Classic SF Book Haul | 5 of My Favorite Authors
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- čas přidán 21. 07. 2024
- In today's video I share some classic science fiction novels from of the greatest writers in the sci-fi genre. Books include: Time Out of Joint, Martian Time-Slip, Slapstick, Deadeye Dick, Hocus Pocus, The Futurological Congress, Dune Messiah, The City and the Stars, and The Fountains of Paradise.
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00:00 - Introduction
00:32 - Philip K. Dick
02:55 - Kurt Vonnegut
07:22 - Stanislaw Lem
08:41 - Frank Herbert
11:01 - Arthur C. Clarke
#ScienceFiction #Books
Hope you enjoy The Futurological Congress!
I’m sure I will! Thanks so much for the awesome gift!
@@WordsinTime It is very different to Solaris, but I love it.
God emperor of dune is my favorite but the others are very good reads also.
Nice! It will be interesting to compare!
Dune Messiah is great. Very different but each of the sequels feels that way. All 6 of the Frank books are fantastic. And yeah, we read Mother Night in high school and I’ve adored Vonnegut ever since. Happy reading!
That’s great to hear! And Mother Night is one of my favourites!
Hard SciFi Elephants? 🐘 sign me up! 😆
I think we may have found something here! 🐘 🚀
@@WordsinTime "Footfall" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle is about alien elephants.
Looking forward to your review Jonathan.
@@colin1818 What a world haha
That sliced bread joke was simultaneously the dumbest and funniest thing LMAO
So deadpan a delivery, brilliant! XD
Hahaha
I relate to your taking your time to get through Vonnegut books so they don't have to end. That's how I am about Joyce's corpus.😅
Haha it’s bittersweet.
Absolutely love all things Vonneguts. Timequake may be my favorite of his. Although The Sirens of Titan is up there as well.
Nice! The Sirens of Titan is also one of my favourites.
With Dune, the first book is the classic. People have their preferences with 2-6 & pretty much everyone agrees than Brian Herbert's expansion is a level (or 2) behind his father's. Dune Messiah was considered a disappointment when it came out, but it served it's purpose - I liked it better than most - and served as a needed bridge for those that followed.
That’s good to know, I’m looking forward to see how they differ!
Awesome stuff Jonathan! I loved Dune Messiah just as much as Dune, and I think you will too. I need to read more Philip K Dick, and give Vonnegut a try.
That’s great to hear Chas, I’m excited to get to it!
I just recently read Tmequake and Deadeye Dick and enjoyed both immensely. I wouldn't say the latter book is science fiction. More post-war American dark satire. He has a great line in there about amphetamines being " safe unless discontinued ." As far as Herbert goes I always recommend the Santaroga Barrier and the Dosadi Experiment. The White Plague is a good one too. I just finished Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling. One I reckon you would enjoy.
I’m glad you enjoyed Deadeye Dick! Thanks for the recommendations, Schismatrix is on my TBR and I’ll check out the others!
My situation is identical to yours with regard to Clarke so I'll be very interested to hear about your next Clarke reads!
I’ll look forward to being able to discuss them!
Great channel! I am adding books to my reading list all the time since I subscribed. I would love some more spoiler heavy reviews here, I love finding out what other people feel about some books. I just read Flowers for Algernon and I can't find anybody that really got into it. I mostly find spoiler-free reviews
Thanks for the kind words, I hope you enjoy the books that you added to the TBR. It’s hard to make spoiler content because only a small percentage of people can/will watch it. But perhaps I will be inspired to make a deep dive on something in the future.
Loved this list buddy. Someone definitely needs to name a book "Sliced Bread" lol. I can't wait to hear what you think of these books. I DNFed Dune Messiah, I may go back to it, and I really liked City and the Stars. Haven't read the rest. Great video
Cheers Dale! I’m glad you enjoyed The City and the Stars, I’m looking forward to it!
I loved The City and the Stars, the next Clarkes I want to read are his Collection of Stories, A Fall of Moondust - and also The Fountains of Paradise.
Dune Messiah is also on my list to be read soon.
I've read two Lems by now, The Astronauts and The Invincible, both were fantastic. I already own The Star Diaries and The Futurological Congress and hope to get to them this year. I'm curious to hear what you think of it.
I’m looking forward to The City and the Stars. Glad you’re enjoying Lem!
Kurt Vonnegut is someone I need to read more of. I've only read the big one and that was quite a while ago. I do have a few on my shelves.
I also have a lot of PKD in those same editions and some Lem that's not Solaris too.
I enjoyed The City and the Stars.
You've got some great reading ahead of you. 🙂
Thanks Lisa, I’m glad you enjoyed The City and the Stars. Hope you like those books on your shelves when you get to them!
