Ten Neglected Science Fiction Writers/Novels: Two Grumpy Old Men Who Discuss Science Fiction
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- čas přidán 13. 03. 2023
- They're old, they're grumpy, they know their SF and then some. In the first of a series-within-a-series looking at unfairly neglected Science Fiction books and writers, Steve (noted writer, collector, bookseller and allegedly dreadful gatekeeper and terrible elitist, apparently) and Graham (ex-bookseller and mega-collector) dig into the late 1960s to late 1980s to bring you some fascinating works you may have missed. How DARE they!
#booktube #bookcollecting #sciencefictionbooks #sciencefiction #bookrecommendations #sf #literaryfiction #fantasy - Zábava
These videos are an absolute delight.
Please create more if and when convenience allows. They are great. Love them.
I do want to get back into them, but I'm afraid my friend Graham has been a tad inaccessible of late, but we'll see.
The enthusiasm, passion and acumen exhibited by these two grumpy old men is truly inspirational. This format is greatly enjoyable. And comments like "a wonderland for the colorblind" bandied about, off the cuff and impromptu, along with so many others show both chaps to be deep wells of interesting perspective. Graham is an apt foil to Stephen and one can see, I think, why they are old chums. And crikey, OB, as co-executive producer, I'd best pony up some jingle! Pints all around...Cheers.
Your generosity is beyond touching, old chap. Well, you should have heard me and Garahm in our prime....more to come.
Love these grumpy old men videos just rambling on about SF, especially being a grumpy old man myself.
Thanks Daniel - incidentally, I think one of your recent comments got lost here somewhere, did see one from yesterday and can't find it now. Sorry about that, no idea where it's gone. CZcams is funny with comments sometimes, a few fall into black holes into alternate universes it seems...
let the Graham flow!
...oh he will, don't worry!
I checked out on amazon and Barnes & Noble, some of those are really rare and expansive. I see also that although we're the same age, I missed out on a lot of classic authors even if I have been reading SF most of my life. It's true that here in Montreal I didn't always find everything in bookstores and librairies. Moreover, as a french Canadian I read english properly only in my twenties, which put us in 1984, the year of the Buckaroo Banzaï.
I'm happy to live on this era because we can now find almost anything we want on the Web. Perhaps I will be able to satisfy my taste for classics.
Keep up the good work and Happy Christmas.
I came across this channel for the first time in December and quickly became a fan. This video is a prime example of what has kept me coming back. Great work @Outlaw Bookseller.
You're very kind, plenty more to come!
I just found them, and they're refreshingly themselves. They genuinely appreciate science fiction's entertainment value AND how it can also use interesting ideas and give a reader lots to think about.
I jumped straight onto Ebay after watching this, and bought the first Claudine St-Cyr novel (Deathstar Voyage) and Stress Pattern. The neglected SF writer idea is great. I'd love to see more of these videos! By a curious coincidence, I recently bought the NYRB William Sloane omnibus, which I'm looking forward to reading. Since you mentioned Lovecraft, I wonder if you've read the spoof Necronomicon, edited by George Hay and first published by Neville Spearman in 1978. It's wonderfully entertaining, and has contributions from Colin Wilson, David Langford, L Sprague de Camp, Christopher Frayling and Angela Carter. For my money, the best fake Necronomicon out there.
Yes, I recall that Book of Dead Names - and there was another one which I saw at the London Book Fair in 1986 which I never managed to find later. I know Christopher Frayling a little actually - he lives in Bath - but I've not seen him for a couple of years. I am intended to shoot a video about our encounters for the channel at some point, lovely man.
Big fan of the channel - these discussions of under-appreciated books / authors are my favorite. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying working through my stack of Malzbergs that arrived after your focus on him a few weeks back.
Cheers,
Shane
Many thanks Shane, for your tip and comments. Hope you like Barry's work- it's pretty intense!
I haven't even had a chance to watch this yet but I know it's going to be great. I love listening to Steve and Graham talk SF. I always learn so much. I want a feature film of Two Grumpy Old Men directed by Kenneth Branagh! Cheers!
I think we have the Coogan/Brydon of the SF world! Get them travelling to conventions doing impersonations of Asimov and Arthur C.Clarke.
