This feels like the condensed version of a few years of TH-cam recommendations and 40 years of book selling. Valuable! This video identifies the essential SF authors and some of their works. Look forward to your further adventures and recommendations! Be well!
Just wanted to drop by and say I'm so glad I found your channel. Amazing stuff! You've opened up an entire world of books for me to explore. Thank you, sir. Keep up the great work!
Much of Robert Heinlein's work is unreadabke, notably "Farnham's Freehold", a literary turd par excellence. Heinlein enjpyed popularity because many of his contemporaries were as bad or worse .. He did write one or to readcbale potboilers, bur most of his output is as forgettable as Arthur C. Clarke's sterile "Rendezvous with Rama", a dog which in spite of it's coma-inducing quality, won five major sf award, thanks to votes from the syccphant community which bestowed the Hugo, the Nebula, the BSFA, the Locus and ,of course, the John W. Campbell Award on this unreadable waste of time. Even Zenna Hederson's tales of The People are more engaging than Clarke's romp through the mandrax milieu of Rama. .. I much prefer the nowadays much - and unjustly, in my opinion - - maligned Isaac Asimov, whose original Foundation trilogy turned many a punter on to sf. It did me. .Before the original Foundation triogy I had read only one other sf boo. .Asimov's later Foundation and Robot novels were. as padded as the trainig bra of a young girl. Shocking
I had to laugh when you mentioned my comment first. There were a lot of other authors mentioned by other people that I haven’t read as well, but I’m happy to say that a lot of the lesser known authors mentioned (Shepard, Shaw, et al) I HAVE read due to this channel. Thanks again!
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING: If you are responding to my post about overrated SF authors, please make this clear in any comments you make here. Thanks everyone!
Your comment saying, essentially, that SF is on its deathbed, about to have its head chopped off is a very sobering one. All the more so because of who made the comment! I figure that if Stephen E. Andrews is of that opinion then I might as well cling to my first SF loves from the 50's, 60's and 70's and forego the lost time exploring contemporary authors, especially SFF which, in my limited excursions into the realm of contemporary authors in that genre have been at the least unrewarding and at worst, an unforgiveable waste of time. Once again, OB, you have bolstered my preference for SF and mostly of the classic variety. That said, thanks for another fine episode, your riffing is beyond the pale in its scope and detail and riveting. I don't spend an hour of my life on any given day watching a YT channel unless it's beyond the pale in its scope and detail and is riveting. There it is, shameless patronizing accomplished. Cheers!
I saw the announcements for this list of shame experiment and I actually tried to comment a few times, but ended up erasing them. I've been a reader most of my life, but I'm relatively new to the SF scene, so my list of shame is very long! I will say, I did read Wyndham and I'm so glad I did! So that's checked off the list of shame! I'll get your email from Richard and drop you a line next week! Been watching your channel for a long time, looking forward to chatting!
Another great video. As much as I would like to see that "novella" happen, I hope the channel doesn't change much, because it is a marvel. Thanks for the knowledge and recommendations. (P.S. Commented other times as MAatwork, but abandoning that channel and moving on to 2 new ones. Cheers)
Outlaw RocknRoll calling Outlaw Bookseller ..thanks for your knowledge and recommendations my TBR list has gone into overdrive like you would not believe folks 😅♥️👊🏼
Oh! A book spinner is just a website like Wheel of Names. I put all my SF books into the list and it will randomly select the next book I read. I got the idea from Matt at Bookpilled. Cheers from Alberta, Canada!
Finally got to Le Guin's The Dispossessed. What a treat! I'm on to Delany's Triton to finish out the year and hoping to read much more of them both in the new year.
If I may add one author: Greg Egan's short stories are superb and address very interesting scientific speculations. I am still surprised how the sf booktubers who I'm watching seem to ignore him.
George Turner's first SF novels appeared in his early 60s, but he had a great reputation in "literary" fiction for three decades prior, plus writing SF criticism. I quite enjoyed those SF novels I encountered, maybe half of his output thus. I think I have a few hardbacks floating around in my TBR shelves.
Mick Farren Synaptic Manhunt twisted my 16 year old mind and I then read everything he wrote, SF, horror and non fiction. I read his online blog until his death. It was good to hear you mention him.
There was a very strange film that came out in 2020 based loosely on Olaf Stapleton's Last and First Men. Basically it's just narration (by Tilda Swinton!) combined with bizarre industrial sculptures. I liked it, it's eerie and totally different, and not too long at just one hour. I don't think I could deal with a full novel of Stapleton's philosophizing.
Thanks for bringing up the one issue I have with the SF masterworks: the typeset! I’m so used to a “house style” coming from academia by reading Penguin, modern library, and Oxford World Classics. The changes from book to book threw me for a real loop!
Remember, Gollancz is is bad people, and they don't care if they make you feel bad. (Well, I understand Victor was OK, but he's not there anymore. . . ) They think they can buy your souls for pale yellow spines, and they seen to be mostly right.
Your take on K. W. Jeter is spot on. I've read five of his horror novels -: Mantis, In the Land of the Dead, Soul Eater, Dark Seeker, & The Night Man - & all of them hit the mark. & I still have three of his SF novels which I haven't read for some reason -: Dr. Adder, Infernal Devices, & Morlock Night - which is probably a sequel to The Time Machine. It's a shame that he has virtually stopped writing original novels, so that he could focus on mass producing those franchise novels..... & sadly, I have never read anything by Eric Brown. But his books look like the type of SF that I like to read - I'll have to check him out. Thnx.
