Completely agree on Guy Gavriel Kay and Tolkien. I would add Dune and Malazan to the list as well. This may sound odd, but I’d also include the Iliad, the Aeneid, and the Ramayana - for me, these epics are just as epic fantasy as more modern works, and their exclusion as such strikes me as modern “literary fiction” critics wanting to dismiss fantasy as pulp, not wanting to admit that the foundational texts of the world’s cultures are in fact part of the genre they so deride.
@@GuineaPigEveryday I don’t think you understood my comment pal, Dune is a household name in fiction. You ask whatever Tom, Dick, or Harry you see on the streets if they’ve ever heard of Dune there’s a high likelihood that they’ll say yes. Even if they haven’t read it. The same with Lord of The Rings. The vast majority of people have heard of it, along with the books there’s the movies and that terrible tv show and an entire industry of merchandise devoted just to it. They’re well known, I’m not saying they’re on the same stature. In the same way I’ve seen people wearing Lord of The Rings shirts I’ve seen people wearing Dune shirts. When you go to whatever book store there’s a high likelihood that you’ll see Dune as one of the mainstays of their Science Fiction or Fantasy or maybe just fiction shelves.
Thank you so much for bringing more attention to Gene Wolfe and Book of the New Sun! An absolute stunning masterpiece of sci-fi/fantasy. More people need to read (and, more importantly, re-read and re-re-read) Wolfe.
Adding these to my list! I’m a big advocate of sci-fi’s ability to communicate big, important themes with the same (and at times better) reliability as other types of literature. Ursula K. Le Guin is someone you should definitely look more into if you haven’t.
Read The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness this summer, both were great. I've heard the other books of the Hainish Cycle aren't as good, but I might try them too.
@@KarlSnarks I likes The Word for World is Forest and A Fisherman of the Inland sea (short story collection with some canon stories) and really liked those as well!
@@SamDCote Thanks for the recommendations, haven't had the chance to read those books of the series yet. Also want to read her more fantasy oriented books like the Earthsea series.
I have read Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun several times, since it was first published. In fact, I recently bought a new edition because I'm not able to open my 1983 paperbacks safely anymore. Deep, rich and enormously exciting and rewarding, not to mention well-written.
Came here for the recommendations and I stayed for the thorough and passionate explanation on the books and styles 👌 A couple of longer lists about science-fiction and fantasy suggestions would be fantastic, pun intended.
China Miéville, Perdido Street Station (perhaps it's true for his entire body of work, but that's the only one I've read so far). The quality of the text, from a literary standpoint, is simply splendid. I remember being truly struck by the contrast when I switched to China Miéville's book from the one I was reading before. The quality of the writing, the descriptions, the literary quality, really hit me. There might be some weaknesses in terms of the story or its structure, but in terms of writing, the quality of the descriptions and the literary quality really left a strong impression. (I should mention that I've only read Natalie Mège's French translation, but it remains splendid.)
I appreciate this video and what you do here. You are pointing out that there is great value in a genre that many consider to be inferior by its very nature. I am a reader who reads both classical literature and what you and a lot of other people call "genre" books. In most cases I enjoy what people consider genre far more than much of the classical literature that I have read. Many of my friends look down on genre writing, and when they do I have a standard top 10 list to give them that in my mind proves that genre fiction is just as powerful as literature and explores philosophy and the human condition in what is in many cases a far superior way to some of the classical lit we see in the western cannon. that list is... A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller I Am Legend by Richard Matheson The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation by Issac Asimov A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Dune by Frank Herbert Frankenstein by Mary Shelley Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury These are only older books there are many new books that do just as well that I would consider to be literature as well. Also some of these have entered western canon as literary classics. Looking down on a written work simply because of its genre is always a mistake.
Gene Wolfe! Stands with and above many of the great authors. Wolfe, Melville, and Dostoevsky are authors who I feel like I know intimately. Wolfe writes puzzles with Catholic allusions in much of his work
I read the series The Book of the New Sun + The Urth of the New Sun a dozen times during my youth since it came out in Serbian translation in 1990 and 1991. It was always an invigorating reading experience.
Thank you! I’ve been extolling Tigana ever since I read it. And, since no one has even heard of Guy Gavriel Kay, no one wants to listen. When I talk about his beautiful prose, people seem to tune out. But, I love Tigana and want to read more from Kay. A Song of Arbonne is coming up real soon on my TBR list. Really looking forward to it.
Prose writing: I feel many prose writers chose not to write science fiction or speculative fiction because of the general narrow attitudes or views of this genre. In fact speculative fiction is an encompassing genre that freely explores possibility and impossibility alike and allows the writer a free range of writing styles and story telling.
Thanks for the recommendations! I've had a copy of Tigana on my bookshelf for a while. Gonna have to read more Wolfe and Stephenson, as well. You could add all sorts of work from the likes of Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, and Octavia Butler to this list. Clifford Simak's 'City' and Robert Heinlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land' could qualify, as well. If you want to go classic, there's 'Frankenstein', 'Gulliver's Travels', and the works of J.S. Le Fanu. George Macdonald deserves a read, as well.
Love your list! I don't know Anathem, but it sounds wonderful, and I'll be looking out for it. I really enjoyed Alef the Unseen - - a terrific mix of fantasy and social commentary, and very funny in places too.
Cool channel - good sci fi can have some real postmodern stuff going on. Would love to see your take on crime fiction or maybe how you feel on genre fiction in general.
As someone who's more into the commercial side of the genre (Sanderson is my favorite author), I do agree with your recommendations. I really liked Tigana, and I'm in the middle of my first read of Shadow of the Torturer and you're right in that I definitely need to read it more than one time, maybe after I finish the whole series. A recommendation I would add is probably Dan Simmons' Hyperion. It's a classic for a reason and I feel like the prose is an underrated aspect of it.
