@@helpfulcommenter I think for some reason Patricia Lockwood had a really weird experience meeting Wilson. That is a problem about one book wonders--they had it together for one book and then everything they shat out got published.
".......and even when he knew them to be Fascists he didn't seem to be bothered by the fact, and that it tied into this upstart, my first Nietzsch'eanism, power fantasy that he seemed to be on......" is one of the best, most brutal and eloquent criticisms of an author I've ever heard.
I keep saying that the art of the hate read is alive and well. Thank you for suffering for our entertainment--I mean, uh, thank you for your efforts to support my working hypothesis.
"the art of the hate read is alive and well. " Is that similar to the spite read? Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite writers, but "Years of Rice and Salt" was so bad it made me angry. So bad that I decided I would not give him the satisfaction of putting it down.
I loved Project Hail Mary, but I also love your total revulsion of it. Frankly I'm here to expand my knowledge of SF and I appreciate your dedication to reviewing pretty much everything and giving fair reviews with receipts.
I'm listening to it on my commute, and I'm too far along to quit, but man, I am bothered by some of the humor... Perhaps it's the presentation of the reader more than the writing, but I've had to shut it down once or twice. I will finish it.
PHM was great, but of course I understand Bookpilled’s hate for it. It did drag a little. The woman character (cant remember who) was pretty irritating too, like she doesn’t feel like an actual person
You're at your best when you're being negative. It's a quality that most booktubers lack. What sort of positive relationship can we expect to have with literature if we don't articulate what we don't like or want?
Short story collections can be brutal. I have the hardest time with them unless the writer is primarily known for short fiction ala Bradbury or Sturgeon.
I agree. This past Spring I read The Best of Cordwainer Smith, an author much beloved in his time. He had ideas but was very clumsy putting them into a short story. Over all a bad read.
They often feel like a publisher has said "give me all your drafts and first cuts on things, and we'll put them in a book and we'll make some money because you're already famous". I recently read a Silverberg collection that was exactly like that, just a bunch of half baked ideas that went nowhere
Very much appreciated your deep dive into Spinrad. I've only read one of his books. It did nothing for me other than leaving me mildly revolted (The Men in the Jungle). I've often wondered if I was missing something given the level of esteem he's garnered. You've put my mind at ease.
Loved Project Hail Mary!...I will have to read the other 4 and see what I think! I’m new to the SF/ Fantasy genre so I find everyone’s point of view so interesting! Great channel…I enjoy watching!
How you felt about Project Hail Mary is kind of how I feel about every hyped book. It is almost as if all very hyped books are written for people who dont read much at all or read much of a specific genre. Nothing wrong with that since it gets people reading, but 9 times out of 10, the hype books are “meh” at best.
@@douglasdea637 Eon's been sitting on my shelf for...eons! Almost picked it up about a year ago, but...nah. I almost regretted not buying Anubis Gates when I had the chance, mostly because of positive reviews. But have since become convinced that my original intuition was the right one.
Very interesting to hear your opinion of the Spinrad collection. i didn't honestly love the Iron Dream; it was one joke carried on for 200 something pages, more memorably interesting than actually a good read in my opinion, but it's also a book that I think about sometimes, so to that end it's certainlya chieved something. It's kind of a fun book o trya nd describe to people, isn't it? On the other handd, "Dated" could be one word to describe Hail Mary in a few decades, but I just finished it and found that I enjoyed it. A friend of mine was reading it and said they wanted to talk about it, and it took me a while to really get goign with it, as when i started my first thought was, Oh man this writing style, this is going to be rough. But because they were unsatisfied with the book club group discussion they had around it and really wanted to talk about this book, I persevered and read through it in a few days. I don't remember any vulgarity or sex content at all -- curious what you might be referring to there? -- but what I did feel was that the protagonist gave us his internal monologue in present first person throughout (except for the flashbacks) and his voice was, rather than taht ofaan edgelord, that of a dorky kid. But after a while I just decided to embrace it to an extent. I liked the problem solving, and enjoyed the first contact aspect. The science (and math even) exposition was heavy but it was done in a way taht I thought was pretty engaging and fun. It was pleasurable to read about the dude and his superheated rock spider alien sidekick hanging out in the ship and tryign to fix stuff, do experiments and solve problems. I think Hugo Gernsback and Isaac Asimov would certainly have zapproved. I do see what you mean about the "YA" thing and a bunch of stuff centres around the protagonist's teaching of junior highschool science. he's like a Walter White who instead of manufacturing lethal addictive chemical sludge as his mainline flies off into interstellar space and makes first contact with a hot alien rock spider. How wholesome is taht? I don't know, I understand why you didn't like it but I'm glad I read it, it made me smile and laugh a few times during a tough week full of mental/existential and physical stresses. Weird to say taht a book ostensibly dealing with turning back the clock of apocalypse could be such a "wholesome" feel-good kind of affair.
Ha, I've been reading Spinrad since the 60s without actually liking any of the work. (I couldn't read The Iron Dream, for example - too much of a muchness). I'm a friend of his on FB (he wouldn't know me from Adam) and his preposterous attitude in his rants there are captured perfectly in your description of his stories' style. Well done!
I remember reading some of these and others like them when they first came out. I was young, impressionable and sheltered and enjoyed them as a view outside of my cocooned life. Now, looking back, slogging thru them is just too painful ... but they do remind me of how far I've come.
Just recently discovered your channel, I’ve found it to be immensely welcoming and entertaining. I feel we likely have similar political, literary and ideological leanings, which has been hard to find within the genre. Thank you for your commitment to honest analysis and making it so entertaining. Many of your suggestions have made it on my TBR already!
I remember liking Dayworld by Farmer, but maybe just for the idea of having a daily rotation of 6/7ths of the population in cryosleep to multiplex the world's resources. But it's been years and I don't remember the actual plot.