Thanks for wading through my over-long TBR list 😅 I started on Fury the other day-early days but I'm enjoying it so far-so I'll have until I'm done with that to decide whether to go with the Carter, Shaw, Ballard, or MacLeod next (leaning toward Carter as she's the only one of those I've read nothing from). I was thinking I'd tackle Adam Roberts chronologically, but I have been tempted by his more recent work so might just go for it now. Incidentally, I read Frontera earlier in the year and absolutely loved it - would make a great movie.
I’ve wondered about Lewis Spiner’s Fronterra for some time! It’s gotten zero coverage up until this video (unless I missed you covering Spiner before). Two years ago, one of the professors at my university retired and decided to give away a lot of his SF collection. I ended up picking up Fronterra off a whim from his collection based off its premise.
Only just getting to this video and there are some amazing recommendations for authors to get to. thanks so much for responding to my comment I've recently got Highrise by J.G Ballard so need to get to that at some point! and then on to his other books.
'High Rise' is a hardcore Ballard to start with and I personally would say it's not that representative of his work, but as a bucket of water in the face, it's a good one!
@@RhysWritings I favour a chronological approach if you are most interested in the more blatant SF aspects of his work- so 'Vermilion Sands' is a great point to begin. If more interested in his slipstream work, then 'Concrete Island' is a good one.
I don't think I'm intelligent enough to understand everything you discuss or to put into words why I like the books i do, but I enjoy watching your videos, especially because i seem to find myself agreeing with your opinions regarding popular modern scifi. Plus, you discuss authors and books that aren't the same 10-20 that most people seem to recommend. (Most of which i find i dislike) Have you ever discussed A Fire Upon the Deep? I liked the background ideas it builds on and have been looking for something that scratches that kind of itch.
Mesmerising stuff - cracking! 😍 After _China Mountain Zhang_ I would encourage people to read her short story collection _Mothers and Other Monsters_ (2005)
I liked this video. It made you seem available and gave a sense of having a chat with you. Next to having us all over to your place in Bath I think this is a good format. I wrote of my disappointment with Joe Abercrombie. I have come back to science fiction and fantasy after a very long time away and was hoping to discover some new things. I read a lot of fantasy in particular in my youth, and catching up with that has been a mixed bag. On the one hand I loved the Black Company series by Glen Cook, whose focus is narrowly on the ground level characters and whose prose is terse and direct. I have also really enjoyed George RR Martin, who writes like a Victorian with wit and discipline. This First Law thing though, what a sloppy, over larded mess. People always mention the characters, but they are so overwritten they are a bore to me, there is no discovery, no sense of ambiguity, we know literally every thought Glokta has and none of them are particularly penetrating. I think a good writer or a good editor would have turned out a decent pair of books of around 300 pages each, but at 1600 or 1700 pages, this is just a mess. The entire first volume could have been a chapter! All I am asking, Outlaw, is this. Is there a good fantasy novel written after 1985 that I might dig, given that I have read and loved and gone back to Moorcock and Brackett and Burroughs and Howard and Leiber et al, over and over, or should I just stick to the old crew?
For me, the pinnacle of fantasy is the main ten Malazan books by Steven Erikson, starting with Gardens of the Moon. There's plenty of discovery, while still leaving some mystery; there's plenty of ambiguity because Erikson does not handhold you.
If you're moving over to more SF anyway then M John Harrison's 'Science-Fantasy' Viriconium' books are worth a look, and you may like Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun'. China Mieville's 'Bas Lag' books are fun (although if brevity is important maybe start with 'The Scar'), Susanah Clarke's work too (Piranesi is nice and short). For more straight-up Fantasy I enjoyed The Library Ladder's videos on Guy Gavriel Kay (th-cam.com/video/LqMEko4hjnA/w-d-xo.html) and Tad Williams (th-cam.com/video/UGSnOIgnwio/w-d-xo.html).
I’m a big fan of James Tiptree. My favorite story of hers is A Momentary Taste of Being. I read it many years ago in her anthology called Starsongs of an Old Primate. I still have that old paperback.
I really like The Shockwave Rider. I think it's somewhat uneven, perhaps. But I love that Brunner is really going for it, during his BIg 4 period. He's blasting off, he's coloring outside the lines; readers and critics be damned.
Don't confuse the M.A. Foster who wrote "Gameplayers of Zan" with the contemporary female writer of soft erotica! And that's the book to start with in the Ler (new humans) trilogy. A 100-year experiment in forced evolution produces a new species of human. The scientists hoped for supermen; what they got were a few thousand new humans who turned away from tech toward a simple crofter existence in a small nature reserve. The only anachronism is the strange 'game of life', Zan... There's considerable ingenuity in Foster's world-building - the Ler social mores seem quite alien until you grasp just how different their physiology is from ours. It's a long book which proceeds at a walking pace but the journey is one I've made several times in re-reading. There's also an omnibus, published in 2006. Hamlyn only published two of the three Ler books in the late 70s, so you need that omnibus or the US DAW for the final part of the millennia-spanning story. He wrote just 8 books, making it easy-ish to be a completist.
Great instalment! Have you thought/tried getting an interview with Silverberg? Do you think if WSB had met PKD they would have talked about anything aside from cats?? Have a great weekend, everyone.
