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to win an argument she told people that some other e-personality would never support the other side, sockpuppeting a dead man as he had been dead a few months at this point). then earlier this year we found out that the person in question was actualyl a paedophile and the company lindsey was working for at the time had covered it up.
i thought the same thing re: Octavia E. Butler. and NK Jemisin, who might be, without breaking a sweat, comparable to Octavia - and even! absolutely TROUNCING the influence of Butler in the next couple years.
The Dispossessed was sooo good, and while The Left Hand of Darkness was a bit harder to get into, I really liked it as well. You can really notice Le Guin being influenced by the anthropology of her parents, in the way she explores how different societies relate and how socially constructed many concepts are.
I love the mathematical novella Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott, which is about sentient geometrical figures that live on a 2D plane. Does that count as science fiction? It certainly has the social commentary element, as the first half is basically a satire of Victorian society. The second half is more of an exploration of higher dimensions, and how to think about them.
I need to read that. Something really interesting - I watched a video where someone mentioned that novel in relationship to Bill Cipher in Gravity Falls, and I realized, that was probably totally intentional on the writer's part. Bill is all about shedding the restrictions of a 2D world, and! He's a triangle, which is the fewest sides a shape can have without being a line, so he'd be at the bottom of the social hierarchy of that world. Kind of blew my mind.
I've never seen Gravity Falls, but that sounds really cool! Technically, one dimensional lines (females) are at the bottom of the social ladder of Flatland. Lines don't really have faces, so that's kind of hard to animate. It does add another dimension to it, pun intended! I also recommend "Flatterland" by Ian Stewart, which is a modern sequel to Flatland.
One of my old time favorites is Flowers for Algernon (very underrated!). The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. are also amazing.
Daniel Keyes (the author) on Flower's for Algernon, upon receiving his Hugo Award, said something along the lines of "When you figure out how I did it, can you let me know? I'd like to do it again!"
One small thing, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is not Victorian. Queen Victoria was decades from taking the throne. The historical period in which Mary Shelley wrote the book is Georgian, i.e. the same time Jane Austen wrote her books. And in any case, since Mary Shelley wrote the book in Continental era, it's more accurate to see it as a Romantic work or part of the Romantic era. Aside from that, nice video.
Conchita Mendez Oh I absolutely do consider Mary Shelley the first science-fiction novel. I don't want to give the wrong idea. It's the founding work of the genre and still maybe the best novel of that kind. It's just that I do not consider it a Victorian novel . It's a Romantic work and one of the greatest of that time and period.
For anyone interested in the historical and scientific context of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (and for Sean Bean fans), I'd recommend watching "The Frankenstein Chronicles", currently on Netflix.
Clarke wasn't as inspired or genre-defining as the ones mentioned, his collaboration with Kubrick is legendary but overall he was just fine as a pure writer. And note that I like his novels, but Asimov, Bradbury and Heinlein have an energy that he lacks.
I passionately disagree, Clarke produced so many golden age classics. Such as The City and the Stars, Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama. Without mentioning 2001 or countless short stories.
Why is adding strong female characters a prerequisite for science fiction? Lots of the best science fiction doesn't develop or focus on characters whether they be male or female.
At 30, I feel like I was too late for the golden age of the xerox zine; somehow this animatic style manages to make me feel a degree of nostalgia I couldn't have imagined. It's Baller. I love it.
I recommend ALL Sci-Fi fans, regardless of other tastes, take some time to read "Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction" by John Rieder. Rieder makes the case that Sci-Fi, historically, had its roots in colonial adventure novels, and draws a line between things like "King Solomon's Mines" and its exploration of Africa to, ultimately, space travel. This partially explains the use of the Arctic exploration as a framing device in Frankenstein: the Arctic and the Jungle were the two major frontiers of colonial explorers. This winds up having some great applications - Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" feels a lot more clear, for example, and it blows up your ability to read secondary literature about Sci-Fi to include colonial histories. Anyway, my favorite Sci-Fi novel is almost certainly "Heroes Die" (and its attendant series) by Matthew Stover. They manage to be both really intellectually hefty, while also being pulpy action novels. It's an amazing balancing act.
Wow! I've always believed that Sci-Fi was our way of talking about cultures discovering each other, IOW history! I find it is the only genre where 'society' is one of the lead characters. As an aside I also love the fact that ordinary non-heroic characters fill the POV positions and how lead characters are rarely motivated by romance. It is one of the only genres that celebrate being single and unattached, and able to go on adventures.
thanks so much for sharing! definitely added to the list. There is so much narrative to decolonise and I love opening up my views to seeing the history behind fiction.
I literally just bought a copy of The Dispossessed earlier today and can't wait to start it once I get through some other books I'm in the middle of. Been meaning to read more Le Guin.
My favorite sci-fi book of the last several years is Way Station by Clifford Simak. Its quiet pastoral charm was like a breath of fresh air for me at a time when I was feeling very bored by spaceships blowing each other up.
I dig when scifi authors, rather than necessarily comment on whether a thing is good or bad, just use scifi to crack it open and look at its guts. For example, China Mieville's _Embassytown_ is about trying to talk to aliens who have no concept of metaphor, and can only talk about things that literally exist. (They pay humans to do stuff so that they can use them as similes, amongst other things.)
Now, bearing in mind that it's a while since I read it, I think strictly speaking they barter things with the humans because they have weird biotech skills and I forget what it is that humans have that they want. They get similes, so long as they refer to a literal thing that actually exists, so they can manage "you want this thing, if I give it to you you can give me this other thing."
I think if the aliens were working for the humans for a salary rather than trading them stuff they were already making for their own reasons your point might make more sense?
Well, go read the book and see how plausible you find it, I guess. I reckon you could communicate pretty well about concrete things ("Go get that rock, give it to me") without metaphor. Especially if you can compare things to stuff that actually happened. Some of the similes the aliens create are used in pretty abstract ways - the main character of the book is a simile, and she is "the girl who ate what she was given".
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is by and far the best science fiction book I have ever read and the best exploration of political philosophies and the human effect of them that I have ever read- everyone who sees it- READ THIS BOOK
Haha! I assume you mean Fahrenheit 451, and him saying it's not really about censorship? I think that's a fair argument to make. Strangely enough, I don't like Fahrenheit 451 as much as I used to; I think Bradbury was a much better short story writer.
Poe? Asimov's Foundation series and future history? Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan and Mars books? Total mischaracterization of Dick's major themes? No characterization of Herbert's Dune ideas and innovations? Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? This video is a great tease as much for its omissions and inaccuracies as for its inclusions and truths.
Another awesome one. Would have loved for you to make a sort of subgenre/style identification. But that get's more muddied than in generally does with Fantasy, I suppose. Favorite Sc-fi novel is probably Heinlein's The Moon is a Hard Mistress. Exploring colonial society, problems of living on the moon and humanities first steps into becoming a interplanetary species. Much of which was a giant inspiration to The Expanse and such. Science Fiction's tendency to pose a question or problem and explore its implications suits it very well to short stories; so many of my favorites in the genre are in that format and where many authors (Vance, Clarke, Moon) shine.
One thing of minor note is the influence that the socialist movement had on Sci-Fi particularly time traveller stories. The Time Machine was in part a parody of the Utopian fiction that was quite popular at the time, where narrators would suddenly find themselves in a socialist or communist utopia and then spend their time dossing about having a nice time (they usually don't read well by modern standards and in a modern context) Wells' novel was influenced by this and at first it kinda seems to be going that way but then it turns out "Aw bummer, there's still class conflict".
That's interesting, I didn't think of that! Any other books that show that influence? I just finished Artemis by Andy Weir. It's kind of a crime thriller, set on the first city on the Moon. It was both cool and sad that we built a city on the Moon, but still brought along all of our problems and crime.
It has as much to due with prevailing ideals of the time, "our grandchildren will inherent a perfect society, we need only endure our current lifestyles", depending on how one looks at things and where on the globe you are living "better days" did come but everything has an unforeseen price.
@Anarchist Mugwump Wasn't class conflict written in Marxism and its totalitarian derivatives? It is also the reason why it fail on end under class-less American capitalism and modern social-democracy. Yes, I know that some American corporationists and "objectifict" propose para-feudal capitalism of the past, but generally that is against American way.
@therezro marx spoke of current class conflict and the creation of a classless society, just many of his followers never really got to that point (or seemed to forget about it once they got their hands on power). American capitalism continues to have the marxist class struggle play out (the capitalists still own the means of productions, the workers still sell their labour time in order to afford the necessities of life, the state still plays the role of the wide scale and long game management of capital that individual capitaist enterpirses struggle with, and the protection of their ownership by its use of force) and any analysis of modern american capitalism would be incomplete without studying at least some marx.
