This Is Why I Read Obscure Science Fiction Novels [100 Book Challenge #43-45]
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
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00:00 The Pastel City by M. John Harrison
04:48 The Final Circle of Paradise by Boris & Arkady Strugatsky
08:43 The Final Circle of Paradise [Spoiler Section]
12:28 The Final Circle of Paradise [Post-Spoilers]
13:35 Farewell, Earth's Bliss by D.G. Compton
20:55 Closing Thoughts - Розваги
![Reading the Apocalypse in Paradise [100 Book Challenge #50-52]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ugeNW_OBmJ0/mqdefault.jpg)
![Reading Sci-Fi's Most Criminally Forgotten Masterpiece + 4 Other Books [100 Book Challenge #25-30]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D0McEPWvT3A/mqdefault.jpg)
I'll always appreciate how the faithful and dedicated fans give obscure books their deserving start. And the way old classics are unearthed and given new life. You and your peers are doing culture a big favor! Thanks.
+1 extremely important
Agreed 👍
I've always considered myself a well-read sf reader, having been reading it for about 50 years and loving a wide variety of types of sf. And still you surprise me with so many authors I just have never heard of, like Compton. These videos are doing a real service to the genre in keeping the names of authors like this alive, so I really hope you do get to continue them as you embark on your new journeys. Best of luck!
M John Harrison's "The Pastel City" I read first soon after it came out. Like you I found it a little difficult to get into, but, on a more relaxed re-read, I saw the real "core" - it is basically a medieval prose poem, retold in SF terms with a fantasy dressing. Once I got my head around it, I saw the poetic nature of the book, heavily influenced by Milton and Shakespeare.... Now it is one of my favourite books. He also wrote a short story collection, set in the same worlds - Viriconium Nights.. There are 2 sequels (of sorts) "Storm of Wings" and "In Viriconium." He also wrote an SF novel: The Centauri Device" which did not really "grab" me the way the Viriconiuum books and stories did. There is also a collection titled "Viriconium" ion the SF Masterworks series.
Loved this book. Very much a prose poem I believe. I have read and reread this book numerous times. It's one of my favorites.
I loved the first book but the other ones took a while to work through. The descriptions are mesmerizing and like a really good meal.
For those who get audiobooks from Audible, “Pastel City” is available under the title “Virconium”, which includes the whole sequence of books. (Yay!)
You are what I wished I could have been and done 50 years ago. A dedicated 'head in the clouds' sci-fi deamer. I very much appreciate your analysis, the wide range of your reading, your articulate but casually accessable style.
Looking forward to your future reviews and analysis of sci-fi, both old and new.
Thank you and good luck on your journeys!
( Maybe interesting to subscribers/listeners to do a discussion of your backround, education, how you came to sci-fi literature, etc.,)
Thanks very much. Another booktuber interviewed me and did a great job, covered a lot of those biographical details.
ua-cam.com/video/CFqnW9FFiwc/v-deo.html
"your articulate but casually accessable style"
Yes, and without any "special effects" most other youtubers so annoyingly like. Just as if we chatted over coffee or beer.
@@bazoo513 Exactly... Couldn't agree more.👌
I'm 37 and I'm a sci-fi lover as well. I've been into the genre since I was 13 and, little by little, I have amassed a huge collection of about 1500+ exclusively sci-fi books: vintage, modern, renowned, obscure, you name it. It is one of my most beloved treasures and one I plan to inherit my children. Clearly, with work and life, it's impossible for me to have read them all already. I guess I've only read about one third of my collection.
My dream is to reach retirement age early, buy me a cabin in the middle of nowhere and finish reading my collection in solitude, with good coffee and a nice rocking chair. Think Way station or the first pages of Martian go home for reference.
Your comment reminded me I am not the only one with these type of ideas. Have a good day, sir.
@@nestorlovesguitar Nope, you are not the only one.
So jealous of your collection 😍
DG Compton’s The Unsleeping Eye was excellent.
Dayum, another couple books for my read list. I don't always agree with your taste, but you sure deliver some of the absolute best Sci fi reviews I know of - thoughtful, thorough, respectful to the genre yet not afraid to engage with it. Bravo.
Really enjoying these videos. Putting a lot on my TBR as a result. Recently finished Other Days, Other Eyes based off your recommendations and just cannot get it out of my head. What a superb and horrifically prescient book! Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention.