It's the usual hour of SF nonsense with -dare we say it -experts struggling to recall all the sh*t they've read...
Despite me being a late adopter of Asimov and both of us having a fondness for ACC they're both a bit 'cancelled' these days due to dalliances of the naughty kind (allegedly). Please can we be Ballard and Vonnegut instead?
Outlaw Bookseller Harlan Ellison and PKD would be good too.
@@markkavanagh7377 Trouble is, I'd want to be both!
When digging through bins of forgotten SF it can be really hard to suss out the forgotten gems from the rightfully discarded.
I recognized a number of those covers and they were *such* unknowns that you had to put them back & think about where the money was going. We've ALL bought books on spec we regretted, when looking through old SF it's like a sea of them.
Now I find out I should've been bringing them ALL home?
This video is one to come back to.
As ever, Walt, it's great to see you posting here. Stay cool, my man!
I have never regretted buying Rex Gordon's "First to the stars".
Glad you talked about Lloyd Biggle Jr. Always appreciated his work from The Angry Espers to The Whirligig of Time and there's Bob Shaw and Barrington Bayley, whom you have previously spotlighted. I also have a soft spot for E.C. Tubb (Dumerest gets repetitive, but it's great stuff
for an afternoon's read) , Kenneth Bulmer, Chad Oliver, Theodore Cogswell and, as you said, the list goes on...
Have mentioned Chad O here a coupla times I think. I get frustrated trying to find a decent copy of the first Dumarest in a 1980s Arrow edition and although that was the final time they were reissued in the UK, I'm starting to think they didn't reprint the first one, which is weird. This was circa '84.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal My Winds of Gath is the Ace Double. The only Arrow of the series I have is Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun (1980 print)--all else is in Ace or Daw (I don't have the last couple German ones. Don't think they were ever published in English.) Thanks for your work--I enjoy seeing these versions I've only seen in the US printings.
I was partial to Bulmer's "Keys to the Dimensions" sequence, each of the first seven of the eight installments of which appeared as one half on an Ace double. The eighth and final volume - "The Diamond Contessa" - was a DAW solo effort. I met and shared a photograph or two with Ken Bulmer at a convention in Birmingham a lifetime ago.
I share your soft spot for Ted Tubb and the good work of Dumarest in ridding the galaxy of the Cyber infestation.
My first contact with Galouye's Simulacron-3 was the German show World on a Wire.
Yep, the Wenders thing. I keep meaning to get the DVD/BD as I've not seen it in around six million years.
It would be a big help if you added a list of the authors mentioned and the titles discussed.
In 'Embassy Town' by China Mieville there are aliens called the Hosts who, because of their language, can neither lie nor speculate.
It's not that one, but thanks for the shout. My fading memory tells me it's come up in at least two SF stories I've read...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Yeah, I seem to vaguely recall seeing it elsewhere. Eric Frank Russell or Damon Knight perhaps?
Wonderful episode 2GOM (who discuss SF). I’ve just discovered the channel and, since I’m a SF hoarder, I’m enthralled. Ok, I do say Sci fi. I’m American and older then you so probably won’t change. Have you ever thought of offering a service to humanity? Finding old Sci fi books that are only fondly half remembered by doddering fans (like me). Somehow, between the 2 of you, there should be entire libraries of obscure SF novels, at least in your heads.
There ARE vast amounts of obscure but interesting SF in our heads- and in our personal stashes. You'll see a LOT more yet!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal . Something to look forward to. Thank you for you service!
Being American is no excuse, it's an automatic guilty plea
Fantastic video, more please! Loving Graham the sidekick! Nice to see him getting a word in edgewise this time :)
@@grahambray5517 Congratulations :) Can't wait for the next video, got lots of stuff for the reading pile from this one, so many thanks!
Well, he's a good lad, y'know. We had fun making this, so be prepared to take back plenty...
...they'll never believe you, Mr Bray! By the way, I suspect our next video (before the one we spoke about) will be me interviewing you about your 'career' as an SF devotee.
Don't encourage him, you'll only get us committed to an endless series like this one! Oh, go on then....