@anonarchist1936 "marx spoke of current class conflict and the creation of a classless society" True. It is why no one really blame Marx who was just a theorist. "just many of his followers never really got to that point" Most of his followers totally know that it was convenient tool to get the power in uneducated society. "American capitalism continues to have the marxist class struggle play out" Not really. Yes, American high class act like feudal lords, but they don't really have any real privileges (what is usually exist off book). It is more a snob behavior then real thing. Problem is that absurd bias of American conservatives lead them to going back to state what never really was the case on the first place. "the capitalists still own the means of productions" And would be because they are ones who care about managing them. But in American classless society everyone basically is a capitalist when in post-feudal society of XX century Europe criticized by Marxs only elit has right to own things. "the workers still sell their labour time in order to afford the necessities of life" Yes, sell.. not are owned like in case of Communism, where people didn't really have right to decide where they work. "the state still plays the role of the wide scale and long game management of capital that individual capitaist enterpirses struggle with" You are aware that in Communism they were meant to menage everything? That it was proven to be insufficient outside strategic branches is other story. In Corporate State what is extreme form of wild capitalism private institutions own even military, and so practically own slaves. That obviously is not the case. In most countries on the world we have so called "social market", where government protect economy from dishonest practices but don't participate in it directly. That create good balance in opposition to dictatorship of government and dictatorship of individual. "the protection of their ownership by its use of force" Only in case of illegal acquisition, what also protect small ones. In fact we should say that it protect especially smal ones because rich have money for dishonest tactics. But in modern day economy efficient manager from low class has still chance to re-obtain profit from inefficient large tycoon. In is why capitalism is a good thing. Remember that in both extremes such person is deprivation from that right because strong one can either send mercenaries on him (wild capitalism) or downright is a government (communism). "and any analysis of modern american capitalism would be incomplete without studying at least some marx" I'm not sure what you imply here? Marx is outdated and any modern social democrat would lough on you for calling on him. You argument can be relevant only in that zone that American economical model isn't on top anymore, and artifacts what poison him like over-reliance on corporations (what proved to suck outside own comfort zone) are used by dishonest people like Trump to ensure deepening of the class segregation. Something what is almost dead on rest of the world outside banana countries and maybe Russia and China (where it is a result of Communism and something what gradually disappear after reintroduction of free market in case of last one).
Le Guin’s Hainish novels and short stories, of which The Left Hand of Darkness is one, are easily some of my favorite sci-fi out there. Five Ways to Forgiveness, The Telling, and The Dispossessed all explore really fascinating social concepts and ideas. The Left Hand of Darkness is probably my favorite though.
my favourite sci-fi writers are the Strugatsky brothers since I was 12. mainly known and popular in the post-Soviet countries. but you might know some of their creations, such as Stalker (Tarkovsky's film). they started out writing communist futuristic utopias that were fun, but then they went on to create many cautionary tales and got darker and darker. but what makes them great in my eyes is their ability to see the good in people, even if there's also plenty of bad.
Yessss... Arkady and Boris Strugatskys are absolutely in the science fiction pantheon, but, alas, every time their works were translated into English, the translations were godawful.
As a novel, probably Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny and A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick both great treaties on religion and destiny. And Logan's Run is a great classic too.
I'm a little sad that Aldous Huxley and his Brave New World wasn't mentioned. I find it better than George Orwell's 1984, and that is also came 17 years earlier.
There are a lot of good writers and novels left off this list, strangely enough. Harlan Ellison probably deserved a mention, along with Stanislaw Lem, Roger Zelazny, Arthur C. Clarke, Joe Halderman, Walter Miller Jr., and many more.
Huxley's dystopia may be a lot more druggy, but the 'bread & circuses' idea is a lot more believable than 1984's unrelenting joylessness as an enduringly oppressive society. Distract people enough and they'll be sure to give zero f*cks, either because they won't notice or because they'll have something to lose.
Thagomizer it's not strange that many influential authors were left out of this video. You are talking about condensing almost 2 centuries of SF literature into a 6 minute video.
Two of my favorites are Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Sirens of Titan’ and ‘Cat’s Cradle’. Got to love a good commentary on religion and the hazards of military thinking.
I would say Phil Dick prefigured the cyberpunks in some ways but wasn't really a cyberpunk himself (though "Blade Runner", which was very, very loosely based on one of his novels, was definitely a cyberpunk movie). He was sometimes grouped with the 60s-70s New Wave. (My favorites of his are Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, both profoundly disturbing novels about unreal worlds and disruptions of reality itself.)
I'm so happy to see Philip K. Dick mentioned here that I'm reluctant to quibble with calling him cyberpunk, even though in my mind cyberpunk means something very different than what PKD wrote. Also cool that Janelle Monae got a mention, she has put PKD references in some of her songs.
This is like an abridged version of what the people over at Extra Credits are doing.
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Come on, no ARTHUR C. CLARKE? He wrote a little film called "2001", you know (and a bunch of classics like "Rendezvous with Rama", "Childhood´s End", "The City and the Stars", "Fountains of Paradise", etc, etc, etc).
I actually prefer the fantasy I've read by her, the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy (Gifts, Voices, and Powers). In fact, they're some of my favorite books of all time.
Got to give a shoutout to the prophet William Gibson, who seems to write scifi as a lowkey way to tell us all about his fairly accurate visions of the near future
Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are go-to favorites, as much for their world building as social and political exploration. I'm also enjoying Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, but I find it's held back by troubling elements of ethnic essentialism, and repetitive meditations on political economy that don't actually go anywhere.
Also whilst prometheus stole fire he originally created man, with some help from Zeus, which is probably a more relevant connection to Frankenstein than the fire myth.
Margaret Attwood's books are a really interesting example of science fiction, many of her less famous novels (Oryx and Crake, the Blind Assassin, etc) explore science fiction motifs and ideas while also looking at the social movements that were causing fear and anxiety at the time they were written. Oryx and Crake is an especially interesting example of this, the book explores the dangers of desensitizing children to violence, both sexual and non-sexual, as well as how genetic tampering and our desire to control all of humanity's weird quirks can, in the end, get most of us killed. A lot of her books set up a world that some big, sprawling story could take place in, but end just as the revolution begins.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. Every time I read it, I glean something new from it. Also, it's more and more relevant every day and that kinda scares the hell out of me.
Ann Leckie's books got me back into science fiction for the first time since I was a kid! Ancillary Justice is still my favorite SF novel, and without her I'd never have read Butler's Lilith's Brood series, or An Unkindness of Ghosts, or the Murderbot Diaries, or Space Opera, or A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, or... Look, there's all this great SF out there, guys!
Me too!! A combination of Ann Leckie and N.K. Jemisin. I thought the genre had gotten boring and stale, but a friend finally convinced me to read Leckie and then Jemisin and their raw creativity blew me away.
WTF? No mention of Arthur C. Clarke?! By Gorn, he just about invented the idea of the geostationary communication satellite, leading to Dish Network (and others) to be able to broadcast my great acting across the world for decades to come!
One of my favorites is the short story "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benét pre-WWII and yet it perfectly describes a post post Nuclear War apocalypse that you would see in Fallout games and Mad Max
I was a little surprised only Asimov's Robots got mentioned, and that the golden age science fiction list of contributors was so short. Personally I think Asimov's Foundation is a phenomenal work of fiction. I was really happy to see Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia E. Butler and Ann Leckie mentioned. All spectacular authors! I understand for the brevity of the episode not all great authors could be given a fair chance. Love this series, learned so much already. Thank you for making such awesome. I also highly recommend Dan Simmons' Hyperion Quadrilogy, as well as his Ilium/Olympos books. L.E. Modesitt, Jr., especially Adiamante and Timegod's World are excellent!
I am an avid SFG fan, and and among my favourites are: Ringworld Engineers, The Mote In God's eye, Footfall, practially all by Jerry Pournell and Larry Niven. Look, let me stop[ here I could go on and on.
Awesome video! Just as a note, and mentioned in the subtitles, Shelly`s Frankenstein was an 1818 book, and that made it very progressive for its time. If you ever do edit this, that would be a great change. Keep up the good work.
Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos. So good, such an amazing world building exercise. I definitely recommend to any that enjoy literature, philosophy, and science.
Fave sci-fi novel? I'm afraid I'm going to be slightly pedestrian and say The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yeah, I know, I am the most basic of basic nerds. Though if you want me to narrow it down to "favorite of the past few years," I'd say check out Mur Lafferty's Six Wakes. It's a locked room murder mystery. In space. On a generation ship. With clones. :)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is great! Clearly, you know where your towel is :) After all, Douglas Adams was the only officially unofficial member of Monty Python!
Brian Webber I love hitchhikers, but I always appreciate it more in terms of philosophy and nuance comedy, I didn’t feel it contain many themes related to science fiction, although it was interesting seeing Douglas Adams interpretation of human cynicism in the context of societal process
Distract yourself from your chagrin by joining me in my outrage that the Great American Read website somehow neglected to list The Hitchiker's Guide as a series: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
I'm definitely a child of the 70s and 80s. Love Frank Herbert, Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle, P. K. Dick, William Gibson and Greg Bear as well as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. I'm forgetting many others right now. I credit science fiction for shaping how I view the world today with all of its hopes and fears. I definitely lean toward the more positive view of things in that even if things were to get really bad, humans will finally pull through in the end once they realize that the old way of doing things got them into whatever particularly sticky situation they are in. ;)
My favorite sci-fi book series has to be The Foundation series by Asimov for how the story deals with deep time and how society will play out over the course of millennia. In a similar way I enjoy a lot of Orson Scott Card's series. Say what you will about the man, but he can integrate vast expanses of time into a story like a pro.
If you want deep time, Olaf Stapledon's works "Last and First Men" and "Star Maker" are worth checking out - the former covers the future evolution of mankind over the next couple of billion years, until shortly before their ultimate extinction. The latter is not so modest in scope, covering the entire span of sentient life in the universe, from shortly after the Big Bang, to shortly before the heat death - and, briefly, the entire span of the multiverse, though that time is not commensurable with time as measured within any individual universe...
I agree the Foundation is a seminal series. The first three books, can't say the later additions matched up. Deep time is the main driver in The Forever War, Joe Haldeman.
Honestly, I bought an omnibus edition of the Foundation Trilogy and I struggled to make it through just the first one (even though it's short). I acknowledge it's historically important, but I just thought it was pretty boring. I'm honestly dreading going back and reading the next two. I will say, I've read one other book by Asimov, The Caves of Steel, and I enjoyed that one a lot more.