My Fantasy suggestions for Fantasy reads with poetic Prose: -The King Of Elflands Daughter by Lord Dunsany -The Charwomans shadow by Lord Dunsany -Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny -Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer -Black God's & Scarlet Dreams by C. L Moore -The Tales From Flat Earth Series by Tanith Lee -White As Snow by Tanith Lee -Perdido Street Station by China Mieville -Viriconium by M John Harrison
@@dugebuwembo Gormenghast is quite complex and not easy to follow, but it is amazing and well worth the effort. Its entirely unique and if your enjoyed Le Guin, Wolfe, Mieville, Dunsany I think you're going to enjoy it.
@@daenerystargaryen When I first tried to read it I couldn't get over the way it fucked my mind up with the prose. It was one of first books that had that effect on me, I wasn't ready. I may try again in the future.
Oh yeah, "Anathem" for sure. And others have already recommended "Dune", so let me second it. (The first novel at least.) - The Hyperion Cantos ("Hyperion", "Fall of Hyperion", "Endymion", "Rise of Endymion") by Dan Simmons - "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - "Station 11" by Emily St. John Mandel - "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem - a lot of people like "The Road" by Comac McCarthy, I found it too depressing and the movie alone gave me PTSD... "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury (a book about books) "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess...both "The Left Hand Darkness" and "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. LeGuin, "1984" by George Orwell, "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut, "The Handmaid's Tale", by Margret Atwood, "Kindred" by Octavia Butler, "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi. "Dalghren" by Samuel R Delaney. "The Sparrow" and "Children of God" by Mary Doria Russell...I could think of more if I had time but I need to go take a nap.
BotNS is one of my all time favs. Not much can come close to it in the genre, specifically in the way it builds the world and it’s dream-like prose, as you say. Imo.
Absolutely agree with your take on Tigana. I loved Anathem as well, but I find that often Stephenson’s other books don’t have strong endings, unfortunately. I love genre fiction, both the literary and the pulp. Sometimes I just want a simple story well told, other times I want to dive into a richly realized world with fascinating characters and big ideas. Does that make me a mood reader? 😆 Thanks so much for this video. I hope you’ll continue to bring forth the more substantial well-developed examples of literary SFF from time to time. 👋🏽
Finally people are talking about Anathem. I was a bookseller when it came out and read it the first week and was a near evangelist for the next year for this book but it never got the love it deserved.
Terrific video. I don't normally read science fiction for its prose, as this is not often the strong suit of this genre, but I've been pleasantly surprised by some great writers with a real feel for words. Kay is definitely way up there, as are Gene Wolfe, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, Norman Spinrad and John Brunner. Poul Anderson and Gregory Benford could also surprise me with their smooth prose. I'm a fan of Philip K. Dick, but his prose is clunky a bag of empty soda cans.
as an avid fan of Tolkien, you've now convinced me to purchase Anathem by Stephenson, thus branching out into new reading territory. I'm rather excited.
Having a BA in philosophy I'm always interested in finding literature that explores philosophical topic so this video was very interesting for me - bought right away one of Neal Stephenson books on Kindle.
A fantastic list, and Guy Gavriel Kay is among my favorite authors. I would recommend the Gormenghast books if you haven’t already read them. Would love to hear your thoughts on Mervyn Peake.
Hey Jared, hearing about the way Cay pulls inspiration from different settings like the Bizantine empire and such I wondered do you happen to know any books that pull inspiration from the old testament setting for it's world building and politics?
I love this kind of books. It's like the author wants to present an "application" of a core philosophical concept. Would you say Dune by Frank Herbert belong to this genre?
I would add Dune to the list. Also, another more recent book with excellent prose and some great themes and symbolism to dive into is Senile Ascends by Josiah Bancroft.
I would highly recommend Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts - beautiful writing, definitely not simple, and deep ideas. I'll bump Book of the New Sun up my tbr queue a bit :)
Great recommendations, I read The Fifth Head of Cerberus from Wolfe and it is similar to BoTNS in that it looks like a fantasy setting but it's in truth Sci Fi and not everything is explained and is also dream like. I can't wait to start Shadow of the Torturer, it's been on my TBR (and on my shelves) for too long :D.
I read LOTR for the first time this year, and at the same time I was reading the Wheel of Time. I preferred the prose in LOTR. The prose in WOT feels pretty straightforward, which I didn't find as interesting. Whatever Tolkien was doing with his prose was more enchanting. The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany also has great prose in that it created an atmosphere that made me feel like I was truly transported somewhere else. Funny story. The other day I was in a bookstore. I went through several fantasy books and read the first sentence and sometimes even the first paragraph. The one I enjoyed most was a book by Guy Gavriel Kay.
Hi Jared, I really want to know how a philosophy seminar goes, when a group of people have read the same text and come together, what type of thing do they discuss? What is the course of the discussion? Do they find a mutual understanding of the text, ensuring that they understand things on the same presumptions made by the authors? And how do they proceed if they reach a consensus on what the author is trying to express (or is reaching a consensus the goal of the seminar?) What is the core thing that people are going to argue about when coming into a seminar? Often times, I feel like a seminar needs to be lead by some one namely professors that know all the answers to these questions and are able to guide the participants working out the answers. I am an undergrad medic and I’ve tried bring my friends(all of which are not majoring in philosophy) to discuss philosophy with me but I have been faced with all the issues I’ve wrote above, it would be of great help if you could talk about it.
