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The Evolution of Science Fiction (Feat. Lindsay Ellis) | It's Lit!
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- čas přidán 15. 07. 2018
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Correction: At 1:49, we accidentally said that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was published in 1918, when it was published in 1818. We regret the error -- thanks to Stephen Pershing for catching this!
Stories, tales, and myths from all around the world posing speculative questions around technologies have existed long before Ray Bradbury and Frank Herbert, from the time-traveling Japanese fairy tale "Urashima Tarō” to some of the speculative elements of 1001 Arabian Nights. But there are a few eras that begin to shape what we’ve come to know as science fiction today.
Interested in using this video as a teaching resource? Check it out on PBS LearningMedia: to.pbs.org/3tI...
Written by Lindsay Ellis and Angelina Meehan
Directed & animated by Andrew Matthews
Produced by Amanda Fox
Executive in Charge (PBS): Adam Dylewski
Music and Sound Design: Eric Friend
Hand Model: Katie Graham
Imaged by Shutterstock
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what's the painting at 5:17?
Thank you PBS for giving me more Lindsay Ellis!
Seconded. Motion carries.
Thirded. Motion written into law.
PBS sustains me between her own videos and I'm so grateful
Exactly what I'm thinking. Look at your comments we're not alone. Hope they're paying her good 'cause I just want more.
Fave human evaaaahh!!
Lindsay & PBS, you had me at lightcycles & hoverboards on Mars.
Who am I kidding? You had me at 'Lindsay & PBS'.
You had me at PBS! (And Lindsay too)
PBS and a woman who sockpuppeted a dead paedophile to win an arguement
+Irish Jester Indeed. :/
to win an argument she told people that some other e-personality would never support the other side, sockpuppeting a dead man as he had been dead a few months at this point). then earlier this year we found out that the person in question was actualyl a paedophile and the company lindsey was working for at the time had covered it up.
oh and lets not forget lindeys Rape-rap, she tried her best to wipe it from the internet, but the internet doesn't forget.
I'm so glad Ursula K. LeGuin got a shout-out here. It's really easy to overlook her influence in the genre.
i thought the same thing re: Octavia E. Butler. and NK Jemisin, who might be, without breaking a sweat, comparable to Octavia - and even! absolutely TROUNCING the influence of Butler in the next couple years.
I disagree. She is very widely known and appreciated.
The Dispossessed was sooo good, and while The Left Hand of Darkness was a bit harder to get into, I really liked it as well. You can really notice Le Guin being influenced by the anthropology of her parents, in the way she explores how different societies relate and how socially constructed many concepts are.
@@billyalarie929 Haven't read Butler yet but I've heard she's really good.
I love the mathematical novella Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott, which is about sentient geometrical figures that live on a 2D plane. Does that count as science fiction? It certainly has the social commentary element, as the first half is basically a satire of Victorian society. The second half is more of an exploration of higher dimensions, and how to think about them.
I need to read that. Something really interesting - I watched a video where someone mentioned that novel in relationship to Bill Cipher in Gravity Falls, and I realized, that was probably totally intentional on the writer's part. Bill is all about shedding the restrictions of a 2D world, and! He's a triangle, which is the fewest sides a shape can have without being a line, so he'd be at the bottom of the social hierarchy of that world. Kind of blew my mind.
And Flatland has no copyright (because of age) and is available for free on the better part of the interwebz.
I've never seen Gravity Falls, but that sounds really cool! Technically, one dimensional lines (females) are at the bottom of the social ladder of Flatland. Lines don't really have faces, so that's kind of hard to animate. It does add another dimension to it, pun intended! I also recommend "Flatterland" by Ian Stewart, which is a modern sequel to Flatland.
Yeah, I just meant besides the lines. Cool, I'll have to check it out!
Flatland is mostly a concept and not a very interesting read as anything beyond that, although there's some jokes.
I liked all of this, except for one MASSIVE omission: Arthur C. Clarke! :)
Clarke wasn't as inspired or genre-defining as the ones mentioned, his collaboration with Kubrick is legendary but overall he was just fine as a pure writer. And note that I like his novels, but Asimov, Bradbury and Heinlein have an energy that he lacks.
Fair enough, but Clarke is the only one of them to actually invent future technology in real life, not just in his books.
I passionately disagree, Clarke produced so many golden age classics. Such as The City and the Stars, Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama. Without mentioning 2001 or countless short stories.
Heinlein actually invented stuff. Waterbeds, for one. also WALDOs.
Why is adding strong female characters a prerequisite for science fiction? Lots of the best science fiction doesn't develop or focus on characters whether they be male or female.
One of my old time favorites is Flowers for Algernon (very underrated!). The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. are also amazing.
You have outstanding taste!
Flowers for Algernon blew me away when I read it!
Daniel Keyes (the author) on Flower's for Algernon, upon receiving his Hugo Award, said something along the lines of "When you figure out how I did it, can you let me know? I'd like to do it again!"
Canricle was required for my college sci-fi lit class. I really enjoyed it.
Flowers for Algernon was one of the most genuinely enjoyable required reads I had in high school. Made me emotional reading it.
One small thing, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is not Victorian. Queen Victoria was decades from taking the throne. The historical period in which Mary Shelley wrote the book is Georgian, i.e. the same time Jane Austen wrote her books. And in any case, since Mary Shelley wrote the book in Continental era, it's more accurate to see it as a Romantic work or part of the Romantic era. Aside from that, nice video.
I just looked up who was monarch when it was published--it was at the tail end of the reign of George III!
