Top 10 Science Fiction Books - Banned Books
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- čas přidán 8. 11. 2023
- Top Ten Banned Science Fiction Books I most want to talk about. Please share your favorites in the comments.
#bannedbooks
00:19 - Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game
02:32 - Brian K. Vaughan
04:35 - Ursula K. LeGuin
06:59 - Kurt Vonnegut
09:32 - Aldous Huxley
11:38 - Anthony Burgess
12:49 - Kurt Vonnegut
17:12 - Margaret Atwood
19:09 - George Orwell
20:14 - Ray Bradbury
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I came across your channel very recently when I was attempting to satisfy my thirst for cyberpunk/techno-dystopia media, and you have easily become my favourite in the realm of literature and overall entertainment. Keep up the great work!
Thanks T. I appreciate it.
@@FIT2BREADI'm surprised you didn't have Jerome Bixby's "Man From Earth" on the list. The bible thumpers and churches banned that one because the 10,000 yr old main character claimed he had been christ and was only teaching the ways of Buddha and it ruffled their feathers when it implied religion was all just a scam to control the people with the fear of eternal damnation.
This was a pretty good list of books I have read 3 out of 10 And I may look into a couple of the ones I have not heard of.
The Host sounds like a whiny Leftist. So decide on your politics And Don't be whining Chicks don't dig that.
@@xzaviyondrapeau1148the host was arrested for pedophilia. Look up Michael Everts. Terrible human 🤮
I always thought until the last few years that tech was going to free us. Boy was I naive
It's like people don't want to ban books for porn or bad language. They want to ban books for presenting ideas they don't like.
That's exactly why they ban books. To surpress the idea
I graduated in 1984. My high school, CM Russell, removed 1984 from our required reading & substituted Scarlet Letter. (That was also the year we were told that student government was not allowed to effect actual change.)
“Censorship kills ideas” - Krist
@@TheDarkchum1 we're keeping an eye on you, chum
🕵️
Wow. Profound idea. 🙄
When I was in HS in the 1965, my senior English teacher had to submit her reading list to the principal who struck off almost all of her recommendations and gave her a list of "approved" books. When she gave us the "approved" list, she explained what it was. When we asked what she had recommended that was removed, she smiled and slowly (so we could write the titles down) told us. So, we read all of the banned books...which we probably wouldn't have done.
So you went and read "banned" books? Did you get them from your local drug dealer? Why do none of you geniuses know what banned means? You even admit that she told you so you could go get them yourself.
Good teacher.
Graduated in 67. My English teacher let me into what was the coat room long ago where he kept a lot of books. The school banned Thomas Hardy entirely. He lent me Tess of the Deubervilles and that was my intro to the typical English author, doom and gloom forever.
Banning (burning) Fahrenheit 451 is the definition of irony
It is a very good book, I enjoyed Bradbury's work...
@@levilam522 He is a good writer, though I've only seen the 1966 film for this one.
except none of these books are banned.
@@jeptoungrit9000 you didn't watch the video, eh?
@@AmityvilleFan I can buy all of those books off Amazon and neither the FBI nor the ATF will show up at my door. You have no clue what banned means.
edit: No I quit watching when I realized that he didn't know what banned meant anymore than you do.
I was in high school in the 70’s and my literature teacher chose Brave new World, Slaughterhouse 5, and 1984 for their political content. The Vietnam War was still raging and this was part of her protest to have us read these book.
No one should leave high school without reading 1984, Lord of the Flies, and Catcher in the Rye.
Same here, when I was in high school those were required reading as was Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird. I do remember there was an effort to ban Huckleberry Finn because of the use of the N-bomb even though both the book and the author were anti-slavery and anti-racist in a time and place where having those views could get you killed.
@@mal35m-dw2qv I loved American lit in high school. I had a remarkable teacher to whom I will always be grateful. We started with Sinners in the hands of an angry God,read Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson and Thoreau. We acted out The Crucible. We ended with Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. This was 1967. We certainly read Huck Finn. IMHO , it’s one of the masterpieces of American literature. We read to Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye. She was one of the best teachers I ever had.
@@nbenefiel It sure sounds like the teacher really loved the subject and was able to communicate it to the class.
@@mal35m-dw2qv She was incredible. After graduation I used to go visit her for years.
Great video. The only thing worse than the outright banning of a book is the decision, by an editor or publisher, to remove an 'offending' chapter. As mentioned by another person, the last chapter of A Clockwork Orange was cut for the US printing. The ebook version of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is missing the chapter Way up in the middle of the air. All because someone in power at the publishing house had the idea that the expurgated version would sell better. That's vandalism.
yeah, people are way to quick to chnage and censor art.
Republican party has used the Handmaid's tale as an instruction manual
@@juliancrooks3031 The SCOTUS did the only thing that might hold this country together. People are going to have to start minding their own business. If Texas wants to ban abortion then let them, and if California wants to make it legal then let them. If the two sides keep trying to force their morals onto the other side then there won't be a country for much longer, although, I suspect it's far too late.
@@juliancrooks3031 You don't talk to many conservatives or republicans do you? Most of us are less interested in banning The Handmaids Tale and more interested in making fun of it.
@chong2389 100% agreement there. I despise people mutilating works of art whether it is for political reasons, because it makes people uncomfortable or worse so it will sell better. Either show the whole thing or not at all if you have a good reason. And it had better be a good reason.
