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Not listed that I really enjoy include: Phule's Company by Robert Asprin - a more humorous take on MilSF. The Childe Cycle, tragically unfinished by Gordon R. Dickson; The Thousand Worlds by Joel Rosenberg; and the classic Lensmen series by E.E. Smith. :)

The movie and book should be considered two separate media products. Other than the names of the characters and the movie, they share little else. The movie missed all the important issues Heinlein dealt with while trying to be hip and sarcastic. In the book, the Federation, the government is a limited franchise democracy. It is not a dictatorship. It is not a militaristic society like Sparta. All adults have the same civil rights. The only difference is that only vets vote and make political decisions. This is similar to the early Roman Republic and the Greek city-states like Athens (without the slavery or reduction of women to barely human). The vote comes from Federal service. Not all Federal service is military. Had Rico not gone MI, he could have ended up being a test dummy for environmental suits on Pluto. Federal service required serving society in some manner in which you risked life and limb. All service is voluntary and the Federation does things like stationing a double amputee NCO at the reception desk to test the commitment of the wannabe recruits. Rico's parents try to discourage him from enlisting. They are quite comfortable and don't see the point in risking your life for the vote. The military in the Federation is all volunteer. Even in training or service, you can quit, tell your supervisor you want out, and you get discharged with no other impact other than you will never be given a second chance to earn the vote. The Mobile Infantry is not a mob of light infantry with no heavy weapons or armored vehicles in support. All ground units are combat units, such as the combat engineers we see later in the book. All have armored powered suits, equipment that probably costs far more than the US Army spends on recruit training, which can reach over $120K. You don't waste assets like that, though a direct offensive to the enemy's home world doesn't seem like a good idea. It's such a bad idea that Rico spends the rest of the book serving in a platoon conducting "hit and run" missions. Finally, there's the enemy, the Arachnids. In the book they are an advanced species, using starships and ground combat energy weapons. When Rico joins, both sides have been involved in "border incidents". Both sides want the same real estate. Neither can trust the other enough to share worlds or delineate sphere's of influence, though the "border incidents" imply such a thing. The other sentient race, the "Skinnies" also need Earth like worlds, but they are powerful enough to stand against either side, starting as Arachnid allies and then changing over to the side of the Federation. The "hit and run" on the Skinnie planet shows that the war is not simple violence, but organized violence intended to produce a political result, a perfect definition right out of Clausewitz. The humans of the Federation are not xenophobic, they just face the facts that the Arachnids want the galaxy on their terms and they'll kill every human they have to, men, women and children. So humanity faces the stark reality of fighting to a desired political end state (the Arachnids disarmed and restricted to their home system sounds good) or rolling over and being on the wrong end of a peace treaty or an extermination.

I just finished Legion of the Damned last week, I liked it. Didn't know it was a series, I only knew about the one sequel that was listed in the back of the copy I read. I get what you are saying about the sexual part, I just looked at it as part of the story. Could look at it as an alagoie to the end times of Rome, I could see a few similarities to Caligula.

I wouldn't say that there were no psychics in the book. In that last battle scene, that young man comes out and senses the bug tunnels underneath their position. And there's a lot of hypnotherapy in the book.

...oh about that what makes earth special. It happend in the carboniferous. To be more exact, it didn't happen in the carboniferous. The fact that a lot of biomater was accumulated and notthing evolved that could digest it. This became our coal and oil reserve. And those gave our civilisation a hughe boost that allowed us to jumpstart our civilisation with "free" energy. This could be the fluke that helped us trying to reach the stars?

About the great filter, the best exploration of that is "universe 25" great story about mice!

The General Series, Hammer Slammers, Belisarius and RCN all by David Drake. The General co-authored with Steve Stirling, Eric Flint, and Tony Daniel, Belisarius by Eric Flint. Though you can call all of Drake's work military Science Fiction since his own time serving in Vietnam was always a major influence on his work. Now, a series of novels you are very unlikely to have heard of, all written by the same author. Amazon kindle published: Death Dealer Saga by Jessie Wolf sadly the first in the series isn't showing in my amazon search but I have my own copy of the first 8 books from when she posted them free on a different site.