Too many nits to pick, must rest and start again tomorrow
Conchita Mendez Oh I absolutely do consider Mary Shelley the first science-fiction novel. I don't want to give the wrong idea. It's the founding work of the genre and still maybe the best novel of that kind. It's just that I do not consider it a Victorian novel . It's a Romantic work and one of the greatest of that time and period.
For anyone interested in the historical and scientific context of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (and for Sean Bean fans), I'd recommend watching "The Frankenstein Chronicles", currently on Netflix.
It's a work of Romanticism
Books AND Lindsay Ellis. This is literally my favorite youtube show.
At 30, I feel like I was too late for the golden age of the xerox zine; somehow this animatic style manages to make me feel a degree of nostalgia I couldn't have imagined. It's Baller. I love it.
They did a great job with the animation! Thank god for PBS Digital Studios :)
I recommend ALL Sci-Fi fans, regardless of other tastes, take some time to read "Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction" by John Rieder. Rieder makes the case that Sci-Fi, historically, had its roots in colonial adventure novels, and draws a line between things like "King Solomon's Mines" and its exploration of Africa to, ultimately, space travel. This partially explains the use of the Arctic exploration as a framing device in Frankenstein: the Arctic and the Jungle were the two major frontiers of colonial explorers.
This winds up having some great applications - Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" feels a lot more clear, for example, and it blows up your ability to read secondary literature about Sci-Fi to include colonial histories.
Anyway, my favorite Sci-Fi novel is almost certainly "Heroes Die" (and its attendant series) by Matthew Stover. They manage to be both really intellectually hefty, while also being pulpy action novels. It's an amazing balancing act.
Wow! I've always believed that Sci-Fi was our way of talking about cultures discovering each other, IOW history! I find it is the only genre where 'society' is one of the lead characters. As an aside I also love the fact that ordinary non-heroic characters fill the POV positions and how lead characters are rarely motivated by romance. It is one of the only genres that celebrate being single and unattached, and able to go on adventures.
thanks so much for sharing! definitely added to the list. There is so much narrative to decolonise and I love opening up my views to seeing the history behind fiction.
Ursula Le-guin's the Dispossed is my favourite sci-book of all time.
I literally just read it a couple months ago! It's quite thought-provoking, and I am absolutely checking out the rest of le Guin's work now (RIP).
So, so good. I love Ursula.
Same!
hell ye!
I literally just bought a copy of The Dispossessed earlier today and can't wait to start it once I get through some other books I'm in the middle of. Been meaning to read more Le Guin.
Got to give a shoutout to the prophet William Gibson, who seems to write scifi as a lowkey way to tell us all about his fairly accurate visions of the near future
I need a citation on Ray Bradbury being a Cool Dude.
Well, Rachel Bloom made a music video called "F**k Me Ray Bradbury". Someone showed it to him, and he was reportedly charmed by it. So there's that!
He also disagrees with what your interpretation of his novels is ;)
Haha! I assume you mean Fahrenheit 451, and him saying it's not really about censorship? I think that's a fair argument to make. Strangely enough, I don't like Fahrenheit 451 as much as I used to; I think Bradbury was a much better short story writer.
Same, because I've now heard conflicting accounts and would like to confirm one way or the other closer to the source.
I saw him speak at Comic-Con once, and he was pretty cool I thought.
I dig when scifi authors, rather than necessarily comment on whether a thing is good or bad, just use scifi to crack it open and look at its guts. For example, China Mieville's _Embassytown_ is about trying to talk to aliens who have no concept of metaphor, and can only talk about things that literally exist. (They pay humans to do stuff so that they can use them as similes, amongst other things.)
Hugh Dingwall Huh. If they dont get metaphors and similes, how do they grasp the concept of money? Money is after all a physical metaphor for time..?
Now, bearing in mind that it's a while since I read it, I think strictly speaking they barter things with the humans because they have weird biotech skills and I forget what it is that humans have that they want. They get similes, so long as they refer to a literal thing that actually exists, so they can manage "you want this thing, if I give it to you you can give me this other thing."
I think if the aliens were working for the humans for a salary rather than trading them stuff they were already making for their own reasons your point might make more sense?
Metaphor is really basic to human language. I really doubt that any species could have an advanced form of communication without using metaphor.
Well, go read the book and see how plausible you find it, I guess. I reckon you could communicate pretty well about concrete things ("Go get that rock, give it to me") without metaphor. Especially if you can compare things to stuff that actually happened. Some of the similes the aliens create are used in pretty abstract ways - the main character of the book is a simile, and she is "the girl who ate what she was given".
My favorite sci-fi book of the last several years is Way Station by Clifford Simak. Its quiet pastoral charm was like a breath of fresh air for me at a time when I was feeling very bored by spaceships blowing each other up.
This is like an abridged version of what the people over at Extra Credits are doing.
my favourite sci-fi writers are the Strugatsky brothers since I was 12. mainly known and popular in the post-Soviet countries. but you might know some of their creations, such as Stalker (Tarkovsky's film). they started out writing communist futuristic utopias that were fun, but then they went on to create many cautionary tales and got darker and darker. but what makes them great in my eyes is their ability to see the good in people, even if there's also plenty of bad.
I've never heard of them, but that sounds really cool! I haven't read much non-American sci-fi, so thanks for mentioning them!
Yessss... Arkady and Boris Strugatskys are absolutely in the science fiction pantheon, but, alas, every time their works were translated into English, the translations were godawful.
"The Second Invasion from Mars" is my favorite of theirs.
I'm a little sad that Aldous Huxley and his Brave New World wasn't mentioned. I find it better than George Orwell's 1984, and that is also came 17 years earlier.