I only came across your channel recently, and was so surprised by the books on the list. I grew up in sixties Europe and by the time I reached Grammar School in the 70s A good 60 percent of the books cited were recommended readers at school (12-16). It’s so extraordinary that they are now banned readers!
Yeah a big hot spot for banning books seems to be Florida and other southern US states. Tomorrow I'll have my top 10 first contact books list up
banning books, to banning people. are we even allowed to say the name LexAy JoneSay? Who was Rightfully banned for being such a bad bad man! And then fined $1.5B for hurting peoples feelings. Good for them!
Thankfully, anything he discussed or videos cited has been scoured and expunged from the internet. Forever.
Hopefully thrown into some hole for all time. Nobody needs to ever see all that! Never!
Or the other man - name is unimportant i guess. banned (i.e., 'jailed' for 7 months) for spreading a meme. A Joke related to the securest election in history. 7 months in the klink. meanwhile it was a variation of an old joke. Another chick sent a similar one. But guess hers wasn't a threat to democracy.
or 'banned' like when Amazon shut down a man's friggin house! b/c Alexa (who is kinda a b***ch sometimes, TBH) she Thought she heard him say some wrong-speak. And she reacted quickly!
[he didn't btw. it was just a misunderstanding. Like when Monica asked Tom Selleck if he had some peanuts. And later they laughed about it]
We live in interesting times, don'tcha think.
But at least we can pat ourselves on the back. For at least being on the enlightened side..
Good list and good description of the books.
I live in England so was surprised that these were banned! Some of these are on the school curriculum over here.
Thank you...and I've Def noticed from comments, we have a big difference between US and England in this category
Many of them USED to be mandatory reading in US high schools too. I was amazed at what was banned.
In the 70s at least I can say they were all required reading in high school in Indiana. The only book at that time that I heard that some people wanted to ban was Huckleberry Finn because of the use of the N-bomb word.
None of these books are banned.. He's a troll for saying they are.
TRIVIA: For many years, A Clockwork Orange was marketed in the States without its final chapter, in which Alex is completely cured, grows up, gets married and has a child of his own. The version without the final chapter is the one that Mr. Kubrick USD for the film. He didn't want the full story for the same reason that the US publisher balked: the full ending was too soft and made Alex look weak... It was "too British" of an ending. The chapter was tacked on to several editions in the 2000s.
Thanks for sharing that
Burgess hated Kubrick's ending and some parts are very sanitised in the film compared to the book. In the film Alex becomes a jack the lad rebel whereas in the book he's a sick fuck
That ending is so strange but still, I don't think it's fair to remove parts of an author's work.
I am surprised they haven't gone after some of Robert A. Heinlein's books. If you look at some of his charactor's morality actions that people today will reject, but at the same time they love Heinlein. Not that these should be in a grade school library, it's up to individual parents to over see their kids reading. I watched what my son read until he was old enough to choose, the same with music.
I would be surprised if a quick Google search found instances of Heinleins work being banned
Heinlein's juvenile novels are for the most part "safe" and no one could possibly object to them. For example, Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet, Red Planet, just to name 3.
I read them when I was a child
Heinlein taught me to read. His later gender bending is before its time. Strange all the different opinions about his work. Too easy to dismiss art after we pigeon hole it.
I’m rather surprised that Heinlein wasn’t banned across the board in the past couple of years for writing Farnham’s Freehold. Considering that people have been banned for single tweets they made years prior as drunk and angry teenagers, I would think a whole book playing with sexist and racist themes would be a prime target.
Brave New World was required reading in my high school history class, along with Future Shock. It expands the mind and creates interesting conversations.
I read 7 of your 10 books before I graduated from high school in 1973. Makes me wonder where and when they were banned.
Which 3 haven't u read. As for where...they weren't banned everywhere...in some of the other comments, I gave a few examples in my replies
I have not read A Clockwork Orange although I did see the movie. I have not read A Handmaids Tale or the graphic novel, I don't really get into those. I did enjoy the others I have read. @@FIT2BREAD
@@FIT2BREAD In my case I read 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 specifically for school. Others like Stranger In A Strange Land and The Left Hand Of Darkness I read because I have always loved Sci-Fi. As a kid I also read anything Lovecraft which some people today want to ban because like many people of his time he was very politically incorrect by today's standards. I an not excusing HPL but I do think one should separate the artist from the art. I don't even like how some publisher's bowdlerized the unfortunately named black cat in The Rats In The Walls that was named after a real childhood pet. Like it or not that is how real people talked in those days.
Michael, glad to say that I had very few book banning challenges during my forty year as a public librarian. Some of my neighboring library districts had nasty challenges but very little worry for me. I'm not sure why there were no challenges of Science Fiction during my years in the business so perhaps it's just the type of reader the genre attracts?
glad to hear that you didn't get confronted with too many bannings
Great list! Several books that I love. One very minor thing about Farenheit 451. I think it was "firemen" instead of "firefighters" . The name is still applicable to our real world firefighters, but was intended to be a sort of double entendre for the reader. I'll go in the corner and talk through my nose and push my glasses up now.
Great list Michael. Fantastic video. Strange how so many of these books are used as examples of society gone wrong and how thought provoking they are and yet people try to ban them.