I haven’t enjoyed many by Brian Stableford but his novel, The Walking Shadows is brilliant. Im still stunped by the last page. And as a side note i was told Barrington Bayley inspired his depiction of evolution. Watson is also beilliant Miracle Visitors and Jonah Kit ate brilliant
I've got an old tattered copy of The Walking Shadows. Looking forward to reading it soon. & Ian Watson's books tend to be enjoyable at the very least - even his lesser books are packed with surprises...
So true! I really cannot binge read anymore... I need to diversify or I get really annoyed and grumbly about an author/series. Not a single person mentions the Australians; Eaton, or Max Barry or Terry Dowling.... they should be.... Um, is it a accent thing? K. W. Jeeta - there is an SF author called Jeeta/Geeta? Google is not helping it keeps showing me the Bhagavad Gita (an awesome SF/mythology yarn, but not what I think you are talking about)?
K W Jeter. If ever you can't find an author, try googling one of the titles I mention in my videos. Best of luck. As for Aussies, if I didn't work from memory, I'd have mentioned Terry Dowling and Max Barry....
Heh. I got turned off Bob Shaw after reading ORBITSVILLE - thanks for confirming my experience. I have one or two other Shaws in my moving boxes, so I'll dig them out for 2025. Top video, too. Your reactions clips are always worth several views. CHASM CITY, THE PREFECT and HOUSE OF SUNS by Reynolds are terrific SF-horror novels...leave him alone!!! 😝
We'll have to disagree on Al Reynolds, I'm afraid, but as I said, he is a nice guy, met him at a club called Tiger Tiger at a Gollancz event back in 2006. Shaw is worth a seconf look, my friend.
I've only read House of Suns from him, but I really liked it. His writing style is not the best, it definitely fits the "scientist doing fiction" tradition of lower literary merit and higher conceptual one. It did not hurt to read him but that is as far as I would go. But I really loved the things he talked about and the concepts he explored in that book, so I am going to go on and try more from him. And to be honest, Zima Blue was one of my all time favourite shorts from Love Death and Robots, so I expect to like his short stories too. The important part of being a reader for me is to enjoy yourself. You need to sort of triangulate what you really enjoy, but also take the occasional risk beyond that. I will never understand reading things you do not enjoy because others do. Life is short, and reading should be a joy not a chore! Much love to everyone here!
I told Matt at Bookpilled that I use Curcumin for stiffness. Most illness is either from stress or inflammation. I'll be 64 in March of 2025. I'm in good shape and I work cheap if you need me to stop by from NC.
Anyone read A Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison? I watched the film a while back and enjoyed it. I haven't tracked the novel down yet but it's on my to read list.
I don’t understand the dislike of productive writers? It’s doesn’t change quality for a seasoned artist. Ellison, Moorcock, Hemingway, Dean Wesley Smith & Sanderson, Koontz can all write (or wrote) fast, often single drafts whether they admit it or not. I think Adrian has tapped into the same passion and notion with his productivity.
I would say Iain M. Banks is essential (as well as his literary books as Iain Banks). Transition could easily have been a New Wave novel. Seems unfair to try and plant the state of Modern SF on his shoulders, far more likely to be due to the resurgence of Star Trek back in the 90s (as well as Babylon 5, Farscape, etc). As far as I'm aware, the Black Corridor wasn't mostly written by Hilary Bailey, she wrote the parts set on Earth.
I'm commenting on written SF here, so the TV/film stuff isn't germane to my comments. Remember, I was working 'on the ground' in bookshops in the 1980s and watched how British SF publishing changed after 'Consider Phlebas' and how Space Opera- not matter how good- had been off the agenda in Brit SF publishing/writing for almost a full decade: so I'm more 'likely' on the basis of professional participation and experience to be correct about this. True, it wasn't Banks alone- several of the Generats working at 'Interzone' had more trad, revisionist agendas instead of New Wave-oriented ones, but- and the but is important- it was Banks who pulled the keystone and started a small avalanche of the return to Golden Age tropes, albeit executed in a more contemporary way. Colin Greenland, Paul J MaCauley and others followed, but were far less influential until Hamilton and Reynolds joined them. This was all fine in itself, but when you talk to young (and by that I mean under 50) British SF writers now, few of them have read anything before Banks, which to my way of thinking really underlines how their work tends to display a way of looking at SF as a collection of tropes instead of a way of looking at the universe. So I guess we'll have to differ.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal It's funny thinking back to the 80s now and the idea of any SF author being big. My local bookshop barely had a SF section, I'd get half my books from the local newsagent or the local stationary shop. The nearest town had a big WH Smith, but where Waterstones is now was just a Cinema. Even the Library didn't have an SF section and you had to look for the yellow spines in the general fiction section. So I was just a kid with a Moorcock obsession who had to either order them in via the local bookshop, in Smith's when I got the chance to go there, or find them secondhand or in the library. Every one like a holy grail. So I didn't really encounter Banks until Dillans opened, and may even have read The Wasp Factory first. Before then having access to new SF was pretty rare, and before the internet a lot harder to find out about. He was left leaning, the books featured an interesting left leaning Utopian culture with ambiguous gender and sexuality, with characters being in genuine danger. They could be experimental, e.g. Feersum Endjinn. For me they were more like Tiger! Tiger! than traditional space opera. Once I found rec.arts.sf.written on USENET in the early 90s things changed pretty dramatically, suddenly open discussion and all the information you could possibly want at your fingertips. Would love to see some data driven analysis of the time, which books were popular compared to others, and who had the most impact, but it's who has the time and the data to do it! I still feel like Fantasy was the bigger deal in the 80s, and horror, but that may just have been my perception at the time. You could find those in the newsagents and my local bookshop, unlike SF.