Jack Vance, the OG prose stylist of speculative fiction. Not to be missed. Check out The Dying Earth saga, The Lyonesse Trilogy (arguably the greatest fantasy series of all time), and any of his science fiction titles. Criminally overlooked author. Also, where are the likes of M. John Harrison, Michael Moorcock, Poul Anderson (The Broken Sword!), Ursula Le Guin (Earthsea), etc. Gosh, even Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a lyrical masterpiece.
Adding Anathem to my list, thanks for an exciting recommendation!! Can't recommend R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse series enough for this. Beautiful prose, incredible and disturbing character work, huge and heady ideas abound in the series, with worldbuilding so deep that Antiquity becomes science-fiction. His world evokes much of Crusade Era earth, but he plays with so many tropes. Fans of Dune will love Bakker, and respect his willingness to think.
My favorite "great prose and big ideas" sci-fi author is Kim Stanley Robinson. Iain M. Banks, with his excellent prose, fits here too with his Culture series, and also Emily St. John Mandel's novel Station Eleven which I just finished a few weeks ago.
I just recently bought Station Eleven and I stumble upon your comment. I have put it aside to be read later, but your comment has intrigued me and I'll start on it soon :-)
@@melissabennett4328 Same! I borrowed it from the library right when the pandemic had started. I had heard praises of the book but I didn't know what it was about. When I learned it's about a pandemic I returned the book immediately lol. I'm glad I picked it up later.
I would add Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" books to this list. When I first read them I was fascinated not so much by the intricate plot, but more by the world he has built and by his colourful language. Thank you for the recommendations in the video and also some cool mentions in the comments! 👍
Prof. Pringles prose I enjoyed last year. Before breakfast I read one or two chapters in the first torturer novel, it put me in a different mindset so I felt more cultured,but I forgot all about the plot.
I think sci-fi genre is a unique in that it allows us, through imagined futures and alternate histories, to question the nature of our own reality and evaluate the future of humanity. Each sci-fi constructs an imagined version of the future (or past/present), with its imagined social rules, cultural construct and technological advancement, and from that we can ask so many great questions: how does the physical, socio-economic and political construct of this imagined future shape the lives of those living in it? How is it alike and different to ours? I love how just asking these questions sci-fi allows us to be creative and imaginative. And from there, we can ask the more important questions: is this a foreseeable future for our reality? What are the implications for human society and human consciousness if this imagined future comes about? I don't think any other genre can do this as effectively, and for that reason including works of sci-fi as part of English literature in grade school particularly would be so rewarding. There are numerous works in science fiction, a lot from classical authors but now more from emerging modern authors, and from short stories to novels, that I think should be taught in schools as works of literature (Dune, all of Octavia Butler and China Mieville's works, Sheri S Tepper, many of Arthur C Clarke, even The Expanse series, just to name a few).
Jared, I have a feeling you would like the book Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko! A "small" book with a Big/Huge idea and I also loved the translation...!
I've repeatedly failed to read Anathem. Because of my love for Stephenson, I kept going back. Finally I tried listening and promptly fell asleep. I woke up to an interesting place in the novel, so went back to the beginning to get the full experience. And promptly fell asleep again. I'm too old to spend that much time in world building.
Were I to create such a list, Tolkien, GGK and Wolfe would me my top, obvious recommendations. I've long considered GGK our top currently-active writer whose output is classified as Fantasy. That said, Tigana is not my favorite Kay. Not that there's anything wrong with it. I simply prefer some of his other published works. Another Wolfe book worth considering, "Soldier of the Mist". Set in early Classical Greece, its main protagonist is a soldier who has suffered a recent battle injury. This handicap, upon which the plot hinges, would be a challenge for lesser writers to convincingly pull off. Yet Wolfe handles it masterfully. Not a foot placed wrong. There are two followup books. I read the first of them. It's okay but not essential. More a "further adventures of xxx" than anything else. That original title, though it ends without resolution, is the one that matters.
'Anathem' sounds like it has some affinities with Hermann Hesse's 1943 philosophical novel 'Das Glasperlenspiel' ('The Glass Bead Game', also known as 'Magister Ludi').
This is how I feel about crime fiction. I enjoy classic noir and suspense which elevates the genre. Sadly, too many books are formulaic with bland prose.
Great list! I’ve been wanting to read Anathem for a while now, I think 2023 will be *the* year. If anyone has any recommendations in the same vein but by female authors, please let me know!
Have you ever read A Voyage to Arcturus? David Lindsey is not nearly the prose stylist as the authors you mentioned but it is definitely a science fiction/fantasy book concerned with big ideas as well as being among the strangest works I've ever read. There's nothing really similar to it I can think of.
I love fantasy but I hate that prose usually seems to be the last thing on reader's and even writer's minds, when it's literally the thing that separates books from other mediums. And with the rise of self publishing, it's only getting worse. Editors are now optional. I'm reading a self published fantasy book right now, and god damn, it's so bad that it's making me appreciate Brandon Sanderson's prose.
You should try to read The Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. It does not get the respect it deserves. World building, multi-layer, deeply philosophical and more than one or two reads.
A friend I respect intellectually more than most has recommended Anathem more times than I can count, so maybe I need to move it up my list! I'm personally a big shill for Vonnegut on the "big ideas" front, but it's a hard sell for people looking for what most people think of as "good prose."
People probably told you before, but Kay's "Tigana" is pronounced like "tee" in the first syllable (not "tie") and the stress is on the last. It was actually named after a French soccer player in the 1980s (and the map of country is a part of Italy turned upside down, something McMaster Bujold did again with Spain in The Curse of Chalion etc.
When you say you "missed" something on the first read re Wolf...that is an interesting thing to think about? Is your missing something the fault of the author or your own? Should the missed thing have been more patent? Can a thing be subtle, but recognizably so?