Well said!
I wonder why . . . .
That's exactly why those books and others like them were banned. In general, those who would ban books do NOT want people to think about the society in which they live.
A great list. I have read them all except Saga. The of the reasons why some books get banned is definitely perplexing.
Thanks BP
Great list of books! Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorites. I need to start reading some Vonnegut.
Thanks chas
Yeah you do.
Once banned, almost all of these books are now classics of the genre.
yes. and if they aren't already...they likely will be...Saga
The remarkable thing about this list is how great most of these books are! I've read all but 2 but will be adding the Leguin and Clockwork Orange to the TBR. Thanks for the video!
I think you'll like both of those Josh!
Great list! I’ve read several of these but still need to get to some of them.
Thanks Crystal
I read Slaughterhouse-Five for high school English class. Good book and I became a fan of Kurt Vonnegut.
This is soooo weird... many of these are books that should be (and in many countries are) on the mandatory reading list for any advanced english literature course in school. Hearing that people attempt to ban these books feels so unreal.
Yeah same with non scifi books like great Gatsby, lord of the flies, Catcher in the Rye. Some places banned them and others they were required reading...I'm guessing
@@FIT2BREAD It might be enlightening to look up when and who wanted to ban some books instead of just guessing. Early on some people wanted to ban Huckleberry Finn because it was anti-slavery and anti-racist. Ironically around the 70s some civil rights groups wanted to ban it because of the use of the N-word. IMO both groups were wrong.
Great video! I still haven't read any Ursula K LeGuin and that needs to change soon.
Maybe start with Lathe of Heaven since it's a really fast read (an excellent)
I’ve read 9 out of 10, and thought they were great! This could almost double as a top 10 list for me, thanks!
Oh nice. I think I can guess the one you haven't read (an exercise in "one of these is not like the others...")
Banned? I've read 9/10, and have 8 of these in my library still. No book should be banned. But I do agree with some age restrictions.
So MANY books I need to go back and re-read. Thanks for trip down memory lane!
Most of these titles were required reading in my high school. College reading was a joke but associated with a group who thrived on science fiction. These books matures the mind. Makes one question their purpose, existence, and beliefs. Inspires one to go and find their answers. Hmm, it is time for me to question and explore new possibilities and get out of this slough I’m in. Thanks for this video!
I love it when you hold up the copy of cats cradle with the "green?" that matches your green screen, so it looks like you can see through it. Very Sci Fi.
Btw. great episode. I've read a lot of those titles.
Owner of this channel was arrested for pedophalia. Michael Everts , google him
In Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury accurately predicts the rise of internet-based social media. You could do a whole video on the fireman's wife.
He sure did and the isolation it would cause. He also predicted the ban politically incorrect movement at a time when most banning was right wing.
100% agree that the Speaker for the Dead is the strongest booking the Enderverse. Great list, thanks. And so it goes.
Thanks e
You missed the point of using children it wasn't they thought differently from adults it was the did not realize they were not playing a game.
The "powers that be" wanted the Bugs dead. They knew if they left it to the crews of the invasion ships that the adults would hesitate. By making the "Kids" believe they were just playing a Video Game the PTB were able to push home the attacks they knew would not otherwise be possible.
This is why "Speaker for the Dead" was possible as it explored Enders disillusionment at finding out what they actually did, without this disillusionment Enders Game is a stand alone novel as without the novel the original short story is just a great short in an otherwise forgotten SciFi anthology.
Good work on the list.
@GhostRider-sc9vu thanks, tho I'd challenge u on that a bit. I didn't want to go into the trickery and be too spoilers for the few who haven't read it. But I would contend the main reason that the smartest children were chosen was that the uncanny ability for the buggers to adapt to every new strategy humans came up with, all that was left was to find genius children...whom the buggers could not account for, since this would be our one big last stand. Surely a genius child would be as capable of resolving the "big lie" as much as a moderately intelligent adult...
What amazes me is how many of the so called 'banned' books were on my high school's 'suggested reading' list back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We read and discussed in depth one 'major' novel a trimester. As a freshman I read The Scarlet Letter, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and The Diary of Ann Frank, As a sophomore I read The Most Dangerous Game, The Fall of the House of Usher and Animal Farm. This should give you an idea what was taught.
Same here. And many of these books did not strike me or anyone in my life as controvertial.
Interesting collection. I have an autographed Ender's Game on my bookshelf, and Vonnegut went to my mother-in-law's high school. I once worked in a booth in a parking lot that was once Vonnegut Hardware.
This is a great list of the best of science fiction! I recommend them all.
Thanks for the list. I am adding them to my read list. Cat's Cradle looks cool when you are holding it since the V is being affected by the blue screen.