Good luck and bon voyage for this next chapter in your life. It would be really interesting to see you exploring the local libraries of the places you visit, particularly their sci-fi shelves. I live out in Malaysia and I know there are a few local publishers here who publish in English, and I've been really enjoying reading their collections of short stories by authors across SE Asia. Given your penchant for unearthing hidden gems, I think the local libraries might be a real treasure trove for you.
I really should stop watching videos like this. My TBR list is already too long for my lifetime
2 things:
-More money to spend (if stuff can actually be found!)
-Your output is, in my view, just head and shoulders above the rest. Thank you!
One thing that have always bothered me when I went To SF conventions was the fact that the panelists insisted that SF became obsolete very fast. As if we should only read the recently published. Personnally, there was a lot of books that I was not able to get in the 70s for lack of availability or money. By my on stupidity too but that is another matter. Being still alive, I want to find and read these books and I'm happy to see that there seems to be a lot of people who are interested in those classics too.
The Stugatski book sounds extremely relevant to the modern day, and the fading of actual rl community due to the internet/social media alienating people from each other, and also making capital's cooption and commodification of everything easier and faster
Interesting comment on the Strugatski book, when you said you might not be quite up to the task of understanding completely. Very honest, and a feeling shared with many I think. Your review of Farewell Earth's Bliss was one of the finest you've ever done IMHO. And that's saying a LOT given the entirety of your archive, as you set a very high bar for yourself. As always, great content, production, quality, presentation and especially perspective. Cheers.
I like hearing people talk about obscure science fiction. I don't have much to add but am still commenting for algorithmic support
Matt, a superb review of these interesting books. Your review inspired me to buy the Harrison series to include “Pastel…” and also I got “Farewell…” on Kindle, which sounds amazing. Thanks!
You were so close to making me not want to read a book, and then after the video is over, I just really want to read that book.
I have read Harrison's Viriconium books, but like you found them hard going and I don't recall them making a vivid impression beyond a certain mood. Like the Dying Earth books Harrison's other stories about Viriconium change in style in a slightly strange way. Of his SF, _The Centauri Device_ is possibly his most famous work and it is good. But readers of Alfred Bester's _The Stars My Destination_ might find that a punchier telling of a similar story.
Yes!!! Thank you so much for discussing these obscure books! Understandably, most BookTubers cover the authors and titles we know but I do so enjoy hearing about those whose impact has been less but that still deserve some critical attention. Here's one for your next such program: "The absolute at large" by Karel Capek, the celebrated Czech writer who, among other things, gave us the word "robot."
My favorite part of Vance's Dying Earth were the extremely petty, mean girls like wizards. I loved how they'd be ready to launch overly complicated and convoluted vengeance plans at the slightest perception of insult, or just because some targeted potential victim dared to try not become one of their mind-trapped sleaze slaves.
The thumbnail for this video made me think you were going to do the novelisation of _Pan's Labyrinth._
The Pastel City, everything you don't like about it got me curious about it, I might have to give it a read. Thanks 🙂
These aren't particularly obscure Matt, and I know you love your vintage stuff but I would highly recommend M John Harrison's Light (2002) or, if your'e into mountain climbing Climbers is fantastic, and if you love weird fiction The Course of the Heart might float your boat.
As usual: clear, insightful reviews. Almost from the start Pastel City reminded me a bit of BotNS with the primitive far future and legacy technologies and that comparison was never far away (though the latter is a superior book IMHO). I found myself re-reading many of the sentences in Pastel city because I loved the way he'd captured a scene or a thought. The second book, A Storm Of Wings, I thought was even better. They (the 3rd and other short stories in the Masterworks copy I have) tapered off for me after that. The other two books I had not heard of (D.G. Compton is totally new to me) but will seek out. Always a joy to discover new authors/books. Keep up the great work.
I really appreciate your reviews of little known SF-that makes your videos more appealing than the many that just push the better known or “popular” titles. Keep up the good work.
Similar reaction to The Pastel City as you, and apparently most of the other posters. Not sure what to make of it, had a sense that there was more going on than I was getting and that I should like it more than I did. I was reading it as part of the entire Virconium collection, they all have a similar feel, the same but different.
Also of Course The Centauri Device, also intended as a de construction, this time of space opera, although it ended up revitalizing the whole genre. After reading that I could seehow much Bank's Consider Phlebas was influenced by it.