Daniel F. Galouye made a big impression on me when I read Counterfeit World years ago (alternate title for Simulacron-3). It's one of the earliest books about virtual reality that I've come across, and is the kind of book it'd be great to see in the SF Masterworks line. There was the loose movie adaptation The Thirteenth Floor in the late 90s which I would have thought might lead to a reprint, but I don't think there was ever a tie-in edition released. I've also read Galouye's Dark Universe and Project Barrier, and I've picked up some others by him more recently: Lords of the Psychon, The Infinite Man, and The Last Leap.
Yes of course, 'Counterfeit World' is what I know it is- Graham's 'Simulacron-3' had me scratching my head a minute. He is definitely long overdue for a revival, I agree.
Hello, another thoroughly entertaining and informative video. After a 12 hour day, you have no idea how relaxing it is to have this playing as I unwind for the evening.
Our pleasure!
Excellent! Plenty of great suggestions, half of which I'd never of otherwise heard of. I read Stress Pattern years ago and while I don't remember much there's a few scenes I've never forgot. Specifically the transportation. I recently bought a few of his other books. Not someone you often hear mentioned on booktube.
I'll be tracking down a few of these suggestions sooner rather than later. The Hole in the Zero and The Year of the Painted World especially.
More videos with Graham on neglected and forgotten works and authors would be great.
You never know, you may get your wishes granted.
Hello, erstwhile companion in SF! Don't sweat it, there will be TONS more like this (take that in a literal sense). If you ever get over to the South West of England from Canada, Graham and I will be ready for a meet, drinks and SF chat!
Looking forward to the psychedelic SF video!
I'm looking forward to filming it, I'll certainly be working on it within the next week.
This is what I like to see and looking forward to more of these.
Ian Wallace, MK Joseph, RW Mackelworth, Felix C Gotschalk and John Lymington are totally new to me. Time Snake & Superclown is hard to get now and I think that's partly because an io9 article hailed it as one of the weirdest SF books of all time. It's great when an article or video gets people chasing down books like that but of course some disappear completely and never get reprinted, so you have to keep up. I was looking for Susan C Petrey's only book recently after an article mentioned it and a Franz Werfel novel that Bookpilled reviewed and couldn't see a single copy of either, at any price! The Petrey book used to be easier to find.
From looking at reviews, some of these are extremely polarizing, especially the Gotschalk novel. Graham said he was a David Zindell fan in one of your earlier videos, has he heard about the new novel that came out weeks ago?
Ian Wallace celebrated the end of his career with several spectacular potboilers from DAW. notably "The Lucifer Comet" (great cover), "Z-Sting" and "Heller's Leap". Well, why not?
I have a copy of the first of those. And yep, that's why I can't find the only Vincent King book I lack!
Just recently discovered your channel, loving it already! Great to see the knowledge of more obscure novels being accumulated because of what you've both read throughout the years. There are definitely some titles going to my TBR-list from this video.
Many thanks Mr Fly By Night (big "Xanadu" man myself!). Plenty more like this here and more to come. Watch the backlist, it will blow your mind!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I love the record (A Farewell To Kings) that is on as well 🙂. I was planning to watch some more of the video's you've already done indeed, I'm sure there will be some mindblowing stuff in there and it'll be worthwhile... even if it will cause my TBR-list to grow even more haha.
Just thinking about looking for my copy of Croyd the other day. A very strange and engaging book.
Strange & Engaging will be the name of my Weird Fiction imprint when I start my own publishing company - I wish! Good call.
How wonderful to see a celebration of William Sloane's two novels, each a horror/science-fiction hybrid that have stood the test of time and then some. What beautiful copies of both books, too.
Check out the NYRB Classics Omnibus, that's a stunning looking book too.
Love this!! Thanks for the great recommendations.
Cheers Tom! I was as tired as a dog when we shot this. Imagine what we were like thirty years ago when we had hair, functioning memories and several other friends beside us spouting the same kind of thing. It was insane. Plenty more like this here and more to come.
Just a suggestion for a series or video for you; the relationship between the SF movement and drugs, in particular of course the 60s and 70s, when the New Wave took over.