There are a lot of good writers and novels left off this list, strangely enough. Harlan Ellison probably deserved a mention, along with Stanislaw Lem, Roger Zelazny, Arthur C. Clarke, Joe Halderman, Walter Miller Jr., and many more.
Huxley's dystopia may be a lot more druggy, but the 'bread & circuses' idea is a lot more believable than 1984's unrelenting joylessness as an enduringly oppressive society. Distract people enough and they'll be sure to give zero f*cks, either because they won't notice or because they'll have something to lose.
You may also like We by Zemyatin. Also written before 1984. But similar story, only better.
Thagomizer it's not strange that many influential authors were left out of this video. You are talking about condensing almost 2 centuries of SF literature into a 6 minute video.
actually We is the direct inspiration for Brave New World
Brave New World is my favorite science fiction book. It's so crazy and cinematic, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten a big movie recently.
They made two TV movies; the 1998 version has Leonard Nimoy!
Probably too close to reality, 😁
WTF? No mention of Arthur C. Clarke?! By Gorn, he just about invented the idea of the geostationary communication satellite, leading to Dish Network (and others) to be able to broadcast my great acting across the world for decades to come!
1918? Oops. Frankenstein is time traveling now.
Oof thanks for the catching this -- sorry we missed it. We added a correction in the summary!
Glad I wasn't the only one who caught that. Damn it Nostalgia Chick!
Maybe she's not QUITE as nostalgic as we thought.
I blame H.G. Welles.
Also whilst prometheus stole fire he originally created man, with some help from Zeus, which is probably a more relevant connection to Frankenstein than the fire myth.
Le Guin’s Hainish novels and short stories, of which The Left Hand of Darkness is one, are easily some of my favorite sci-fi out there. Five Ways to Forgiveness, The Telling, and The Dispossessed all explore really fascinating social concepts and ideas. The Left Hand of Darkness is probably my favorite though.
"Where is my flying car and robot butler sci-fi promised me?"
Unless you're over 60, you weren't promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go.
One thing of minor note is the influence that the socialist movement had on Sci-Fi particularly time traveller stories. The Time Machine was in part a parody of the Utopian fiction that was quite popular at the time, where narrators would suddenly find themselves in a socialist or communist utopia and then spend their time dossing about having a nice time (they usually don't read well by modern standards and in a modern context) Wells' novel was influenced by this and at first it kinda seems to be going that way but then it turns out "Aw bummer, there's still class conflict".
That's interesting, I didn't think of that! Any other books that show that influence?
I just finished Artemis by Andy Weir. It's kind of a crime thriller, set on the first city on the Moon. It was both cool and sad that we built a city on the Moon, but still brought along all of our problems and crime.
It has as much to due with prevailing ideals of the time, "our grandchildren will inherent a perfect society, we need only endure our current lifestyles", depending on how one looks at things and where on the globe you are living "better days" did come but everything has an unforeseen price.
@Anarchist Mugwump
Wasn't class conflict written in Marxism and its totalitarian derivatives? It is also the reason why it fail on end under class-less American capitalism and modern social-democracy. Yes, I know that some American corporationists and "objectifict" propose para-feudal capitalism of the past, but generally that is against American way.
@therezro marx spoke of current class conflict and the creation of a classless society, just many of his followers never really got to that point (or seemed to forget about it once they got their hands on power).
American capitalism continues to have the marxist class struggle play out (the capitalists still own the means of productions, the workers still sell their labour time in order to afford the necessities of life, the state still plays the role of the wide scale and long game management of capital that individual capitaist enterpirses struggle with, and the protection of their ownership by its use of force) and any analysis of modern american capitalism would be incomplete without studying at least some marx.
@anonarchist1936
"marx spoke of current class conflict and the creation of a classless society"
True. It is why no one really blame Marx who was just a theorist.
"just many of his followers never really got to that point"
Most of his followers totally know that it was convenient tool to get the power in uneducated society.
"American capitalism continues to have the marxist class struggle play out"
Not really. Yes, American high class act like feudal lords, but they don't really have any real privileges (what is usually exist off book). It is more a snob behavior then real thing. Problem is that absurd bias of American conservatives lead them to going back to state what never really was the case on the first place.
"the capitalists still own the means of productions"
And would be because they are ones who care about managing them. But in American classless society everyone basically is a capitalist when in post-feudal society of XX century Europe criticized by Marxs only elit has right to own things.
"the workers still sell their labour time in order to afford the necessities of life"
Yes, sell.. not are owned like in case of Communism, where people didn't really have right to decide where they work.
"the state still plays the role of the wide scale and long game management of capital that individual capitaist enterpirses struggle with"
You are aware that in Communism they were meant to menage everything? That it was proven to be insufficient outside strategic branches is other story. In Corporate State what is extreme form of wild capitalism private institutions own even military, and so practically own slaves. That obviously is not the case. In most countries on the world we have so called "social market", where government protect economy from dishonest practices but don't participate in it directly. That create good balance in opposition to dictatorship of government and dictatorship of individual.
"the protection of their ownership by its use of force"
Only in case of illegal acquisition, what also protect small ones. In fact we should say that it protect especially smal ones because rich have money for dishonest tactics. But in modern day economy efficient manager from low class has still chance to re-obtain profit from inefficient large tycoon. In is why capitalism is a good thing. Remember that in both extremes such person is deprivation from that right because strong one can either send mercenaries on him (wild capitalism) or downright is a government (communism).