I hate cigarettes. But I still love Bill Hick's jokes, because I think the points still stand. You don't have to be around someone who smokes - it's your choice. And we can accommodate both smokers and non-smokers.
I haven’t read project Hail Mary, but I appreciate your describing the “um, so that happened” type of humor as Anchorman. That’s the comparison I’ve always used. It was a funny movie until everyone tried to copy it for 20 years.
Haha, fun to hear. I would call Hail Mary my favorite, or at least top 3, books ever. And that is 2 years after having read it. My favorite quote is "Can you hear stars?"
I loved Project Hail Mary personally. It was a super easy read and just a good fluff book to chill out and read. The worst book I've read this year would have to be The Will of the Many. That book was absolute garbage
I really like PHM, and I really liked hearing your complaints :) And even though I haven't read any of the other titles on the list, I quite enjoy listening to you talk about them. Cheers mate.
Colin Wilson has such “weedy guy with bad hygiene and terrible whine telling you about how he’s the superman” energy. And yes, you’re right on about Spinrad. That post-Beat/Man Who Reads Playboy vibe got parodied well at the time in Mad Magazine.
Salty indeed but delicious! May I have another? But seriously, I almost bought that Spinrad recently but passed for reasons unknown-perhaps I was vibing your resounding ‘NO’ from afar 😂. Also, the takedown of Project Hail Mary is on point-it sounds like Ready Player One all over again. Too many BookTubers have promoted that kind of schlock and I’ve been skeptical. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
I have to laugh a bit. I have not thought of The Third Eye and T. Lobasng Rampa in many years. I am 70 now and I came across The Third Eye in a pile of discarded books when I was 14 or 15. It was a time in my life that I was surrounded with Woo Woo thinking and I was searching for my own philosophical /religious underpinnings. In short, I fell for it and for a time I read every one of his books until he finally overwhelmed my own youthful credulity and I came to see him as a fraud because of the disconnect between Tibetan Buddhism (as I had come to understand it) and his bitterness about the Chinese occupation and the circumstances of his own life. It was not until many years later that I learned about him being an Irish plumber riding the gravy train of the credulous Woo Woos of the world. In a way, I owe him a great deal for opening my eyes-even if that was not his intent. Even while I was reading Rampa I was also reading every Doc Savage I could lay my hands on. Thanks for resurrecting the old memory who I once was. As to Farmer-I think I tried him a time or two but never found enough there to keep me turning pages until I got to the end. The others I am unfamiliar with.
If you haven't totally given up on PJF, I'd recommend 'The Stone God Awakens' or 'The Cache' and the Dayworld Trilogy. He's my favorite SF author so I hope you haven't completely given up on him. Thanks :)
I really like that you include several images of different editions of the works you cover. I love the garishly lurid, risque paperback covers from the 1970s, although most of my copies of sci-fi works have the more boring, stolid, can-show-it-anywhere covers that came with Reagan and never left (one more thing in my long list of grievances against Reagan). I've intentionally bought books that I already own just because the cover is "interesting." As to the criticism, my favorite books to criticize are the ones I dislike. Books that I LOVE to criticize are the ones I despise, so, rage on! tiny note, though: I've tried, and mostly failed, at separating author's political ideas from their work, but I believe it's a good goal. Your Colin Wilson critique is on point, but I would have preferred a more literary approach, as in go at him for what he wrote and how he wrote it, not so much because he dabbled with fascists, unless his work is permeated with fascism which, in Wilson's case, was not. A recent example I can give you is John Ringo, US author of sci-fi and fantasy with quite a lot of S&M in some of his works (Kildar), right-winger to the point of being actually fascist, immensely racist (check out his "Troy" trilogy) and, yet, a few of his first efforts were interesting, if run-of-the-mill alien invasion against rag-tag army of human survivors fights for the species, without overt fascism nor racism (Gust Front series). He loosened up after those successes and I haven't read him in over a decade because he just cannot separate his maga view of the world from his writing.
Another great video. Once upon a time I had a huge number of PJF paperbacks. He wrote a huge volume of stuff, with a wild variation in quality. I've still got a couple of his short story/novella collections. He was really into the fictional author concept. For example one of the short stories I have is 'The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod' where *William* Burroughs wrote Tarzan. Looking back, I can see how he really belongs to an era past and not so much this one.
Crikey, Matt. You tell it like it is. Thanks for confirming a few (not all) of my opinions regarding Spinrad, Weir and Wilson. I thought perhaps I was in the minority with my angst with these authors. Great soliloquies, BTW! Cheers.
Nothing like reasonable anger. Not read Golden Horde but I did read and very much enjoy Iron Dream and Bug Jack Barron many years ago. After this I'm now thinking that you would hate Bug Jack Barron. And probably I would too if I read it again. Interesting. Spinrad also wrote Agent of Chaos, where the main character is called Boris Johnson. We in the UK (who follow politics, are lefty and read SF -so not many? ) find this painfully funny.
I've got _Bug Jack Barron_ on my list to reread sometime. I remember it as pretty 60s, but not annoyingly so. Also I think it was an interesting counter to Robert Heinlein's longevity/eugenics theme, as far as I remember. And, it is, famously, the story that got Michael Moorcock's _New Worlds_ magazine critcised in parliament and pulled from newsagents for alleged "obscenity". But I also have Spinrad's _The Void Captain's Tale_ and _Child of Fortune,_ which I think are very "liberated". "free love" kind of stories that probably have dated quite badly.
I've been a sort-of fan of PJF since the 80s. He can definitely be an acquired taste. I don't believe I've ever read Strange Relations, though, so I can't comment on it. But I will say that if you weren't already a Doc Savage or Tarzan fan, then A Feast Unknown is a terrible choice. On the other hand, if you are a fan of Doc Savage or Tarzan, A Feast Unknown might still be a terrible choice. It's a weird, over-the-top book. My favorites of his are the Riverworld series and the World of Tiers series. For whatever that information might be worth.