Just discovered your site. Well done! Banned books are always a fascinating topic for me personally. I always keep in mind, though, the difference in school libraries and public libraries. All schools are to take seriously the notion of 'in loco parentis', that is, the school is to act as parent for the students while attending school. NOt to take the place of parents (which some educations tend to do). Even Stephen King embraced this loco parentis concept, and, in an interview/Q&A went on to say yes, the school has the right to ban a book it believes (or believes the parents will) find objectionable). HOWEVER!, King said, once you're away from the school, run, do not walk, to the local public library where you will most likely find the objectionable book and check it out IMMEDIATELY AND READ IT! Information in such a book is important for you to know because that information (or mind set) is objectionable to some in positions of power, meaning it reveals what is wrong with the position held by those in power. And for a kid this is always first and foremost parental power. Now, here's where it gets super-intersting for me: what if the PUBLIC library has ALSO BANNED the book? I raise this point because it seems to me that most of the books in your video were banned by school libraries. Yes? No? Schools ban because parents screech loudly about a book. Could be one parent. Public banning, though. . . well, this is when what is objectionable reveals not just what is wrong with, say, some parent's viewpoint but reveals what is wrong with the viewpoint held by THOSE IN POWER IN THAT PARTICULAR COUNTY/CITY, meaning possibly a LARGE GROUP OF POWERFUL (I.E. LIKELY RICH, BUT NOT NECESSARILY) PEOPLE WHO CONTROL THAT AREA/COUNTY. THIS is when a banned book gets really interesting because it now reveals political agendas and most likely the REAL REASONS behind what laws are enforced in that particular area of the country. Case in point: the banning of Huckleberry Finn long before the pejoritive term for black or Afro-Americans was objected to. This book completely undercut all Jim Crow laws, revealing that they were not just racist, but downright evil in denying a whole people their inalienable rights according to the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. The highly realistic portrayal of Jim, and Huckleberry's gradual realization and coming to terms with the truth that Jim is a human being in all ways imaginable, just like Huckleberry is, and therefore, what is Huckleberry going to do now that he realizes this. . . Yeah, banned books are VERY intersting for historical research and for discussion in contemporary society, who's in charge and what do such people find objectionable. . . . . Great video, and it never occurred to me to consider ANY science fiction novel in such a list.
I love how cool the V looks on the Cats Cradle cover
Great theme for a video! Ireland in the mid-20th century followed the Vatican's black-list of any literature that wasn't in line with the church's total control of social norms. My mum was in secondary school in the early 60s, taught by Dominican nuns. But her teachers would bring in blacklisted books, e.g. Catcher in the Rye, and tell the girls it was an important work of literature that they *should* read. Good call to put Farenheit 451 at the top of the list, as a banned book about banning books!!! Also, I highly recommend the audiobook of A Clockwork Orange read by Burgess himself. He has a shouty North-of-England voice that puts a totally different flavour on it, especially the Nadzat! Loved your t-shirt collection too.... jealous!
Oh wow. I'll have to do my re read of Clockwork Orange as an audio book. That sounds great. I usually avoid audio, but for a re read it should work. Thanks
Take a look at Library Wars (in 3 styles, so you can choose which one is right for you, (manga, anime or live action movie). In Japan, the Media Betterment Act has banned anything critical of the govt, fairytales (which give kids unrealistic view of the world) and violent books/games/movies (because that promotes violent actions of people in the real world). The only bastion of freedom to read comes in Libraries which are protected legally...and thru their own Secuity forces (which are trained better than army or police).
One of the episodes has the Librarians smuggle into an art exhibit "The book of Prophecy", which the Gov't Media Betterment Bureau does everything to stop. That book is of course in reality 'Fahrenheit 451'.
It is the most important responsibility of libraries to offer collected materials and library facilities to the people who have the Right to Know as one of their fundamental human rights. In order to fulfill their mission, libraries shall recognize the following matters as their proper duties, and shall put them into practice.
Libraries have freedom in collecting their materials.
Libraries secure the freedom of offering their materials.
Libraries guarantee the privacy of users.
Libraries oppose any type of censorship categorically.
When the freedom of libraries is imperiled, we librarians will work together and devote ourselves to secure the freedom.
This is a great idea and a really interesting list. In what context were these books banned? I assume it was in schools?
I can think of a number of great Russian SF books that were banned in the Sovet Union - Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Strugatsky Bros' Roadside Picnic, Mikhail Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog. All really interesting reads, banned for political reasons.
yeah, it definitely varies, pretty often its school libraries and neighborhood libraries.
with the exception of 'enders game' which i started but couldn't finish, i have read and enjoyed all of this literature. i am amazed that someone has seen fit to ban such gems. wonder what they'd make of some of jeter's cyberpunk? farmer's "image of the beast" and sequal would probably leave them catatonic and drooling😶
And somehow I avoided talking about Delany on this list too
. Note, foreignors ignore anytime an American calls a book "banned" they literally are whining over nothing the books are easily available in US bookstores. He means it just ain't bought by libraries to put on shelves. US libraries won't buy satanic and communist and Muslim books and erotica, they are for yuppie christian property tax payers who pay the taxes. US has 1st Amendment, Americans have no idea what real banning is, they just want to let teachers push gay issues into grade school kids against Christian parents wishes.. No one bans books from American adults. By this logic alcohol is banned in US, it's not given free to kids.
I read Philip Jose Farmer books from the library when I was a kid. Including Image Of The Beast, Riverworld, The World Of Tiers series and A Feast Unknown. It is probably a good thing my parents did not know what I was reading at the time. I haven't checked but I am 99% sure someone has tried to ban some of that stuff somewhere at sometime.
Nothing draws attention to a book like a good old fashioned book ban. A friend of mine once woke up in the middle of the night in time to see his neighbor throwing a book in the ditch and lighting it on fire. Never found out what it was though.
wow, what a response to a book. ha
My great-grandfather threw '2000 Leagues under the Sea' into the fireplace telling my grandfather to "Stop reading that garbage as there will never be boats travelling under the water."