"and any analysis of modern american capitalism would be incomplete without studying at least some marx"
I'm not sure what you imply here? Marx is outdated and any modern social democrat would lough on you for calling on him. You argument can be relevant only in that zone that American economical model isn't on top anymore, and artifacts what poison him like over-reliance on corporations (what proved to suck outside own comfort zone) are used by dishonest people like Trump to ensure deepening of the class segregation. Something what is almost dead on rest of the world outside banana countries and maybe Russia and China (where it is a result of Communism and something what gradually disappear after reintroduction of free market in case of last one).
Haven't read as much as most people here but I love Ursula's works, The Dispossesed is my favorite
I actually prefer the fantasy I've read by her, the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy (Gifts, Voices, and Powers). In fact, they're some of my favorite books of all time.
Two of my favorites are Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Sirens of Titan’ and ‘Cat’s Cradle’. Got to love a good commentary on religion and the hazards of military thinking.
So long as PBS has Lindsay, I'll keep watching.
So long as Lindsay has PBS, I'll keep watching. Seriously, though, I love PBS Digital Studios!
Extra SciFi is a must watch for all fans of SciFi and it's history
Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos. So good, such an amazing world building exercise. I definitely recommend to any that enjoy literature, philosophy, and science.
Thanks, I'll definitely check it out!
Forbidden Planet is SUCH a great movie tbh. Thanks for the awesome screenplay, Billy Shakespeare!
I would say Phil Dick prefigured the cyberpunks in some ways but wasn't really a cyberpunk himself (though "Blade Runner", which was very, very loosely based on one of his novels, was definitely a cyberpunk movie). He was sometimes grouped with the 60s-70s New Wave.
(My favorites of his are Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, both profoundly disturbing novels about unreal worlds and disruptions of reality itself.)
I'm so happy to see Philip K. Dick mentioned here that I'm reluctant to quibble with calling him cyberpunk, even though in my mind cyberpunk means something very different than what PKD wrote. Also cool that Janelle Monae got a mention, she has put PKD references in some of her songs.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. Every time I read it, I glean something new from it. Also, it's more and more relevant every day and that kinda scares the hell out of me.
Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are go-to favorites, as much for their world building as social and political exploration. I'm also enjoying Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, but I find it's held back by troubling elements of ethnic essentialism, and repetitive meditations on political economy that don't actually go anywhere.
Douglas Adams Hitchhickers Guide quadrilogy always amuses me to no end. It just seems way to relatable even though it's filled to the top with improbable weird twists ,turns and ideas. There is no true climax, no real good or bad guys , just a man who, by sheer luck, managed to survive the destruction of his homeplanet. It feels like Douglas Adams just decided to hold a sci fi mirror up to the real world and tell it: "Yup , shit's crazy"
I am an avid SFG fan, and and among my favourites are: Ringworld Engineers, The Mote In God's eye, Footfall, practially all by Jerry Pournell and Larry Niven. Look, let me stop[ here I could go on and on.
Fave sci-fi novel? I'm afraid I'm going to be slightly pedestrian and say The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Yeah, I know, I am the most basic of basic nerds.
Though if you want me to narrow it down to "favorite of the past few years," I'd say check out Mur Lafferty's Six Wakes. It's a locked room murder mystery. In space. On a generation ship. With clones. :)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is great! Clearly, you know where your towel is :) After all, Douglas Adams was the only officially unofficial member of Monty Python!
Six Wakes sounds awesome.
Brian Webber I love hitchhikers, but I always appreciate it more in terms of philosophy and nuance comedy, I didn’t feel it contain many themes related to science fiction, although it was interesting seeing Douglas Adams interpretation of human cynicism in the context of societal process
Distract yourself from your chagrin by joining me in my outrage that the Great American Read website somehow neglected to list The Hitchiker's Guide as a series: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
walking is good for you. also, it's my favorite too.
I've never heard of Octavia E. Butler before but I know of everyone else mentioned in this video. Thanks for introducing me to her and her works! Definitely gonna read up!
One of my favorites is the short story "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benét pre-WWII and yet it perfectly describes a post post Nuclear War apocalypse that you would see in Fallout games and Mad Max
That sounds cool, I'll definitely check it out!
thank you pbs for letting me use your video as exam notes so that I don't have to fail my final exam for science fiction
My favorite sci-fi novel is The Martian, by Andy Weir! It's probably one of the most scientifically accurate sci-fi books out there, and I love how it gets into the psychology of being an astronaut.
David Shi mine too. I like his follow up book Artemis but it's not the same and doesn't have the same charm. Still it's worth a read. Also read his short story The Egg.
I just finished Artemis, I liked it! And I can't believe I'm saying this, but the economics of Artemis actually made it more interesting! You might also like this short story he wrote in honor of Yuri Gagarin: www.galactanet.com/oneoff/yuri.pdf
the realistic depiction of Astronauts' reaction under pressure is what I loved even more than the scientifically accurate (or plausible) elements. You know those guys have decades of training for missions like this, they don't snap at each other and start screaming like toddlers in the kindergarten, the calmly analyse the facts and form a plan.
I love the actual "Houston we have a problem" broadcast for the real Apollo 13 incident, it's incredible how calm those guys are while reporting the details.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield apparently also approves! Some NASA admin told Andy Weir that for every character in his book, she could name a person at NASA who was exactly like that. Which is impressive, considering that Andy had no contact with anyone from NASA when writing The Martian!
Also if you love Apollo stuff, definitely check out Vintage Space with Amy Shira Teitel.
I love the irreverent sense of humour the novel has, sci-fi has a habit of forgetting its about humans.
cyberpunk but no William Gibson ?!
Awesome video! Just as a note, and mentioned in the subtitles, Shelly`s Frankenstein was an 1818 book, and that made it very progressive for its time. If you ever do edit this, that would be a great change. Keep up the good work.