So who does she bear positive comparison to from the 1950-1990 period? In what way does she say something new? Does the quality of her prose transcend the average? I've read journalism by her, but have not been moved to read her fiction.
I just don't understand how you can say Iain Banks writing is adolescent yet say Hothouse by Aldiss is brilliant. Hothouse reads like 1960's YA. It's so simple and cheesy. I'd argue Banks, while maybe overrated, rejuvenated a stalled and rather boring state of science fiction.
Agreed wholeheartedly. Maybe it's just a subjective thing. Like your Aldiss example, I find Heinlein's prose to be adolescent. Banks, for me, completely rejuvenated SciFi for me after c. 10 years of running into the same old boring stuff.. ( with the exception of Peter Watts...) Or maybe perhaps it's misinterpretation. I acknowledge that some of Banks' dialogue is often lighthearted, even flippant, typically for the Minds, or a carefree Culture agent, but that's simply character building. I never saw Banks as 'space opera' or 'worldbuilding', both of which I too am bored with, but rather those elements were there just to provide environment. Environment for a protagonist with a serious typically moral or conceptual problem. In the late 80's and the 90's, besides William Gibson, and the occasional Charles Stross, I couldn't find another SciFi author who was worth my time than Banks. And if it weren't for Banks, I wouldn't have found Rajaniemi ...
Thanks for your comment. For me, his characters and dialogue often seem adolescent, too much whingey attitude and swearing. Re Aldiss, the characters in 'Hothouse' are of course, not human in the way we are- they are devolved so they naturally come across as childlike- it's a fabular story in some ways, but its level of invention is pretty incredible and verbally is as rich as the vegetation it described. I'd also say that if you read any number of Aldiss' novels - from 'Greybeard' to 'Forgotten Life' and many others, he proved hsi worth as a literay artists over and over again. I think what Banks did was bring the tropes of the 1930s screaming back into British SF publishing, making SF resemble what people expected it to be and that's my issue with it- it's all too obviously 'sci fi' and didn't push the envelope. Naturally, he was already popular and ticking the boxes he did appealed to a mass audience. But compared to the more experimental work going on in British SF then- and in the US, where there was amazing stuff being published in the Genre- he wasn't cutting edge. It's usually popular authors who are the most likely to be called overrated, you're right in that implication.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I can only agree with what you've said here. To be honest, I've rarely paid attention to the characters in Banks' SF, as they do indeed come across as adolescent, even petulant. I simply 'use' them in reading his stories as a simple narrative locus, and that's all. I've always been more drawn to the concepts in his works than anything else. The notion we're introduced to in Consider Phlebas, of following the plight of an artificial intelligence ( 'Mind' in his parlance ) fascinated me back then. Their role in his stories seemed to always be mysterious; hinted at, but never really elucidated. The more 'human' protagonists seemed secondary, at best, serving more of a functional role in the stories, more of a relational touchstone for the reader. I'm both fine and disappointed with that aspect, as given that, I wish he developed more on the 'Mind' aspect - their intentions, etc. As for impact, yes he wasn't pushing any boundaries by any means, the stories generally being straight forward, and while I'm fine with that, I always got the feeling that Banks wanted to do something more, but just couldn't decide what in particular that might be. Still, I enjoyed Banks' works for what they are. Sometimes we just need what I call an easy read. I recently found such an author in Mur Lafferty, for example. But I much prefer more experimental works, a la PKD, but those seem increasingly rare as time goes on. You reference more experimental authors writing at the time of Banks; I'd love to know of those if you're willing to share...
Wonderful! I know it's not your style, in fact it's contrary to your style. Contrapuntal even, but this does make me crave an organized "These are the books I think are foundational to SF" video. Not the best. Not your book. Perhaps your new book. . . "Don't be a dummy your whole life, read these 50 science fiction books to get a good, solid foundation in understanding the genre" Or something, . . . you can work on the title. . .
This feels like the condensed version of a few years of TH-cam recommendations and 40 years of book selling. Valuable! This video identifies the essential SF authors and some of their works. Look forward to your further adventures and recommendations! Be well!
Wonderful insights. Thanks you
Many thanlks, very kind!
Just wanted to drop by and say I'm so glad I found your channel. Amazing stuff! You've opened up an entire world of books for me to explore. Thank you, sir. Keep up the great work!
Much of Robert Heinlein's work is unreadabke, notably "Farnham's Freehold", a literary turd par excellence. Heinlein enjpyed popularity because many of his contemporaries were as bad or worse .. He did write one or to readcbale potboilers, bur most of his output is as forgettable as Arthur C. Clarke's sterile "Rendezvous with Rama", a dog which in spite of it's coma-inducing quality, won five major sf award, thanks to votes from the syccphant community which bestowed the Hugo, the Nebula, the BSFA, the Locus and ,of course, the John W. Campbell Award on this unreadable waste of time. Even Zenna Hederson's tales of The People are more engaging than Clarke's romp through the mandrax milieu of Rama. .. I much prefer the nowadays much - and unjustly, in my opinion - - maligned Isaac Asimov, whose original Foundation trilogy turned many a punter on to sf. It did me. .Before the original Foundation triogy I had read only one other sf boo. .Asimov's later Foundation and Robot novels were. as padded as the trainig bra of a young girl. Shocking
I had to laugh when you mentioned my comment first. There were a lot of other authors mentioned by other people that I haven’t read as well, but I’m happy to say that a lot of the lesser known authors mentioned (Shepard, Shaw, et al) I HAVE read due to this channel. Thanks again!