I think you said a key thing here, not only with genre fiction, but genre film as well. There is a dearth of writers who are drawing from wider circles, more literary, circles, or higher culture, and the genres are more filled with people who have drawn from pop culture. So things become copies of copies of copies.
I have to call you on that Kay "sounds like" Tolkein. He ghost wrote the Silmarillion and used a dark lord and a mount doom in the Fionvar Tapestry. He didn't start with his own work.
For beautiful prose, there's also John Crowley,. And while Samuel Delany's prose can be an acquired taste (it absolutely works for me), he writes across so many genres, his worlds are rich and ideas big, and the extravagant but precise prose consciously reflects those worlds. I've always felt excited and then let down by Neal Stephenson--there's always such richness and excitement in the earliest pages and chapters, but Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon suffered from thin female characters and fell apart in the third act. In both, it felt like he got to the end of the second act and didn't know how to really move toward a satisfying conclusion so he decided instead to just blow everything up. I'll admit, I haven't read Anathem: Has he solved his third-act problem in this book? The Gene Wolfe Book of the New Sun has long been on my to-read list. I'll have to move it up the list. Guy Gavriel Kay is a new name to me. I'll have to check him out.
I'd like to add Margaret Atwood to the list. The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments and the Maddadam trilogy are superb. I suppose she may not count as she us a literary author who has written speculative fiction rather than an out and out genre writer.
I would strongly suggest for you to read Malazan. Book 8, Toll the Hounds is amazing in a literary way. Not that the others are not good, on the contrary, but that one has so many interesting topics and the structure is great. The places, settings, and culture that he shares with us along the myriad of characters, is hard to match. Also, I think the first book that make think of fantasy-scify as something serious, was the dispossessed Ursula K Leguin. Her prose and topics are so universal that is sad so many people dismiss them just because they are fantasy/scify.
I recently started Malazan, and I’m looking forward to diving in. The Dispossessed didn’t get mentioned in this video, but it’s actually one of my top 3 books.
@@Larckov I’ve announced that I’m reading it on my second channel (@jaredminus) but I haven’t talked in any detail. I only started the first book this week.
Little reminder that there is no competition. Read what makes you happy. The "merit" of literature isn't an objective standard - literature is worthless if it doesn't improve YOUR life.
I haven't seen anyone bring it up in the comments but the one series that I always think deserves to be bigged up in terms of great writing and ideas is Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Yes it's comedy, yes it's satire - but he consistently 'gets' what it is to be human and to see humanity. Maybe a bit too 'British' in the snark and focussing (particularly earlier books) on underdogs for some people, but the whole thing can really get you thinking.
I really, really like Neal Stephenson 9his Baroque Cycle continues to blow my mind), but I found a lot of the world construction in Anathem tiresome and "different" from the world we know in a heavy-handed way, and I quit a couple chapters in. Perhaps I should go back to it and try again.
You all should read the Ram Chandra series by Amish. It’s a good introduction to Indian mythology if you don’t know anything, and following on from this work of fiction you can read the actual epics such as Mahabharata and Ramayan later on.
Completely agree on Guy Gavriel Kay and Tolkien. I would add Dune and Malazan to the list as well. This may sound odd, but I’d also include the Iliad, the Aeneid, and the Ramayana - for me, these epics are just as epic fantasy as more modern works, and their exclusion as such strikes me as modern “literary fiction” critics wanting to dismiss fantasy as pulp, not wanting to admit that the foundational texts of the world’s cultures are in fact part of the genre they so deride.
I started reading the Aenid the other day and would agree 100%
Not odd at all: The Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid are masterpieces and the start and foundation of Western story-telling.
Dune is the same as Lord of The Rings, everyone knows about it and everyone knows it’s great.
@@Rahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh17 Okay yes people know Dune is great but that its like LOTR wtf are you on about? By your logic EVERY epic is LOTR.
@@GuineaPigEveryday I don’t think you understood my comment pal, Dune is a household name in fiction. You ask whatever Tom, Dick, or Harry you see on the streets if they’ve ever heard of Dune there’s a high likelihood that they’ll say yes. Even if they haven’t read it. The same with Lord of The Rings. The vast majority of people have heard of it, along with the books there’s the movies and that terrible tv show and an entire industry of merchandise devoted just to it. They’re well known, I’m not saying they’re on the same stature. In the same way I’ve seen people wearing Lord of The Rings shirts I’ve seen people wearing Dune shirts. When you go to whatever book store there’s a high likelihood that you’ll see Dune as one of the mainstays of their Science Fiction or Fantasy or maybe just fiction shelves.
Thank you so much for bringing more attention to Gene Wolfe and Book of the New Sun! An absolute stunning masterpiece of sci-fi/fantasy. More people need to read (and, more importantly, re-read and re-re-read) Wolfe.
Adding these to my list! I’m a big advocate of sci-fi’s ability to communicate big, important themes with the same (and at times better) reliability as other types of literature. Ursula K. Le Guin is someone you should definitely look more into if you haven’t.
@@_jared great! Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.
Read The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness this summer, both were great. I've heard the other books of the Hainish Cycle aren't as good, but I might try them too.
@@KarlSnarks I likes The Word for World is Forest and A Fisherman of the Inland sea (short story collection with some canon stories) and really liked those as well!
@@SamDCote Thanks for the recommendations, haven't had the chance to read those books of the series yet. Also want to read her more fantasy oriented books like the Earthsea series.
@@KarlSnarks same here! Earth sea looks awesome
I have read Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun several times, since it was first published. In fact, I recently bought a new edition because I'm not able to open my 1983 paperbacks safely anymore. Deep, rich and enormously exciting and rewarding, not to mention well-written.
