had previously visited. I speculated at the time that it was the result of some kind of cultural disapproval of certain expressions of imagination, in particular, that the southern culture thought respectable only those expressions that matched the concrete and the possible in the here-and-now, and was perhaps particularly disapproving of the social satire that is so often the theme of science fiction. Needless to say, I assumed that the comparative religulosity of the south, compared to what I was familiar with, had a lot to do with it.

Any thoughts from the natives?

I see the current “Christian Fiction” as the equivalent of science fiction, for people who fear to let their imaginations stray beyond what they have been indoctrinated to consider virtuous. As such, I consider it dangerous, because it is insufficiently distinct from their current living mythology to be properly seen as fictional.

Glad to see that George R. R. Martin made it to the top of the list. I started reading that series in 2000 and always thought it would make for a good television series. So far, so good, but I wonder how long they will stretch the series out on HBO. According to Martin, there are two more books to be written and since it apparently takes him 5 years to write one book, I see a potential problem in carrying the series all the way to the end on HBO.