Cool that you read some more lem, dunno why apparently nobody seems to read more than solaris😅I definitely recommend to read the futurological congress to the end :D From the ones I read so far I would recommend 'Peace on Earth' and/or 'Memoirs, found in a bathtub'. But everything he writes seems to be genius :D I'm looking forward to read 'His master's voice'
Thanks for the recommendations! I’m looking forward to more Lem!
Can’t wait to hear your take on The Futurological Congress; it’s been probably 35 years since I read it (overdue for a re-read).
Btw, “King of Manhattan, the Last President of United States…” is that a foreshadowing of the upcoming election. 😬
I’m looking forward to reading more Lem!
A lot of Vonnegut’s writing was rather prescient. Hopefully there isn’t an apocalypse on the horizon!
I read City and the Star recently and really enjoyed it. Not quite up there with Childhood's End, 2001 and RWR. As for Dune...I'm kinda with you. Love the book yet it never comes to mind when I'm doing top 10 lists. Dune Messiah and Children of Dune are good, but nowhere near as good as Dune...don't think that's a hot take :) I want to read God Emperor of Dune this year. That's the one a lot of folk seem to think it up there with book 1.
I’m looking forward to The City and the Stars. Will be interesting to compare Dune books!
I actually thought that Dune messiah is a better book than the first one. Yes everyone can hate me for it. But the whole idea and structure of the book it just great.Yes there is a trap and yes MuadDib knows about it, but because of reasons he chooses to play along. It's a great mindfuck off a read and the end just nails it. Great stuff!
That’s good to hear, I’m intrigued!
Yes, the ending is one of the best endings in all scifi. It was great but also had me in tears.
Of those three, Deadeye Dick is one that stood out for me. Probably 'cause of the memorable way he got his nickname.
Nice, I’m looking forward to it!
Ooh. I do have the sudden urge to buy some books. Hope I get a sudden urge to read some too. 🙄 I had a good time with Lem's FC. Well, with all of Lem so far.
Nice! Glad you’ve been enjoying Lem!
The City and The Stars is set *billions* of years in the future!
Hahaha millions wasn’t ambitious enough for Clarke!
Actually there are hard scifi elephants.😊 It's Alastair Reynolds' Poseidon's Children series, my favorite of his.
Haha sounds awesome! 🚀 🐘
Just finished the swarm (amazing book by the way) and I was taking a look at my tbr list because she is huge now partially because of you, but heretics of dune is making my conscious heavy looking at me from the shelf, bc when I read the dune series, I ended up stopping halfway through the 5th book for health reasons and now I need to go back to it. Is such a heavy book, but I feel too bad not finishing one of my favorite series, it's a physical book in Portuguese (my native language), I'll probably get a pdf with something else in English to read along with it when I get too tired or something like that. Thanks for the indications, I love your channel!!
Ps: my dune ranking so far: 1 > 3 > 4 > 2, but all of them are great!!
Thanks for sharing your Dune ranking, and I hope you’re feeling better!
I've only read two books by PKD but neither are considered among his best so I need to read more vonnegut has always been a favorite ever since I read slaughterhouse five way back in 1969 haven't read the city and the stars and the fountains of paradise but loved childhood's end the rama books and imperial earth⚛😀
I hope you enjoy PKD if you read more and glad you also love Vonnegut! I’ll have to check out Imperial Earth.
🛒 I love a good haul, but a themed haul is really excellent 👏 Mine tend to be a bit all over the place, mainly because I’m trying to optimise the 📦 contents or postage. My haulage has slowed down as I wait for 2024 releases to become available, and also to try to reduce excess expenditure this year. My TBR is bonkers so I need to slow it down, but damn my fingers are getting itchy 😝
Sliced 🍞😆
I have a ton of old MMPs in my Library, but the rest are mostly 20cm tall - B Format here in 🇬🇧- so I’m assuming your Dune is - by “tall and thin”- taller than an MMP but just as wide as an MMP? If my interpretation is correct then I haven’t seen that size myself that I can recall 🤔
I too have already overcommitted to things for the year. I am gagging to get into some of my off-piste SF, but the Readalongs are keeping me away. I have never read “Dune” but maybe one day…? I also recently picked up “The City and the Stars” based upon your recommendation in previous episodes 👍
“Hard SciFi Elephants” you say? Have you not read Alastair Reynolds’ “Poseidon’s Children” yet?!? Get to it, man 🤣
I’ll have to find the dimensions for you, but yes, I think this Dune release is the same width as some of my MMPB but slightly taller. I have two Michael Crichton books this size as well.