I love Gene Wolfe. I think his work transcends category and genre.
I kept hoping for Gene Wolfe and was not disappointed.
Came here for the recommendations and I stayed for the thorough and passionate explanation on the books and styles 👌
A couple of longer lists about science-fiction and fantasy suggestions would be fantastic, pun intended.
China Miéville, Perdido Street Station (perhaps it's true for his entire body of work, but that's the only one I've read so far). The quality of the text, from a literary standpoint, is simply splendid. I remember being truly struck by the contrast when I switched to China Miéville's book from the one I was reading before. The quality of the writing, the descriptions, the literary quality, really hit me. There might be some weaknesses in terms of the story or its structure, but in terms of writing, the quality of the descriptions and the literary quality really left a strong impression. (I should mention that I've only read Natalie Mège's French translation, but it remains splendid.)
I appreciate this video and what you do here. You are pointing out that there is great value in a genre that many consider to be inferior by its very nature. I am a reader who reads both classical literature and what you and a lot of other people call "genre" books. In most cases I enjoy what people consider genre far more than much of the classical literature that I have read. Many of my friends look down on genre writing, and when they do I have a standard top 10 list to give them that in my mind proves that genre fiction is just as powerful as literature and explores philosophy and the human condition in what is in many cases a far superior way to some of the classical lit we see in the western cannon. that list is...
A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
Foundation by Issac Asimov
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Dune by Frank Herbert
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
These are only older books there are many new books that do just as well that I would consider to be literature as well. Also some of these have entered western canon as literary classics. Looking down on a written work simply because of its genre is always a mistake.
Gene Wolfe! Stands with and above many of the great authors. Wolfe, Melville, and Dostoevsky are authors who I feel like I know intimately. Wolfe writes puzzles with Catholic allusions in much of his work
Thanks for this! I've looked at so many recommended fantasy and sci fi lists and your picks are so unique. Excited to check these out.
This is my favorite of your videos. If you can please do more videos exclusively addressing books with beautiful prose, I'd love that.
John Crowley - Little, Big. Also Charles de Lint - The Little Country
Little, Big is the cream for me. That “25th” Anni. Edition is scrumptious.
I read the series The Book of the New Sun + The Urth of the New Sun a dozen times during my youth since it came out in Serbian translation in 1990 and 1991. It was always an invigorating reading experience.
Have you read Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake?
It's should definitely be added to the list.
Along with China Mieville and Ursula le Guin.
Peake was a superlative literary stylist, for sure. He's one of my favorite writers, almost a poet in prose.
Thank you! I’ve been extolling Tigana ever since I read it. And, since no one has even heard of Guy Gavriel Kay, no one wants to listen. When I talk about his beautiful prose, people seem to tune out. But, I love Tigana and want to read more from Kay. A Song of Arbonne is coming up real soon on my TBR list. Really looking forward to it.
Prose writing: I feel many prose writers chose not to write science fiction or speculative fiction because of the general narrow attitudes or views of this genre. In fact speculative fiction is an encompassing genre that freely explores possibility and impossibility alike and allows the writer a free range of writing styles and story telling.
I would say that prose gets in the way of scifi and fantasy and prose is often used to be "clever"
Just discovered your channel... automatically suscribed!
A discussion between you and Philip Chase would instantly be my favorite video in youtube.
This was really cool and I'd love to see more like it!
I think Malazan by Steven Erikson 100% deserves to be here
*absolutely*
Thanks for the recommendations! I've had a copy of Tigana on my bookshelf for a while. Gonna have to read more Wolfe and Stephenson, as well.
You could add all sorts of work from the likes of Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, and Octavia Butler to this list. Clifford Simak's 'City' and Robert Heinlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land' could qualify, as well.
If you want to go classic, there's 'Frankenstein', 'Gulliver's Travels', and the works of J.S. Le Fanu. George Macdonald deserves a read, as well.
Love your list! I don't know Anathem, but it sounds wonderful, and I'll be looking out for it. I really enjoyed Alef the Unseen - - a terrific mix of fantasy and social commentary, and very funny in places too.
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Spec fic / horror-ish that won the Pulitzer. And of course, McCarthy's prose is next level.
Cool channel - good sci fi can have some real postmodern stuff going on. Would love to see your take on crime fiction or maybe how you feel on genre fiction in general.
As someone who's more into the commercial side of the genre (Sanderson is my favorite author), I do agree with your recommendations. I really liked Tigana, and I'm in the middle of my first read of Shadow of the Torturer and you're right in that I definitely need to read it more than one time, maybe after I finish the whole series.
A recommendation I would add is probably Dan Simmons' Hyperion. It's a classic for a reason and I feel like the prose is an underrated aspect of it.
I love Hyperion. It’s a terrifying and beautiful book!
My Fantasy suggestions for Fantasy reads with poetic Prose:
-The King Of Elflands Daughter by Lord Dunsany
-The Charwomans shadow by Lord Dunsany
-Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
-Kalpa Imperial by Angélica Gorodischer
-Black God's & Scarlet Dreams by C. L Moore
-The Tales From Flat Earth Series by Tanith Lee
-White As Snow by Tanith Lee
-Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
-Viriconium by M John Harrison
Mieville and Lord Dunsany definitively!
Have you read Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake?
@@daenerystargaryen I have Gormenghast lying around some where. I believe that I was an immature reader when I tried to tackle it the first time.
@@dugebuwembo Gormenghast is quite complex and not easy to follow, but it is amazing and well worth the effort. Its entirely unique and if your enjoyed Le Guin, Wolfe, Mieville, Dunsany I think you're going to enjoy it.