Great thought, Mark. I was also struck while watching this, when Stephen commented regarding hard SF vs Cyberpunk at first being a clash of generations but having eventual resolution, as analogous to the same thing that happened in music at that same time, when traditional rock met punk. Cheers.
I'll begin to look at this in the upcoming Psychedelic SF video and there will be more on this theme in future New Wave videos- it's pretty inescapable. And I read ALL the great classics of psychedelic/drug literature as a young 'un, a fascinating subgenre of non-fiction, especially for SF readers. Not that I endorse the usage of course!
I look forward to that.
The two of you rambling on simultaneously was a right chucklefest. 😆 And you are right, Matt IS the Man, Incisive, intelligent, good taste and [very] good-looking [emphasis mine!].
Thanks for the recommendations. For all, here's the list --
2:25 Ian Wallace
Croyd
Dr. Orpheus
8:30 M.K. Joseph
The Hole in the Zero
A Soldier's Tale
15:15 Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
Monument
The Light That Never Was
Silence Is Deadly
21:40 R.W. Mackelworth
Firemantle
Tiltangle
Shakehole
The Year of the Printed World
26:10 John Lymington
The Terror Version
The Vale of Sad Banana
30:15 Vincent King
Candy Man
Light A Last Candle
Time Snake and Superclown
Another End
38:20 Neal Barrett, Jr.
Stress Pattern
45:20 Felix C. Gotschalk
Growing Up In The 3000
52:50 Christopher Hinz
Anachronisms
55:20 William Sloane
To Walk the Night
The Edge of Running Water
1:00:05 Daniel F. Galouye
Dark Universe
Lords of the Psychon
Project Barrier
Simulacron-3
1:04:30 Neal Barrett, Jr. (DAW Editions)
The Karma Corps
Aldair In Albion
Aldair, Master of Ships
Aldair: The Legion of Beasts
Aldair, Across the Misty Sea
Many thanks for the list, Caliburn! Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, Matt is a natural born critic, he's very articulate and his taste and knowledge is developing very impressively, all kudos to him.
For Lloyd Biggle, Jr, I would add:
Watchers of the Dark
The book you mentioned which features aliens who can't lie sounds very much like " Embassytown " by China Mieville.
I've not read that Mieville, so it's not that...and I cannot think for the life of me what book it is, though this idea has come up a few times in different stories/books I think. But thanks for that bit of info!
Love the 'Candy Man 'Patrick Woodroffe cover. Tin Tin and Snowy (Steve and Graham?) Thanks as always.
I love Woodroffe, takes me right back to the 70s, our salad days...
Spectacular look back at some GEMs I haven't read. Heading to ebay and thrift books for a few of these. Great 👍 video. Be proud.
Croyd - very interesting 🤔
Yep, Graham can really pull the oddities out- he's very well read all round (sometime we'll do some mainstream literature and blow some minds in different ways), a real bibliophile. I'm very proud to say we've been good friends and work colleagues for around 35 years, he's a diamond!
Such a good video - how have I not heard or read Stress Pattern? Wow
Loved his Darkest and Dawn books. Definitely a capable writer.
CZcams gold.
Very kind, you are.
Another good session from the Grumpkins!
Most of the authors you discuss will be familiar to long-time readers of SF, but it's great that you are taking the trouble to introduce them to those discovering the delights of the genre.
Apart from the two novels, Sloane edited a number of SF anthologies in the 1950s, Stories for Tomorrow springs to mind as a good selection.
Galouye's Dark Universe is one of the best SF novels from the early 1960s, and was popular too. It was shortlisted for a Hugo Award.
I'll look forward to more of these rediscovery sessions, maybe go for even more obscure stuff next time. Here are three suggestions to get you going:
The Unsleep
Facial Justice
No Man on Earth
I have read the L P Hartley (in Oxford 20th Century classics edition) and have the Walter Moudy, but haven't read it yet. But I don't know the other one. Problem with a subject like 'Obscure Books' is there are so many potentials and I often feel I need to re-read books to do justice to the authors. But life is too short...!
@grahambray5517 The Unsleep was published around 1960 and posits a future in which sleep becomes unnecessary, Graham. The authors, Diana and Meir Gillon, were psychologists I believe, and they wrote well. It was published in hardcover by Barrie & Rockliff, I can't recall the paperback publisher.