The salty is working for me. 😂😂 I don't think I've read any of these. The only PJF I've read is "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" but it was so long ago I have no memory of it. It's still sitting on the bookshelf in the basement which is the only reason I recall it at all.
Yes I know what you mean about Carlin at his worst, and definitely his spiritual successors. Make it stop. Spinrad also wrote the famous The Iron Dream as “written” by German small mustache man, and while it was interesting it should never have been a full novel.
Last Hurrah was the first sci-fi collection I ever read. I didn't even really know what SF was at the time. There were a few stories I liked (Carcinoma Angels, The Age of Invention, A Child of Mind) but there were also a bunch that I just couldn't comprehend. I've always been hesitant to try other Spinrad because so much of Last Hurrah was just too bizarre for me
Exactly how I felt about The Martian...the "I'm so witty humour" actually made me throw the book across the room in a fit of pique...thanks for warning me...these books seem to be viral and overhyped especially when made into Hollywood "blockbusters"
I've only read a few of PJF's short stories but I can't think of any that weren't a chore to get through. I couldn't even finish "Riders of the Purple Wage" when I finally got around to reading Harlan Ellison's "Dangerous Visions" recently (and the story won a Hugo!). Incidentally, I would love to hear more of your take on Harlan Ellison's work (I get what you are saying about how Ellison comes across, that always irks me when he acts the way you described).
When I was a kid I read several of Spinrad’s works that I enjoyed: The Men in the Jungle, Agents of Chaos, Bug Jack Barron, and a smattering of his short stories. Then I read his novel, A World Between. I hated that book. I swore off reading anything else. I relented after a few years and read his novel, Little Heroes. It was worse than A World Between. I haven’t read him since. I even have a copy of Iron Dream but I don’t want to touch it.
It's very talky yeah. The series does pick up in the following books and then kind of crashes in the last one. World of Tiers is kind of similar, the first couple are pretty good wild adventures and then PJF seemed to get bored with it.
Love the saltiness. It's as enjoyable as you singing the praises of the books you love. Re: Weir. Not read Project Hail Mary (and doubt I ever will), but I'm curious as to how I'd now find The Martian. I enjoyed it at the time when it released, but I wasn't such a discerning reader back then...
For Farmer, read the first Riverworld (To you Our Scattered Bodies Go), an invented world where Mark Twain and Richard Francis Burton "reincarnate" without any indication why. Both guys need to find out. I remember it as fun. And Farmer famously wrote his first works while working a job at a factory by day. So if some stories are not worked out, maybe he just had to get it published.
I read the Philosopher's Stone a long time ago and liked it. I just accepted it on a very superficial level and thought it was fun. I'll have to give it a re-read.
Mat, do you have a list of all SF books anywhere online to see what you already have read, or have not read from certain authors? To know which books are familiar to you would often help me to better assess some of your opinions.
I own an Easton Press copy of Bug Jack Barron. I felt like, ‘this beautiful leather and gold-leaf book with acid neutral paper has drivel printed on the beautiful paper.’
The one Farmer I've read was "Riders of the Purple Wage" and it was not great. I plan to try "to Your Scattered Bodies Go" just to give him another chance.
I had The Philosopher's Stone but I got rid of it many years ago with all my horror novels. I discovered that my real interest was for Science Fiction and that horror was just messing with my mind. I'm happy that I didn't loose time reading Wilson. I didn't know he was such a strange individual.
I read Farmer as a teen in the 80's. Mainly the Riverworld series. I thought wiw this is cool. Then tead this short stiry that took place in a nursing home. And was done with Farmer. Years later when i was writing book reviews we were sent reissues including a Feast Unknown. Yeah what i read as a teen is best left back there.
Yeah, Iron Dream is just okay. The political genius of it saves it from being a boring Sword and Sorcery pastiche. I also don't recommend Songs for the Stars, Russian Spring, Agent of Chaos, and about 5 others. I do suggest you should read more Ellison..
I would never accidently stumble into these books.... except for Project Hail Mary. I will take you word for it. I have noticed in the books that I have read and you have reviewed we fundamentally agree, although you like a big sci-fi ending like the one in Blood Music, whereas I appreciated the first two thirds of the book more.
That thumbnail looks like one of those existential Scandinavian movies where the main characters are being humiliated for 2 hours by some crazy foreigner.
PJF has some good stuff. Look for the first Riverworld book. At 50 years remove, I remember Stone God Awakens and Windwhales of Ishmael fondly. Other stuff of his, not so good. Sometimes pointlessly pornographic. Colin Wilson. "It leads nowhere except up Colin Wilson's ass." --LOL. Anyway, I do recall reading his Space Vampires, around 1970. Not memorable.
Colin Wilson certainly churned them out. I enjoyed his non fiction work such as The Outsider and The Occult and quite enjoyed the Spider World series but haven't read 'The Mind Parasites' or 'Space Vampires.' I think when you're that prolific the quality is going to be hit and miss.
I agree with all your criticisms of Project Hail Mary but for whatever reason I couldn't put it down. Maybe just because it was such a light read. Do you ever offer recommendations? If so, can you suggest anything similar to PHM without all the "epic bacon"?
God yes the humour of PHM was abysmal, which is a shame because I quite enjoyed the science aspects of it. I like to read Reddit discussions after reading/watching things and the Reddit humour was clocked in the first comment I saw lmao. Your way of framing of it being written with YA prose while not being YA put into words what I noticed and it definitely took me out of it, it weirdly reminded me of reading Percy Jackson when I was younger (although in the latter’s case it fit). Also, these were less substantial gripes but I kept forgetting the main character was supposed to be in a field similar to mine and not a physicist, and him being the first one to test with IR out of a bunch of world class scientists for the organism found on the sun was stretching my suspension of disbelief too far lmao. And, do not fear, your description of that older style of humour definitely resonated and was completely understood (sadly) even though I hadn’t read the book.