Poseidon’s Children sounds pretty good haha 🚀 🐘
I think a book by Lem I would recommend as his next best book would be The Invincible…It kind of gets overshadowed by Solaris because it was his next published release after Solaris even though they were 3 years apart…I am not saying it was as good as Solaris because it wasn’t but it’s underrated because it followed up his magnum opus…Try The Invincible by Lem…Would love to hear your perspective about it…
I’ll have to add it to my list!
Have you read the short story Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut? one of my favorites.. I especially love the 90s film adaptation.
I have read it as I own the collection Welcome to the Monkey House. I remember enjoying it, I might have to give it a re-read!
@@WordsinTime I bet you remember it, once you recall the premise - there is a sort of forced equality - beautiful people have to wear ugly masks - athletic people have some sort of apparatus that handicaps & restricts them ... Harrison's father is smart, so he is required by law to wear a radio transmitter in his ear that every so often emits an ear splitting sound - to prevent him from putting to many thoughts together.
He & his wife are watching TV ...
recall it now?
@@mondostrat Yes, it sounds familiar, thanks. I read it quite a few years ago so the details aren’t clear but I remember enjoying it.
You're not crazy they dont have Hocus Pocus in the other style. It seems like we have the exact same opinion on Vonnegut he makes me feel sane too.
I can definitely recommend City and the Stars. Slightly generic but it's a great story with a great messege
Haha good to know! And I’m glad you enjoyed The City and the Stars, I’m looking forward to it.
Arthur Clarke has been my favourite since I was a teenager. There's something about his ideas and his hard scyfy that gets to me. Fountains of Paradise is one I liked a lot. I really recommend also reading Songs from a distant Earth, the premise is really cool. A colonial ship from the year 3000 comes to an old colony founded by a crioship 'manned' by robots that brought up a first generation of humans 700 years before. The colony is an engineered utopia but this ship that appears in there sky brings technology and knowledge that is really foreign to them... So do we let them open Pandora's box? Really cool book
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll have to check that one out next!
I'm Vonnegut's greatest fan (I started a Ph.D on his work) but after Breakfast of Champions I'm afraid the quality deteriorated. Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, Mother Night and Slaughterhouse 5 are the ultimate Vonnegut. Dick is also in my top 3 but I read these 2 so long ago I can't remember them! Do Androids Dream, Flow My Tears, Ubik and The Three Stigmata are my favourites.
Your favourite Vonnegut books are my 4 favourites as well haha. And my top PKD books so far are Ubik, Three Stigmata, and A Scanner Darkly.
@@WordsinTime Good taste!
If you're new to PKD then I'd recommend UBIK as a good entry point. For more underappreciated works Id say Maze Of Death (I read this when I was 11 and it blew my mind), or Galactic Pot Healer - there are sections of this which are pure PKD magic.
I’ve read 6 PKD books so far and Ubik is my favourite! All have to get to Maze of Death at some point!
Vonnegut is my fav. Deadeye Dock is one of my favs, though it’s dark and not really sci-fi. Hocus Pocus and slapstick aren’t KV’s best, but still worthy of reading.
Thanks for the info! I’m sure I’ll enjoy them!
I'm always surprised to hear people say that Dune is the greatest of all time. I've tried to read it a few times and always get bogged down in it and give up. However, since Christmas I've rocketed through the three Quantum Thief books and straight into all five of the Book of the New Sun. Both extraordinary works and totally engaging. So I wonder what it is that I'm missing in Dune as i don't mind complicated stories running over several books. I've seen the Dune movies, with Sting (weird) and Chalamet (very polished) but they haven't been enough for me to enjoy the book.
I liked the Dune movie, but felt similarly as I did about the book. The trailer for part two looks good though. I’m glad you loved The Quantum Thief as well!
Iain M. Banks is your greatest miss! SF would never be the same without him.
I’ve read 4 Culture books so far. Will try more in the future!
I prefer Anderson , Niven, Blish , Simak, Heinlien, Norton, Zelzany,Delaney, Bradbury. And of course Herbert. Clarke and Brunner.
Simak, Anderson and Bradbury are three of my favourites as well!
I read Dune: Messiah, and it was meh for me. Though I know someone that really liked it. Will be curious to know how you find it.
I have one Vonnegut on my TBR: Cat’s Cradle. Not sure when I will get to it this year as of yet.
People seem divided on the Dune sequels so it will be interesting to see where I land. I hope you enjoy Cat’s Cradle as much as I did!