For what it's worth, I found that the Foundation trilogy got more readable as it went - the introductory bit of Foundation is the worst because it was written as a prequel and assumes that you're familiar with at least the idea of where things are going, if not the details. Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation are each two stories rather than the five that got combined for Foundation, so they develop things further. No guarantees that you'll find them enjoyable, but they are better than the first volume.
One of my favorites and one that I wish got mentioned is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5. Although I think Vonnegut has transcended genre and is considered to simply be a classic author (and his books only ever used sic-fi concepts as a framing device). I like when sci-fi conventions are used to simply examine human social lives and relationships, not even on any philosophic level (I'm thinking like Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze's Her).
I've never heard of Octavia E. Butler before but I know of everyone else mentioned in this video. Thanks for introducing me to her and her works! Definitely gonna read up!
Octavia E. Butler!!!!!!!! So good!!! Literally just found her a few weeks ago and she is taking over my life! Her prose and themes are a breath of fresh air in my science fiction collection.
Mention Issac without mentioning his Foundation book? Being able to simulate and predict the future, within a story using science, is an endlessly intriguing concept. Dare I say unique, compared to something like time travel or AI.
Douglas Adams Hitchhickers Guide quadrilogy always amuses me to no end. It just seems way to relatable even though it's filled to the top with improbable weird twists ,turns and ideas. There is no true climax, no real good or bad guys , just a man who, by sheer luck, managed to survive the destruction of his homeplanet. It feels like Douglas Adams just decided to hold a sci fi mirror up to the real world and tell it: "Yup , shit's crazy"
My favorite sci-fi novel is The Martian, by Andy Weir! It's probably one of the most scientifically accurate sci-fi books out there, and I love how it gets into the psychology of being an astronaut.
David Shi mine too. I like his follow up book Artemis but it's not the same and doesn't have the same charm. Still it's worth a read. Also read his short story The Egg.
I just finished Artemis, I liked it! And I can't believe I'm saying this, but the economics of Artemis actually made it more interesting! You might also like this short story he wrote in honor of Yuri Gagarin: www.galactanet.com/oneoff/yuri.pdf
the realistic depiction of Astronauts' reaction under pressure is what I loved even more than the scientifically accurate (or plausible) elements. You know those guys have decades of training for missions like this, they don't snap at each other and start screaming like toddlers in the kindergarten, the calmly analyse the facts and form a plan. I love the actual "Houston we have a problem" broadcast for the real Apollo 13 incident, it's incredible how calm those guys are while reporting the details.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield apparently also approves! Some NASA admin told Andy Weir that for every character in his book, she could name a person at NASA who was exactly like that. Which is impressive, considering that Andy had no contact with anyone from NASA when writing The Martian! Also if you love Apollo stuff, definitely check out Vintage Space with Amy Shira Teitel.
"Where is my flying car and robot butler sci-fi promised me?" Unless you're over 60, you weren't promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go.
My favourite sci-fi book is The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. It's currently being adapted by Lionsgate starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. I'm very excited/anxious for how they will interpret it. It has strong messages about morality and how humanity's problems will follow it wherever humans go.
Perhaps my favourite series of all time. Not pleased with the cast, though. Daisey Ridley and Tom Holland are WAY WAY too old. Part of what makes the story so terrifying is how young Todd and Viola are (13-14ish).
So happy to see a shoutout to N.K. Jemisin! Her Broken Earth series radically expanded the kinds of stories I thought secondary worlds could tell. By far the best that "fictional people as stand-ins for real marginalized people" has ever been done.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is one of my all time favorites, I love the parallels between space exploration and Jesuits and I thought the prose was quite beautiful as well. I really appreciate these Lindsay Ellis videos, they're helping me and I'm considering using them in my classroom next year as well! I hope PBS continues.
Alongside Ursula Le Guin, my favorite sci-fi author is Robert Sheckley. His short stories are sublime. He has an uncanny ability to stick a knife in your sense of the normal and twist it in the wound. Check out the collection _Store of Infinity,_ if you can find it.
I will summarize a few authors for you Michael Critchton: Science! And we're all gonna die! C.J. Cherryh: Humans can become whatever they want or need to become, even not human anymore. David Drake: Killing people is the most effective way to stop killing people. Robert Heinlein: The best humans are superhuman. Isaac Asimov: Short stories are best stories. Sherri Tepper: The only hope for humanity is outside intervention. Jack Williamson: The problem with science is science. (Dehumanizing themes) I could go on and on. My favorite is probably "The Gate to Women's Country", by Sherri Tepper, because that was the book that taught me how to read literature, instead of just read stories.
One of my favorite contemporary works of sci-fi is The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which is one of the most optimistic works of sci-fi I have ever read. It's presented as kind of a travelogue rather than a single plot from beginning to end, almost like you're reading an entire season of a TV series.
There's something about Carl Sagan taking both his love and knowledge of astrophysics and combining it with his disdain for organized religion BUT his spirituality to make Contact that really got to me. One of the better science fiction books since the science is there and explained......other than the black hole machine.
David Shi I was not asked, but would like to chime in. NO! It was the absolute worst movie adaptation I have ever seen with cringe-worthy acting, changes in basic character traits and development (Ellie and Palmer Joss) which completely ruin the picture Sagan created of a real scientist and their relationship with the numinous, a minor issue in changing the final act from a voyage of scientific discovery reminiscent of Jules Verne to a hallucinogenic journey for self-help advice (as well as major exclusion of the world-wide effort of tracking, deciphering, and building that Sagan focused on), and an ending (SPOILERS) which makes me face-palm. Really? You didn’t notice there was 18 hours of footage, like, weeks ago? The ending of the book introduced some of my favorite ideas in sci-fi, from intergalactic construction projects to solutions for the Fermi paradox to evidence to make one question the nature of the origin of the Universe. All of that nuance was lost in the movie and I was very disappointed when I found out Sagan, himself, was very influential in the project.
I still need to read the book, but personally I enjoyed the movie. But, I respect your opinion! Are there any movie adaptations that you feel did justice to the book?
David Shi The Martian. A near-perfect adaptation that breathed just enough visual charm and secondary drama into a wondrous book to bring it to life. Arrival did the same, though I think the time-awareness was slightly misrepresented. Crichton’s Jurassic Park, while weaving a good exploration of the dangers of scientific discovery and exploitation of nature for capitalistic gain, was a rather unengaging, characterless book. The movie, though not a truly faithful adaptation, was a masterpiece. Blade Runner is in this category as well. 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was written in coordination with the book, making it a pseudo-adaptation, is probably my favorite of these. Clarke, known for his near-accurate predictions of the future, applied theoretical engineering and contemporary politics to fashion a realistic vision of Man in space, made us genuinely terrified of the computer for the first time, and proposed what the future of human evolution might look like. Kubrick, for his part, imbued into the entire sci-fi film genre the sense of grandiosity and mystery with skill I have not seen challenged since. (And he made classical music the language of space flight for decades, probably the only reason John Williams scored Star Wars the way it is, and created a tradition of classical influence in space films to this day.)
Wow! I love your analysis; clearly, you've given this some thought! I loved The Martian book, especially how it gets into the psychology of being an astronaut and NASA politics. I haven't seen the movie yet; I guess that's what I'll be doing this weekend! I also just finished Andy Weir's Artemis, which is quite good too. I hear an Artemis movie is in the works as well, so that's exciting!
I’m glad to see the talented and delightful Lindsay Ellis given wider exposure. My personal favorite Science Fiction novel is Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix, a sprawling tale that is basically post-Cyberpunk.
I like OSC's books. The Ender's Game series has something for everyone. If you like high minded metascience exploring how the universe works on a sub atomic level, read the original quadrilogy. If you're more of a fan of the action-adventure science fiction, Ender's Shadow series is for you. One of my favorite books of his was Treason. It's a weird story, but shows that OSC used to have some pretty unique ideas and was, as an author anyways, more open minded.
JossCard42 I love the quadrilogy of Ender's game. Ender is maybe my favorite literary character, I really love how he is developed as an adult. Have you read any short stories of osc. He has a big book of them, and there are some really good ones.
geensloth911 I was subscribed to his Intergalactic Medicine Show for a while. I enjoyed his stories from the Enderverse and a lot of the other stories other people contributed too. Though I didn't know he'd compiled any of them into a book though.
Great cyberpunk novels, for me, start and end with Otherland. Tad Williams' fantasy stuff is some of my favorite writing of any kind, and his late-90s sci-fi epic has all the trappings of the genre mixed with his signature philisophical outlook on the nature of humanity and the impact of individuals on history. The major characters are a diverse group of people brought together by mystery, circumstance, and a desire to fight back against injustice, and Tad's well-researched construction of the character !Xabbu is one of the greatest examples of an author taking pains to not let personal biases or experiences overshadow the importance of letting a character be a character.
Tons of great books, but I kinda wish more books explored robots and their inherent non-humanity. I don't mean Skynet world ending stuff, but Aasimov is one of the few authors who really explored that things that make sense to a machine don't always make sense to us, and vice versa. Robots are usually used in story either as props, or to represent either emotionally devoid or emotionally primitive humans. Or the Star Wars approach of just having them be like everyone else except metal.
Andrew Howard I completely agree, in media whenever a robot is supposed to not be a direct antagonist they basically go the Pinocchio route. I think that’s a wasted opportunity because even if a machine gain a level of consciousness it still wouldn’t be like a person, it would so completely different from a human and no many science fiction novels are willing to explore that.
