1969 beats 1985 by a mile in my opinion. And dude... maybe you should reread The Left Hand of Darkness. I love it as do a ton of other folks. I think it's fairly timeless. Anyways, love you channel! Keep up the great work!
@@Atop77 They were all pretty close but I liked the other books just a bit more than The Left Hand of Darkness and The Andromeda Strain. But 1969 still beat out a lot of other years to make the top three!
I discovered your channel recently and absolutely love it! I've been listening to loads of your videos, you are really engaging and easy to listen to! I currently listen to audiobooks more than read, so if you ever do any kind of feature on audio books that would be amazing! A great narrator can really bring a book to life and is an interesting comparison to my own interpretation when I read! Thanks for the inspiration! 😊
@@timbye Thanks so much for the kind words! I haven’t really tried audiobooks myself but it makes sense that they can enhance the experience. I’m glad you’re enjoying them!
Some many great books! All solid choices. I'm going to suggest 1971 as another great year for science fiction, with some truly outstanding publications: The Lathe of Heaven, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, The World Inside, A Time of Changes, The Futurological Congress
@@WordsinTime There are two movie versions. The 1971 original is very good and faithful to the novel. The 2008 version is OK but is a very different story.
Hi Jonathan very interesting concept and bravo for putting the work in here, I do like the content. For me I preferred 1953 then 1969 and thirdly 1985 out of your medalists but did I have a different best year entirely? 1974 MOTE IN GOS EYE THE FOREVER WAR THE DISPOSSESSED FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID INVERTED WORLD
Having read The Andromeda Strain only last week, I must say it is my least favourite of his that I've read so far. I didn’t hate it by any means but I think it lacked the mind-bending, disorientating feel of 'Sphere', and Jurassic Park is just on another level of good, so it's very hard to top. Your brief description of The Demolished Man made me instantly think of 'Minority Report'. I'll have to check it out. I need to give Bester a read.
@@DaBIONICLEFan I liked The Andromeda Strain but of the 3 Crichton books I’ve read I would rank it 3rd. I haven’t read The Minority Report but I’ve seen the film and there are similarities to The Demolished Man!
@WordsinTime the competition was tough (some thanks to your recommendations!). Some others I read this year Necromancer, Project Hail Mary, Rendevous with Rama, Foundation, Roadside Picnic, Dawn, Blindsight, 1984, Roadside Picnic. Something about Ubik tops it for me!
Like some of the other commenters I would put the 1953 list above the 1985 one, but the video is about your opinion, not mine, so you are not wrong, just choosing differently. It would be interesting to see the lists for all of the past 75 years.
@@lightbearer313 They were all quite close so I can see why people might prefer any of these years over another. There are Wikipedia pages for science fiction books for each year which are quite fun to look through.
My favourite year SO FAR is 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick Nova by Samuel R. Delany Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner Pavane by Keith Roberts
My brain suspects you are right. My heart insists you must be wrong wrong wrong! :) But I'll settle for a reordering: 1953, 1969, 1985. Looking at the best of the best for each year yielded similar results for me in my much briefer survey. But if you were to offer me a box of paperbacks from any one of those decades, I'd pick 1953. Just more my vibe, I guess. Once we got past the top 5 books, I think I would find myself enjoying the worst novels of '53 much more than the middling books of '85. But that's changing the rules. :)
@@WordsinTime Nightwings is similar to the Book of New Sun, but far less confusing. So far into the future that it feels like magic. You might like it better than BNS.
Definitely it was deliberate (to do with the telepathy commonality). Incidentally, another famous SF author Harlan Ellison was in an episode of B5 (he was also a good friend and series creative consultant to JMS).
Another Philip K. Dick novel from 1969 that I thinks better than "Ubik", is "Galactic Pot-Healer". "The Left Hand of Darkness" is great. You can't beat the good old days. A much better post-70s novel, is Gene Wolfe's tetralogy, "The Book of the New Sun".
I have to point out that Second Foundation was the last of the original three Foundation novels but not the end of the Foundation stories. They finally concluded with Foundation’s Edge and Foundation and Earth, even if they gained much less critical acceptance. They also concluded the saga in such a way as to tie in I Robot, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn.
@@robertpearson8798 Yes, that’s why I said it was the third and last of the original trilogy. But yes, there are more Foundation books that he wrote later.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 91 | คู่เอก "คมอาวุธ vs อเล็กเซย์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/V0RkEfYFsgM/mqdefault.jpg)
You usually have interesting topics. This one is unique to booktube as far as I’ve seen.