Communication is a key topic in CJ Cherryh’s Chanur series. The methane breathers are definitely not aliens that humans would recognise as sentient. Or have any idea how to communicate with.

Honestly my favourite might be The Martian - no matter how many times I watch it I love every minute of it. But Edge of Tomorrow, The Terminator and some of the Marvel movies are up there.

Another book exploring the idea that intelligence isn't sentience is the third Children of Time book, Children of Memory. Some interesting conversations with characters who have intelligence but perhaps not sentience, and how difficult that could be to determine.

You highlighted some fantastic books. You might be interested in Why We May Be the Only Intelligent Life in the Universe with David Kipping of Cool Worlds. He has a few videos and gives compelling reasons why we are alone. Great content. Oh and Scavengers Reign. WOW. Thank you.

Jack McDevitt’s Academy Series and Alex Benedict series deals with humans finding all sorts of alien civilization ruins on different planets and moons, and the attempts to understand, preserve, and occasionally steal alien artifacts.

Great recommendations, there are a few I haven't heard of and will definitely check them out. I recently finished the "Empire of Man" series by David Weber and John Ringo. Four books, very entertaining, but simultaneously too long and too short. The main character is royalty, so he has entire regiment who are his body guard, has no real military experience to speak of despite, being their commanding officer. Well written, very original, good character development, and imperial politicking and backstabbing.

So fascinating! I love thinking about/reading about all this stuff. (Even though most of it is way over my head.) I am saving this video for when I am able to dig into some scifi. It's been a while. Off topic, but I love your kinda 80s/90s outfit / earrings vibe! A bit of the early XF Dana Scully jacket look.

What a very creative look at the Fermi Paradox. I hadn’t considered categorising the many and varied possible answers to this question so this was a really good video. It threw up a number of possible reads. Good presentation. Thank you.

This was great! I added: Blindsight, A Fire Upon the Deep, and Roadside Picnic to my TBR. Love your channel- such class and fantastic styling.

Whoa! Love this idea. For humans exploring space (and time), I remember being blown away with the ideas posed in Asimov's 'End of Eternity'. Unfortunately, it's marketed as a romance... It's definitely got some flaws, BUT the ideas are there.

I'd like to bring to your attention 2001: A Space Odyssey by Author C. Clark, 1968. Written in conjunction with Stanley Kubrick's movie of the same name. The books purpose really was to explain the movie. The premise is that a super-intelligence gave our ape ancestors that extra something to evolve into us. Then they set a "trip-wire" on the moon to alert them that we've advance so far. This book could fall into may of your categories. #2, too incomprehensible to communicate. #5, they are already here - since they set us up in the first place. #6, that super-intelligence was not sentient, at least not in the way we know it.

Interesting! Where does the alien contact visualized in David Brin's novel Existence fit? Other civilizations who seed the galaxy with contact in the form little globes of self-contained virtual worlds full of virtual intelligence copies of species basically advertising their existence and their civilizations?

The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino & George Zebrowski fits the Dark Forest hypothesis. Thanks for the video!

13.29 - Invincible is spelled like this. I'd suggest One Punch Man, and Outlaw Star. If we are adding movies you might like Mars Express.

Many great topic you have a great mind well done for creating a great vid never thought there was so many different ways to look at aliens life or no life I have to say my tbr is far too long after watching many of your books

This is such a great idea to create a recommendations list. So many added to my TBR!

One of the best "There are none" book series I know are Ken Macleod's "Fall Revolution" cycle. Doesn't speak of the Great Filter - the aliens simply aren't there. Some of my all-time favorite science fiction books.

Lost Ancient Civilizations is one of my favorite tropes. It started with the Forerunners in many of Andre Norton's books and continued with: the Tar -Aiym Krang in Alan Dean Foster's Pip and Flinx series, the qhal in the Morgaine books by C.J.Cherryh (you had to know I would mention Cherryh), Jo Clayton has her character Skeen go from planet to planet stealing...I mean searching for Alien Artifacts, and the Alien Remnants in the Murderbot series by Martha Wells always complicate things. Several of my favorite books all sharing a similar background setting.