@@spacedinosaur8733 wow. So wild
When Slaughterhouse-Five came up, I asked myself if I wouldn't have preferred Cat's Cradle to put on this list. Now I see that you did. If there was an author to put on the top ten twice, it would have to be the esteemed Mr. Vonnegut.
Love the shout-out to Fantom Comics! I used to stop by there when I wrapped up rehearsal at Studio Theatre.
Awesome. I take the kids there sometimes to pick out Manga or comics. Super helpful staff too
Orson Scott Card wrote Ender's Game in 1985, when he was still fairly liberal in outlook (witness his recording of The Secular Humanism Revival Meeting). He was radicalized after 9/11 (witness his disavowal of The Secular Humanist Revival Meeting).
In Slaughterhouse-5, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. He has a cozy home in a zoo on Tralfamadore that he shares with Montana Wildhack. Vonnegut was a POW in Dresden when it was firebombed; his air raid shelter was the slaughterhouse of the title. He had often said that the movie adaptation of Slaughterhouse-5 was his favorite of the ones made from his books. I love it.
I did not see the film. I'll have to look for it
I've read and liked them all. Good reviews!
Wow. A great list.👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks GLL
I'm only at 5 of the 10 - I'm excited to read the others as our views are well aligned. Are you only into sci-fi? Because I would love to see similar videos for each genre
Awesome. I read other genres as well, but I mostly do scifi for this channel. I'm sure we could create a non scifi list pretty easily ..starting with The Color Purple, Beloved, any any number of LGBTQ+ titles
Hi Michael, I see that you've recommended Saga. I'm going to recommend you check out Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. One of the greatest comic books of all time, and it was a huge influence on The Matrix as well. There's sci-fi, sigil and Voodoo magick, time travel, metafiction, immense psychedelia, highly Lynchian moments and mindfuck maximus. It's Grant's magnum opus and several essays and even books have been written about it.
Thanks I was just talking with a friend about it, but I kept thinking they were talking about Lem's the invinceable...hilarity ensued..haha. thanks tho, I will check it out
@@FIT2BREAD Haha, nice. You'll definitely be hooked. It's a tough and long read, and has some incredibly wild ideas at play, but you've read Greg Egan, so it should be all good. You'll immediately notice several aesthetic and thematic similarities with The Matrix. A lot of the staff were given the comic as a reference point when they were developing the film even.
@@MirrorReaper1 very cool to know
If you had a good time with the graphic novels, you might like the trade paperbacks of Vertigo's DMZ by Brian Wood and Ricardo Burchielli. It is a near future, so I'm not sure if it counts as science fiction for this list, but it is similar to The Handmaid's Tale in that it is speculative fiction.
Thanks liam
Fahrenheit 451 is not only about burning books, but also about the offered and preferred alternative: mindless television shows...
A note on Handmaid.. not the first time I have heard the main character's name given as "off-fred". Her name is "of-fred" because she currently is being used by Commander Fred Waterford. The handmaids are considered so disposable they are not allowed to have names, they are named after their current user. If they change to another household either due to giving birth or failing to become pregnant their name is changed to represent that man instead, IE "of-glen".
An interesting selection.
I'd be interested to see a list of the most-often challenged SF books.
I'd bet Farenheiggt 451 and the Hanmaids Tale are high on the list for sf...but other books I think would be Catcher in the Rye, Beloved, The Color Purple and a bunch of LGBTQ+ titles unfortunately
@@FIT2BREAD I'd be looking specifically, though, for a list
1) specifically of SF books and
2) specifically which have numbers of challenges on record.
I expect that list is out there.
@arcadiaberger9204 there's definitely information to be held. One difficulty might be that there are so many little libraries, small schools and township etc. That might have banned books and it only was news in that small area...
Great list and video! As many have commented here, all these banned books are thought-provoking and make us analyse our lives and societies. I’ve read a few and want to get to others. A couple however might be too difficult for me right now, especially with their violence (Clockwork). Like you, I don’t believe in censorship, whether a full novel or bits in one.
Thanks 😊
Thanks vero
Thanks for the reading list. I’ve read 7 of the books here but a couple I don’t really remember so a rereading is required.
Enders Game is one of my favorite books and it begins an excellent series of books well worth reading.
Left Hand of Darkness was very unique to me. The concept of people being genetically modified to be both male and female was fascinating. A big burly Army General could have given birth to a child when he was a female. Well worth a read.
Hand Maids Tale is mainly being banned because we appear to be in the early stages of the story line. Those that are pushing a far right “Christian” nation don’t like the connotation that it is not ideal.
And of course “1984” was forecasting to what is going on today. This book ties in nicely with a Hand Maids Tale as to where today’s fundamentalists will lead us
One graphic novel series everybody should read: The Incal by Jodorowsky & Moebius. An absolute must. Thanks again Mike!!!
Thanks for adding it to the list K!
The inspiration for The 5th Element....