I'm a bit disappointed that the list was comprised almost exclusively by American writers, considering the influence in the genre of countless Soviet authors such as Stanislaw Lem, the Strugatsky brothers or Karel Capec, just to name a few.
I was a little surprised only Asimov's Robots got mentioned, and that the golden age science fiction list of contributors was so short. Personally I think Asimov's Foundation is a phenomenal work of fiction. I was really happy to see Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia E. Butler and Ann Leckie mentioned. All spectacular authors!
I understand for the brevity of the episode not all great authors could be given a fair chance.
Love this series, learned so much already. Thank you for making such awesome.
I also highly recommend Dan Simmons' Hyperion Quadrilogy, as well as his Ilium/Olympos books. L.E. Modesitt, Jr., especially Adiamante and Timegod's World are excellent!
My favorite sci-fi book series has to be The Foundation series by Asimov for how the story deals with deep time and how society will play out over the course of millennia. In a similar way I enjoy a lot of Orson Scott Card's series. Say what you will about the man, but he can integrate vast expanses of time into a story like a pro.
If you want deep time, Olaf Stapledon's works "Last and First Men" and "Star Maker" are worth checking out - the former covers the future evolution of mankind over the next couple of billion years, until shortly before their ultimate extinction. The latter is not so modest in scope, covering the entire span of sentient life in the universe, from shortly after the Big Bang, to shortly before the heat death - and, briefly, the entire span of the multiverse, though that time is not commensurable with time as measured within any individual universe...
I agree the Foundation is a seminal series. The first three books, can't say the later additions matched up.
Deep time is the main driver in The Forever War, Joe Haldeman.
Honestly, I bought an omnibus edition of the Foundation Trilogy and I struggled to make it through just the first one (even though it's short). I acknowledge it's historically important, but I just thought it was pretty boring. I'm honestly dreading going back and reading the next two. I will say, I've read one other book by Asimov, The Caves of Steel, and I enjoyed that one a lot more.
For what it's worth, I found that the Foundation trilogy got more readable as it went - the introductory bit of Foundation is the worst because it was written as a prequel and assumes that you're familiar with at least the idea of where things are going, if not the details. Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation are each two stories rather than the five that got combined for Foundation, so they develop things further.
No guarantees that you'll find them enjoyable, but they are better than the first volume.
@@nickstevens8596 Then you should try to read "Prelude to Foundation", it is very much like "The Caves of Steel".
Margaret Attwood's books are a really interesting example of science fiction, many of her less famous novels (Oryx and Crake, the Blind Assassin, etc) explore science fiction motifs and ideas while also looking at the social movements that were causing fear and anxiety at the time they were written. Oryx and Crake is an especially interesting example of this, the book explores the dangers of desensitizing children to violence, both sexual and non-sexual, as well as how genetic tampering and our desire to control all of humanity's weird quirks can, in the end, get most of us killed. A lot of her books set up a world that some big, sprawling story could take place in, but end just as the revolution begins.
One of my favorites and one that I wish got mentioned is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5. Although I think Vonnegut has transcended genre and is considered to simply be a classic author (and his books only ever used sic-fi concepts as a framing device). I like when sci-fi conventions are used to simply examine human social lives and relationships, not even on any philosophic level (I'm thinking like Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze's Her).
Mention Issac without mentioning his Foundation book? Being able to simulate and predict the future, within a story using science, is an endlessly intriguing concept. Dare I say unique, compared to something like time travel or AI.
My favourite sci-fi book is The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. It's currently being adapted by Lionsgate starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. I'm very excited/anxious for how they will interpret it. It has strong messages about morality and how humanity's problems will follow it wherever humans go.
Cool, I'll check out! Do you have any favorite movie adaptations?
Rey and Spider-Man are the leads? Sold!
Phoebe Louise Have you read his other novel, More Than This? It's fantastic!
Perhaps my favourite series of all time. Not pleased with the cast, though. Daisey Ridley and Tom Holland are WAY WAY too old. Part of what makes the story so terrifying is how young Todd and Viola are (13-14ish).
What’s it about?!
Big thumbs up for the Janelle Monae mention! My favorite sci-fi is debatable as such, but Slaughterhouse-Five.
Did anyone used to watch the Ray Bradbury Theater show, from back in the 80s/90s? This video suddenly reminded me of it.
My favorite sci fi books are stuff like The Culture Series as well as its more hardcore younger brother The Polity Series, and the Thrawn Trilogy.
The Martian Chronicles might be my favorite sci-fi book.
Octavia E. Butler!!!!!!!! So good!!! Literally just found her a few weeks ago and she is taking over my life! Her prose and themes are a breath of fresh air in my science fiction collection.
Of late, I've been reading Stanislaw Lem. He is very imaginative and capably handles both serious and humorous science fiction.
2:45 "In the time machine humankind ha devolved into either child-like naive beings or complete monsters"
So... twitter, then.
Alongside Ursula Le Guin, my favorite sci-fi author is Robert Sheckley. His short stories are sublime. He has an uncanny ability to stick a knife in your sense of the normal and twist it in the wound. Check out the collection _Store of Infinity,_ if you can find it.
One of my favorite contemporary works of sci-fi is The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which is one of the most optimistic works of sci-fi I have ever read. It's presented as kind of a travelogue rather than a single plot from beginning to end, almost like you're reading an entire season of a TV series.
Ann Leckie's books got me back into science fiction for the first time since I was a kid! Ancillary Justice is still my favorite SF novel, and without her I'd never have read Butler's Lilith's Brood series, or An Unkindness of Ghosts, or the Murderbot Diaries, or Space Opera, or A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, or... Look, there's all this great SF out there, guys!