I'm in the middle of reading Hail Mary. Until now I like it but will this liking survive the end of the book? I don't know. Still I like it because Weir is obviously in the tradition of the hard SF written by Heinlein in which there is always a character who is more competent than every one else. So I think there is a little bit of nostalgia in this. It seems this is the kind of novel that people either love or hate completely.
I think you may have to reread iron golem now. If you saw a meaning in it that spinrad didn't intend I would find that interesting enough that I'd have to read it.
I have to say that I have not heard that level of criticism about Project Hail Mary. I still think I'll check it out if only for the fact that a reviewer said my book had Project Hail Mary vibes, but I now have this in the back of my mind and it makes me wonder why it was said lol. I haven't read any of his work yet, I've only seen The Martian movie.
This is the funniest video I’ve seen in a while, and I have to admit I’m even more curious about Spinrad. I’ve only read the first story in that collection, carcinoma angels, and I loved it. I liked it so much that I read it through a couple more times. I’m not gonna say, “bro you make it sound like the best most excellent thing ever” but I will say your reaction is entertaining.
I'm scared I wasted money buying Project Hail Mary, I read Children Of Time during this month and it was the worst sci-fi I've read in years and both are supposedly "5/5 stars amazing".
I'm with you on Weir. PHM seemed to verge on YA, not my favourite genre, though I like Wyndham's The Chrysalids which might be be seen as an intelligent early "YA".
Loving this, having read all these over my 70 years (including avidly following the lobsang rampa books as a teenager) Agree with all your sentiments: “i feel your pain” 🤣👍
@@Bookpilled I think in some intros esp by Samuel Delaney. I think younger writers in the community had to be careful about saying so and so was naked because really only into the 00's could sci-fi be written without worrying about the fandom.
Well, "de gustibus non disputandum est" and all that, right? I must say: I enjoyed the heck out of Project Hail Mary; I was looking for some light, unpretentious bedtime reading and this fit like a glove. Some of it was annoying, like the uber girlboss character, but frankly, the humor was ok. Laughed out loud a couple of times! Maybe it's because I have nothing against Deadpool. Also loved the problem-solving, which Weir does really well. I agree it's borderline YA, which is odd because I'm firmly into OA territory at this point in life... Anyway, Weir isn't Steinbeck, or Shakespeare, or Nitezsche, and that's ok with me. There's more to Philip Jose Farmer than those two weird novels(which I never read). Give To Your Scattered Bodies Go a shot, maybe. The Riverworld series has its merits, imo.
For anyone curious, looks like Colin Wilson’s indomitable will only got him to 82. So close.
I think I enjoy your unhinged reviews just as much as I enjoy your level-headed reviews 😂
so bad, it must be good. :-D
The takedown of Colin Wilson is a gorgeous apocalyptic scorched earth landscape of savagery and wit
and well deserved 😂🎉
@@helpfulcommenter I think for some reason Patricia Lockwood had a really weird experience meeting Wilson. That is a problem about one book wonders--they had it together for one book and then everything they shat out got published.
".......and even when he knew them to be Fascists he didn't seem to be bothered by the fact, and that it tied into this upstart, my first Nietzsch'eanism, power fantasy that he seemed to be on......" is one of the best, most brutal and eloquent criticisms of an author I've ever heard.
I keep saying that the art of the hate read is alive and well. Thank you for suffering for our entertainment--I mean, uh, thank you for your efforts to support my working hypothesis.
"the art of the hate read is alive and well. "
Is that similar to the spite read? Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite writers, but "Years of Rice and Salt" was so bad it made me angry. So bad that I decided I would not give him the satisfaction of putting it down.
I loved Project Hail Mary, but I also love your total revulsion of it. Frankly I'm here to expand my knowledge of SF and I appreciate your dedication to reviewing pretty much everything and giving fair reviews with receipts.
I agree, more or less. But I love problem solving aspect.
Yeah, I mean PHM isn't great literature but it is a fun ride. Sometimes you just need something light. A lager after a belgian . . .
I'm listening to it on my commute, and I'm too far along to quit, but man, I am bothered by some of the humor... Perhaps it's the presentation of the reader more than the writing, but I've had to shut it down once or twice. I will finish it.
PHM was great, but of course I understand Bookpilled’s hate for it. It did drag a little. The woman character (cant remember who) was pretty irritating too, like she doesn’t feel like an actual person
You're at your best when you're being negative. It's a quality that most booktubers lack. What sort of positive relationship can we expect to have with literature if we don't articulate what we don't like or want?
#1 redditor impression
"I smoke cigarettes indoors, and you yuppies can't handle it!" 😂😂💀
Short story collections can be brutal. I have the hardest time with them unless the writer is primarily known for short fiction ala Bradbury or Sturgeon.
I agree. This past Spring I read The Best of Cordwainer Smith, an author much beloved in his time. He had ideas but was very clumsy putting them into a short story. Over all a bad read.
They often feel like a publisher has said "give me all your drafts and first cuts on things, and we'll put them in a book and we'll make some money because you're already famous". I recently read a Silverberg collection that was exactly like that, just a bunch of half baked ideas that went nowhere
just ordered all 5. Thanks Mr. Pilled
Whoa whoa whoa, what about Three-Body Problem?
Yes, Matt, I love the passion in this video. Thank you for getting a little bit angry.
Very much appreciated your deep dive into Spinrad. I've only read one of his books. It did nothing for me other than leaving me mildly revolted (The Men in the Jungle). I've often wondered if I was missing something given the level of esteem he's garnered. You've put my mind at ease.
I just bought this book. Hope I don’t regret it 😂😂😂
Loved Project Hail Mary!...I will have to read the other 4 and see what I think! I’m new to the SF/ Fantasy genre so I find everyone’s point of view so interesting! Great channel…I enjoy watching!