Keep up the good work.
@@tomhunter7672 Thanks Tom!
agreed
This is a really clever and interesting idea for a video. Really enjoyed.
@@imorca1994 Thanks! I’m glad you liked it!
1969 beats 1985 by a mile in my opinion.
And dude... maybe you should reread The Left Hand of Darkness. I love it as do a ton of other folks. I think it's fairly timeless.
Anyways, love you channel! Keep up the great work!
@@Atop77 They were all pretty close but I liked the other books just a bit more than The Left Hand of Darkness and The Andromeda Strain. But 1969 still beat out a lot of other years to make the top three!
This was a really great idea for a video Jonathan! Really interesting to see how certain years really skyrocketed the genre.
@@BookishChas Thanks Chas! And yes, it was interesting to see how many classics came out at similar times.
I discovered your channel recently and absolutely love it! I've been listening to loads of your videos, you are really engaging and easy to listen to!
I currently listen to audiobooks more than read, so if you ever do any kind of feature on audio books that would be amazing! A great narrator can really bring a book to life and is an interesting comparison to my own interpretation when I read!
Thanks for the inspiration! 😊
@@timbye Thanks so much for the kind words! I haven’t really tried audiobooks myself but it makes sense that they can enhance the experience. I’m glad you’re enjoying them!
Fun video idea, Jonathan!
@@RedFuryBooks Thanks Josh!
It's hard to believe so many great books can be written in a single year. Great video Jonathan
@@dalejones4322 Haha there’s a lot of good sci-fi out there. If only there was enough time to read it all!
Some many great books! All solid choices. I'm going to suggest 1971 as another great year for science fiction, with some truly outstanding publications: The Lathe of Heaven, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, The World Inside, A Time of Changes, The Futurological Congress
@@bookspin Nice pick! I love The Futurological Congress and To Your Scattered Bodies Go. The others are on my TBR!
Excellent! I can't think of any more deserving year than these three. Eon and The Postman were also first published in 1985.
@@JoeNicolosi-l8i It’s crazy that Greg Bear had Eon and Blood Music come out in the same year.
What a cool concept to research and do a video on! I love it! ❤
@@TenFan54 Thanks! I’ve been working on this one for a while so I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Great video! I’d love to see you do a similar one limited to the past 20-30 years
@@pyramidsong Thanks! 2005 was another good one with Accelerando, Old Man’s War, Olympos, Spin, and Pushing Ice.
شكرا جزيلا لك ❤
@@joodwaleed7570 ❤️
Brilliant!
@@chromabotia Thanks!
The Andromeda Strain was a cracking film too.
@@richardhoward7503 I’ll have to watch it!
@@WordsinTime There are two movie versions. The 1971 original is very good and faithful to the novel. The 2008 version is OK but is a very different story.
@@lightbearer313 I was referring to the 1971 film. I was unaware they'd made another.
your tastes and mine line up about 75% of the time so I will be reading some of your suggestions. Thanks, I enjoy your presentations.
@@rachelthompson9324 Haha I guess that’s a pretty good percentage. Hope you enjoy!
@@WordsinTime anybody that loves Vonnegut like I do is considered family
Very fun! The novel arena is more difficult than short stories, maybe? I will look at short stories, too. That might be by decade.
@@ScienceFictionRetroactivis-j1w I read more novels than short stories but that would be interesting too!
Hi Jonathan very interesting concept and bravo for putting the work in here, I do like the content. For me I preferred 1953 then 1969 and thirdly 1985 out of your medalists but did I have a different best year entirely?
1974
MOTE IN GOS EYE
THE FOREVER WAR
THE DISPOSSESSED
FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID
INVERTED WORLD
@@paulallison6418 Great choice Paul! 1974 was on my shortlist and I actually had the same 5 books (although I haven’t read The Dispossessed yet).
The 1980’s was also the best decade for music IMHO! Trying to figure out my best SF decade is a toughie, though I’m thinking 90’s/00’s perhaps 🤔
@@TuftyMcTavish When I compared decades they were all pretty close for me!
Excellent list and have read many of them while some others are still on my tbr line up though in my case longevity may be a limiting factor haha.⚛️❤
@@FrankOdonnell-ej3hd I hope there’s years of happy reading to come!
Having read The Andromeda Strain only last week, I must say it is my least favourite of his that I've read so far. I didn’t hate it by any means but I think it lacked the mind-bending, disorientating feel of 'Sphere', and Jurassic Park is just on another level of good, so it's very hard to top.