The main thing I know Orson Scott Card for is that he wrote Commodore 64 programs for Ahoy! magazine. Haven't read any of his SF yet
What an interesting topic! I had no idea that any of these books had ever been banned. I’m not sure if you mentioned where they had been banned, or when? Was it schools in the US, or some schools? I’m not sure how banning actually works :)
Yeah I wanted to strike the right balance between talking about the books and talking about them being banned. Most often it's school libraries or local neighborhood libraries. It's just takes a few people, with an agenda, on a school board to make it happen
@@FIT2BREAD OK. So "banning" a book takes like, two people? Citations wouldn't go far amiss. Not saying that someone somewhere didn't take a strong dislike to any or all of these. Just that I would have liked to have known where, when, and who.
"I’m not sure how banning actually works". It works to make the work a must read.
@TheRealPaulMarshall are any of the ones on the list more of interest to you than any of the others? I can fill you in on a few..it would be hard for me to dedicate the time to be super thorough. Some of these books have been banned hundreds of times and in different places sonits not as simple as listing, "here's the place it was banned." 1984 for example, I'm guessing, an exhaustive list could add another ten minutes to the video. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say you could find a thousand instances where 1984 was banned somewhere and somewhen
you're so right about the real motivations. Thanks for the list!
Thanks Z
I delayed reading 1984 for a long time because I was afraid of gratuitous violence but there wasn't as much as I feared
As long as you don't have a crippling fear of rats :)
And isn't this a wonderful way of banning books without banning books! Spread a rumour about its content such that people avoid reading it long enough to forget it exists!
@@tomspoors768 I would argue that is happening to Lovecraft's works right now which is too bad.
i have a question, this banned books list its like banned on your country or that they are more likely to get banned anywhere? i have to check if there are banned books on my country. also, i never thought fahrenheit might be banned anywhere, silly me. on saga i think its labeled for mature readers (i had read the first issues when it came out but didnt liked, i just wanted to read something else of brian since y the last man) so its ok to not handle it to your children heh.
No, nothing like that. The groups doing the banning are usually self-appointed groups such as parents in a school district or people in a small town. Think of concilmen in a fiefdom. What they do has no bearing on anything outside the fiefdom/small town. In fact, the bans rarely have any legal weight within the town. People will acquiesce in order to avoid a fight.
The USA is full of people who actively look for reasons to be outraged and screech about.
The 'banning' of books in the UK from schools, libraries and so on simply doesn't happen in the same way as it seems to regionally in the US: it simply does not happen at all, really. So we tend to view 'banned books' as ones where there have been legal cases around the publication or withdrawal of titles and most of these happened before 1970- the 1960s were the last time books came under fire in a big way in Britain by the law- D H Lawrence, Hubert Selby Jnr and so on- the only SF novels that were actually banned in the UK by law- meaning that the publishers were successfully prosecuted by the authorities were Charles Platt's 'The Gas' and Samuel R Delany's 'The Tides of Lust'- I think you've probably seen my video on this. Incidentally, I've read all of the books in your list too- mostly decades ago, since the majority are seminal works. Vonnegut loomed large, I think he'd have liked that in a way....enjoyed it, Michael, thanks.
Thanks I was curious about this, so thanks for weighing in with some education!
The only books that are "banned" anywhere in the USA are those that contain explicit pornography directed at children, usually graphic novels that contain explicit depictions of sex acts.
These laws have been falsely labeled "don't say gay" because, for whatever reason, some pro-LGBT authors think explict LGBT pornography is appropriate for very young (under 9 years old) children. One thing in particular are depictions of adults having sex with children or children having sex with each other (depicted in a positive way). Authors writing about straight sexuality only extremely rarely include such pornographic material when targeting books for children.
These books are typically "banned" from being REQUIRED class curriculum and are sometimes excluded from elementary school libraries. These books are still available at public libraries and anyone can buy them from Amazon, etc.
This is done on a State by State basis as the USA has no national curriculum.
The only book from this list that is banned anywhere is "The Handmaid's Tale" which is "banned" as above from some PRIVATE Christian schools because it's explicitly anti-Semitic and anti-Christian hate speech.
Great list, I've read most of them.
Thanks Ralph
I'm surprised you did not mention Behold The Man by Michael Moorcock. I read the book years ago and again just recently. I was confused with my second read (a different edition) because the book seemed altered and abridged from what I remember. I suspect some very powerful religions were able to exert their influence and have the novel significantly changed.
I wouldn't be surprised...I couldn't include it on my list tho, as I haven't read it
BtM was originally published as a novella in New Worlds magazine in 1966. Moorcock then produced an expanded version that was first published in 1969. That's undoubtedly the reason for your two differing memories of the story. It's probably a little too obscure to have been banned very often.
It was also adapted to magazine comics format in Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction by Alex Nino...
@@FIT2BREAD I read that book many years ago and dang if it wasn't ever banned I would be really really surprised.
Great episode -and the books almost like my top 10! 👏🏻
Awesome thanks
Enders game just seemed like Heinlein starship troopers fan fiction
I enjoyed Enders Game and especially its sequel more than Starship Troopers, but I liked that too. I might do a Starship Troopers reread soon. It's been a few decades since I've read it
I have read 6 out of 10. Asimov wrote one in which it took three sentient beings to create another sentient being. can't think of the title off hand. enjoyed this very much.
Taken from Genesis. God says "Let us create man in our own image." God being Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or in other words, Mind, Body, and Soul.
Thank you.
Great for you to make this.
You are So great. So Sweet.
God bless you.