How you felt about Project Hail Mary is kind of how I feel about every hyped book. It is almost as if all very hyped books are written for people who dont read much at all or read much of a specific genre. Nothing wrong with that since it gets people reading, but 9 times out of 10, the hype books are “meh” at best.
I guess I enjoyed PHM because before I bought it I didn't even know it existed...
Yeah, hyped books are often a let-down. For me the two that hurt the most is Bear's Eon and Power's The Anubus Gates. Both "meh."
@@douglasdea637 hahah dont tell me that! Both of those are on my TBR in the next month or two. I was hoping I would be proven wrong. 😬
@@douglasdea637 Eon's been sitting on my shelf for...eons! Almost picked it up about a year ago, but...nah.
I almost regretted not buying Anubis Gates when I had the chance, mostly because of positive reviews. But have since become convinced that my original intuition was the right one.
Goodreads is a great example of this, bad books with high scores, and classics or genre fiction that requires more thought having very low scores.
I loved Project Hail Mary as an audiobook because of the amazing narrator performance. I'd probably have hated it as a book book.
Rocky is so good!
Amen, audiobook makes it doable
Very interesting to hear your opinion of the Spinrad collection. i didn't honestly love the Iron Dream; it was one joke carried on for 200 something pages, more memorably interesting than actually a good read in my opinion, but it's also a book that I think about sometimes, so to that end it's certainlya chieved something. It's kind of a fun book o trya nd describe to people, isn't it?
On the other handd, "Dated" could be one word to describe Hail Mary in a few decades, but I just finished it and found that I enjoyed it. A friend of mine was reading it and said they wanted to talk about it, and it took me a while to really get goign with it, as when i started my first thought was, Oh man this writing style, this is going to be rough. But because they were unsatisfied with the book club group discussion they had around it and really wanted to talk about this book, I persevered and read through it in a few days. I don't remember any vulgarity or sex content at all -- curious what you might be referring to there? -- but what I did feel was that the protagonist gave us his internal monologue in present first person throughout (except for the flashbacks) and his voice was, rather than taht ofaan edgelord, that of a dorky kid. But after a while I just decided to embrace it to an extent. I liked the problem solving, and enjoyed the first contact aspect. The science (and math even) exposition was heavy but it was done in a way taht I thought was pretty engaging and fun. It was pleasurable to read about the dude and his superheated rock spider alien sidekick hanging out in the ship and tryign to fix stuff, do experiments and solve problems. I think Hugo Gernsback and Isaac Asimov would certainly have zapproved. I do see what you mean about the "YA" thing and a bunch of stuff centres around the protagonist's teaching of junior highschool science. he's like a Walter White who instead of manufacturing lethal addictive chemical sludge as his mainline flies off into interstellar space and makes first contact with a hot alien rock spider. How wholesome is taht? I don't know, I understand why you didn't like it but I'm glad I read it, it made me smile and laugh a few times during a tough week full of mental/existential and physical stresses. Weird to say taht a book ostensibly dealing with turning back the clock of apocalypse could be such a "wholesome" feel-good kind of affair.
Ha, I've been reading Spinrad since the 60s without actually liking any of the work. (I couldn't read The Iron Dream, for example - too much of a muchness). I'm a friend of his on FB (he wouldn't know me from Adam) and his preposterous attitude in his rants there are captured perfectly in your description of his stories' style. Well done!
I remember reading some of these and others like them when they first came out. I was young, impressionable and sheltered and enjoyed them as a view outside of my cocooned life. Now, looking back, slogging thru them is just too painful ... but they do remind me of how far I've come.
Just recently discovered your channel, I’ve found it to be immensely welcoming and entertaining. I feel we likely have similar political, literary and ideological leanings, which has been hard to find within the genre.
Thank you for your commitment to honest analysis and making it so entertaining. Many of your suggestions have made it on my TBR already!
I remember liking Dayworld by Farmer, but maybe just for the idea of having a daily rotation of 6/7ths of the population in cryosleep to multiplex the world's resources. But it's been years and I don't remember the actual plot.
Bill Hicks' cigarette bit was pretty lame looking back on it
yes especially considering nobody smokes tobacco anymore other than anachronistic weirdos.
I hate cigarettes. But I still love Bill Hick's jokes, because I think the points still stand. You don't have to be around someone who smokes - it's your choice. And we can accommodate both smokers and non-smokers.
@@Warstub Unless you live in an apartment building where your neighbours smoke.
I haven’t read project Hail Mary, but I appreciate your describing the “um, so that happened” type of humor as Anchorman. That’s the comparison I’ve always used. It was a funny movie until everyone tried to copy it for 20 years.
Haha, fun to hear. I would call Hail Mary my favorite, or at least top 3, books ever. And that is 2 years after having read it.
My favorite quote is "Can you hear stars?"
Guy who said the first story in Hyperion got him into scifi says priest in space stories are uninteresting
"Actually, actually!"
That part made me laugh out loud.
I loved Project Hail Mary personally. It was a super easy read and just a good fluff book to chill out and read. The worst book I've read this year would have to be The Will of the Many. That book was absolute garbage
I really like PHM, and I really liked hearing your complaints :) And even though I haven't read any of the other titles on the list, I quite enjoy listening to you talk about them. Cheers mate.
Colin Wilson has such “weedy guy with bad hygiene and terrible whine telling you about how he’s the superman” energy.
And yes, you’re right on about Spinrad. That post-Beat/Man Who Reads Playboy vibe got parodied well at the time in Mad Magazine.
"Man Who Reads Playboy" is a perfect killshot. Thank you.
@@Bookpilled Glad to help. I find it annoying too.
Salty indeed but delicious! May I have another?
But seriously, I almost bought that Spinrad recently but passed for reasons unknown-perhaps I was vibing your resounding ‘NO’ from afar 😂.