David Shi I don't know about the same was as Aasimov, but the first example that comes to mind are the AIs in Neuromancer. At first they seem rather human, but after some time, you realize that is just how they act when trying to work with humans, and tend to be a lot weirder. I never really got into Cyberpunk, but I did at least appreciate how the AI in that book don't fall into the usual robot roles.
One of Asimov's own stories about his writing is that he got fed up with the two mainstream depictions of robots - as the implacable menace, or as the transcendent being - and wanted to write them as machines - neither good nor evil, but doing what they were programmed to do (which is usually not what they were intended to be programmed to do)
I'm making a Sci-fi comic series that takes place in 2205 AD about a middle-aged woman with technological implants (that control her memory, her internet service and, in a world where the written word has been illegalized, her main source of reading.) They malfunction and she gets a surgery to fix her internet service. However, none of her videos, docs and photos where on the Cloud so the doctors can't retrieve them. Therefore, she goes on a quest to find out about her past.
Cyberiad! You all might want to check Stanisław Lem books; he has grat sense of humor, he's smart, and not cliche at all. Bearly known in english world as i see.
Though he's probably better known in the English-speaking world than any *other* SF writer in another language (unless we count authors with mainstream cred like Calvino and Borges).
Solaris was made into a movie starring George Clooney, perhaps the most mainstream he's ever been in english. Solaris, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, and Futurological Congress are all great stories.
My favorite science fiction novels are the Leviathan Series by Scott Westerfield. An alternate World War 1, divided between the biological and mechanical sciences, with the Allies using genetic amalgamations (including the eponymous Leviathan, a living zepplin made from a flying sperm whale) and the Axis using massive steam punk war machines (picture the goblin tech of Warcraft). Mostly, it's just fun. Schlocky and hokey, but a blast to read.
That sounds awesome! I'm very fond of steampunk, so I'll definitely check it out. Have you read Mortal Engines? It's about giant moving cities that eat each other on a barren post-apocalyptic Earth. It's being turned into a movie too!
Not the most entertaining in a narrative sense, but the most thought-provoking science fiction book I've ever read is Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker from 1937.
Here's my top 3 : H.G Wells' "Time Machine", Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and Adolpho Bioy Caceres' "The Invention of Morel" : their subjects are totally relevant today !
THANK YOU for giving Octavia Butler her due! Lilith's Brood -- Especially the first, Dawn -- really turned my thinking about aliens and colonization upside down.
Maybe I’m a sucker for good adventures or I’m a secret Cyberpunk rocker, but I love Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and Philip K. Dick’s Scanner Darkly
Read this back in middle school, but my favorite sci-fi will probably always be The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. Really fun, great read with interesting themes and memorable characters and is really a book for all ages even if the target audience was YA.
Atwood works more in the realm of reachable dystopia, actual society in the not-too-far future that done f***ed up. It's not speculative in the realm of the unknown; Atwood herself has said that every single thing in The Handmaid's Tale has been done or is done in the world TODAY. The stories just mush all of the horrible under one umbrella, Nazi Germany style.
One could make the same argument for 1984. It wasn't any far distant future type novel but just existing technology taken to the extreme - very similar to Atwood. Though I accept an argument can be made for differentiating imaginary-sci-fi (i.e. sci-fi in worlds very different from our own or not easily forseeable given current technology) from what Atwood calls "speculative fiction" (i.e. sci-fi that feels like it could happen within our lifetimes). Though doing so would require re-classifying a lot of material. Arguably "Frankenstein" would be considered speculative fiction since at the time experiments with electricity on e.g. deceased frog legs made it seem as though re-animating the dead was just around the corner.
Her books are very well written and have some interesting ideas, but I dislike her style of storytelling. Usually the backstory of her novels that is told through flashbacks is much more interesting than the present day narrative of the novel. Handmaid's tale has the best present day narrative but even still it's not that interesting. But I found Oryx and Crake to have more interesting ideas in it.
I really love Solaria from Stanislaw Lem. I think it is very interesting how imaginative it is with the setting and how information is provided through an examination of academic studies and the epistemology of it all. I really dig the density of the themes, oftentimes explicit, and the emotional core. So yeah, highly recommend.
My favourite sci-fi novel is *Dune*. I personally would like to see more sci-fi set in a time when humans have started to colonized our nearby neighbors like Mars and Europa, but are still far away technology wise to go farther.
If you don't mind science from a late '60s-early '70s perspective, check out the early works of Larry Niven that discuss just that (particularly his short stories). Or, for that matter, Arthur C. Clarke.
A little closer to home is Artemis, by Andy Weir, who also wrote The Martian. It's a crime-thriller set on a city on the moon, and Weir even worked out how the moon economy would work!
Cypher Are you familiar with the UA-camr Isaac Arthur? He doesn't write science fiction, per se (his channel description reads, "This channel focuses on exploring concepts in science with an emphasis on futurism and space exploration, along with a healthy dose of science fiction"), but colonization of the solar system is one of the major themes he deals with. Here's his recent video on colonizing Ceres, part of an ongoing series. ua-cam.com/video/LqoYtBZAKO0/v-deo.html
Dan Simmons' Hyperion! The series has everything that quintessential sci-fi novels needs to possess. Although, I may be biased for Hyperion was what had introduced me to the genre.
A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Chambers) has been one of my favorite sci-fis in recent years. On the comic side the re-release of Jinty: Land of No Tears and The Human Zoo has been a treat.
Looking for more It's Lit? You can find the latest season on Storied, PBS's home for arts and humanities content here on UA-cam. Subscribe to Storied for the latest episodes of It's Lit and get your folklore fix with Monstrum while you're there! ua-cam.com/channels/O6nDCimkF79NZRRb8YiDcA.html
what's the painting at 5:17?
Thank you PBS for giving me more Lindsay Ellis!
Thirded. Motion written into law.
PBS sustains me between her own videos and I'm so grateful
Exactly what I'm thinking. Look at your comments we're not alone. Hope they're paying her good 'cause I just want more.
Fave human evaaaahh!!
Yes, enable more Lindsay Ellis!
Lindsay & PBS, you had me at lightcycles & hoverboards on Mars.
Who am I kidding? You had me at 'Lindsay & PBS'.
You had me at PBS! (And Lindsay too)
PBS and a woman who sockpuppeted a dead paedophile to win an arguement
+Irish Jester Indeed. :/
to win an argument she told people that some other e-personality would never support the other side, sockpuppeting a dead man as he had been dead a few months at this point). then earlier this year we found out that the person in question was actualyl a paedophile and the company lindsey was working for at the time had covered it up.
oh and lets not forget lindeys Rape-rap, she tried her best to wipe it from the internet, but the internet doesn't forget.
I'm so glad Ursula K. LeGuin got a shout-out here. It's really easy to overlook her influence in the genre.
i thought the same thing re: Octavia E. Butler. and NK Jemisin, who might be, without breaking a sweat, comparable to Octavia - and even! absolutely TROUNCING the influence of Butler in the next couple years.
I disagree. She is very widely known and appreciated.
The Dispossessed was sooo good, and while The Left Hand of Darkness was a bit harder to get into, I really liked it as well. You can really notice Le Guin being influenced by the anthropology of her parents, in the way she explores how different societies relate and how socially constructed many concepts are.
@@billyalarie929 Haven't read Butler yet but I've heard she's really good.
I love the mathematical novella Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott, which is about sentient geometrical figures that live on a 2D plane. Does that count as science fiction? It certainly has the social commentary element, as the first half is basically a satire of Victorian society. The second half is more of an exploration of higher dimensions, and how to think about them.
I need to read that. Something really interesting - I watched a video where someone mentioned that novel in relationship to Bill Cipher in Gravity Falls, and I realized, that was probably totally intentional on the writer's part. Bill is all about shedding the restrictions of a 2D world, and! He's a triangle, which is the fewest sides a shape can have without being a line, so he'd be at the bottom of the social hierarchy of that world. Kind of blew my mind.
And Flatland has no copyright (because of age) and is available for free on the better part of the interwebz.
I've never seen Gravity Falls, but that sounds really cool! Technically, one dimensional lines (females) are at the bottom of the social ladder of Flatland. Lines don't really have faces, so that's kind of hard to animate. It does add another dimension to it, pun intended! I also recommend "Flatterland" by Ian Stewart, which is a modern sequel to Flatland.
Yeah, I just meant besides the lines. Cool, I'll have to check it out!
Flatland is mostly a concept and not a very interesting read as anything beyond that, although there's some jokes.
One of my old time favorites is Flowers for Algernon (very underrated!). The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin and A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr. are also amazing.
You have outstanding taste!
Flowers for Algernon blew me away when I read it!
Daniel Keyes (the author) on Flower's for Algernon, upon receiving his Hugo Award, said something along the lines of "When you figure out how I did it, can you let me know? I'd like to do it again!"
Canricle was required for my college sci-fi lit class. I really enjoyed it.
Flowers for Algernon was one of the most genuinely enjoyable required reads I had in high school. Made me emotional reading it.
One small thing, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is not Victorian. Queen Victoria was decades from taking the throne. The historical period in which Mary Shelley wrote the book is Georgian, i.e. the same time Jane Austen wrote her books. And in any case, since Mary Shelley wrote the book in Continental era, it's more accurate to see it as a Romantic work or part of the Romantic era. Aside from that, nice video.
I just looked up who was monarch when it was published--it was at the tail end of the reign of George III!
Too many nits to pick, must rest and start again tomorrow
Conchita Mendez Oh I absolutely do consider Mary Shelley the first science-fiction novel. I don't want to give the wrong idea. It's the founding work of the genre and still maybe the best novel of that kind. It's just that I do not consider it a Victorian novel . It's a Romantic work and one of the greatest of that time and period.