As always I've got to mention you have the most amazing t-shirt game. I have an alarming quantity of t-shirts and just what you have to get through a video is amazing.
It awes me.
Thanks Walt!
The Handmaid's Tale is a magnificent book, even creepier now than it was when it first came out. I've read almost all of the books on your list.
Awesome. Which ones are u missing?
Ah yes, the absurd and creepy fantasy of what the left wishes conservative Christians were actually like
Children being recruited as soldiers: as if this didn't happen in many countries right now!😢
Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and 1984 were all required reading in my late 70s High School in of all places: Central Florida.
Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein and The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail.
Yes. Farnhams freehold gave my husband and I many hours of discussion.
Banned? I've read 9/10 of these, and have 8 in my library. No book should be banned, but I do agree with age restrictions.
Thanks for commenting
I find myself troubled by the notion of people banning books such as these when I find myself much more disturbed by slasher flicks or other violence-oriented material that pass as entertainment. I've read a few of the books on this list, others I'm familiar with their movie versions. I read voraciously as a child and I don't recall being irretrievably damaged by any of the books I'd read, as some of these ban-hungry adults seem to fear.
In middle school, I read a few books that a few adults would've crooked an eyebrow at. I remember reading "The Deer Hunter" and being completely drawn into it. If I could be said to be disturbed by any book, it was by "Lord of the Flies" and the barbarity of a bunch of schoolboys stranded on an island. I was saddened by the death of Piggy at the hands of other kids, but I don't think it caused me any lasting emotional damage.
Where has "parental guidance" gone? I don't believe the authors of these books were writing them to be mean; they were expressing matters that they had found disturbing, had experienced or were otherwise thought to interesting subjects worth writing about. There are a lot of dark, terrible things in this world that cannot be eradicated by simply banning and hiding them. Dark human matters will persist because we don't take steps to understand why they happen and to deal with the conditions that feed them. We don't need to ban books... just make sure that kids (and ourselves) are emotionally ready to deal with them and provide them with guidance when they have questions.
Do these ban-hungry adults fear that children will be damaged, or that they will learn to think for themselves?
This is now a creepy video knowing what we know about Michael
Michael?
I enjoy you channel. I looked into banned books because I had never noticed all of those books (and many others) were banned and saw that yes, they are. But by who and what’s the penalty of reading them? It seems like a bunch of nobodies made a list that nobody cares about or even pays attention to. It like a government making rules for people that live light years away. Who would care what they said. But keep up the good work.
Thanks Dennis
Ooooohh I've read most of these! I guess I'd be banned too! Haven't seen Saga before though - do you think that would be a good vacation book?
Hmmm. It reads super fast since it's Manga...I would lend you my copy, but I think you left already, right?
In Fahrenheit 451, there is a subtlety of language at work, the main character is not a firefighter, he is a "fireman". The "firemen" set fires, not stop fires, they are employed to burn books. Calling them "firefighters" gives a mixed idea of what they are and that might cause some initial confusion to people who are new to the book.
It amazes me how many of those I found in my Middle School library and I read them. It probably explains why I am such a free thinker, but I would much rather they be placed in High School due to the very adult content in some of them.
1984 was required reading.
I have read all but one of these. Now I have to find that one
Donna, which one are u missing?
My Favorite SF Writer was Theodore Sturgeon & his Book Venus Plus X was also banned...
He also wrote a couple of my Favorite Star Trek Originals, "Shore Leave" & "Amok In Time" & wrote the Pon Farr Vulcan Mating Ritual & the Vulcan Greeting "Live Long & Prosper" & hand symbol.
Also a couple of Twilight Zone episodes too.
Interesting fact I got to stay in the House Aldous Huxley lived in Ojai, CA
Philip Jose Farmer ended up on some ban lists as well.
That for sure would not surprise me!
Thank you for recommending _Saga_ - I have read and have all nine others; now I read this one, too.
People, read all of these with open mind and heart, and *fight* those who would like to stop you. _Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too,_ as Heinrich Heine so presciently wrote.
I'm not a big Manga reader. But really loved Saga
People who ban books should be banned from banning books. I read all of these except for the graphic novel, many of them when I was young, and am glad I did. Lots of irony in this list.
Vivian
This was a great video Michael, the banning of anything generally leads to more interest in it anyway. It's almost like an endorsement of whatever is banned.
Looking at the list of books from our point in time it seems ridiculous that they would have been banned at any point.
It also makes you wonder if they had not been banned would they have disappeared into obscurity or would they always have found a way into peoples book collections and become popular in their own right.
Yeah good question. I def think these all would have reached popularity regardless, but there's no denying that the attention from banning certainly made them more popular
I noticed you are a fan of some graphic novels and wanted to suggest one, with great art, about Brave New World which you can search for.
I was blown away, as some of these books I've read in high school. I am in Australia though.
Naked austronauts sounds like the Sally Forth comcis by Wallace Wood. lol. I agree. I'm not for banning books or censuring books as well.