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING: If you are responding to my post about overrated SF authors, please make this clear in any comments you make here. Thanks everyone!
I like it when you just let it flow marvellous memory my man , I shall check out Angela Carter and CL Moore cheers. Steve
Your comment saying, essentially, that SF is on its deathbed, about to have its head chopped off is a very sobering one. All the more so because of who made the comment! I figure that if Stephen E. Andrews is of that opinion then I might as well cling to my first SF loves from the 50's, 60's and 70's and forego the lost time exploring contemporary authors, especially SFF which, in my limited excursions into the realm of contemporary authors in that genre have been at the least unrewarding and at worst, an unforgiveable waste of time. Once again, OB, you have bolstered my preference for SF and mostly of the classic variety. That said, thanks for another fine episode, your riffing is beyond the pale in its scope and detail and riveting. I don't spend an hour of my life on any given day watching a YT channel unless it's beyond the pale in its scope and detail and is riveting. There it is, shameless patronizing accomplished. Cheers!
Stephen, you’re doing such a service to future generations of SF readers by imparting your rich wealth of knowledge for all eternity on the interwebs!
I saw the announcements for this list of shame experiment and I actually tried to comment a few times, but ended up erasing them. I've been a reader most of my life, but I'm relatively new to the SF scene, so my list of shame is very long! I will say, I did read Wyndham and I'm so glad I did! So that's checked off the list of shame! I'll get your email from Richard and drop you a line next week! Been watching your channel for a long time, looking forward to chatting!
Many notes were taken from this video, with some of the authors appearing in the Pringle list I'm reading through. I aim to keep digging!
Oh Boy! Breakfast w/the Bookseller!
Another great video. As much as I would like to see that "novella" happen, I hope the channel doesn't change much, because it is a marvel. Thanks for the knowledge and recommendations.
(P.S. Commented other times as MAatwork, but abandoning that channel and moving on to 2 new ones. Cheers)
Outlaw RocknRoll calling Outlaw Bookseller ..thanks for your knowledge and recommendations my TBR list has gone into overdrive like you would not believe folks 😅♥️👊🏼
Oh! A book spinner is just a website like Wheel of Names. I put all my SF books into the list and it will randomly select the next book I read. I got the idea from Matt at Bookpilled. Cheers from Alberta, Canada!
Oh yeah, I recall him using that now...
Finally got to Le Guin's The Dispossessed. What a treat! I'm on to Delany's Triton to finish out the year and hoping to read much more of them both in the new year.
If I may add one author: Greg Egan's short stories are superb and address very interesting scientific speculations. I am still surprised how the sf booktubers who I'm watching seem to ignore him.
meant to mention him as an Aussie but I work from memory, not script. He's in my book '100 Must Read SF Novels'.
George Turner's first SF novels appeared in his early 60s, but he had a great reputation in "literary" fiction for three decades prior, plus writing SF criticism. I quite enjoyed those SF novels I encountered, maybe half of his output thus. I think I have a few hardbacks floating around in my TBR shelves.
Mick Farren Synaptic Manhunt twisted my 16 year old mind and I then read everything he wrote, SF, horror and non fiction.
I read his online blog until his death.
It was good to hear you mention him.
There was a very strange film that came out in 2020 based loosely on Olaf Stapleton's Last and First Men. Basically it's just narration (by Tilda Swinton!) combined with bizarre industrial sculptures. I liked it, it's eerie and totally different, and not too long at just one hour. I don't think I could deal with a full novel of Stapleton's philosophizing.
Yes, have a copy, striking work.
I rather liked it
Happy New Year, Outlaw. Hope you're well.
Thanks for bringing up the one issue I have with the SF masterworks: the typeset! I’m so used to a “house style” coming from academia by reading Penguin, modern library, and Oxford World Classics. The changes from book to book threw me for a real loop!
Remember, Gollancz is is bad people, and they don't care if they make you feel bad.
(Well, I understand Victor was OK, but he's not there anymore. . . )
They think they can buy your souls for pale yellow spines, and they seen to be mostly right.
Good morning from across the pond. I got to watch about 10 mins before I must hit the road. I promise to be back!!!
Your take on K. W. Jeter is spot on. I've read five of his horror novels -: Mantis, In the Land of the Dead, Soul Eater, Dark Seeker, & The Night Man - & all of them hit the mark.
& I still have three of his SF novels which I haven't read for some reason -: Dr. Adder, Infernal Devices, & Morlock Night - which is probably a sequel to The Time Machine.
It's a shame that he has virtually stopped writing original novels, so that he could focus on mass producing those franchise novels.....
& sadly, I have never read anything by Eric Brown. But his books look like the type of SF that I like to read - I'll have to check him out.
Thnx.
Thanks for wading through my over-long TBR list 😅 I started on Fury the other day-early days but I'm enjoying it so far-so I'll have until I'm done with that to decide whether to go with the Carter, Shaw, Ballard, or MacLeod next (leaning toward Carter as she's the only one of those I've read nothing from). I was thinking I'd tackle Adam Roberts chronologically, but I have been tempted by his more recent work so might just go for it now. Incidentally, I read Frontera earlier in the year and absolutely loved it - would make a great movie.
I will remedy my lack of reading Le Guin ASAP!
this was fun to hear your thoughts on our confessions. 🤗
Since Covid I found that I *really* like her essays.