Also, the takedown of Project Hail Mary is on point-it sounds like Ready Player One all over again. Too many BookTubers have promoted that kind of schlock and I’ve been skeptical. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
I have to laugh a bit. I have not thought of The Third Eye and T. Lobasng Rampa in many years. I am 70 now and I came across The Third Eye in a pile of discarded books when I was 14 or 15. It was a time in my life that I was surrounded with Woo Woo thinking and I was searching for my own philosophical /religious underpinnings. In short, I fell for it and for a time I read every one of his books until he finally overwhelmed my own youthful credulity and I came to see him as a fraud because of the disconnect between Tibetan Buddhism (as I had come to understand it) and his bitterness about the Chinese occupation and the circumstances of his own life. It was not until many years later that I learned about him being an Irish plumber riding the gravy train of the credulous Woo Woos of the world. In a way, I owe him a great deal for opening my eyes-even if that was not his intent.
Even while I was reading Rampa I was also reading every Doc Savage I could lay my hands on. Thanks for resurrecting the old memory who I once was.
As to Farmer-I think I tried him a time or two but never found enough there to keep me turning pages until I got to the end. The others I am unfamiliar with.
loved doc savage i mostly read the 1970s marvel comics version, but i did read one or two of the books.
I believed in Mothman at that age, so no judgement here.
Right? I read Lobsang before the internet, I spent several months trying to astral travel based on his books....
If you haven't totally given up on PJF, I'd recommend 'The Stone God Awakens' or 'The Cache' and the Dayworld Trilogy. He's my favorite SF author so I hope you haven't completely given up on him. Thanks :)
I really like that you include several images of different editions of the works you cover. I love the garishly lurid, risque paperback covers from the 1970s, although most of my copies of sci-fi works have the more boring, stolid, can-show-it-anywhere covers that came with Reagan and never left (one more thing in my long list of grievances against Reagan). I've intentionally bought books that I already own just because the cover is "interesting." As to the criticism, my favorite books to criticize are the ones I dislike. Books that I LOVE to criticize are the ones I despise, so, rage on! tiny note, though: I've tried, and mostly failed, at separating author's political ideas from their work, but I believe it's a good goal. Your Colin Wilson critique is on point, but I would have preferred a more literary approach, as in go at him for what he wrote and how he wrote it, not so much because he dabbled with fascists, unless his work is permeated with fascism which, in Wilson's case, was not. A recent example I can give you is John Ringo, US author of sci-fi and fantasy with quite a lot of S&M in some of his works (Kildar), right-winger to the point of being actually fascist, immensely racist (check out his "Troy" trilogy) and, yet, a few of his first efforts were interesting, if run-of-the-mill alien invasion against rag-tag army of human survivors fights for the species, without overt fascism nor racism (Gust Front series). He loosened up after those successes and I haven't read him in over a decade because he just cannot separate his maga view of the world from his writing.
it's so enjoyable to hear your rants. i hope you come across more terrible books soon
Another great video. Once upon a time I had a huge number of PJF paperbacks. He wrote a huge volume of stuff, with a wild variation in quality. I've still got a couple of his short story/novella collections. He was really into the fictional author concept. For example one of the short stories I have is 'The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod' where *William* Burroughs wrote Tarzan.
Looking back, I can see how he really belongs to an era past and not so much this one.
Crikey, Matt. You tell it like it is. Thanks for confirming a few (not all) of my opinions regarding Spinrad, Weir and Wilson. I thought perhaps I was in the minority with my angst with these authors. Great soliloquies, BTW! Cheers.
Nothing like reasonable anger. Not read Golden Horde but I did read and very much enjoy Iron Dream and Bug Jack Barron many years ago. After this I'm now thinking that you would hate Bug Jack Barron. And probably I would too if I read it again. Interesting. Spinrad also wrote Agent of Chaos, where the main character is called Boris Johnson. We in the UK (who follow politics, are lefty and read SF -so not many? ) find this painfully funny.
I've got _Bug Jack Barron_ on my list to reread sometime. I remember it as pretty 60s, but not annoyingly so. Also I think it was an interesting counter to Robert Heinlein's longevity/eugenics theme, as far as I remember. And, it is, famously, the story that got Michael Moorcock's _New Worlds_ magazine critcised in parliament and pulled from newsagents for alleged "obscenity".
But I also have Spinrad's _The Void Captain's Tale_ and _Child of Fortune,_ which I think are very "liberated". "free love" kind of stories that probably have dated quite badly.
Hyperion Priest in space is good
Mainly because of his horrible fate. 😄
I’m trying to remember if he reviewed Hyperion or not, because that book popped into my mind instantly too
@@chrisw6164 he did and I think even said that was his favorite part. So I'm guessing it just slipped his mind.
Yes, it good.
I've been a sort-of fan of PJF since the 80s. He can definitely be an acquired taste.
I don't believe I've ever read Strange Relations, though, so I can't comment on it. But I will say that if you weren't already a Doc Savage or Tarzan fan, then A Feast Unknown is a terrible choice. On the other hand, if you are a fan of Doc Savage or Tarzan, A Feast Unknown might still be a terrible choice. It's a weird, over-the-top book.
My favorites of his are the Riverworld series and the World of Tiers series. For whatever that information might be worth.
The unhinged moments always make these reviews that much better lol
The salty is working for me. 😂😂 I don't think I've read any of these. The only PJF I've read is "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" but it was so long ago I have no memory of it. It's still sitting on the bookshelf in the basement which is the only reason I recall it at all.
Yes I know what you mean about Carlin at his worst, and definitely his spiritual successors. Make it stop. Spinrad also wrote the famous The Iron Dream as “written” by German small mustache man, and while it was interesting it should never have been a full novel.
This was hilarious. You were pretty damned fired up! I loved it.