Thanks for your comment
Except for Saga and The Handmaid's Tale, I've read the books on your list. For not having read The Handmaid's Tale I offer no excuse, but for Saga, well, comic books have been something I've not bothered with since I was a kid, and graphic novels have always seemed to me an extension of them. And, a bit of what's wrong with the anti-literate world of Fahrenheit 451. The thing I remember of Fahrinheit 451 is the active, coersive promotion of illiteracy, that no one reads because no one CAN read, no one knows how. And no one recognizes that this is a problem because, well, who needs it? You get everything on TV. Even interpersonal relationships. This is a direction in which I see the world moving, especially here in the U.S. Education today gets short shrift, almost as if it is a deliberate purpose to prevent children from learning. This is also a theme, less clearly, presented, in Brave New World. In that, people still read, but WHAT they read is closely controlled, and anything not approved is deemed "pornographic," a term which to them seems to have lost any clear meaning. Just unapproved. I'll have to look at some of your other videos. On the othe hand, I'm struck by your acceptance of the censorship of language itself. The elimination of words (midget, in this case, a word which had a specific, originally neutral meaning) on the grounds that they have come to be seen as offensive, without the recognition that whatever euphemism is selected, it soon becomes itself pejoritive. As an example, "mentally retarded" is now seen as offensive, but it began as a euphemism. "Challenged," the present euphemism, has already begun to follow this track to be used as a joke and a pejorative. What will replace it? Must we constantly race to replace words with something ever more euphemized?
Before I clicked on this video I KNEW that 1984 was gonna be on this list!!
I heard about SAGA but I haven't got my hands on a copy yet. It cool that Fahrenheit 451 made #1, which is a sort of like a joke.
Brave New World was one of the books we studied at high school when I was 14 back in the 60s. None of us had nervous breakdowns or required psychological therapy because of it. I guess we weren't snowflakes at the time. I've read most of these books and have enjoyed them. Perhaps it's because I love Sci-Fi and stories dealing with dystopia. I've even written a couple of novels myself dealing with subjects likely to get them banned
A banned book is a book that is no longer available to anyone as the government removes it from all locations and will not allow the sale of the book. These books are not banned, they are freely available on amazon and in the few bookstores that remain. Definitions matter, truth matters.
#1 and #2 should be mandatory reading for all students, probably around the 9th grade.
Good point
Clockwork Orange?
Viddy well, o my brothers!
Most of these books are on my favorite books list!!!
Kurt vonnegut was parodied in Superman as "Wade Halibut Jr".
Well-written books provoke thoughtful explorations of topics. Some folks seem to be frightened by such books. I agree that censorship should not occur as well.
They detest that people might have alternate viewpoints to their own
@@FIT2BREAD I’m a book buyer for a university bookstore. Books should prompt discussion.
Did you know that the UK due to the 2005 London Underground bombings in 2007 passed a law that illegalized the glorification of terrorism and as a consequence banned more than 200 works of Sci-fi, among them Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Captain Nemo is an Indian terrorist)? The penalty for owning, printing, distributing, trading or writing any such work in the UK is up to 7 years of prison.
Thats so pathetic geez. 20,000 Leagues...lord...let's add it to the list!
@@FIT2BREAD Not to mention that these 200+ works were just the Sci-fis - among other banned works were the autobiography by Nelson Mandela (the South African apartheid regime considered him a terrorist when he wrote it; by 2007 South Africa had for years recognized him as a freedom fighter) and the poem that inspired Mel Gibson’s movie Braveheart, Blind Harry’s “The Wallace” (approx. 1478-1488), even common history books. I am a Danish Sci-fi author btw., and in 2007 I contributed with a humorous story to a British anthology (Farah Mendlesohn (ed.): Glorifying Terrorism, 2007) protesting against the law that most Europeans saw a severe clamp down on the freedom of speech. As I resided in Denmark, the UK authorities couldn’t do much about it, but guess what … the US put me on a No Fly list! 🤐🤯 Also, btw., in 2001, shortly after 9/11 I attended a Sci-fi festival in France, and on our way home the border police in Charles de Gaulle airport held back many of us that carried Sci-fi books and magazines in our luggage for up to 48 hours. Apparently we were suspicious due to the rockets and explosions on some of the covers! 🚀
Sorry but this just isn’t true, 20,000 leagues has never been banned In the UK. It’s still freely available to buy and always has been.
@@johnloftus9025 It is available, yes, but nevertheless it is illegal according to the British Terrorism Act 2006, which prohibits any publication “indirectly encouraging the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism,” including “every statement which glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of such acts.” The fact that none so far have been prosecuted for owning, procuring, trading, printing or distributing the titles involved does not imply that they are legal in the UK - it merely reflects the lack of violations being reported, the police’s lack of will to take such reports serious, and the practice of the court system (prosecuters as well as judges find the law ridiculous and refuse to follow the political agenda behind it). If you still have doubts, ask Hal Duncan, Gwyneth Jones, Una McCormack, Charlie Stross, Lavie Tidhar, Jo Walton, Ian Watson or any other of the numerous Sci-fi writers who participated in the protests and had some works of their’s banned, or ask Christopher Priest, who - besides from being a splendid author of Sci-fi - until recently worked as a judge.
So who banned Slaughter House 5 and when and where was it banned? I have not heard that at all and the reasons given sound like its been banned here in the U.S. and it is not. Excellent book btw, the movie actually followed the book quite well compared to many other books turned in to movies, from what i remember.
They parodied Cat's Cradle in the Stingray episode "Pink Ice".
When I read Brave New World, I interpreted it as a warning against that society , other people seem to interpret it as an advocacy for what he writing about.