@@daenerystargaryen When I first tried to read it I couldn't get over the way it fucked my mind up with the prose. It was one of first books that had that effect on me, I wasn't ready. I may try again in the future.
Mervyn peake and susanna clarke too. I did not understand neal stephensons inclusion. Never read moore or tanith lee. Thanks for the suggestions
Definitely check out Malazan if you haven’t
This is really insightful.
Oh yeah, "Anathem" for sure. And others have already recommended "Dune", so let me second it. (The first novel at least.)
- The Hyperion Cantos ("Hyperion", "Fall of Hyperion", "Endymion", "Rise of Endymion") by Dan Simmons
- "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
- "Station 11" by Emily St. John Mandel
- "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem
- a lot of people like "The Road" by Comac McCarthy, I found it too depressing and the movie alone gave me PTSD...
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury (a book about books)
"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess...both "The Left Hand Darkness" and "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. LeGuin, "1984" by George Orwell, "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut, "The Handmaid's Tale", by Margret Atwood, "Kindred" by Octavia Butler, "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi. "Dalghren" by Samuel R Delaney. "The Sparrow" and "Children of God" by Mary Doria Russell...I could think of more if I had time but I need to go take a nap.
I'll go through your recommendations and start reading those books
BotNS is one of my all time favs. Not much can come close to it in the genre, specifically in the way it builds the world and it’s dream-like prose, as you say. Imo.
Absolutely agree with your take on Tigana. I loved Anathem as well, but I find that often Stephenson’s other books don’t have strong endings, unfortunately. I love genre fiction, both the literary and the pulp. Sometimes I just want a simple story well told, other times I want to dive into a richly realized world with fascinating characters and big ideas. Does that make me a mood reader? 😆
Thanks so much for this video. I hope you’ll continue to bring forth the more substantial well-developed examples of literary SFF from time to time. 👋🏽
Finally people are talking about Anathem. I was a bookseller when it came out and read it the first week and was a near evangelist for the next year for this book but it never got the love it deserved.
Terrific video. I don't normally read science fiction for its prose, as this is not often the strong suit of this genre, but I've been pleasantly surprised by some great writers with a real feel for words. Kay is definitely way up there, as are Gene Wolfe, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Roger Zelazny, Norman Spinrad and John Brunner. Poul Anderson and Gregory Benford could also surprise me with their smooth prose. I'm a fan of Philip K. Dick, but his prose is clunky a bag of empty soda cans.
as an avid fan of Tolkien, you've now convinced me to purchase Anathem by Stephenson, thus branching out into new reading territory. I'm rather excited.
Having a BA in philosophy I'm always interested in finding literature that explores philosophical topic so this video was very interesting for me - bought right away one of Neal Stephenson books on Kindle.
A fantastic list, and Guy Gavriel Kay is among my favorite authors. I would recommend the Gormenghast books if you haven’t already read them. Would love to hear your thoughts on Mervyn Peake.
Hey Jared, hearing about the way Cay pulls inspiration from different settings like the Bizantine empire and such I wondered do you happen to know any books that pull inspiration from the old testament setting for it's world building and politics?
I love this kind of books.
It's like the author wants to present an "application" of a core philosophical concept.
Would you say Dune by Frank Herbert belong to this genre?
Your gene wolfe reco is the confirmation I needed 😂
Id love to see a video from you on your experience in discovering new books. Is it simply other youtube videos? Apps? etc.
I would add Dune to the list. Also, another more recent book with excellent prose and some great themes and symbolism to dive into is Senile Ascends by Josiah Bancroft.
Love some good prose in genre fiction
Good list.
I would highly recommend Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts - beautiful writing, definitely not simple, and deep ideas.
I'll bump Book of the New Sun up my tbr queue a bit :)
Great recommendations, I read The Fifth Head of Cerberus from Wolfe and it is similar to BoTNS in that it looks like a fantasy setting but it's in truth Sci Fi and not everything is explained and is also dream like. I can't wait to start Shadow of the Torturer, it's been on my TBR (and on my shelves) for too long :D.
Science Fantasy.
@@ericsierra-franco7802 I mean they're very similar and the genres aren't perfectly defined but yes that's a good way to describe them
I would say the Book of the New Sun is like a David Lynch movie, and that is awesome! It's my favorite book, full stop, so i might be a bit biased.
I read LOTR for the first time this year, and at the same time I was reading the Wheel of Time. I preferred the prose in LOTR. The prose in WOT feels pretty straightforward, which I didn't find as interesting. Whatever Tolkien was doing with his prose was more enchanting. The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany also has great prose in that it created an atmosphere that made me feel like I was truly transported somewhere else.
Funny story. The other day I was in a bookstore. I went through several fantasy books and read the first sentence and sometimes even the first paragraph. The one I enjoyed most was a book by Guy Gavriel Kay.
Hi Jared,
I really want to know how a philosophy seminar goes, when a group of people have read the same text and come together, what type of thing do they discuss? What is the course of the discussion? Do they find a mutual understanding of the text, ensuring that they understand things on the same presumptions made by the authors? And how do they proceed if they reach a consensus on what the author is trying to express (or is reaching a consensus the goal of the seminar?) What is the core thing that people are going to argue about when coming into a seminar?
Often times, I feel like a seminar needs to be lead by some one namely professors that know all the answers to these questions and are able to guide the participants working out the answers. I am an undergrad medic and I’ve tried bring my friends(all of which are not majoring in philosophy) to discuss philosophy with me but I have been faced with all the issues I’ve wrote above, it would be of great help if you could talk about it.
I love Gene Wolf and these books in particular.