For anyone interested in the historical and scientific context of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (and for Sean Bean fans), I'd recommend watching "The Frankenstein Chronicles", currently on Netflix.
It's a work of Romanticism
Books AND Lindsay Ellis. This is literally my favorite youtube show.
I liked all of this, except for one MASSIVE omission: Arthur C. Clarke! :)
Clarke wasn't as inspired or genre-defining as the ones mentioned, his collaboration with Kubrick is legendary but overall he was just fine as a pure writer. And note that I like his novels, but Asimov, Bradbury and Heinlein have an energy that he lacks.
Fair enough, but Clarke is the only one of them to actually invent future technology in real life, not just in his books.
I passionately disagree, Clarke produced so many golden age classics. Such as The City and the Stars, Childhood's End and Rendezvous with Rama. Without mentioning 2001 or countless short stories.
Heinlein actually invented stuff. Waterbeds, for one. also WALDOs.
Why is adding strong female characters a prerequisite for science fiction? Lots of the best science fiction doesn't develop or focus on characters whether they be male or female.
At 30, I feel like I was too late for the golden age of the xerox zine; somehow this animatic style manages to make me feel a degree of nostalgia I couldn't have imagined. It's Baller. I love it.
They did a great job with the animation! Thank god for PBS Digital Studios :)
I recommend ALL Sci-Fi fans, regardless of other tastes, take some time to read "Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction" by John Rieder. Rieder makes the case that Sci-Fi, historically, had its roots in colonial adventure novels, and draws a line between things like "King Solomon's Mines" and its exploration of Africa to, ultimately, space travel. This partially explains the use of the Arctic exploration as a framing device in Frankenstein: the Arctic and the Jungle were the two major frontiers of colonial explorers.
This winds up having some great applications - Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" feels a lot more clear, for example, and it blows up your ability to read secondary literature about Sci-Fi to include colonial histories.
Anyway, my favorite Sci-Fi novel is almost certainly "Heroes Die" (and its attendant series) by Matthew Stover. They manage to be both really intellectually hefty, while also being pulpy action novels. It's an amazing balancing act.
Wow! I've always believed that Sci-Fi was our way of talking about cultures discovering each other, IOW history! I find it is the only genre where 'society' is one of the lead characters. As an aside I also love the fact that ordinary non-heroic characters fill the POV positions and how lead characters are rarely motivated by romance. It is one of the only genres that celebrate being single and unattached, and able to go on adventures.
thanks so much for sharing! definitely added to the list. There is so much narrative to decolonise and I love opening up my views to seeing the history behind fiction.
Ursula Le-guin's the Dispossed is my favourite sci-book of all time.
I literally just read it a couple months ago! It's quite thought-provoking, and I am absolutely checking out the rest of le Guin's work now (RIP).
So, so good. I love Ursula.
Same!
hell ye!
I literally just bought a copy of The Dispossessed earlier today and can't wait to start it once I get through some other books I'm in the middle of. Been meaning to read more Le Guin.
My favorite sci-fi book of the last several years is Way Station by Clifford Simak. Its quiet pastoral charm was like a breath of fresh air for me at a time when I was feeling very bored by spaceships blowing each other up.
I dig when scifi authors, rather than necessarily comment on whether a thing is good or bad, just use scifi to crack it open and look at its guts. For example, China Mieville's _Embassytown_ is about trying to talk to aliens who have no concept of metaphor, and can only talk about things that literally exist. (They pay humans to do stuff so that they can use them as similes, amongst other things.)
Hugh Dingwall Huh. If they dont get metaphors and similes, how do they grasp the concept of money? Money is after all a physical metaphor for time..?
Now, bearing in mind that it's a while since I read it, I think strictly speaking they barter things with the humans because they have weird biotech skills and I forget what it is that humans have that they want. They get similes, so long as they refer to a literal thing that actually exists, so they can manage "you want this thing, if I give it to you you can give me this other thing."
I think if the aliens were working for the humans for a salary rather than trading them stuff they were already making for their own reasons your point might make more sense?
Metaphor is really basic to human language. I really doubt that any species could have an advanced form of communication without using metaphor.
Well, go read the book and see how plausible you find it, I guess. I reckon you could communicate pretty well about concrete things ("Go get that rock, give it to me") without metaphor. Especially if you can compare things to stuff that actually happened. Some of the similes the aliens create are used in pretty abstract ways - the main character of the book is a simile, and she is "the girl who ate what she was given".
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is by and far the best science fiction book I have ever read and the best exploration of political philosophies and the human effect of them that I have ever read- everyone who sees it- READ THIS BOOK
I need a citation on Ray Bradbury being a Cool Dude.
Well, Rachel Bloom made a music video called "F**k Me Ray Bradbury". Someone showed it to him, and he was reportedly charmed by it. So there's that!
He also disagrees with what your interpretation of his novels is ;)
Haha! I assume you mean Fahrenheit 451, and him saying it's not really about censorship? I think that's a fair argument to make. Strangely enough, I don't like Fahrenheit 451 as much as I used to; I think Bradbury was a much better short story writer.
Same, because I've now heard conflicting accounts and would like to confirm one way or the other closer to the source.
I saw him speak at Comic-Con once, and he was pretty cool I thought.
Poe? Asimov's Foundation series and future history? Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan and Mars books? Total mischaracterization of Dick's major themes? No characterization of Herbert's Dune ideas and innovations? Aldous Huxley's Brave New World? This video is a great tease as much for its omissions and inaccuracies as for its inclusions and truths.
Brave New World is my favorite science fiction book. It's so crazy and cinematic, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten a big movie recently.
They made two TV movies; the 1998 version has Leonard Nimoy!
Probably too close to reality, 😁
Another awesome one. Would have loved for you to make a sort of subgenre/style identification. But that get's more muddied than in generally does with Fantasy, I suppose.
Favorite Sc-fi novel is probably Heinlein's The Moon is a Hard Mistress. Exploring colonial society, problems of living on the moon and humanities first steps into becoming a interplanetary species. Much of which was a giant inspiration to The Expanse and such.
Science Fiction's tendency to pose a question or problem and explore its implications suits it very well to short stories; so many of my favorites in the genre are in that format and where many authors (Vance, Clarke, Moon) shine.
One thing of minor note is the influence that the socialist movement had on Sci-Fi particularly time traveller stories. The Time Machine was in part a parody of the Utopian fiction that was quite popular at the time, where narrators would suddenly find themselves in a socialist or communist utopia and then spend their time dossing about having a nice time (they usually don't read well by modern standards and in a modern context) Wells' novel was influenced by this and at first it kinda seems to be going that way but then it turns out "Aw bummer, there's still class conflict".
That's interesting, I didn't think of that! Any other books that show that influence?
I just finished Artemis by Andy Weir. It's kind of a crime thriller, set on the first city on the Moon. It was both cool and sad that we built a city on the Moon, but still brought along all of our problems and crime.
It has as much to due with prevailing ideals of the time, "our grandchildren will inherent a perfect society, we need only endure our current lifestyles", depending on how one looks at things and where on the globe you are living "better days" did come but everything has an unforeseen price.
@Anarchist Mugwump
Wasn't class conflict written in Marxism and its totalitarian derivatives? It is also the reason why it fail on end under class-less American capitalism and modern social-democracy. Yes, I know that some American corporationists and "objectifict" propose para-feudal capitalism of the past, but generally that is against American way.
@therezro marx spoke of current class conflict and the creation of a classless society, just many of his followers never really got to that point (or seemed to forget about it once they got their hands on power).
American capitalism continues to have the marxist class struggle play out (the capitalists still own the means of productions, the workers still sell their labour time in order to afford the necessities of life, the state still plays the role of the wide scale and long game management of capital that individual capitaist enterpirses struggle with, and the protection of their ownership by its use of force) and any analysis of modern american capitalism would be incomplete without studying at least some marx.
@anonarchist1936
"marx spoke of current class conflict and the creation of a classless society"
True. It is why no one really blame Marx who was just a theorist.
"just many of his followers never really got to that point"
Most of his followers totally know that it was convenient tool to get the power in uneducated society.
"American capitalism continues to have the marxist class struggle play out"
Not really. Yes, American high class act like feudal lords, but they don't really have any real privileges (what is usually exist off book). It is more a snob behavior then real thing. Problem is that absurd bias of American conservatives lead them to going back to state what never really was the case on the first place.
"the capitalists still own the means of productions"
And would be because they are ones who care about managing them. But in American classless society everyone basically is a capitalist when in post-feudal society of XX century Europe criticized by Marxs only elit has right to own things.
"the workers still sell their labour time in order to afford the necessities of life"
Yes, sell.. not are owned like in case of Communism, where people didn't really have right to decide where they work.
"the state still plays the role of the wide scale and long game management of capital that individual capitaist enterpirses struggle with"
You are aware that in Communism they were meant to menage everything? That it was proven to be insufficient outside strategic branches is other story. In Corporate State what is extreme form of wild capitalism private institutions own even military, and so practically own slaves. That obviously is not the case. In most countries on the world we have so called "social market", where government protect economy from dishonest practices but don't participate in it directly. That create good balance in opposition to dictatorship of government and dictatorship of individual.
"the protection of their ownership by its use of force"
Only in case of illegal acquisition, what also protect small ones. In fact we should say that it protect especially smal ones because rich have money for dishonest tactics. But in modern day economy efficient manager from low class has still chance to re-obtain profit from inefficient large tycoon. In is why capitalism is a good thing. Remember that in both extremes such person is deprivation from that right because strong one can either send mercenaries on him (wild capitalism) or downright is a government (communism).