I’ve wondered about Lewis Spiner’s Fronterra for some time! It’s gotten zero coverage up until this video (unless I missed you covering Spiner before). Two years ago, one of the professors at my university retired and decided to give away a lot of his SF collection. I ended up picking up Fronterra off a whim from his collection based off its premise.
I mentioned it in one of my 'Top 10' videos a good while back and a fewe times since, I'm always passionate about it.
Only just getting to this video and there are some amazing recommendations for authors to get to. thanks so much for responding to my comment I've recently got Highrise by J.G Ballard so need to get to that at some point! and then on to his other books.
'High Rise' is a hardcore Ballard to start with and I personally would say it's not that representative of his work, but as a bucket of water in the face, it's a good one!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Bucket of water hmm not sure i like the idea of that 😅 what JG ballard would you recommend to start out with?
@@RhysWritings I favour a chronological approach if you are most interested in the more blatant SF aspects of his work- so 'Vermilion Sands' is a great point to begin. If more interested in his slipstream work, then 'Concrete Island' is a good one.
I don't think I'm intelligent enough to understand everything you discuss or to put into words why I like the books i do, but I enjoy watching your videos, especially because i seem to find myself agreeing with your opinions regarding popular modern scifi. Plus, you discuss authors and books that aren't the same 10-20 that most people seem to recommend. (Most of which i find i dislike)
Have you ever discussed A Fire Upon the Deep? I liked the background ideas it builds on and have been looking for something that scratches that kind of itch.
Not a fan of Vinge, I'm afraid, have mentioned him here several times, but glad you like the videos here.
I used Starmaker by Stapledon on audiobook to help me get to sleep at night.
Mesmerising stuff - cracking! 😍 After _China Mountain Zhang_ I would encourage people to read her short story collection _Mothers and Other Monsters_ (2005)
I liked this video. It made you seem available and gave a sense of having a chat with you. Next to having us all over to your place in Bath I think this is a good format.
I wrote of my disappointment with Joe Abercrombie. I have come back to science fiction and fantasy after a very long time away and was hoping to discover some new things. I read a lot of fantasy in particular in my youth, and catching up with that has been a mixed bag. On the one hand I loved the Black Company series by Glen Cook, whose focus is narrowly on the ground level characters and whose prose is terse and direct. I have also really enjoyed George RR Martin, who writes like a Victorian with wit and discipline. This First Law thing though, what a sloppy, over larded mess. People always mention the characters, but they are so overwritten they are a bore to me, there is no discovery, no sense of ambiguity, we know literally every thought Glokta has and none of them are particularly penetrating. I think a good writer or a good editor would have turned out a decent pair of books of around 300 pages each, but at 1600 or 1700 pages, this is just a mess. The entire first volume could have been a chapter! All I am asking, Outlaw, is this. Is there a good fantasy novel written after 1985 that I might dig, given that I have read and loved and gone back to Moorcock and Brackett and Burroughs and Howard and Leiber et al, over and over, or should I just stick to the old crew?
For me, the pinnacle of fantasy is the main ten Malazan books by Steven Erikson, starting with Gardens of the Moon. There's plenty of discovery, while still leaving some mystery; there's plenty of ambiguity because Erikson does not handhold you.
@@marsrock316 That's in my TBR pile for 2025. Thank-you - that's good to know.
If you're moving over to more SF anyway then M John Harrison's 'Science-Fantasy' Viriconium' books are worth a look, and you may like Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun'. China Mieville's 'Bas Lag' books are fun (although if brevity is important maybe start with 'The Scar'), Susanah Clarke's work too (Piranesi is nice and short). For more straight-up Fantasy I enjoyed The Library Ladder's videos on Guy Gavriel Kay (th-cam.com/video/LqMEko4hjnA/w-d-xo.html) and Tad Williams (th-cam.com/video/UGSnOIgnwio/w-d-xo.html).
@@_wookie_ Awesome. Thank-you. Wolfe is already on my 2025 TBR pile, and I have read some Miellville. I'll look into the others.
Stick with any S&S published prior to 1977. After that. M John Harrison.
Thanks Steve, it was great to hear your replies to everyone (i put some more books onto the tbr/list of shame) :)
I’m a big fan of James Tiptree. My favorite story of hers is A Momentary Taste of Being. I read it many years ago in her anthology called Starsongs of an Old Primate. I still have that old paperback.
I really like The Shockwave Rider. I think it's somewhat uneven, perhaps. But I love that Brunner is really going for it, during his BIg 4 period. He's blasting off, he's coloring outside the lines; readers and critics be damned.
An early Brunner like a lot is The Whole Man.
Don't confuse the M.A. Foster who wrote "Gameplayers of Zan" with the contemporary female writer of soft erotica! And that's the book to start with in the Ler (new humans) trilogy. A 100-year experiment in forced evolution produces a new species of human. The scientists hoped for supermen; what they got were a few thousand new humans who turned away from tech toward a simple crofter existence in a small nature reserve. The only anachronism is the strange 'game of life', Zan... There's considerable ingenuity in Foster's world-building - the Ler social mores seem quite alien until you grasp just how different their physiology is from ours. It's a long book which proceeds at a walking pace but the journey is one I've made several times in re-reading.
There's also an omnibus, published in 2006. Hamlyn only published two of the three Ler books in the late 70s, so you need that omnibus or the US DAW for the final part of the millennia-spanning story.
He wrote just 8 books, making it easy-ish to be a completist.
I wondered what you thought of Orbital, the Booker prize winner? Worth reading?
Not read it. I tend to avoid prizewinners when they are new.