Thr Walter Moudy is a short first novel that showed a lot of promise.
@@grahambray5517 I couldn't agree more!
@@grahambray5517 -It was reissued as a Penguin Modern Classic a couple of years ago- always highly rated by critics, that one.
@@leakybootpress9699 That sounds fascinating James. I recall a Ballard story about a sleep deprivation experiment that was pretty good too.
Another useful video - so many authors I'd never heard of! A real education. Have you ever reviewed/explored the work of Clifford Simak (I sometimes feel that he is neglected by the SF community). What do you think?
We've both mentioned Simak a few times. I personally find Simak overrated and always have done, though I am intending to read more. 'City' gets a lot of mentions on SF booktube these days. For me, he's a clunkier Bradbury (who I much prefer) but he seems more popular now than he was in the 80s, when I found it a real struggle to sell his work.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thanks for your reply. I shall have to revisit him. Perhaps my memories are a little rosier than they ought to be. I recall a lovely playfulness, particularly in Simak's shorter fiction. There was a refreshing inventiveness, and sense of surprise. Sheckley was another of my favourites and for similar reasons.
Dark Universe - that one I do remember :-)
I've read most of Daniel Galouye's books and I enjoyed them all!
I've just finished reading 'Dark Universe' - the SFBC edition, as it happens - and it left me wondering why I'd never heard of Mr Galouye before. It's easily as good as anything produced by the Big Four.
Yes, it seriously needs reissuing, been OP in the UK since the 70s. Your mention of the 'Big Four' is something Graham and I always talk about- are they are as good as people say, maybe people should look beyond them (I did from the start, personally). We think there are neglected masterworks from every period of SF history and we will reveal more here as time goes on...
@@outlawbookselleroriginal As to the Big Three (not Four - that's my incipient senility showing), I've always been baffled by the popularity of Heinlein who at most wrote 3 pretty good - though not great - novels. Asimov I thought was the bee's knees when I was at school and then I went off him when I got into new wave sf. Have started reading him again of late and have a new-found appreciation of his work. Mind you, I never lost my enthusiasm for the Foundation trilogy (though I've no love for its prequels and sequels). Clarke has done some cracking stuff and some stuff I find quite boring. 'Rendezvous for Rama' will always have a place on my bookshelf; not so its sequels. And as to 'Childhood's End', I think it mediocre at best and will never understand why people harp on about it.
Of course, it's all subjective so I wouldn't expect anyone to take my opinion as anything but my opinion.
That bank thing is probably a ledger stand. My dad was a bank manager and I remnember all the gear they had behind the counter.
You're probably right, Mike, as Graham's dad was a Bank Manager too (lovely man, sadly departed - second time he met me, Graham said "You remember Steve, dad?" and he said "Oh yes, once seen, never forgotten," which I could only take as a compliment!
Croyd blew my mind when I read it back in the day, in fact most of Wallace's books did (I read 8 books by Ian Wallace). He felt like a more erudite version of A.E. van Vogt. I didn't know this until I looked just now, but he was a practicing clinical psychologist.
Yes, he has that Van Vogtian wild strangeness.
I only discovered Sloan recently, in the Omnibus you mentioned. I have described the novels as a Lovecraft story written by Chandler with characters and pacing out of a Fitzgerald novel. This may be hyperbole, but I loved these stories. Read the first novel in one sitting. Extremely rare for me.
Yes, they're science fiction, but so is most of Lovecrafts later oeuvre.
Yeah, I think with HPL, people get bogged down into trying to categorise him in one genre: I think the Mythos stuff is SF, but here's also pure Supernatural Fantasy as well, right? I must get that omni, been meaning to for ages!
Eric Frank Russell (I have thick book of his short stories as well as some great novels). Wonderful stories from Dear Devil, to wasp.
I've heard of most of these writers but the only one I am really familiar with is Neal Barrett Jnr, although I don't have the book you featured. My favorite by him is The Hereafter Gang which features one of his usual trailer-trash heroes who, at some point, dies and goes on to the afterlife, or does he? It's a huge rambling book full of humour and could probably do with some severe editing but I loved it. His short stories and his crime novels are entertaining too. In some ways he reminds me of Joe R Lansdale who was a friend of his.