Me too!! A combination of Ann Leckie and N.K. Jemisin. I thought the genre had gotten boring and stale, but a friend finally convinced me to read Leckie and then Jemisin and their raw creativity blew me away.
I like OSC's books. The Ender's Game series has something for everyone. If you like high minded metascience exploring how the universe works on a sub atomic level, read the original quadrilogy. If you're more of a fan of the action-adventure science fiction, Ender's Shadow series is for you.
One of my favorite books of his was Treason. It's a weird story, but shows that OSC used to have some pretty unique ideas and was, as an author anyways, more open minded.
JossCard42 I love the quadrilogy of Ender's game. Ender is maybe my favorite literary character, I really love how he is developed as an adult. Have you read any short stories of osc. He has a big book of them, and there are some really good ones.
geensloth911 I was subscribed to his Intergalactic Medicine Show for a while. I enjoyed his stories from the Enderverse and a lot of the other stories other people contributed too. Though I didn't know he'd compiled any of them into a book though.
Lindsay Ellis working for PBS is so perfect!
Love seeing that you have a small gig on PBS Digital Studios, Lindsay. Nice work!
"I need to take a break from writing my future history. I know, let's watch CZcams." Excellent timing!
I also love Ender's Game! (Well, I love the Ender's Shadow Saga), and I'm also SO GLAD that Octavia Butler got a shout-out, because I love her works.
There's something about Carl Sagan taking both his love and knowledge of astrophysics and combining it with his disdain for organized religion BUT his spirituality to make Contact that really got to me. One of the better science fiction books since the science is there and explained......other than the black hole machine.
Harkening back to the first episode, do you think the movie Contact was a good film adaptation?
David Shi I was not asked, but would like to chime in. NO! It was the absolute worst movie adaptation I have ever seen with cringe-worthy acting, changes in basic character traits and development (Ellie and Palmer Joss) which completely ruin the picture Sagan created of a real scientist and their relationship with the numinous, a minor issue in changing the final act from a voyage of scientific discovery reminiscent of Jules Verne to a hallucinogenic journey for self-help advice (as well as major exclusion of the world-wide effort of tracking, deciphering, and building that Sagan focused on), and an ending (SPOILERS) which makes me face-palm. Really? You didn’t notice there was 18 hours of footage, like, weeks ago? The ending of the book introduced some of my favorite ideas in sci-fi, from intergalactic construction projects to solutions for the Fermi paradox to evidence to make one question the nature of the origin of the Universe. All of that nuance was lost in the movie and I was very disappointed when I found out Sagan, himself, was very influential in the project.
I still need to read the book, but personally I enjoyed the movie. But, I respect your opinion! Are there any movie adaptations that you feel did justice to the book?
David Shi The Martian. A near-perfect adaptation that breathed just enough visual charm and secondary drama into a wondrous book to bring it to life. Arrival did the same, though I think the time-awareness was slightly misrepresented. Crichton’s Jurassic Park, while weaving a good exploration of the dangers of scientific discovery and exploitation of nature for capitalistic gain, was a rather unengaging, characterless book. The movie, though not a truly faithful adaptation, was a masterpiece. Blade Runner is in this category as well. 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was written in coordination with the book, making it a pseudo-adaptation, is probably my favorite of these. Clarke, known for his near-accurate predictions of the future, applied theoretical engineering and contemporary politics to fashion a realistic vision of Man in space, made us genuinely terrified of the computer for the first time, and proposed what the future of human evolution might look like. Kubrick, for his part, imbued into the entire sci-fi film genre the sense of grandiosity and mystery with skill I have not seen challenged since. (And he made classical music the language of space flight for decades, probably the only reason John Williams scored Star Wars the way it is, and created a tradition of classical influence in space films to this day.)
Wow! I love your analysis; clearly, you've given this some thought! I loved The Martian book, especially how it gets into the psychology of being an astronaut and NASA politics. I haven't seen the movie yet; I guess that's what I'll be doing this weekend! I also just finished Andy Weir's Artemis, which is quite good too. I hear an Artemis movie is in the works as well, so that's exciting!
My all time favorite is 1984, everytime I read it I just catch some explendid piece of writing I didn’t notice at first reading!
So happy to see a shoutout to N.K. Jemisin! Her Broken Earth series radically expanded the kinds of stories I thought secondary worlds could tell. By far the best that "fictional people as stand-ins for real marginalized people" has ever been done.
Tons of great books, but I kinda wish more books explored robots and their inherent non-humanity. I don't mean Skynet world ending stuff, but Aasimov is one of the few authors who really explored that things that make sense to a machine don't always make sense to us, and vice versa.
Robots are usually used in story either as props, or to represent either emotionally devoid or emotionally primitive humans. Or the Star Wars approach of just having them be like everyone else except metal.
Andrew Howard I completely agree, in media whenever a robot is supposed to not be a direct antagonist they basically go the Pinocchio route.
I think that’s a wasted opportunity because even if a machine gain a level of consciousness it still wouldn’t be like a person, it would so completely different from a human and no many science fiction novels are willing to explore that.
Are there any other authors who you think effectively explore that in the same way as Asimov?
David Shi I don't know about the same was as Aasimov, but the first example that comes to mind are the AIs in Neuromancer. At first they seem rather human, but after some time, you realize that is just how they act when trying to work with humans, and tend to be a lot weirder.
I never really got into Cyberpunk, but I did at least appreciate how the AI in that book don't fall into the usual robot roles.