Jack Vance, the OG prose stylist of speculative fiction. Not to be missed. Check out The Dying Earth saga, The Lyonesse Trilogy (arguably the greatest fantasy series of all time), and any of his science fiction titles. Criminally overlooked author. Also, where are the likes of M. John Harrison, Michael Moorcock, Poul Anderson (The Broken Sword!), Ursula Le Guin (Earthsea), etc. Gosh, even Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles is a lyrical masterpiece.
Adding Anathem to my list, thanks for an exciting recommendation!!
Can't recommend R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse series enough for this. Beautiful prose, incredible and disturbing character work, huge and heady ideas abound in the series, with worldbuilding so deep that Antiquity becomes science-fiction. His world evokes much of Crusade Era earth, but he plays with so many tropes.
Fans of Dune will love Bakker, and respect his willingness to think.
Will add that Gregory Sadler devoted 3 90-minute lectures to Bakker's first trilogy. That's a high honour!
Bakker writes disturbing almost too well. His prose is amazing but definitely not for the faint of heart or weak stomach.
@@EricMcLuen Very true!! He's no Le Guin, that's for sure, and yet they are both masters of their craft
My favorite "great prose and big ideas" sci-fi author is Kim Stanley Robinson. Iain M. Banks, with his excellent prose, fits here too with his Culture series, and also Emily St. John Mandel's novel Station Eleven which I just finished a few weeks ago.
God I loved Station 11 but I can't bring myself to read it while the pandemic wounds are so fresh.... Great book though!
I just recently bought Station Eleven and I stumble upon your comment. I have put it aside to be read later, but your comment has intrigued me and I'll start on it soon :-)
@@melissabennett4328 Same! I borrowed it from the library right when the pandemic had started. I had heard praises of the book but I didn't know what it was about. When I learned it's about a pandemic I returned the book immediately lol. I'm glad I picked it up later.
@@MH-ql4nh Cool. I hope you'll enjoy it.
Love your channel by the way!
What are your thoughts on book of the Long Sun? (The books after New Sun)
I'd really like to hear your thoughts on some of the later philosophical writings of Tolkien in the History of Middle-earth, volumes 10-12.
I need to go back and reread Guy Gavriel Kay.
thank you so much
I would add Richard Morgan's "Altered Carbon" books to this list. When I first read them I was fascinated not so much by the intricate plot, but more by the world he has built and by his colourful language.
Thank you for the recommendations in the video and also some cool mentions in the comments! 👍
Prof. Pringles prose I enjoyed last year. Before breakfast I read one or two chapters in the first torturer novel, it put me in a different mindset so I felt more cultured,but I forgot all about the plot.
I think sci-fi genre is a unique in that it allows us, through imagined futures and alternate histories, to question the nature of our own reality and evaluate the future of humanity. Each sci-fi constructs an imagined version of the future (or past/present), with its imagined social rules, cultural construct and technological advancement, and from that we can ask so many great questions: how does the physical, socio-economic and political construct of this imagined future shape the lives of those living in it? How is it alike and different to ours? I love how just asking these questions sci-fi allows us to be creative and imaginative. And from there, we can ask the more important questions: is this a foreseeable future for our reality? What are the implications for human society and human consciousness if this imagined future comes about? I don't think any other genre can do this as effectively, and for that reason including works of sci-fi as part of English literature in grade school particularly would be so rewarding. There are numerous works in science fiction, a lot from classical authors but now more from emerging modern authors, and from short stories to novels, that I think should be taught in schools as works of literature (Dune, all of Octavia Butler and China Mieville's works, Sheri S Tepper, many of Arthur C Clarke, even The Expanse series, just to name a few).
Jared, I have a feeling you would like the book Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko! A "small" book with a Big/Huge idea and I also loved the translation...!
I've repeatedly failed to read Anathem. Because of my love for Stephenson, I kept going back. Finally I tried listening and promptly fell asleep. I woke up to an interesting place in the novel, so went back to the beginning to get the full experience. And promptly fell asleep again. I'm too old to spend that much time in world building.
100k subs party draws near.
Maybe something a little less intense than BotNS but gets you up to speed with what Wolfe does as a writer, check out his other book, Peace.
Were I to create such a list, Tolkien, GGK and Wolfe would me my top, obvious recommendations. I've long considered GGK our top currently-active writer whose output is classified as Fantasy. That said, Tigana is not my favorite Kay. Not that there's anything wrong with it. I simply prefer some of his other published works. Another Wolfe book worth considering, "Soldier of the Mist". Set in early Classical Greece, its main protagonist is a soldier who has suffered a recent battle injury. This handicap, upon which the plot hinges, would be a challenge for lesser writers to convincingly pull off. Yet Wolfe handles it masterfully. Not a foot placed wrong. There are two followup books. I read the first of them. It's okay but not essential. More a "further adventures of xxx" than anything else. That original title, though it ends without resolution, is the one that matters.
Does anyone have any reccomendtions for heroic fantasy with great prose
How about the Fionavar saga by G.G.Kay? Have you read It? What do you think about It?
Jared: "Let's talk about something lighter"
Also Jared: "I want to talk about Gene Wolfe."
Me: "Make up your mind!"
'Anathem' sounds like it has some affinities with Hermann Hesse's 1943 philosophical novel 'Das Glasperlenspiel' ('The Glass Bead Game', also known as 'Magister Ludi').
thanks
Great recs but no Ursula K. Le Guin?
Since you like flowery very intentional prose you would probably like the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephan Donaldson
This is how I feel about crime fiction. I enjoy classic noir and suspense which elevates the genre. Sadly, too many books are formulaic with bland prose.
Great list! I’ve been wanting to read Anathem for a while now, I think 2023 will be *the* year.