"and any analysis of modern american capitalism would be incomplete without studying at least some marx"
I'm not sure what you imply here? Marx is outdated and any modern social democrat would lough on you for calling on him. You argument can be relevant only in that zone that American economical model isn't on top anymore, and artifacts what poison him like over-reliance on corporations (what proved to suck outside own comfort zone) are used by dishonest people like Trump to ensure deepening of the class segregation. Something what is almost dead on rest of the world outside banana countries and maybe Russia and China (where it is a result of Communism and something what gradually disappear after reintroduction of free market in case of last one).
Le Guin’s Hainish novels and short stories, of which The Left Hand of Darkness is one, are easily some of my favorite sci-fi out there. Five Ways to Forgiveness, The Telling, and The Dispossessed all explore really fascinating social concepts and ideas. The Left Hand of Darkness is probably my favorite though.
my favourite sci-fi writers are the Strugatsky brothers since I was 12. mainly known and popular in the post-Soviet countries. but you might know some of their creations, such as Stalker (Tarkovsky's film). they started out writing communist futuristic utopias that were fun, but then they went on to create many cautionary tales and got darker and darker. but what makes them great in my eyes is their ability to see the good in people, even if there's also plenty of bad.
I've never heard of them, but that sounds really cool! I haven't read much non-American sci-fi, so thanks for mentioning them!
Yessss... Arkady and Boris Strugatskys are absolutely in the science fiction pantheon, but, alas, every time their works were translated into English, the translations were godawful.
"The Second Invasion from Mars" is my favorite of theirs.
As a novel, probably Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny and A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick both great treaties on religion and destiny. And Logan's Run is a great classic too.
I'm a little sad that Aldous Huxley and his Brave New World wasn't mentioned. I find it better than George Orwell's 1984, and that is also came 17 years earlier.
There are a lot of good writers and novels left off this list, strangely enough. Harlan Ellison probably deserved a mention, along with Stanislaw Lem, Roger Zelazny, Arthur C. Clarke, Joe Halderman, Walter Miller Jr., and many more.
Huxley's dystopia may be a lot more druggy, but the 'bread & circuses' idea is a lot more believable than 1984's unrelenting joylessness as an enduringly oppressive society. Distract people enough and they'll be sure to give zero f*cks, either because they won't notice or because they'll have something to lose.
You may also like We by Zemyatin. Also written before 1984. But similar story, only better.
Thagomizer it's not strange that many influential authors were left out of this video. You are talking about condensing almost 2 centuries of SF literature into a 6 minute video.
actually We is the direct inspiration for Brave New World
Two of my favorites are Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Sirens of Titan’ and ‘Cat’s Cradle’. Got to love a good commentary on religion and the hazards of military thinking.
I would say Phil Dick prefigured the cyberpunks in some ways but wasn't really a cyberpunk himself (though "Blade Runner", which was very, very loosely based on one of his novels, was definitely a cyberpunk movie). He was sometimes grouped with the 60s-70s New Wave.
(My favorites of his are Ubik and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, both profoundly disturbing novels about unreal worlds and disruptions of reality itself.)
I'm so happy to see Philip K. Dick mentioned here that I'm reluctant to quibble with calling him cyberpunk, even though in my mind cyberpunk means something very different than what PKD wrote. Also cool that Janelle Monae got a mention, she has put PKD references in some of her songs.
Forbidden Planet is SUCH a great movie tbh. Thanks for the awesome screenplay, Billy Shakespeare!
This is like an abridged version of what the people over at Extra Credits are doing.
Come on, no ARTHUR C. CLARKE? He wrote a little film called "2001", you know (and a bunch of classics like "Rendezvous with Rama", "Childhood´s End", "The City and the Stars", "Fountains of Paradise", etc, etc, etc).
Haven't read as much as most people here but I love Ursula's works, The Dispossesed is my favorite
I actually prefer the fantasy I've read by her, the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy (Gifts, Voices, and Powers). In fact, they're some of my favorite books of all time.
My all time favorite is 1984, everytime I read it I just catch some explendid piece of writing I didn’t notice at first reading!
Got to give a shoutout to the prophet William Gibson, who seems to write scifi as a lowkey way to tell us all about his fairly accurate visions of the near future
Ursula LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are go-to favorites, as much for their world building as social and political exploration. I'm also enjoying Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, but I find it's held back by troubling elements of ethnic essentialism, and repetitive meditations on political economy that don't actually go anywhere.
1918? Oops. Frankenstein is time traveling now.
Oof thanks for the catching this -- sorry we missed it. We added a correction in the summary!
Glad I wasn't the only one who caught that. Damn it Nostalgia Chick!
Maybe she's not QUITE as nostalgic as we thought.
I blame H.G. Welles.
Also whilst prometheus stole fire he originally created man, with some help from Zeus, which is probably a more relevant connection to Frankenstein than the fire myth.
Margaret Attwood's books are a really interesting example of science fiction, many of her less famous novels (Oryx and Crake, the Blind Assassin, etc) explore science fiction motifs and ideas while also looking at the social movements that were causing fear and anxiety at the time they were written. Oryx and Crake is an especially interesting example of this, the book explores the dangers of desensitizing children to violence, both sexual and non-sexual, as well as how genetic tampering and our desire to control all of humanity's weird quirks can, in the end, get most of us killed. A lot of her books set up a world that some big, sprawling story could take place in, but end just as the revolution begins.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. Every time I read it, I glean something new from it. Also, it's more and more relevant every day and that kinda scares the hell out of me.
Ann Leckie's books got me back into science fiction for the first time since I was a kid! Ancillary Justice is still my favorite SF novel, and without her I'd never have read Butler's Lilith's Brood series, or An Unkindness of Ghosts, or the Murderbot Diaries, or Space Opera, or A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, or... Look, there's all this great SF out there, guys!
Me too!! A combination of Ann Leckie and N.K. Jemisin. I thought the genre had gotten boring and stale, but a friend finally convinced me to read Leckie and then Jemisin and their raw creativity blew me away.
WTF? No mention of Arthur C. Clarke?! By Gorn, he just about invented the idea of the geostationary communication satellite, leading to Dish Network (and others) to be able to broadcast my great acting across the world for decades to come!
I watched this and Hank Greens video on a similar topic. It’s my Science Fiction Double Feature.
I can't believe you left out Arthur C Clarke and you put George Orwell in the golden age authors of scifi!
One of my favorites is the short story "By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benét pre-WWII and yet it perfectly describes a post post Nuclear War apocalypse that you would see in Fallout games and Mad Max
That sounds cool, I'll definitely check it out!
I was a little surprised only Asimov's Robots got mentioned, and that the golden age science fiction list of contributors was so short. Personally I think Asimov's Foundation is a phenomenal work of fiction. I was really happy to see Ursula K. LeGuin, Octavia E. Butler and Ann Leckie mentioned. All spectacular authors!
I understand for the brevity of the episode not all great authors could be given a fair chance.
Love this series, learned so much already. Thank you for making such awesome.
I also highly recommend Dan Simmons' Hyperion Quadrilogy, as well as his Ilium/Olympos books. L.E. Modesitt, Jr., especially Adiamante and Timegod's World are excellent!
I am an avid SFG fan, and and among my favourites are: Ringworld Engineers, The Mote In God's eye, Footfall, practially all by Jerry Pournell and Larry Niven. Look, let me stop[ here I could go on and on.
Extra SciFi is a must watch for all fans of SciFi and it's history
Awesome video! Just as a note, and mentioned in the subtitles, Shelly`s Frankenstein was an 1818 book, and that made it very progressive for its time. If you ever do edit this, that would be a great change. Keep up the good work.
Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos. So good, such an amazing world building exercise. I definitely recommend to any that enjoy literature, philosophy, and science.
Thanks, I'll definitely check it out!
Heinlein was my favorite growing up, in particular, I Will Fear No Evil and Podkayne of Mars
I'd add The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress to the mix . . . .
Fave sci-fi novel? I'm afraid I'm going to be slightly pedestrian and say The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Yeah, I know, I am the most basic of basic nerds.
Though if you want me to narrow it down to "favorite of the past few years," I'd say check out Mur Lafferty's Six Wakes. It's a locked room murder mystery. In space. On a generation ship. With clones. :)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is great! Clearly, you know where your towel is :) After all, Douglas Adams was the only officially unofficial member of Monty Python!
Six Wakes sounds awesome.
Brian Webber I love hitchhikers, but I always appreciate it more in terms of philosophy and nuance comedy, I didn’t feel it contain many themes related to science fiction, although it was interesting seeing Douglas Adams interpretation of human cynicism in the context of societal process
Distract yourself from your chagrin by joining me in my outrage that the Great American Read website somehow neglected to list The Hitchiker's Guide as a series: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
walking is good for you. also, it's my favorite too.
I'm definitely a child of the 70s and 80s. Love Frank Herbert, Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle, P. K. Dick, William Gibson and Greg Bear as well as Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. I'm forgetting many others right now. I credit science fiction for shaping how I view the world today with all of its hopes and fears. I definitely lean toward the more positive view of things in that even if things were to get really bad, humans will finally pull through in the end once they realize that the old way of doing things got them into whatever particularly sticky situation they are in. ;)
My favorite sci-fi book series has to be The Foundation series by Asimov for how the story deals with deep time and how society will play out over the course of millennia. In a similar way I enjoy a lot of Orson Scott Card's series. Say what you will about the man, but he can integrate vast expanses of time into a story like a pro.