I read Frontera based on your recc from an earlier video...great book.
Glad you liked it. Great stuff, right?
I know you are a Hawkwind fan... what SF novel would you say is most Hawkwind-like?
A future vid will address this question.
Great instalment!
Have you thought/tried getting an interview with Silverberg?
Do you think if WSB had met PKD they would have talked about anything aside from cats??
Have a great weekend, everyone.
That is an excellent question :-)
Who is WSB?
@@dodahedron the late, great William S. Burroughs!
I haven’t enjoyed many by Brian Stableford but his novel, The Walking Shadows is brilliant. Im still stunped by the last page. And as a side note i was told Barrington Bayley inspired his depiction of evolution. Watson is also beilliant Miracle Visitors and Jonah Kit ate brilliant
Frontera is a perennial favorite, ive read it multiple times
I've got an old tattered copy of The Walking Shadows. Looking forward to reading it soon.
& Ian Watson's books tend to be enjoyable at the very least - even his lesser books are packed with surprises...
Bug Jack Baron kind of predicted the whole Rogan social media thing
And the QAnon thing …
So true! I really cannot binge read anymore... I need to diversify or I get really annoyed and grumbly about an author/series. Not a single person mentions the Australians; Eaton, or Max Barry or Terry Dowling.... they should be....
Um, is it a accent thing? K. W. Jeeta - there is an SF author called Jeeta/Geeta? Google is not helping it keeps showing me the Bhagavad Gita (an awesome SF/mythology yarn, but not what I think you are talking about)?
K W Jeter. If ever you can't find an author, try googling one of the titles I mention in my videos. Best of luck. As for Aussies, if I didn't work from memory, I'd have mentioned Terry Dowling and Max Barry....
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Jeter - cool, got it!
Heh. I got turned off Bob Shaw after reading ORBITSVILLE - thanks for confirming my experience. I have one or two other Shaws in my moving boxes, so I'll dig them out for 2025. Top video, too. Your reactions clips are always worth several views. CHASM CITY, THE PREFECT and HOUSE OF SUNS by Reynolds are terrific SF-horror novels...leave him alone!!! 😝
We'll have to disagree on Al Reynolds, I'm afraid, but as I said, he is a nice guy, met him at a club called Tiger Tiger at a Gollancz event back in 2006. Shaw is worth a seconf look, my friend.
I've only read House of Suns from him, but I really liked it. His writing style is not the best, it definitely fits the "scientist doing fiction" tradition of lower literary merit and higher conceptual one. It did not hurt to read him but that is as far as I would go. But I really loved the things he talked about and the concepts he explored in that book, so I am going to go on and try more from him. And to be honest, Zima Blue was one of my all time favourite shorts from Love Death and Robots, so I expect to like his short stories too.
The important part of being a reader for me is to enjoy yourself. You need to sort of triangulate what you really enjoy, but also take the occasional risk beyond that. I will never understand reading things you do not enjoy because others do. Life is short, and reading should be a joy not a chore!
Much love to everyone here!
I told Matt at Bookpilled that I use Curcumin for stiffness. Most illness is either from stress or inflammation. I'll be 64 in March of 2025. I'm in good shape and I work cheap if you need me to stop by from NC.
Anyone read A Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison? I watched the film a while back and enjoyed it. I haven't tracked the novel down yet but it's on my to read list.
Yes, read it. It's OK, but didn't blow me away. If you liked the film, it will work for you, but lacks the cheesiness the film acquires half way in.
One day I will find a copy of Kathe Koja Bad Brains
What do you think of Joanna Russ?
Been mentioned here many times. I like her work.
More Aussie SF: Greg Egan, Max Barry, Lee Harding, Sean Williams, even Matthew Reilly is worth a read for Crichton-like blockbusters
Was M John Harrison an astrophysicist?
No.
I don’t understand the dislike of productive writers? It’s doesn’t change quality for a seasoned artist. Ellison, Moorcock, Hemingway, Dean Wesley Smith & Sanderson, Koontz can all write (or wrote) fast, often single drafts whether they admit it or not. I think Adrian has tapped into the same passion and notion with his productivity.
Not so much productive as over-productive. AT would improve enormously if he'd slow down and produce less.
I would say Iain M. Banks is essential (as well as his literary books as Iain Banks). Transition could easily have been a New Wave novel.
Seems unfair to try and plant the state of Modern SF on his shoulders, far more likely to be due to the resurgence of Star Trek back in the 90s (as well as Babylon 5, Farscape, etc).
As far as I'm aware, the Black Corridor wasn't mostly written by Hilary Bailey, she wrote the parts set on Earth.
I'm commenting on written SF here, so the TV/film stuff isn't germane to my comments. Remember, I was working 'on the ground' in bookshops in the 1980s and watched how British SF publishing changed after 'Consider Phlebas' and how Space Opera- not matter how good- had been off the agenda in Brit SF publishing/writing for almost a full decade: so I'm more 'likely' on the basis of professional participation and experience to be correct about this. True, it wasn't Banks alone- several of the Generats working at 'Interzone' had more trad, revisionist agendas instead of New Wave-oriented ones, but- and the but is important- it was Banks who pulled the keystone and started a small avalanche of the return to Golden Age tropes, albeit executed in a more contemporary way. Colin Greenland, Paul J MaCauley and others followed, but were far less influential until Hamilton and Reynolds joined them. This was all fine in itself, but when you talk to young (and by that I mean under 50) British SF writers now, few of them have read anything before Banks, which to my way of thinking really underlines how their work tends to display a way of looking at SF as a collection of tropes instead of a way of looking at the universe. So I guess we'll have to differ.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal It's funny thinking back to the 80s now and the idea of any SF author being big. My local bookshop barely had a SF section, I'd get half my books from the local newsagent or the local stationary shop. The nearest town had a big WH Smith, but where Waterstones is now was just a Cinema. Even the Library didn't have an SF section and you had to look for the yellow spines in the general fiction section.