Your brief description of The Demolished Man made me instantly think of 'Minority Report'. I'll have to check it out. I need to give Bester a read.
@@DaBIONICLEFan I liked The Andromeda Strain but of the 3 Crichton books I’ve read I would rank it 3rd. I haven’t read The Minority Report but I’ve seen the film and there are similarities to The Demolished Man!
Finally reading Redemption Arc after having read the other four books in the main Revelation Space series.😅
@@fernbedek6302 Haha I’m not sure how this reading order happened but I hope you like it!
@ It was based around what local libraries had. I finally gave in and bought Redemption Arc.
@ That makes sense. I loved it, hope you do too!
Ubik is my fav book I have read this year.
@@mh4841 Glad you enjoyed it too!
@WordsinTime the competition was tough (some thanks to your recommendations!). Some others I read this year Necromancer, Project Hail Mary, Rendevous with Rama, Foundation, Roadside Picnic, Dawn, Blindsight, 1984, Roadside Picnic. Something about Ubik tops it for me!
@@mh4841 Tough competition indeed haha
Like some of the other commenters I would put the 1953 list above the 1985 one, but the video is about your opinion, not mine, so you are not wrong, just choosing differently.
It would be interesting to see the lists for all of the past 75 years.
@@lightbearer313 They were all quite close so I can see why people might prefer any of these years over another. There are Wikipedia pages for science fiction books for each year which are quite fun to look through.
My favourite year SO FAR is 1968
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Nova by Samuel R. Delany
Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
Pavane by Keith Roberts
@@DrHippiHS Nice! I own Stand on Zanzibar but haven’t read it yet. And I’ll have to check out Pavane.
My brain suspects you are right. My heart insists you must be wrong wrong wrong! :) But I'll settle for a reordering: 1953, 1969, 1985. Looking at the best of the best for each year yielded similar results for me in my much briefer survey. But if you were to offer me a box of paperbacks from any one of those decades, I'd pick 1953. Just more my vibe, I guess. Once we got past the top 5 books, I think I would find myself enjoying the worst novels of '53 much more than the middling books of '85. But that's changing the rules. :)
@@dqan7372 Haha well it was very close between them. 1953 was a great year!
Another argument in favor of putting 1969 higher is that it also had Silverberg's Nightwings, and Up the Line.
Up the Line is one of my favourite time travel novels.
Nice! I’m a big fan of Dying Inside and I own Nightwings but haven’t read it yet.
@@WordsinTime Nightwings is similar to the Book of New Sun, but far less confusing. So far into the future that it feels like magic. You might like it better than BNS.
I still can't believe Alfred Bester is a real person. Anyone who is a Babylon 5 fan knows what I mean! I can only imagine it was deliberately done.
@@Yesica1993 Haha I haven’t watched the show but I’d guess it was intentional.
Definitely it was deliberate (to do with the telepathy commonality). Incidentally, another famous SF author Harlan Ellison was in an episode of B5 (he was also a good friend and series creative consultant to JMS).
Another Philip K. Dick novel from 1969 that I thinks better than "Ubik", is "Galactic Pot-Healer". "The Left Hand of Darkness" is great. You can't beat the good old days. A much better post-70s novel, is Gene Wolfe's tetralogy, "The Book of the New Sun".
@@expressoric I’ll have to read Galactic Pot-Healer!
I have to point out that Second Foundation was the last of the original three Foundation novels but not the end of the Foundation stories. They finally concluded with Foundation’s Edge and Foundation and Earth, even if they gained much less critical acceptance. They also concluded the saga in such a way as to tie in I Robot, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn.
@@robertpearson8798 Yes, that’s why I said it was the third and last of the original trilogy. But yes, there are more Foundation books that he wrote later.
@@WordsinTime Sorry, I guess I missed the original part.
🛸
@@garyredman892 🚀
Ha Ha. The best year was obviously 1987 when the first Culture novel was published.
@@kid5Media Haha I’m reading Sphere right now, which also came out in 1987.
Maybe I'm broken, but man I hated Ender's Game. Almost no redeeming qualities for me
That’s okay, sometimes things just don’t work for me either.
I'm the last one to comment so far.
@@lmv92x 3rd place! 🥉
Just read Ubik. Hated the thing.
@@Siderite Uh oh
Thats it! Im calling the excorcist. You must be possesed trashtalking Le Guin & Bester🫣🤗😎
Haha I wasn't trash talking, I just had a couple of issues with those books. But they were still on medal winning teams!
@@WordsinTime True👌I'll let Max von Sydow RIP a little more 4 now