One of Asimov's own stories about his writing is that he got fed up with the two mainstream depictions of robots - as the implacable menace, or as the transcendent being - and wanted to write them as machines - neither good nor evil, but doing what they were programmed to do (which is usually not what they were intended to be programmed to do)
rmsgrey that's cool. I hadn't heard that, but it makes sense with his style.
Maybe I’m a sucker for good adventures or I’m a secret Cyberpunk rocker, but I love Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and Philip K. Dick’s Scanner Darkly
A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Chambers) has been one of my favorite sci-fis in recent years. On the comic side the re-release of Jinty: Land of No Tears and The Human Zoo has been a treat.
"Where's my robot?"
He's bumping into your coffee table at the moment cause he's calibrating his sensors to figure out where all your furniture is. In the real world we call him a roomba. People sometimes treat them like pets.
Cyberiad! You all might want to check Stanisław Lem books; he has grat sense of humor, he's smart, and not cliche at all. Bearly known in english world as i see.
Hell yeah, Stanislaw Lem!
Oh yes! Also, his novels. Perhaps not so much fun but very interesting.
Though he's probably better known in the English-speaking world than any *other* SF writer in another language (unless we count authors with mainstream cred like Calvino and Borges).
...Cyberiad, Fiasco, His Master's Voice. All profoundly great.
Solaris was made into a movie starring George Clooney, perhaps the most mainstream he's ever been in english. Solaris, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, and Futurological Congress are all great stories.
Love these videos. Frankenstein is my favorite.❤
I never realized how perfect Lindsay's voice was for a PBS program
Here's my top 3 : H.G Wells' "Time Machine", Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and Adolpho Bioy Caceres' "The Invention of Morel" : their subjects are totally relevant today !
Umm, ‘Frankenstein’ was published in 1816, not 1918
Love this, although you'll need to update the audio on the Frankenstein publication date.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is one of my all time favorites, I love the parallels between space exploration and Jesuits and I thought the prose was quite beautiful as well.
I really appreciate these Lindsay Ellis videos, they're helping me and I'm considering using them in my classroom next year as well! I hope PBS continues.
This was bloody brilliant. Way to cover an insane amount of ground.
Read this back in middle school, but my favorite sci-fi will probably always be The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. Really fun, great read with interesting themes and memorable characters and is really a book for all ages even if the target audience was YA.
I remember that book, it was great! And apparently there's a sequel? Welp, I guess I'm going to reread it now
My favorite science fiction novels are the Leviathan Series by Scott Westerfield. An alternate World War 1, divided between the biological and mechanical sciences, with the Allies using genetic amalgamations (including the eponymous Leviathan, a living zepplin made from a flying sperm whale) and the Axis using massive steam punk war machines (picture the goblin tech of Warcraft).
Mostly, it's just fun. Schlocky and hokey, but a blast to read.
That sounds awesome! I'm very fond of steampunk, so I'll definitely check it out. Have you read Mortal Engines? It's about giant moving cities that eat each other on a barren post-apocalyptic Earth. It's being turned into a movie too!
There was no Axis in World War 1, at that time the alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire was known as the Central Powers
Great cyberpunk novels, for me, start and end with Otherland. Tad Williams' fantasy stuff is some of my favorite writing of any kind, and his late-90s sci-fi epic has all the trappings of the genre mixed with his signature philisophical outlook on the nature of humanity and the impact of individuals on history. The major characters are a diverse group of people brought together by mystery, circumstance, and a desire to fight back against injustice, and Tad's well-researched construction of the character !Xabbu is one of the greatest examples of an author taking pains to not let personal biases or experiences overshadow the importance of letting a character be a character.
I really love Solaria from Stanislaw Lem. I think it is very interesting how imaginative it is with the setting and how information is provided through an examination of academic studies and the epistemology of it all. I really dig the density of the themes, oftentimes explicit, and the emotional core. So yeah, highly recommend.
I love this, but how is Atwood not in the list of great female sci-fi writers!
Atwood works more in the realm of reachable dystopia, actual society in the not-too-far future that done f***ed up. It's not speculative in the realm of the unknown; Atwood herself has said that every single thing in The Handmaid's Tale has been done or is done in the world TODAY. The stories just mush all of the horrible under one umbrella, Nazi Germany style.
One could make the same argument for 1984. It wasn't any far distant future type novel but just existing technology taken to the extreme - very similar to Atwood. Though I accept an argument can be made for differentiating imaginary-sci-fi (i.e. sci-fi in worlds very different from our own or not easily forseeable given current technology) from what Atwood calls "speculative fiction" (i.e. sci-fi that feels like it could happen within our lifetimes). Though doing so would require re-classifying a lot of material. Arguably "Frankenstein" would be considered speculative fiction since at the time experiments with electricity on e.g. deceased frog legs made it seem as though re-animating the dead was just around the corner.
Aside from Handmaids tale, her books are only so-so. Her poetry is pretty great though.
Her books are very well written and have some interesting ideas, but I dislike her style of storytelling. Usually the backstory of her novels that is told through flashbacks is much more interesting than the present day narrative of the novel. Handmaid's tale has the best present day narrative but even still it's not that interesting. But I found Oryx and Crake to have more interesting ideas in it.
Atwood herself has shied away from the label of SF author.
I was still in elementary when I discovered Isaac Asimov. He's still my all time fave in the genre
I would like to see more about non-English science fiction. I kind of missed Stanislav Lem in this, and there are some lesser known German authors. Although, not always lesser known. Perry Rhodan is the longest-going SciFi pulp series and it is a German thing. And there is now some serious effort of bringing Arabic science fiction to light.
2:48
when I was seven my parents started thinking I should start reading classics. So they got me a children's version of the Time Machine. As an ignorant seven year old who loved back to the future, I naturally jumped right in. I remember my exact thought process being.