So I was just a kid with a Moorcock obsession who had to either order them in via the local bookshop, in Smith's when I got the chance to go there, or find them secondhand or in the library. Every one like a holy grail.
So I didn't really encounter Banks until Dillans opened, and may even have read The Wasp Factory first. Before then having access to new SF was pretty rare, and before the internet a lot harder to find out about.
He was left leaning, the books featured an interesting left leaning Utopian culture with ambiguous gender and sexuality, with characters being in genuine danger. They could be experimental, e.g. Feersum Endjinn. For me they were more like Tiger! Tiger! than traditional space opera.
Once I found rec.arts.sf.written on USENET in the early 90s things changed pretty dramatically, suddenly open discussion and all the information you could possibly want at your fingertips.
Would love to see some data driven analysis of the time, which books were popular compared to others, and who had the most impact, but it's who has the time and the data to do it!
I still feel like Fantasy was the bigger deal in the 80s, and horror, but that may just have been my perception at the time. You could find those in the newsagents and my local bookshop, unlike SF.
Think Annalee Newitz is the best younger sci-fi writer= Autonomous is a masterpiece, all works great
So who does she bear positive comparison to from the 1950-1990 period? In what way does she say something new? Does the quality of her prose transcend the average? I've read journalism by her, but have not been moved to read her fiction.
I just don't understand how you can say Iain Banks writing is adolescent yet say Hothouse by Aldiss is brilliant. Hothouse reads like 1960's YA. It's so simple and cheesy.
I'd argue Banks, while maybe overrated, rejuvenated a stalled and rather boring state of science fiction.
Agreed wholeheartedly. Maybe it's just a subjective thing. Like your Aldiss example, I find Heinlein's prose to be adolescent. Banks, for me, completely rejuvenated SciFi for me after c. 10 years of running into the same old boring stuff.. ( with the exception of Peter Watts...) Or maybe perhaps it's misinterpretation. I acknowledge that some of Banks' dialogue is often lighthearted, even flippant, typically for the Minds, or a carefree Culture agent, but that's simply character building. I never saw Banks as 'space opera' or 'worldbuilding', both of which I too am bored with, but rather those elements were there just to provide environment. Environment for a protagonist with a serious typically moral or conceptual problem. In the late 80's and the 90's, besides William Gibson, and the occasional Charles Stross, I couldn't find another SciFi author who was worth my time than Banks. And if it weren't for Banks, I wouldn't have found Rajaniemi ...
Thanks for your comment. For me, his characters and dialogue often seem adolescent, too much whingey attitude and swearing. Re Aldiss, the characters in 'Hothouse' are of course, not human in the way we are- they are devolved so they naturally come across as childlike- it's a fabular story in some ways, but its level of invention is pretty incredible and verbally is as rich as the vegetation it described. I'd also say that if you read any number of Aldiss' novels - from 'Greybeard' to 'Forgotten Life' and many others, he proved hsi worth as a literay artists over and over again.
I think what Banks did was bring the tropes of the 1930s screaming back into British SF publishing, making SF resemble what people expected it to be and that's my issue with it- it's all too obviously 'sci fi' and didn't push the envelope. Naturally, he was already popular and ticking the boxes he did appealed to a mass audience. But compared to the more experimental work going on in British SF then- and in the US, where there was amazing stuff being published in the Genre- he wasn't cutting edge. It's usually popular authors who are the most likely to be called overrated, you're right in that implication.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I can only agree with what you've said here. To be honest, I've rarely paid attention to the characters in Banks' SF, as they do indeed come across as adolescent, even petulant. I simply 'use' them in reading his stories as a simple narrative locus, and that's all. I've always been more drawn to the concepts in his works than anything else. The notion we're introduced to in Consider Phlebas, of following the plight of an artificial intelligence ( 'Mind' in his parlance ) fascinated me back then. Their role in his stories seemed to always be mysterious; hinted at, but never really elucidated. The more 'human' protagonists seemed secondary, at best, serving more of a functional role in the stories, more of a relational touchstone for the reader. I'm both fine and disappointed with that aspect, as given that, I wish he developed more on the 'Mind' aspect - their intentions, etc. As for impact, yes he wasn't pushing any boundaries by any means, the stories generally being straight forward, and while I'm fine with that, I always got the feeling that Banks wanted to do something more, but just couldn't decide what in particular that might be. Still, I enjoyed Banks' works for what they are. Sometimes we just need what I call an easy read. I recently found such an author in Mur Lafferty, for example. But I much prefer more experimental works, a la PKD, but those seem increasingly rare as time goes on. You reference more experimental authors writing at the time of Banks; I'd love to know of those if you're willing to share...
Wonderful! I know it's not your style, in fact it's contrary to your style. Contrapuntal even, but this does make me crave an organized "These are the books I think are foundational to SF" video.
Not the best.
Not your book.
Perhaps your new book. . .
"Don't be a dummy your whole life, read these 50 science fiction books to get a good, solid foundation in understanding the genre"
Or something, . . . you can work on the title. . .