Strugatsky 's " Inhabited Island / Prisoners of Power" is one of their best novels ( also easier to read ) . Shipwrecked human entangles himself in politics of postapocalyptic dystopian planet . Action , suspense, mystery, great worldbuilding.... Also , same character ( Kamerer ) is in two more mystery/ SF secret agent novels " Beetle in the Anthill & Time Wanderers "
" Snail on the Slope" is a special novel too...
Please don't stop at the Pastel City. M John Harrison is one of my favourite authors but you need to read more to see how he develops. I like the Pastel City for the writing but it is relatively conventional. Later with the sequels, his creation develops into something strange and wonderful and unique. The short stories set in this universe are great.
Great video as usual 👍🏻
I haven’t heard of Farewell Earth’s Bliss before but on the list it goes!
Jumping from Outlaw Bookseller's recent uploads to your new video, this is awesome! and opening with early M. John Harrison too! Pastel City purely as one short novel on its own is probably pretty thin and skeletal, (Neil Gaiman's Viriconium Notes introduction I think described it as like a fantastical script to a dying earth SF/sword and sorcery story). If you're up for more Viriconium as a complete, braided-threads storyline, and to see the 1971 Pastel City in context with the 80s (two short novels and a collection of short stories), Viriconium might best be read as the 2005 Del Rey omnibus, which fits Pastel City, Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and Viriconium Nights (stories) into about 460 pages. I'm commenting early to mention Harrison I suppose, you're a sharp critic and jump right into the content of the video no preamble and that is noted and appreciated as always!! (my next paperback SF reads will be the Strugatsky Brothers Roadside Picnic I think ... was thinking Brunner but damn, that's a long haul lol)
Thank you for the background. I like the description of Pastel City as "skeletal." Guess it's one of those books that's hard to judge without reading it in context with other works. Not knowing you at all, I think you will love Roadside Picnic. Zanzibar is worth the time commitment as well, and would pair well with the Strugatskys.
@@Bookpilled Zanzibar is where I intended to start with Brunner, and working through the loose thematic connections from the 1968 novel to later stuff, Jagged Orbit and Sheep Look Up (I hear the most acclaim for Zanzibar with the Tor, 2010 version I have with Bruce Sterling's introduction. Predates the current Tor Books SF essentials I believe (that's the artwork and covers I see on Fire Upon The Deep, Blindsight, etc.) I have a feeling Roadside Picnic will resonate!
thanks for this Aniket.
So well thought out & so well said.
Thanks Walt.
Good journey on your future adventures.
looking forward to your reviews via your travels and in time perhaps a review of harlan ellison collections sometime, like his own deathbird stories for example, or his classic dangerous visions compendium. all the best we are coming out to palm springs end of the month for a little trip and i will bring one of these titles so thx for the inspiration.
Great video as always! I would recommend “hard to be a god” if you like Strugatsky brothers. I think that’s one of their 2 most acclaimed books.
Just picked up D.G. Compton’s Farewell Earth’s Bliss. Really looking forward to reading it after this review.
Your channel is an awesome find for a discerning s-f fan. Subbed!
Love your comments and taste. Please keep going!
Thank you for bringing _The Final Circle of Paradise_ ( _Хищные вещи века_ - a line from a poem) to my attention. It is interesting how Strugatsky brothers in this, the previous novel _Space Apprentice_ and in _Hard to Be a God_ explore some of the questions of purpose of existence in a post-scarcity society and of ethics of intervening (or not) in "primitive" cultures, the same topics that occupied Iain Banks. Our favorite Russians did it half a century before and in an incomparably more intense way.
And, yes, there's that parallel to _The Futurological Congress_ - another trope made popular long after the works of these masters, one of virtual vs. material reality.
I will have to give this some more thought, after reading this and re-reading _Hard to Be a God._
oh damn this just popped in my recommendations, coincidentally i just got the final circle of paradise a couple days ago when i randomly found it in a bookstore
I like the Saga of Cudgel by Vance.
I Hope you have a chance to read “the snail on the slope” by the Strugatsky brothers. I had no idea what was going on for the entirety of the book, but I was so fascinated I couldn’t put it down. For some reason when I think on it the hairs on my neck stand, and I don’t know why. I don’t understand what this book did to me, and it’s amazing. It’s like meeting someone briefly who you feel could be the love of your life but circumstances are clumsy and for no good reason you will never see that person again, and that’s it
Aha! I just found your review of Farewell, Earth’s Bliss. Very cogent review - but I think you may have missed some bits of humor in all the bleakness. I can’t remember specifics, but I remember a few chuckles in there. I do remember thinking while reading it, that Compton’s writing was real literature - not just good SF storytelling. Though it’s that too, of course. Excellent review, excellent book!