"Haha wait till you see the machine work"..."Is this meant to be creepy?"..."Oh god why are there illustrations?*because naturally all children's versions of classics have illustrations*... and"Why did I just read that".
I know it's maybe a little obvious but Asimov was always my favourite. I, Robot is brilliant and I love the Foundation series!
I love I, Robot too! Have you read The Martian, by Andy Weir?
Never have done, but will get on it!
Have you read his other robot Novels?
A long time ago, yes. But I, Robot is still my favorite. I also liked his short stories, like Bicentennial Man.
I'd kill for a Cyberpunk story exploring Ableism in a transhumanist world, where Choice Prosthetics and Need Prosthetics are treated differently discussing how the choice to use a mechanism is often not stigmatized in the way the exact same tool, worn out of necessity, is.
That's a fascinating idea! I don't know of any stories that fit that bill. Maybe you should write one!
the futurama episode The Six Million Dollar Mon & John Wyndam's the crystalids deal with these themes
My dad had a childhood accident. Although He lost both hands, he never wore prosthetics because he always found that their makers never listened to him because they saw him as 'disabled' -- so what would he know about himself? (sarcasm) I guess he also didn't like how people discriminated against him, even more, when he used prosthetics! You are really on to something!
Speaking of PBS. One of my favorite movies was the original production of The Lathe of Heaven. So glad when it was finally brought to video
I love Lindsay, I love the editing, love the on screen design here, and the topic. GREAT show, appreciation from 🇩🇪👍🏼👍🏼
My favourite sci-fi novel is *Dune*. I personally would like to see more sci-fi set in a time when humans have started to colonized our nearby neighbors like Mars and Europa, but are still far away technology wise to go farther.
If you don't mind science from a late '60s-early '70s perspective, check out the early works of Larry Niven that discuss just that (particularly his short stories). Or, for that matter, Arthur C. Clarke.
A little closer to home is Artemis, by Andy Weir, who also wrote The Martian. It's a crime-thriller set on a city on the moon, and Weir even worked out how the moon economy would work!
Cypher
Are you familiar with the CZcamsr Isaac Arthur? He doesn't write science fiction, per se (his channel description reads, "This channel focuses on exploring concepts in science with an emphasis on futurism and space exploration, along with a healthy dose of science fiction"), but colonization of the solar system is one of the major themes he deals with. Here's his recent video on colonizing Ceres, part of an ongoing series. czcams.com/video/LqoYtBZAKO0/video.html
You should read 'The Expanse' series then. It's that exact premise.
Favourite sci if books:
The ship who sang (they put human brains in ships!)
Oryx and crake (human eating pigs and genetically modified humans!)
Gemma Kendall I prefer Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, but the Ship Who series isn't that far behind. She had some other interesting SF novels in her earlier career as well.
@@MacAisling , I ws hoping someone would mention McCaffrey! I don't know how many times I've re-read the Pern novels or The Ship Who Sang! Unfortunately, I had to give up my signed copy of The White Dragon in one of my many moves . . . .
Another awesome one. Would have loved for you to make a sort of subgenre/style identification. But that get's more muddied than in generally does with Fantasy, I suppose.
Favorite Sc-fi novel is probably Heinlein's The Moon is a Hard Mistress. Exploring colonial society, problems of living on the moon and humanities first steps into becoming a interplanetary species. Much of which was a giant inspiration to The Expanse and such.
Science Fiction's tendency to pose a question or problem and explore its implications suits it very well to short stories; so many of my favorites in the genre are in that format and where many authors (Vance, Clarke, Moon) shine.
I love this series with Lindsay so much!! She is a great narrator, and the visuals are engaging
Despite moving ever farther leftward of Mr. Heinlein's politics, I'll forever love Stranger in a Strange Land. The artistic criticism and social commentary of some of his grouchier characters rings somewhat hollow today, but the central story of a man-raised-Martian coming back to earth to lead a Christ-like death in seeking to drink in the fullness of mankind and its possibilities remains cutting in its critique and soaring in its optimism.
Shout out to Heinlein's lesser appreciated classic Time Enough for Love - a look at gender swapping computers, polyamorous relationships, and the potential for human love outside the context of conventional mortality...all this from the politically conservative author of Starship Troopers!
Starship Troopers is supposed to be a parody--showing the radicalism of the military and the absurdity of a warrior society like that. I've had actual soldiers explain that to me.
SoleMan117 From the film, yes. The book? ... No.
Go back and re-read it with that mentaliy. I know Heinlein was in the military, but he was very critical of the military and seemed to see through its bullshit.
I get frustrated also with those who take any militaristic society depicted in Heinlein's books as evidence of his own fascist leanings. He clearly saw the flaws and strengths in many ideologies, and he explored many sides of each issue. CITIZEN OF THE GALAXY is fascinating for the way its protagonist cycles from culture to culture, reinventing (or discovering) himself along the way from impoverished slave to holding great wealth and political power.
I might have to read that one. I'm starting to get back into Science Fiction.
You forgot my favorite: Stanislav Lem. But kudos for mentioning Verne at least.
Dan Simmons' Hyperion! The series has everything that quintessential sci-fi novels needs to possess.
Although, I may be biased for Hyperion was what had introduced me to the genre.
There is so much excellent SF to choose from. Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel might be the one that got me hooked on reading SF. As for all-time favorite, I'd have to go with something from CJ Cherryh...probably either Heavy Time or Merchanter's Luck. I also have to give a shout out to the cyberpunk of William Gibson and the military SF of Elizabeth Moon.