Uh oh, I've read 2 PKD, underwhelmed, but I'm open to reading more, and one Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan and i HATED it, 🤮, not in a rush to read more. Heresy! Still, I am keen to read some Lem and i do have Solaris and Futurological Congress on my shelves. I re-read Dune Messiah last year, first time for decades. Enjoyed it. Some say Clarke is a bit of a plodder from a style point of view, but i read a bunch when i was younger.Not City and the Stars, funnily enough, although I do have it. Must get that one read. If you want hard sci fi elephants, Alastair Reynolds has the books for you. 🐘🚀🔫👽📚
Oh no haha. Hope you enjoy Lem more.
Hi Jonathan. Hocus Pocus was released by a different publisher, so that's why the editions won't match.
That’s what I thought. Would be nice to have a matching set but alas!
I personally believe Childhoods End is Arthur C Clarke’s best work…yes better than 2001 A Space Odyssey which is very good and his most famous and well known work but I still believe Childhoods End is his best work
Agreed!
I read it quite awhile ago, but I remember Hocus Pocus being a real favourite. I don't know if it's justified, but I kind of group it in with Jailbird and Bluebeard as standouts in his 'middle years'. They're not quite as supercharged as his early peak, but they have complex character depictions. They make me think of the Ram Dads book, I'm Still Here. What do you do after the fire of youth runs its course, the mistakes you made are painfully apparent, but you still have enough time to 'get it right', or at least do something different. Quick question, have you ever read any of Vonnegut's nonfiction such as Fates Worse than Death or Man Without a Country?
Thanks for the info! I have read snippets and quotes of Vonnegut’s non-fiction work but don’t own any collections or books. I own all of his novels and host short story collection Welcome to the Monkey House.
@@WordsinTime They’re worth checking out, is all I wanted to say I guess. Enjoy the deep cuts from some old faves!
Sorry to say I found The FoP which i read very recently because a relative picked it up in a junk shop and bought it for me as he knows i like SF, unutterably dull and full of irrelevant filler. Maybe its better than that but I couldn't bring myself to start it again.
City and The Stars i read years ago and loved and I like most Clark. I have read a lot of Vonnegut but not those.
Sorry to hear The Fountains of Paradise was a miss, but glad you liked The City and the Stars.
I don't like the tall skinny format. I love the first Dune and really liked Dune Messiah. After that not so much, although something happens in the fourth book that I found very intriguing.
I’m intrigued to see the differences between them!
I enjoyed The Dune series, however, it’s not that good on the re-read. Comparatively, “Lord of the Rings” got three full re-reads for me. This year’s re-read is slated to be “Hyperion”. Dune is best read in the early years, sometime in high school, and only once. I did enjoy the full series and would rank it in my top 50 series.
Thanks for the info! I look forward to re-reading Hyperion myself one day!
Dune's structure is always weird... I felt that the three first books started with a spoiler of how and why the central plotpoint is gonna develop... Also I felt a bit cheated by the "off camara" change in Paul between book one and two. It's like there's a brutal book 1.5 that he never wrote about how he became a monster 😂
Not My kind of read really
Interesting! I’ll be on the lookout for that.
Mmmm 🤔 To me, Paul was always the monster. He used his mentat and bene gesserit powers to usurp power over the Fremen and use them for revenge against the emperor. This was implied if not explicit in the novel and movie. There is that scene in the movie where Jessica is telling him not to do it when they reach the desert outpost. However, eventually Paul laments and is appalled by his Jihad. I could say more but it would spoil it so enjoy Dune Messiah.
Cyberiad.
I need to add that to my list!
Stop at the end of God Emperor.
I’ve heard mixed reactions to the last two!
I thought Dune Messiah was ok, but I thought the antagonists' plan was really dumb (I know there's layers to it and I don't want to say more because of spoilers, but at face value it made no sense) and Paul was just so emo throughout the whole book. Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune were good, but I'd still put the original first. I didn't think Heretics of Dune was that good, and I DNFed Chapterhouse Dune. Frank Herbert was trying to start a new Dune trilogy with those books, but he was just obsessed with weird sex powers, so I would highly recommend to anyone to just stop after God Emporer...
Thanks for the info! Will be interesting to compare them.
I agree with Dune Messiah for similar reasons.
That's fair. It did get weird with the sex powers but a good weird. I enjoyed the whole series with Dune and God Emperor being my favorites.
I Love Mass Market Paperbacks
It’s my favorite format of books
Dune is obviously a very good book and probably the most popular SF book of All-Time but IMHO it’s a bit overhyped and overrated…I rank Hyperion as the best SF ever written…
Dune Messiah is a big drop off from Dune it was okay but it’s not something I would recommend people have to read if they read Dune…Personally I think Dune stands well enough on its own…
I thought Dune could be enjoyed as a standalone as well. Glad you like mass market paperbacks too!