Yes, that was one of his most commercially successful titles I recall. Again, a scribe due a revive!
Commercial success? Who cares. Give me Barrett's wonderful and remaindered Aldair novels any day.
I think the book you are talking about where the aliens can't lie and actually considered humans who lied to be broken and stamped them to death was Footfall by Pournelle & Nivens
Yep, that would be one of them, but I'm thinking the other one niggling at my consciousness is a short story by Damon Knight but I can't recall the title...I'll find it among the archive here oneday!
psychedelic sf sounds great, getting high without taking drugs
Much safer! Good SF is as life-changing as any such experimentation!
Interesting picks of people who've dropped off the radar. Another example being Spider Robinson, whose Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories were incredibly popular in the US in the 80s and 90s. They even had a computer game adaptation which was very good. Nowadays? Completely forgotten!
Yes, Spider was 'the new Heinlein' for a while. I think Graham would agree that these kind of 'midlist' writers can be more interesting than the obvious bestsellers.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal He certainly was. I read somewhere that in the pre/early internet days, the Spider Robinson BBS server (chat room) was the most popular BBS in existence, which I think tells us a lot about the kind of person who used the internet in the early days!
What are the rules regarding the copyrights for the illustrations on book covers? I ask as the cover to Vincent King's 'Another End' that you held up has the same illustration that's on the Pan pb version of John Boyd's 'The Rakehells of Heaven'.
I'll be honest and say I don't know, but it's probably a licensed period copyright as a commercial bit of art. John Shirley's wild 'Transmaniacon' has the same cover as a Poul Anderson novel. This rarely happens now. In the mid 80s in the UK, I knew of 7 works of fiction that used Friendrich's 'Wanderer Above The Sea of Mist' simultaneously in print as a cover illustration- the definitive work of Romantic painting.
Christopher Hinz - Anachronism book was recently rewritten as "Starship Alchemon."
I have both versions - similar but the differences would be a spoiler if I mentioned them. Regardless can't go wrong with either one.
Reading it decades ago I picked it up thinking it to be just a B movie 🍿 recycling of Alien....
But nope - much better and exotic and still terrifying.
Good to know, JT. I need to get a copy of this as Graham rather sprung it on me...
Hinz's Paratwa trilogy is not to be sneezed at in the hayfever season.
Once again your that bucket of water In the face good video you and gram
Yes, I feel refreshed now!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I idol you a person can learn alot of knowledge from you I kno I have thanks sir
There was a book...a quiet place...about astronauts who return to a future Europe which has gone back to the stone age. Cant find any reference or authors name. Great story. Do you know it?
Yes, 'The Quiet Place' by Richard Maynard. It was a Souvenir Press hardcover I think and a Grafton paperback, late 1980s. I read it in paperback when first published.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal It was a great book. I still remember the scene where the big fellow, Barry, who had lost a leg, stood alone fighting off the savages so his friends could escape. Thank you for the help.
@@davidkleinman5002 -Your title was correct, in future, just try Amazon as you can do a fuzzy search there- in other words, if you are out by a letter or two, it will usually come up anyway. But feel free to ask me, all part of my jam.
CZcams comments are weird. They appear in my notifications sometimes, but click the link and then they're gone from the page. For the person who asked, the Big Four are Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke and Herbert. There'll be another video on me and Graham's Big Four to come....handbags at dawn!