Some many gems to be found.
I read Theodore Sturgeon for the first time this week. More Than Human blew my socks off. I’ll never catch up to all the excellent sci-fi out there 👍
I LOVE the Strugatsky Brothers. Roadside Picnic is a masterpiece. Hard To Be A God and The Inhabited Island are also really great reads. But they also have some really weird stuff, which I would describe as Kafkaesque like the snail on the slope or one billion years to the end of the world… They were really weird and I felt really dumb when I didn`t understand what was going on lol
5:00 - i loved roadside picnic a bunch and might have to try this one [The Final Circle of Paradise] .. or not. :P That last one might be too close to near future realities for me.
Great episode
No one:
The Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth: 8:03
On The Final Circle of Paradise, I’m not sure what the authors are saying but from the Marxist perspective it’s not so much that work is the highest ideal but that it is a thing that defines and separates us from other animals when it comes to meeting our basic needs. Other animals do not work to produce something to exchange it for something else to meet their basic needs. The ideal (again from the Marxist perspective) is to have democratic control on what you produce and how you produce it. Presumably what we produce as human beings through our work should have significance and meaning to us and not be the current wage slavery we exist in. How the book fits into all this is I guess the question for me.
It would be interesting to see a list of SF or Fantasy Marxist, anarchist, or socialist books but maybe that’s too overtly political for the channel.
In context, I read it more as a condemnation of indolence, complacency, comfort. I think yours would be the more charitable interpretation, maybe both apply.
@@Bookpilled I'm happy to have found your channel - it's gotten me interested in dipping back into reading sci-fi again. I've been going through a lot of your old review videos recently. I used to read sci-fi/fantasy as a teen and in college (Tolkein, LeGuin, Herbert, Butler, etc) but somewhere along the way did more non-fiction/political reading and haven't returned for some time - mostly due to the feeling of unease as to whether I will respect an author or their work enough to believe they're worth my time/commitment.
I also appreciate that your channel, is for the most part, covering titles that haven't received recent film or TV adaptations - so there's more of an interest/excitement in discovering them.
2 suggestions I'd like to leave given the nosebleed prices I found on some of the older books you're reviewing (which is fine I still find the reviews interesting & informative).
-A lot of film buyers (myself included) use Hamilitonbook for the deep discounts they have on the overstock they buy/sell. They carry books as well. It might be worthwhile to highlight some titles you think are essential/recommended reads (a lot of $5 and $10 books there). Even bargain titles you can find cheaply elsewhere might make a good topic for a video.
-Given your taste & pedigree in sci-fi I'd be curious what your take is on some of the 'hot' titles/authors of late. Titles in the zeitgeist that have made it into my bookmarks include Ancillary Justice, The Three-Body Problem, The Fifth Season, authors like Neal Stephenson etc. Maybe you have a video on some of these and I just haven't found it yet.
Cheers.
I just finished farewell earth’s bliss, and it truly never stopped the cruelty and brutality. I had a hard time breathing throughout the whole thing. Simply the way the horrors become normalized and internalized into the colony to the point where even the most victimized partake in victimizing. Such a brutal story, and I absolutely loved it. DG would probably get cancelled today as people would read him just at the surface, but his sympathies definitely do not lie with the brutes and the monsters. I agree, he used harsh and cancellable language very well. So many other things just made my jaw drop, and I don’t want to put them here for fear of spoilers, but you know exactly what I mean.
Yeah mate Farewell Earth’s Bliss, based on the cover, I’m expecting Red Dwarf. It sounds more like it was written by Cormac McCarthy 😂
A book I always recommend that's a bit obscure these days is The Immortals by James Gunn. It's a bleak, but frighteningly prescient, look at the state of our world once basic health care passes beyond the reach of all but the wealthy and privileged. It's aged well, mostly, altho it has something of a fantastical, metaphysical ending. It's still very good and worth finding. It's not totally obscure in that it was made into a tv show briefly in the 60's but really no one's heard of that either, if they don't know the book.
I should read it. I read Gunn's first novel and it was middling but I hear Immortals is better
I am sure many people have already said this, but please read the The Kefahuchi Tract trilogy when you have the opportunity. It is a huge treat for anybody who appreciates Lem, Strugatskys & Dick. The Pastel City is very much an early work by a truly great writer. Btw, you talked about Harrison in past tense at least in one spot, but the man is still going strong and even has a pretty amazing blog.