If anyone has any recommendations in the same vein but by female authors, please let me know!
Interesting stuff this I'd add Silverberg and Priest to this list. Probably offer up the masks of time and inverted world as starter for 10.
Have you ever read A Voyage to Arcturus? David Lindsey is not nearly the prose stylist as the authors you mentioned but it is definitely a science fiction/fantasy book concerned with big ideas as well as being among the strangest works I've ever read. There's nothing really similar to it I can think of.
really thought Le Guin would be on this list but i already know you're a fan so i won't fault you for it lol
I love fantasy but I hate that prose usually seems to be the last thing on reader's and even writer's minds, when it's literally the thing that separates books from other mediums. And with the rise of self publishing, it's only getting worse. Editors are now optional. I'm reading a self published fantasy book right now, and god damn, it's so bad that it's making me appreciate Brandon Sanderson's prose.
Chiang and LeGuin are absolute musts here but otherwise solid
@@_jared brother you gotta check chiang out asap.. he’s like the sci fi borges. his short stories are mad philosophical
I would be surprised if Cloud Atlas is not mentioned
Do you always read in paper ?
You should try to read The Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. It does not get the respect it deserves. World building, multi-layer, deeply philosophical and more than one or two reads.
Would love to hear your thoughts on Dune. In my opinion it belongs on this list
A friend I respect intellectually more than most has recommended Anathem more times than I can count, so maybe I need to move it up my list! I'm personally a big shill for Vonnegut on the "big ideas" front, but it's a hard sell for people looking for what most people think of as "good prose."
People probably told you before, but Kay's "Tigana" is pronounced like "tee" in the first syllable (not "tie") and the stress is on the last. It was actually named after a French soccer player in the 1980s (and the map of country is a part of Italy turned upside down, something McMaster Bujold did again with Spain in The Curse of Chalion etc.
When you say you "missed" something on the first read re Wolf...that is an interesting thing to think about? Is your missing something the fault of the author or your own? Should the missed thing have been more patent? Can a thing be subtle, but recognizably so?
It is the author's master design. The Book of the New Sun takes different shapes each time you read it.
I think you said a key thing here, not only with genre fiction, but genre film as well. There is a dearth of writers who are drawing from wider circles, more literary, circles, or higher culture, and the genres are more filled with people who have drawn from pop culture. So things become copies of copies of copies.
HYPERION!!! The Hyperion Cantos, in my opinion, is the best in the genre (SciFi). You get amazing character development, politics, religion, etc.
I have to call you on that Kay "sounds like" Tolkein. He ghost wrote the Silmarillion and used a dark lord and a mount doom in the Fionvar Tapestry. He didn't start with his own work.
do you read Samuel Delany?
Have you read the Gormenghast trilogy?
For beautiful prose, there's also John Crowley,. And while Samuel Delany's prose can be an acquired taste (it absolutely works for me), he writes across so many genres, his worlds are rich and ideas big, and the extravagant but precise prose consciously reflects those worlds.
I've always felt excited and then let down by Neal Stephenson--there's always such richness and excitement in the earliest pages and chapters, but Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon suffered from thin female characters and fell apart in the third act. In both, it felt like he got to the end of the second act and didn't know how to really move toward a satisfying conclusion so he decided instead to just blow everything up. I'll admit, I haven't read Anathem: Has he solved his third-act problem in this book?
The Gene Wolfe Book of the New Sun has long been on my to-read list. I'll have to move it up the list.
Guy Gavriel Kay is a new name to me. I'll have to check him out.
Anathem solves the problem, I think. There is in fact a third act with a compelling resolution, unlike some Stephenson's other work.
I'd like to add Margaret Atwood to the list. The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments and the Maddadam trilogy are superb. I suppose she may not count as she us a literary author who has written speculative fiction rather than an out and out genre writer.
I would strongly suggest for you to read Malazan. Book 8, Toll the Hounds is amazing in a literary way. Not that the others are not good, on the contrary, but that one has so many interesting topics and the structure is great. The places, settings, and culture that he shares with us along the myriad of characters, is hard to match. Also, I think the first book that make think of fantasy-scify as something serious, was the dispossessed Ursula K Leguin. Her prose and topics are so universal that is sad so many people dismiss them just because they are fantasy/scify.
I recently started Malazan, and I’m looking forward to diving in.
The Dispossessed didn’t get mentioned in this video, but it’s actually one of my top 3 books.
@@_jared have you any video yet about Malazan? It is interesting the perspective from your point of view.
@@Larckov I’ve announced that I’m reading it on my second channel (@jaredminus) but I haven’t talked in any detail. I only started the first book this week.
Little reminder that there is no competition. Read what makes you happy. The "merit" of literature isn't an objective standard - literature is worthless if it doesn't improve YOUR life.
I haven't seen anyone bring it up in the comments but the one series that I always think deserves to be bigged up in terms of great writing and ideas is Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Yes it's comedy, yes it's satire - but he consistently 'gets' what it is to be human and to see humanity. Maybe a bit too 'British' in the snark and focussing (particularly earlier books) on underdogs for some people, but the whole thing can really get you thinking.
I really, really like Neal Stephenson 9his Baroque Cycle continues to blow my mind), but I found a lot of the world construction in Anathem tiresome and "different" from the world we know in a heavy-handed way, and I quit a couple chapters in. Perhaps I should go back to it and try again.
This makes me want to ask the question "What is literary merit and what are it's guidelines?"
You all should read the Ram Chandra series by Amish. It’s a good introduction to Indian mythology if you don’t know anything, and following on from this work of fiction you can read the actual epics such as Mahabharata and Ramayan later on.