Last Hurrah was the first sci-fi collection I ever read. I didn't even really know what SF was at the time. There were a few stories I liked (Carcinoma Angels, The Age of Invention, A Child of Mind) but there were also a bunch that I just couldn't comprehend.
I've always been hesitant to try other Spinrad because so much of Last Hurrah was just too bizarre for me
I swear whenever you crush andy weir, your video immediately ends up recommended in my feed and it's so real and I am here for it and love it
girl that george carlin, bill hicks etc. edgy gen x/boomer comedy that you described here is so on point. gah. I feel you so MUCH on this.
Exactly how I felt about The Martian...the "I'm so witty humour" actually made me throw the book across the room in a fit of pique...thanks for warning me...these books seem to be viral and overhyped especially when made into Hollywood "blockbusters"
I've only read a few of PJF's short stories but I can't think of any that weren't a chore to get through. I couldn't even finish "Riders of the Purple Wage" when I finally got around to reading Harlan Ellison's "Dangerous Visions" recently (and the story won a Hugo!). Incidentally, I would love to hear more of your take on Harlan Ellison's work (I get what you are saying about how Ellison comes across, that always irks me when he acts the way you described).
The best Farmer novel is A Feast Unknown.
I liked To Your Scattered Bodies Go. Riverworld is interesting but has diminishing returns.
When I was a kid I read several of Spinrad’s works that I enjoyed: The Men in the Jungle, Agents of Chaos, Bug Jack Barron, and a smattering of his short stories. Then I read his novel, A World Between. I hated that book. I swore off reading anything else. I relented after a few years and read his novel, Little Heroes. It was worse than A World Between. I haven’t read him since. I even have a copy of Iron Dream but I don’t want to touch it.
I can't stand to be around edge lords, drama queens, snark in real life. It is hard to read a lecture. Needs more cow
Can't get into Farmer at all. I thought the first book in Riverworld was absolute drivel.
I should have thought the same, but I ended up really liking it as a crazy pulp through a 70s lens. The premise is normally too outlandish for me.
It's very talky yeah. The series does pick up in the following books and then kind of crashes in the last one. World of Tiers is kind of similar, the first couple are pretty good wild adventures and then PJF seemed to get bored with it.
Love the saltiness. It's as enjoyable as you singing the praises of the books you love.
Re: Weir. Not read Project Hail Mary (and doubt I ever will), but I'm curious as to how I'd now find The Martian. I enjoyed it at the time when it released, but I wasn't such a discerning reader back then...
For Farmer, read the first Riverworld (To you Our Scattered Bodies Go), an invented world where Mark Twain and Richard Francis Burton "reincarnate" without any indication why. Both guys need to find out. I remember it as fun. And Farmer famously wrote his first works while working a job at a factory by day. So if some stories are not worked out, maybe he just had to get it published.
I read this when I was a teenager, I had even forgotten who wrote the book. I just remember it being interesting, even if a little bit cheesy.
I read the Philosopher's Stone a long time ago and liked it. I just accepted it on a very superficial level and thought it was fun. I'll have to give it a re-read.
Tell me more about your views on that George Carlin-style humor, because I get that feeling a lot too.
Perhaps the perfect amount of unhinged for the content covered!
in other words not so unhinged just real 😂
Mat, do you have a list of all SF books anywhere online to see what you already have read, or have not read from certain authors? To know which books are familiar to you would often help me to better assess some of your opinions.
all the points made about The Last Hurrah are exactly why i dropped Bug Jack Barron so early on
I own an Easton Press copy of Bug Jack Barron. I felt like, ‘this beautiful leather and gold-leaf book with acid neutral paper has drivel printed on the beautiful paper.’
Regarding priests in SF, I do like “The Quest for St. Aquin” by Anthony Boucher in “The SF Hall of Fame” anthology.
Hi Bookpilled. What is your stance on The Martian?
Way worse than Hail Mary. Great idea, and like Hail Mary, if it had been told by any of a thousand other authors, would have been much better.
I haven't read it.
The one Farmer I've read was "Riders of the Purple Wage" and it was not great. I plan to try "to Your Scattered Bodies Go" just to give him another chance.
I had The Philosopher's Stone but I got rid of it many years ago with all my horror novels. I discovered that my real interest was for Science Fiction and that horror was just messing with my mind. I'm happy that I didn't loose time reading Wilson. I didn't know he was such a strange individual.
Project hail mary was like a popcorn movie. Not supposed to be deep and insightful, just suspend your disbelief and have fun.
Been looking forward to this since i heard about it on the patreon lol
*edit: oh god i forgot about Squee, please don't remind me of it again thanks
'To Open the Sky' by Silverberg is a pretty decent priest in space story. I hated 'The Sparrow', so I think I can be trusted.
I love it when Matt is annoyed by a book.
I read Farmer as a teen in the 80's. Mainly the Riverworld series. I thought wiw this is cool. Then tead this short stiry that took place in a nursing home. And was done with Farmer. Years later when i was writing book reviews we were sent reissues including a Feast Unknown. Yeah what i read as a teen is best left back there.
Perfect backdrop and framing. Great video all around.
"I watched a video by a dude-bro who used the word 'stoicism' and now I'm based."
Save Me.
Brilliant video -- you in a salty mood makes for great content. 100% agreed on PHM.
Fantastic thumbnail as well
Yeah, Iron Dream is just okay. The political genius of it saves it from being a boring Sword and Sorcery pastiche. I also don't recommend Songs for the Stars, Russian Spring, Agent of Chaos, and about 5 others. I do suggest you should read more Ellison..
I would never accidently stumble into these books.... except for Project Hail Mary. I will take you word for it. I have noticed in the books that I have read and you have reviewed we fundamentally agree, although you like a big sci-fi ending like the one in Blood Music, whereas I appreciated the first two thirds of the book more.
New sub! You have probably saved me from several headaches!🤕
That thumbnail looks like one of those existential Scandinavian movies where the main characters are being humiliated for 2 hours by some crazy foreigner.
what movies are those?