Voyage to Arcturus would be a good one to add to this list. Very obscure but was very influential to CS Lewis and Tolkien.
I did enjoy. Thanks.
The deconstruction of fantasy in Harrison's Viriconium series is much more obvious once you read all the novels in that series in sequence. The Pastel City is the opening salvo and sets the parameters. Each subsequent book breaks it down further and moves away from fantasy and enters meta weird fiction territory.
In "Light" Harrison uses Roadside Picnic as part of the universe he creates and which relates to the themes of repressed /damaged sexuality in the protagonist.
Brutal and bleak: We All Died at Breakaway Station by Richard C. Meredith
All your books sound great.
The death of society sounds like the way we are headed as our phones take higher precedence and more of our time and commetment.
My contribution to the list of very obscure but excellent science fiction novels: "Courtship Rite", Donald Kingsbury. Really well written, believable novel of a society based on cannibalism. Not Horror. Not particularly gross. Kind of a best of breed late seventies/early eighties style MOR science fiction novel.
Have you read or do you plan to read Blood Music? It came out in 1985. I saw a video about it maybe an hour ago, it sounds great. I ordered it right after the video was over!
He already read it and covered it in previous videos.
@@shitmandood he said he didn't read it. And he doesn't have a video on it. So if you find it please send it to me.
The best sci fi book, by a country mile, is the jibbington pip trilogy by Arthur Bullet Buttocks.
i laughed when you said "I love this book with a lowercase l"
I just finished farewell earths bliss. I'm still a bit shocked, where it ends, how people are treated and the morals sustained in the community. I think the christian tones are overplayed to maybe show how some small towns are run in a way not dissimilar to how the martian colony is run.
What books will you bring with you?
I was wondering if you had a list.
Not planning to bring any physical books, got a new Kindle.
I should have watched all you video before I asked my question lol
I’m excited for you!
@@Wendy-zl8kv Haha, no problem. Thank you Wendy.
I have a copy of Final Circle somewhere, haven’t read it
Have your read War Against the Chtorr by David Gerrold? Pretty good, but still incomplete. I read the 4 books of it 3 times…but guess the writer will never finish it.
Thanks for pointing out "Farewell, Earth's Bliss". Having now read it, i can say you describe it perfectly. If the time comes, this should be required reading for anyone who considers volunteering for Elon Musk's Mars colony. Musk City here we come! I would love to see a movie that is really true to the book. What a nightmare that would be.
The Final Circle of Life kind of sounds like this whole Digital Nomad thing lol…
Amazing and we have the same
Name!
Artificial Kid by Sterling.
Sometimes I think that I should stop watching videos like this. My TBR list is already too long for my lifetime but maybe I'll get time one day
Well, almost of all of Compton's novels are on kindle for a dollar, so I don't know how obscure he is, but he is certainly neglected nowadays.
I'm going to be one of "those" people who urges you to read the game of thrones books. They are obscenely good
Whoooooooo whoooooooooo whoooooooooooo
Thanks. Felll asleep watching a video, and woke up to you. There is this prejudice that older books are dated, and inferior. Dated maybe, inferior no. I won't recomend a book, becuase you hav more books then you can read in your life time.
The Final Circle of Paradise is as much of a frustrating read in Russian, it's definitely not the translation. In terms of work being an antidote, as a native Russian speaker born just before USSR broke down, I can tell you I just filter Soviet moralities when I read Soviet sci-fi. It was often the only way to get published, and this book in particular was published during the time the government was stomping out philosophical sci-fi, and favoured sci-fi with a clear morale promoting communist values.
I read the NYRB reprint of Compton's Continuous Katherine Mortenson(?). I hated it. Found it boring and impenetrable, blah blah. Anyway, have you gotten into Sorokin yet? Ice Trilogy is pretty great.
Farewell Earth's Bliss is $1.99 on Kindle
Dude make a video of you hunting for bigfoot when you start traveling? Lol!
Hey, what email can I use to send you something that will amaze you. Yes, it's related to what you do. No, it's not a solicitation to sell you something. I just want to send you an article..
thriftalife@gmail.com
The Final Circle of Paradise might be appealing to Communists, but it would also be appealing to Conservatives. Both groups believe in social order, which cannot be maintained with unlimited personal freedom. The inverse would be something more akin to extreme Libertarianism or maybe Anarchy.