If you want deep time, Olaf Stapledon's works "Last and First Men" and "Star Maker" are worth checking out - the former covers the future evolution of mankind over the next couple of billion years, until shortly before their ultimate extinction. The latter is not so modest in scope, covering the entire span of sentient life in the universe, from shortly after the Big Bang, to shortly before the heat death - and, briefly, the entire span of the multiverse, though that time is not commensurable with time as measured within any individual universe...
I agree the Foundation is a seminal series. The first three books, can't say the later additions matched up.
Deep time is the main driver in The Forever War, Joe Haldeman.
Honestly, I bought an omnibus edition of the Foundation Trilogy and I struggled to make it through just the first one (even though it's short). I acknowledge it's historically important, but I just thought it was pretty boring. I'm honestly dreading going back and reading the next two. I will say, I've read one other book by Asimov, The Caves of Steel, and I enjoyed that one a lot more.
For what it's worth, I found that the Foundation trilogy got more readable as it went - the introductory bit of Foundation is the worst because it was written as a prequel and assumes that you're familiar with at least the idea of where things are going, if not the details. Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation are each two stories rather than the five that got combined for Foundation, so they develop things further.
No guarantees that you'll find them enjoyable, but they are better than the first volume.
@@nickstevens8596 Then you should try to read "Prelude to Foundation", it is very much like "The Caves of Steel".
One of my favorites and one that I wish got mentioned is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5. Although I think Vonnegut has transcended genre and is considered to simply be a classic author (and his books only ever used sic-fi concepts as a framing device). I like when sci-fi conventions are used to simply examine human social lives and relationships, not even on any philosophic level (I'm thinking like Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze's Her).
I've never heard of Octavia E. Butler before but I know of everyone else mentioned in this video. Thanks for introducing me to her and her works! Definitely gonna read up!
Octavia E. Butler!!!!!!!! So good!!! Literally just found her a few weeks ago and she is taking over my life! Her prose and themes are a breath of fresh air in my science fiction collection.
Mention Issac without mentioning his Foundation book? Being able to simulate and predict the future, within a story using science, is an endlessly intriguing concept. Dare I say unique, compared to something like time travel or AI.
Big thumbs up for the Janelle Monae mention! My favorite sci-fi is debatable as such, but Slaughterhouse-Five.
My favorite sci fi books are stuff like The Culture Series as well as its more hardcore younger brother The Polity Series, and the Thrawn Trilogy.
William Gibson's "Neuromancer". I love everything sci fi, but cyberpunk is my favourite.
Douglas Adams Hitchhickers Guide quadrilogy always amuses me to no end. It just seems way to relatable even though it's filled to the top with improbable weird twists ,turns and ideas. There is no true climax, no real good or bad guys , just a man who, by sheer luck, managed to survive the destruction of his homeplanet. It feels like Douglas Adams just decided to hold a sci fi mirror up to the real world and tell it: "Yup , shit's crazy"
My favorite sci-fi novel is The Martian, by Andy Weir! It's probably one of the most scientifically accurate sci-fi books out there, and I love how it gets into the psychology of being an astronaut.
David Shi mine too. I like his follow up book Artemis but it's not the same and doesn't have the same charm. Still it's worth a read. Also read his short story The Egg.
I just finished Artemis, I liked it! And I can't believe I'm saying this, but the economics of Artemis actually made it more interesting! You might also like this short story he wrote in honor of Yuri Gagarin: www.galactanet.com/oneoff/yuri.pdf
the realistic depiction of Astronauts' reaction under pressure is what I loved even more than the scientifically accurate (or plausible) elements. You know those guys have decades of training for missions like this, they don't snap at each other and start screaming like toddlers in the kindergarten, the calmly analyse the facts and form a plan.
I love the actual "Houston we have a problem" broadcast for the real Apollo 13 incident, it's incredible how calm those guys are while reporting the details.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield apparently also approves! Some NASA admin told Andy Weir that for every character in his book, she could name a person at NASA who was exactly like that. Which is impressive, considering that Andy had no contact with anyone from NASA when writing The Martian!
Also if you love Apollo stuff, definitely check out Vintage Space with Amy Shira Teitel.
I love the irreverent sense of humour the novel has, sci-fi has a habit of forgetting its about humans.
"Where is my flying car and robot butler sci-fi promised me?"
Unless you're over 60, you weren't promised flying cars. You were promised an oppressive cyberpunk dystopia. Here you go.
My favourite sci-fi book is The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. It's currently being adapted by Lionsgate starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley. I'm very excited/anxious for how they will interpret it. It has strong messages about morality and how humanity's problems will follow it wherever humans go.
Cool, I'll check out! Do you have any favorite movie adaptations?
Rey and Spider-Man are the leads? Sold!
Phoebe Louise Have you read his other novel, More Than This? It's fantastic!
Perhaps my favourite series of all time. Not pleased with the cast, though. Daisey Ridley and Tom Holland are WAY WAY too old. Part of what makes the story so terrifying is how young Todd and Viola are (13-14ish).
What’s it about?!
So happy to see a shoutout to N.K. Jemisin! Her Broken Earth series radically expanded the kinds of stories I thought secondary worlds could tell. By far the best that "fictional people as stand-ins for real marginalized people" has ever been done.
I also love Ender's Game! (Well, I love the Ender's Shadow Saga), and I'm also SO GLAD that Octavia Butler got a shout-out, because I love her works.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is one of my all time favorites, I love the parallels between space exploration and Jesuits and I thought the prose was quite beautiful as well.
I really appreciate these Lindsay Ellis videos, they're helping me and I'm considering using them in my classroom next year as well! I hope PBS continues.
Alongside Ursula Le Guin, my favorite sci-fi author is Robert Sheckley. His short stories are sublime. He has an uncanny ability to stick a knife in your sense of the normal and twist it in the wound. Check out the collection _Store of Infinity,_ if you can find it.
I will summarize a few authors for you
Michael Critchton: Science! And we're all gonna die!
C.J. Cherryh: Humans can become whatever they want or need to become, even not human anymore.
David Drake: Killing people is the most effective way to stop killing people.
Robert Heinlein: The best humans are superhuman.
Isaac Asimov: Short stories are best stories.
Sherri Tepper: The only hope for humanity is outside intervention.
Jack Williamson: The problem with science is science. (Dehumanizing themes)
I could go on and on.
My favorite is probably "The Gate to Women's Country", by Sherri Tepper, because that was the book that taught me how to read literature, instead of just read stories.
Lindsay Ellis working for PBS is so perfect!
One of my favorite contemporary works of sci-fi is The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which is one of the most optimistic works of sci-fi I have ever read. It's presented as kind of a travelogue rather than a single plot from beginning to end, almost like you're reading an entire season of a TV series.
There's something about Carl Sagan taking both his love and knowledge of astrophysics and combining it with his disdain for organized religion BUT his spirituality to make Contact that really got to me. One of the better science fiction books since the science is there and explained......other than the black hole machine.
Harkening back to the first episode, do you think the movie Contact was a good film adaptation?
David Shi I was not asked, but would like to chime in. NO! It was the absolute worst movie adaptation I have ever seen with cringe-worthy acting, changes in basic character traits and development (Ellie and Palmer Joss) which completely ruin the picture Sagan created of a real scientist and their relationship with the numinous, a minor issue in changing the final act from a voyage of scientific discovery reminiscent of Jules Verne to a hallucinogenic journey for self-help advice (as well as major exclusion of the world-wide effort of tracking, deciphering, and building that Sagan focused on), and an ending (SPOILERS) which makes me face-palm. Really? You didn’t notice there was 18 hours of footage, like, weeks ago? The ending of the book introduced some of my favorite ideas in sci-fi, from intergalactic construction projects to solutions for the Fermi paradox to evidence to make one question the nature of the origin of the Universe. All of that nuance was lost in the movie and I was very disappointed when I found out Sagan, himself, was very influential in the project.
I still need to read the book, but personally I enjoyed the movie. But, I respect your opinion! Are there any movie adaptations that you feel did justice to the book?
David Shi The Martian. A near-perfect adaptation that breathed just enough visual charm and secondary drama into a wondrous book to bring it to life. Arrival did the same, though I think the time-awareness was slightly misrepresented. Crichton’s Jurassic Park, while weaving a good exploration of the dangers of scientific discovery and exploitation of nature for capitalistic gain, was a rather unengaging, characterless book. The movie, though not a truly faithful adaptation, was a masterpiece. Blade Runner is in this category as well. 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was written in coordination with the book, making it a pseudo-adaptation, is probably my favorite of these. Clarke, known for his near-accurate predictions of the future, applied theoretical engineering and contemporary politics to fashion a realistic vision of Man in space, made us genuinely terrified of the computer for the first time, and proposed what the future of human evolution might look like. Kubrick, for his part, imbued into the entire sci-fi film genre the sense of grandiosity and mystery with skill I have not seen challenged since. (And he made classical music the language of space flight for decades, probably the only reason John Williams scored Star Wars the way it is, and created a tradition of classical influence in space films to this day.)
Wow! I love your analysis; clearly, you've given this some thought! I loved The Martian book, especially how it gets into the psychology of being an astronaut and NASA politics. I haven't seen the movie yet; I guess that's what I'll be doing this weekend! I also just finished Andy Weir's Artemis, which is quite good too. I hear an Artemis movie is in the works as well, so that's exciting!
Did anyone used to watch the Ray Bradbury Theater show, from back in the 80s/90s? This video suddenly reminded me of it.
The Martian Chronicles might be my favorite sci-fi book.
I’m glad to see the talented and delightful Lindsay Ellis given wider exposure. My personal favorite Science Fiction novel is Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix, a sprawling tale that is basically post-Cyberpunk.
