For future reference

[james_davis_nicoll]

What are the noteworthy election-related SF novels?

Comments

[wychwood]

Neal Stephenson's collaboration Interface?

Kim Stanley Robinson has a quantity of novels involving democracy and the electoral process, in the Mars trilogy and of course the Science in the Capitol books.

[rosefox]

Double Star, of course.

Democracies aren't really thick on the ground in SF.

[james_davis_nicoll]

An upcoming review has a paragraph devoted to that point.

[(Anonymous)]

Double Star, and one of the Lensmen books (forget which one) are the novels that leap to mind. For short stories, there's Michael Shaara's Election 2066, and Asimov's Franchise, and several Analog type stories in the 80s about electronic voting whose names escape me.

[(Anonymous)]

First Lensman has Rod Kinnison running for President.

-- Paul Clarke

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Double Star :-)

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Interface by 'Stephen Bury'

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I was just looking up that one's title. Yes, Interface is a good one.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Am I recalling correctly that elections play a role in Moon Is A Harsh Mistress?

And in at least one or two John Barnes novels, as well as in at least one of KSR Mars novels?

Not a novel, but that's one of the elements that was handled very well, or so I felt, in the Babylon-5 series, which impressed me almost as much as the inclusion of a laboring class and unions and how important they would be to a space station of this sort.

Love, C.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Am I recalling correctly that elections play a role in Moon Is A Harsh Mistress?

Yeah, they have a whole revolution to get rid of the corrupt prison/military government and then replace it with democracy, also known as "Our best friend the AI computer... is also the computer that's counting the votes! Yay!"

[(Anonymous)]

One of Lensman series; one of more of the Ring of Fire books.

[jamoche]

The Stainless Steel Rat for President

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

CURSES! And I got the name wrong too!

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

"stainless steel rat runs for president"

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The Wanting of Levine?

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Space Viking. >:) Also from Piper, and less maliciously suggested, elections feature prominently in Four Day Planet (though that's mostly about the consequences of a union election) and Fuzzy Sapiens.

-- Steve's other suggestions have already been mentioned.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

Elections are rather plot-relevant in Cyteen.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Any review of that by me is going to focus on how the technical term for killing a Union leader is "a good start".

Distraction, Bruce Sterling

[(Anonymous)]

The election is over when it begins, but the lead character's background as a campaign manager is central to the story.

It's a fine novel, BTW. Like a lot of Sterling (not all! but a lot) it still holds up remarkably well.


Doug M.

Re: Distraction, Bruce Sterling

[(Anonymous)]

That reminds me "Stochastic Man" by Silverberg is about an election pollster/adviser

[kjn]

"Franchise" by Isaac Asimov, though that is a short-story.

Tik-Tok by John Sladek, though that one is probably borderline.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

"Evidence" is another Asimov short story where an election is central, although it's about an event on the campaign trail and doesn't get as far as the vote counting stage. (It's a Susan Calvin story about a candidate suspected of being a robot.)

Didn't one of the heroes steal an election for Mayor of Terminus in one of the Foundation books?

[seawasp]

Bloodsuckers: A Vampire Runs for President by Michael Ventrella.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Alastair Reynold's The Prefect is set in a society that is a true democracy, with every policy decision, no matter how minor, being put to a vote -- though most people fob the responsibility off to a digital proxy that knows their preferences.

[(Anonymous)]

That sounds like a great democracy to be a programmer in.

[rpresser.livejournal.com]

Hate to do this, but I have to:

Politician, Piers Anthony, Bio of a Space Tyrant series.

[azurelunatic]

*strikes the match for the ceremonial fire*

[nwhyte]

Here's a few which haven't been mentioned:

Philip K. Dick's Cantata-140 aka The Crack in Space is about the first African-American presidential candidate.

Orson Scott Card's Alvin Journeyman (the fourth of that series) ends with William Henry Harrison being elected President of the United States, and Andrew Jackson his Vice-President.

Tim Powers' Expiration Date is set against the background of the Clinton/Bush contest in 1992.

Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond's near-future thriller Scotch on the Rocks, set in the late 1970s but written in the late 1960s, begins with an election where the Scottish Nationalists hold the king-maker role at Westminster and a Conservative government without a majority is forced to make concessions to them.

James Smythe's recently published No Harm can Come To A Good Man is set during a near-future election.

Mira Grant's Feed - the same, after the zombie apocalypse.

In Gareth Roberts' Doctor Who novel The Well-Mannered War, K-9 runs for president of one of the warring factions.

I'm sure there are more.

[(Anonymous)]

Shockwave Rider ends with a referendum vote...

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

Bujold's "Shards of Honor"(no election, but the running gag about no one on Beta having voted for Steady Freddy).

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Also Cordelia's crew votes to disobey her. It's brief and off-screen, though.

A Civil Campaign has a lot of politicking about two votes in the Council of Counts.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Can't believe no one has mentioned Transmetropolitan yet. The election ends at the beginning of the series, but the consequences run through the whole plot.

[ross-smith.livejournal.com]

Depending on how narrowly you meant "SF", Mary Gentle's Grunts! springs to mind.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I think there is a lot of election subplot in many SF books, mostly Electu US we will Save You/Oppress from (fill in the blank)...

and like Steve, the H Beam Piper book... where you could actually duel your elected politicians..

[tandw.livejournal.com]

"Lone Star Planet" (originally released as "A Planet for Texans," IIRC). In which killing a practicing politician is only criminal to the degree to which the decedent didn't deserve it; the narrator's comment that thus what is at law a trial of the accused becomes in fact a trial of the victim prefigures some of the US legal wrangling about Stand Your Ground laws.

[(Anonymous)]

Norman Spinrad, Bug Jack Barron.
Stephen Bury (Neal Stephenson and George Jewsbury), Interface.

Matt M.

[ilya187.livejournal.com]

Futurama!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Head_in_the_Polls