Frank Herbert? How did he weasel his way from the sub's bench into the game? He has never been mentioned in the same breath with Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov, the original Big Three, overrated though the three be. The Three sold sf aT the beginning of the 40s. Indeed, Heinlein was published as early as the late 30s. Herbert's prose saw the light of day in the mid 50s (with the exception of one appearance in 1946). The overrated Three were long and well established by the time Herbert came to the genre's attention with Dune in the mandraxtastic mid 60s. In any event, none of the four merits the acclaim that distinguished reviewer and critic, Damon Knight, bestowed on the best writer bar none, living or dead, an opinion shared by all science fiction writers of consequence, living, dead. or living dead. This is what Damon Knight says of the author in question in the 1967 second edition of his book, "In Search of Wonder", published by Advent: "Another is the shock of recognition. In a field noted for cardboard characters, (his) people are bitterly, sharply, unforgettably real". Quite so. My toughts exactly the first time I read this wonderful author's early work. Damon Knight continues (about one of the author's earliest novels): "This book is remarkable. to begin with, in a way its extrapolations have been handled. " He aso states "This is not the end of the wonder. There's the tension. ******* has caught and intensified the bare nerve tautness of our own society at its worst, and put it on paper here so you can see, hear, feel and smell it. Then there is the plottiness. Thix is architectural plotting, a rare and inhumanly difficult thing and who in blazes ever expected ******** to turn up as one of the few masters of it?" Of all the authors who have graced the genre, yesterday or today, there isn't one - not one - who can match this colossal sf phenomen. GUESS WHO?
@@dirdirpnume6447 -Off the top of my head I'd guess Sturgeon, but I think by the time Knight wrote that, it could have been any number of writers.
Regarding 'The Big Four', refer to chapter XV (" How To Be A Dinosaur") of Brian Aldiss' 'Billion Year Spree' (1973), revised in a second edition with David Wingrove (1986) and retitled 'Trillion year Spree'). A landmark history of SF by a mutiple award winner, of course. Int his chapter Aldiss addresses the commercial success of SF in the 1960s-1970s and identifies Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein and Herbert as the writers most people in the street would name if asked to select 4 SF writers - and this os on basis of commercial success. That's the sense Graham and I were using 'Big Four', not in the Knight plus one sense. Apologies for our lack of clarity. So think of the 1960s -'Dune', 'Stranger in a Strange Land', ''2001: A Space Odyssey' - and of course these four kept producing physically big books and sequels of bestselling status into the 1980s -when of course Asimov did the same with the late Robot & Foundation series.
So am I right re Sturgeon? You gotta let me know! Also, on Big Four critically, I'd go a very different way personally. Good comment though!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal By Timothy Bushell, IT Director at CourseMonster
The "big three" are Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. It reminds me of a book, whose author and title escape me, where all the famous science fiction writers of the time are summoned to help in a global emergency. Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein are depicted as the elders of the group - impatient with the younger members.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Defining Science Fiction: Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov
By Brian Hoey. Jul 7, 2019. 9:00 AM.
Topics: Legendary Authors, Science Fiction
Defining science fiction has always been a tricky proposition. It has been suggested that "you know it when you see it," but that hardly seems a sufficient rule. Still less helpful is the notion that the science fiction moniker applies to any fiction dealing imaginatively with concepts borrowed from science. The fact of the matter remains that select staples of the literary cannon have displayed an interest in science from Shakespeare’s work through the likes of Thomas Pynchon. This does little to change the fact that when we speak of science fiction we hardly ever mean The Tempest (1610), and we usually don’t mean Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) either.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Defining Science Fiction: Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov
By Brian Hoey. Jul 7, 2019. 9:00 AM.
Topics: Legendary Authors, Science Fiction
Defining science fiction has always been a tricky proposition. It has been suggested that "you know it when you see it," but that hardly seems a sufficient rule. Still less helpful is the notion that the science fiction moniker applies to any fiction dealing imaginatively with concepts borrowed from science. The fact of the matter remains that select staples of the literary cannon have displayed an interest in science from Shakespeare’s work through the likes of Thomas Pynchon. This does little to change the fact that when we speak of science fiction we hardly ever mean The Tempest (1610), and we usually don’t mean Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) either.
Thee best Sci-fi album/music,
Quark, Strangeness and Charm original album circa 1977 by Hawkwind.
Trust me.... friggen classic.
....I play it frequently in my Tesla...almost daily
There is a video devoted to it on my channel. In fact there is a Hawkwind playlist with several videos where I analyse their records with a focus on SF. Been a fan since 1973!
@@outlawbookselleroriginal
Cool. Oxygenie by Jarre is another musical gem for reading to.
@@AcmePotatoPackingPocatello - Used to chill to it all the time late 70s. Still own it, ex-synthesist myself.