I like OSC's books. The Ender's Game series has something for everyone. If you like high minded metascience exploring how the universe works on a sub atomic level, read the original quadrilogy. If you're more of a fan of the action-adventure science fiction, Ender's Shadow series is for you.
One of my favorite books of his was Treason. It's a weird story, but shows that OSC used to have some pretty unique ideas and was, as an author anyways, more open minded.
JossCard42 I love the quadrilogy of Ender's game. Ender is maybe my favorite literary character, I really love how he is developed as an adult. Have you read any short stories of osc. He has a big book of them, and there are some really good ones.
geensloth911 I was subscribed to his Intergalactic Medicine Show for a while. I enjoyed his stories from the Enderverse and a lot of the other stories other people contributed too. Though I didn't know he'd compiled any of them into a book though.
Great cyberpunk novels, for me, start and end with Otherland. Tad Williams' fantasy stuff is some of my favorite writing of any kind, and his late-90s sci-fi epic has all the trappings of the genre mixed with his signature philisophical outlook on the nature of humanity and the impact of individuals on history. The major characters are a diverse group of people brought together by mystery, circumstance, and a desire to fight back against injustice, and Tad's well-researched construction of the character !Xabbu is one of the greatest examples of an author taking pains to not let personal biases or experiences overshadow the importance of letting a character be a character.
Tons of great books, but I kinda wish more books explored robots and their inherent non-humanity. I don't mean Skynet world ending stuff, but Aasimov is one of the few authors who really explored that things that make sense to a machine don't always make sense to us, and vice versa.
Robots are usually used in story either as props, or to represent either emotionally devoid or emotionally primitive humans. Or the Star Wars approach of just having them be like everyone else except metal.
Andrew Howard I completely agree, in media whenever a robot is supposed to not be a direct antagonist they basically go the Pinocchio route.
I think that’s a wasted opportunity because even if a machine gain a level of consciousness it still wouldn’t be like a person, it would so completely different from a human and no many science fiction novels are willing to explore that.
Are there any other authors who you think effectively explore that in the same way as Asimov?
David Shi I don't know about the same was as Aasimov, but the first example that comes to mind are the AIs in Neuromancer. At first they seem rather human, but after some time, you realize that is just how they act when trying to work with humans, and tend to be a lot weirder.
I never really got into Cyberpunk, but I did at least appreciate how the AI in that book don't fall into the usual robot roles.
One of Asimov's own stories about his writing is that he got fed up with the two mainstream depictions of robots - as the implacable menace, or as the transcendent being - and wanted to write them as machines - neither good nor evil, but doing what they were programmed to do (which is usually not what they were intended to be programmed to do)
rmsgrey that's cool. I hadn't heard that, but it makes sense with his style.
I'm making a Sci-fi comic series that takes place in 2205 AD about a middle-aged woman with technological implants (that control her memory, her internet service and, in a world where the written word has been illegalized, her main source of reading.) They malfunction and she gets a surgery to fix her internet service. However, none of her videos, docs and photos where on the Cloud so the doctors can't retrieve them. Therefore, she goes on a quest to find out about her past.
That sounds awesome! What's the name of it, and where can I read it?
It's not done yet but it's called "Amnesia in the Future".
I was still in elementary when I discovered Isaac Asimov. He's still my all time fave in the genre
So long as PBS has Lindsay, I'll keep watching.
So long as Lindsay has PBS, I'll keep watching. Seriously, though, I love PBS Digital Studios!
Cyberiad! You all might want to check Stanisław Lem books; he has grat sense of humor, he's smart, and not cliche at all. Bearly known in english world as i see.
Hell yeah, Stanislaw Lem!
Oh yes! Also, his novels. Perhaps not so much fun but very interesting.
Though he's probably better known in the English-speaking world than any *other* SF writer in another language (unless we count authors with mainstream cred like Calvino and Borges).
...Cyberiad, Fiasco, His Master's Voice. All profoundly great.
Solaris was made into a movie starring George Clooney, perhaps the most mainstream he's ever been in english. Solaris, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, and Futurological Congress are all great stories.
Perelandra by CS Lewis is one of my favorites!
2:45 "In the time machine humankind ha devolved into either child-like naive beings or complete monsters"
So... twitter, then.
Love seeing that you have a small gig on PBS Digital Studios, Lindsay. Nice work!
My favorite science fiction novels are the Leviathan Series by Scott Westerfield. An alternate World War 1, divided between the biological and mechanical sciences, with the Allies using genetic amalgamations (including the eponymous Leviathan, a living zepplin made from a flying sperm whale) and the Axis using massive steam punk war machines (picture the goblin tech of Warcraft).
Mostly, it's just fun. Schlocky and hokey, but a blast to read.
That sounds awesome! I'm very fond of steampunk, so I'll definitely check it out. Have you read Mortal Engines? It's about giant moving cities that eat each other on a barren post-apocalyptic Earth. It's being turned into a movie too!
There was no Axis in World War 1, at that time the alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire was known as the Central Powers
Not the most entertaining in a narrative sense, but the most thought-provoking science fiction book I've ever read is Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker from 1937.
Love this, although you'll need to update the audio on the Frankenstein publication date.
Here's my top 3 : H.G Wells' "Time Machine", Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and Adolpho Bioy Caceres' "The Invention of Morel" : their subjects are totally relevant today !
Love these videos. Frankenstein is my favorite.❤
THANK YOU for giving Octavia Butler her due! Lilith's Brood -- Especially the first, Dawn -- really turned my thinking about aliens and colonization upside down.
Maybe I’m a sucker for good adventures or I’m a secret Cyberpunk rocker, but I love Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and Philip K. Dick’s Scanner Darkly
Of late, I've been reading Stanislaw Lem. He is very imaginative and capably handles both serious and humorous science fiction.
Read this back in middle school, but my favorite sci-fi will probably always be The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. Really fun, great read with interesting themes and memorable characters and is really a book for all ages even if the target audience was YA.
I remember that book, it was great! And apparently there's a sequel? Welp, I guess I'm going to reread it now
I love this series with Lindsay so much!! She is a great narrator, and the visuals are engaging
I know it's maybe a little obvious but Asimov was always my favourite. I, Robot is brilliant and I love the Foundation series!
I love I, Robot too! Have you read The Martian, by Andy Weir?
Never have done, but will get on it!
Have you read his other robot Novels?
A long time ago, yes. But I, Robot is still my favorite. I also liked his short stories, like Bicentennial Man.
My latest favorite is Annihilation- maybe more sci-fantasy, or just plain weird horror, but ah such a good read.
I love this, but how is Atwood not in the list of great female sci-fi writers!
Atwood works more in the realm of reachable dystopia, actual society in the not-too-far future that done f***ed up. It's not speculative in the realm of the unknown; Atwood herself has said that every single thing in The Handmaid's Tale has been done or is done in the world TODAY. The stories just mush all of the horrible under one umbrella, Nazi Germany style.
One could make the same argument for 1984. It wasn't any far distant future type novel but just existing technology taken to the extreme - very similar to Atwood. Though I accept an argument can be made for differentiating imaginary-sci-fi (i.e. sci-fi in worlds very different from our own or not easily forseeable given current technology) from what Atwood calls "speculative fiction" (i.e. sci-fi that feels like it could happen within our lifetimes). Though doing so would require re-classifying a lot of material. Arguably "Frankenstein" would be considered speculative fiction since at the time experiments with electricity on e.g. deceased frog legs made it seem as though re-animating the dead was just around the corner.
Aside from Handmaids tale, her books are only so-so. Her poetry is pretty great though.
Her books are very well written and have some interesting ideas, but I dislike her style of storytelling. Usually the backstory of her novels that is told through flashbacks is much more interesting than the present day narrative of the novel. Handmaid's tale has the best present day narrative but even still it's not that interesting. But I found Oryx and Crake to have more interesting ideas in it.
Atwood herself has shied away from the label of SF author.
I really love Solaria from Stanislaw Lem. I think it is very interesting how imaginative it is with the setting and how information is provided through an examination of academic studies and the epistemology of it all. I really dig the density of the themes, oftentimes explicit, and the emotional core. So yeah, highly recommend.
My favourite sci-fi novel is *Dune*. I personally would like to see more sci-fi set in a time when humans have started to colonized our nearby neighbors like Mars and Europa, but are still far away technology wise to go farther.
If you don't mind science from a late '60s-early '70s perspective, check out the early works of Larry Niven that discuss just that (particularly his short stories). Or, for that matter, Arthur C. Clarke.
A little closer to home is Artemis, by Andy Weir, who also wrote The Martian. It's a crime-thriller set on a city on the moon, and Weir even worked out how the moon economy would work!
Cypher
Are you familiar with the UA-camr Isaac Arthur? He doesn't write science fiction, per se (his channel description reads, "This channel focuses on exploring concepts in science with an emphasis on futurism and space exploration, along with a healthy dose of science fiction"), but colonization of the solar system is one of the major themes he deals with. Here's his recent video on colonizing Ceres, part of an ongoing series. ua-cam.com/video/LqoYtBZAKO0/v-deo.html
You should read 'The Expanse' series then. It's that exact premise.
Dan Simmons' Hyperion! The series has everything that quintessential sci-fi novels needs to possess.
Although, I may be biased for Hyperion was what had introduced me to the genre.
Umm, ‘Frankenstein’ was published in 1816, not 1918
A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Chambers) has been one of my favorite sci-fis in recent years. On the comic side the re-release of Jinty: Land of No Tears and The Human Zoo has been a treat.