@@JohnnyGolightly-wy9ff Sorry? 🥲
@@JohnnyGolightly-wy9ff You're a mean fellow.
Buddy you need to not speak to people like this on my channel.
@@Bookpilled sorry I'll delete it.
You film in some of the most beautiful places! Gotta love getting unhinged on things we don't enjoy
What's interesting to me about PHM, is that like liked the audiobook better than the book. I suspect I'll like the movie better than both.
PJF has some good stuff. Look for the first Riverworld book. At 50 years remove, I remember Stone God Awakens and Windwhales of Ishmael fondly. Other stuff of his, not so good. Sometimes pointlessly pornographic.
Colin Wilson. "It leads nowhere except up Colin Wilson's ass." --LOL. Anyway, I do recall reading his Space Vampires, around 1970. Not memorable.
Colin Wilson certainly churned them out. I enjoyed his non fiction work such as The Outsider and The Occult and quite enjoyed the Spider World series but haven't read 'The Mind Parasites' or 'Space Vampires.' I think when you're that prolific the quality is going to be hit and miss.
I agree with all your criticisms of Project Hail Mary but for whatever reason I couldn't put it down. Maybe just because it was such a light read.
Do you ever offer recommendations? If so, can you suggest anything similar to PHM without all the "epic bacon"?
Gypsy by Carter Scholz
@@Bookpilled Thank you for the recommendation! Just finished and it was great.
@@orb3190 Nice
Like a frozen pizza, the cardboard is tastier!
Hail Mary: If the entire book featured Eva Stratt, I'd be onboard. "Jazz Hands" was the worst.
🍿 fantastic art of suffering through a bad book
God yes the humour of PHM was abysmal, which is a shame because I quite enjoyed the science aspects of it. I like to read Reddit discussions after reading/watching things and the Reddit humour was clocked in the first comment I saw lmao. Your way of framing of it being written with YA prose while not being YA put into words what I noticed and it definitely took me out of it, it weirdly reminded me of reading Percy Jackson when I was younger (although in the latter’s case it fit). Also, these were less substantial gripes but I kept forgetting the main character was supposed to be in a field similar to mine and not a physicist, and him being the first one to test with IR out of a bunch of world class scientists for the organism found on the sun was stretching my suspension of disbelief too far lmao.
And, do not fear, your description of that older style of humour definitely resonated and was completely understood (sadly) even though I hadn’t read the book.
what do you think of Bill Hicks?
Some good bits but mostly has lost his bite and seems affected
I'm in the middle of reading Hail Mary. Until now I like it but will this liking survive the end of the book? I don't know. Still I like it because Weir is obviously in the tradition of the hard SF written by Heinlein in which there is always a character who is more competent than every one else. So I think there is a little bit of nostalgia in this.
It seems this is the kind of novel that people either love or hate completely.
I think you may have to reread iron golem now. If you saw a meaning in it that spinrad didn't intend I would find that interesting enough that I'd have to read it.
I have to say that I have not heard that level of criticism about Project Hail Mary. I still think I'll check it out if only for the fact that a reviewer said my book had Project Hail Mary vibes, but I now have this in the back of my mind and it makes me wonder why it was said lol. I haven't read any of his work yet, I've only seen The Martian movie.
great video once again dude. love your style
He releases his inner Bill Hicks. \m/ \m/
“My best of the worst, PHM”immediate like
Uncanny valley of YA and sci fi is so good 😂
This is the funniest video I’ve seen in a while, and I have to admit I’m even more curious about Spinrad. I’ve only read the first story in that collection, carcinoma angels, and I loved it. I liked it so much that I read it through a couple more times. I’m not gonna say, “bro you make it sound like the best most excellent thing ever” but I will say your reaction is entertaining.
I'm scared I wasted money buying Project Hail Mary, I read Children Of Time during this month and it was the worst sci-fi I've read in years and both are supposedly "5/5 stars amazing".
I'm with you on Weir. PHM seemed to verge on YA, not my favourite genre, though I like Wyndham's The Chrysalids which might be be seen as an intelligent early "YA".
Loving this, having read all these over my 70 years (including avidly following the lobsang rampa books as a teenager) Agree with all your sentiments: “i feel your pain” 🤣👍
GLORIOUS video. May I make a recommendation for a hate read? In short, anything by Cory Doctorow. He’ll provoke you on so many levels.
I quite enjoyed Farmer's River world books, at least the earlier ones.
Also so agree with the Edgelordism of Spinrad and others. His colleagues in sci-fi just thought he was right wing, but some good stuff. Like Heinlein.
Interesting, did they say so in published criticism somewhere? Would be curious to read it.
@@Bookpilled I think in some intros esp by Samuel Delaney. I think younger writers in the community had to be careful about saying so and so was naked because really only into the 00's could sci-fi be written without worrying about the fandom.
@@robcrowe11 Interesting, will keep an eye out. Thanks.
Well, "de gustibus non disputandum est" and all that, right? I must say: I enjoyed the heck out of Project Hail Mary; I was looking for some light, unpretentious bedtime reading and this fit like a glove. Some of it was annoying, like the uber girlboss character, but frankly, the humor was ok. Laughed out loud a couple of times! Maybe it's because I have nothing against Deadpool. Also loved the problem-solving, which Weir does really well. I agree it's borderline YA, which is odd because I'm firmly into OA territory at this point in life... Anyway, Weir isn't Steinbeck, or Shakespeare, or Nitezsche, and that's ok with me.
There's more to Philip Jose Farmer than those two weird novels(which I never read). Give To Your Scattered Bodies Go a shot, maybe. The Riverworld series has its merits, imo.
When Colin Wilson did fiction I always enjoyed it. Take his Spiderworld series. Nothing heavy but an enjoyable guilty pleasure.