Great video! Loved the books from the "sentience is not prevalent" category. Adding the ones from the "they are already here" category to my tbr because they sound like so much fun 🚀👩🏼‍🚀

Dune had a small bit relating to the “ancient civilizations” concept. There are no known aliens in Dune, but at one point they found what was believed to be ancient ruins on a planet. However, it was also theorized that the God Emperor Leto II may have had the ruins placed there secretly because he enjoyed messing with people over his 3500+ year reign.

Not a book, but Terry Bisson's short story "They're Made of Meat" fits in intentionally ignoring us.

The Hercules Text By Jack McDevitt - An alien message was sent to Earth millions of years ago. What is mankind's reaction to it when it reaches Earth - & to a second message that is even more astounding - containing knowledge that will boost human progress to an unimaginable degree.... Slow Lightning, (AKA Infinity Beach) by Jack McDevitt - Greenway is one of the "Nine Worlds" colonized by humans. Dr Kim Brandywine (I love that name !) investigates the disappearance of her sister on an ill fated space trip seeking "The First Contact Experience". It's very X-File-ish, with lot of detective work, albeit in an alien environment. Several scenes in it raised the hackles on my arms & back, which is probably why Stephen King recommended it.... Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman - Mankind has discovered instant teleportation to other planets (!) & discover an alien species with a weird way of communicating. Told in a disjointed way, but the suspense accumulates, so it didn't bother me too much. Most readers say that The Forever War is Haldeman's best book. I'll have to look that one up, as I liked Mindbridge quite a bit. & I've just begun Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke - it's shaping up to be one of those mind-blowing reads...

This might be my new favourite video you've done. Damn girl!!

The recommendations I was looking for!!! Thank you!!

Oh, this is great! Great video, thank you! And I think I'm going to read Blindsight. It is time!

A profound topic. I've thought about it several times. I love many of the books you have discussed. This list has some stellar reads and several I haven't read. Fantastic video

Also #2 The Expanse is about a long dead alien virus? Remnant?

I’ve said it before. Your channel is sooooo underrated. Great content and great production value. I appreciate the work that you put in all those videos. Greetings from Switzerland. Yeah, I’m that one. 😊 I always find a book that interests me. This time it was Poul Anderson Brain Wave. Really excited to dig into that one.

When discussing #4, location, you kept saying universe when from the context, galaxy would seem to be more appropriate. If it really is our location in the universe then we are totally screwed, makes moving to another place in the galaxy child's play in comparison.

Fabulous!

Nice video, some great books in there! 👍🚀📚👽🔫

every time I watch one of your videos my TBR gets longer.

I'm reading Axis the second part of Spin. I'm also reading Generation of Vipers, but I think it would be a much more thought provoking book if "the seeds" were to help us against another "enemy", but as humans do, try to kill it before we know it is supposed to help.

They're out there. They took one look and decided they don't want anything to do with us! p.s. no alien life forms in day of the triffids, they are entirely terrestrial and theorized to have been bio-engineered, for oil production, by the soviets.

The Uplift Universe by David Brin May fit in the cosmic barrier/gatekeeper theory.

The Dark Forest Theory changed my views on SETI after reading The Three Body Problem -- a high concept book.

Answer #5 Movie They Live!

If I was an alien I wouldn’t visit us! The earth is a mess. War, famine, disease, Elon… Plus rents are too high and Netflix cancels everything good!

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It's a dark forest, dude. Keep your head down! I like alien artifact books like McDevitt's Engines of God. The movie The Day the Earth Stood Still is a good one for aliens ignoring us until we reach a certain level of technology. Klaatu barada nikto! Is there a theremin playing? Maybe the aliens are already living here like in the movie They Live. I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum. Reality or The Matrix? There is no spoon.

I know people have said this before, but I've never hit play faster than when I saw this video!

Had to pause the video to go to work but just a quick comment to say that IMO The Terminator is by far and away the best movie of that franchise. A perfect closed loop time travel story that works on every level (character, story, action, SFF content). T2 can't match it.

The Gears of War book series was great. Karen Traviss is a fantastic author.