I've read them all, but Dune is my favorite. I read it as a young woman, and along with its sequels, it became my "Other World." Frank Herbert was a great world-builder. Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick are also two of my favorites. Other books I have always cherished in the science fiction genre are The Martian Chronicles and Rendezvous with Rama.
1984 it's easily my favorite book. If you haven't read it in years or you were forced to in high school I would recommend that you try it now as an adult, you may be pleasantly surprised.
1984 is a dystopia classic that really illustrated how a society can be aggressively made totalitarian Brave New World is another dystopia classic that illustrates a totalitarian society that is made totalitarian through coaxing rather than force, something that is a very real in the modern world.
The first half of Stranger in a Strange land is my favorite half of a sci-fi novel that I've ever read. Book changed a lot when the author came back to it years later to write the second half.
Happiness is ignoring the world because you are busy defending the earth in your starship. These are my must-reads: - Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance - Dreams and Shadows by C Cargill - Great Fighter Jets of the Galaxy 1 by Tim Gibson
Greg Bear deserves a mention with his Eon novels. More of a 1980s feel than 70s or earlier, but there are some mind-blowing concepts and reveals in there.
Read them all before 1970. My copy of 2001 was signed by Clarke when he visited the satellite Lab I worked at in the late 70's. He gave a nice talk on renting scuba equipment from a place near his home in Sri Lanka.
A very nice basic start collection of wonderful classics for those youngsters who really need to see the beginnings. Ought to wet their appetites for an expanded list, too many greats to list. As I have enjoyed all these and much much more since I discovered Science Fiction, and later Fantasy - Dragons of Pern, Lord of the Rings, and again, so much more, I have always been a master fan of the stories, the plots, the wonderfully different worlds and concepts I was exposed to in my reading. But I must say, I discovered Heinlein early on, ( 1961, 9 yrs. old, public libraries, school libraries, the Boys' Club libraries, and his stories all taught me from childhood through college and still in my re-readings how to be honest, moral, flexible with problems, resourceful, and so on. I consider R. A. Heinlein to be a great teacher and my Mentor. ,
Excellent choice of classics. Let me throw in the epic The Mote in God's Eye by Niven/Pournelle and the imaginative Inverted World by Christopher Priest.
I just found out about the channel. I gree with many things as well as I disagreed with others... But when you said that reading about the Dreming Androinds and watching the movie about the replicants is something vastly diffirent I can say: I totally agree. And I Love both of them.
Berserker by Saberhagen. First Men in the Moon, by H.G. Wells. The Amber series by Zelazny. The Riverworld series by Farmer. The World Of Tiers series by Farmer. Worlds of the Imperium by Laumer. Ringworld by Niven. Deathworld by Harrison.
... ALL Niven, I think - there are no bad ones. I confess to liking the Known Space stories better than, say, the world of The Magic Goes Away, though.
I think Forbidden Planet was one of the first really good science fiction films I ever saw. Later I heard that it too was somehow based on Shakespeare's Tempest. I'm still working on that. I have read Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep three times without comprehension. It appears to me to be three unrelated short stories randomly kludged together. And I truly despised City in the Crystal, I thought that was infuriatingly stupid. After reading several other of his books I have actually given up on him. He has lots of good ideas but his writing style is so erratic that it is virtually unreadable for me. But I have proven myself wrong in this regard before. I don't even know why Ridley Scott felt the need to acknowledge Blade Runner as being based on PKD's book. They barely share more than character names. And while I enjoyed the movie I think Mr. Scott is in error with his interpretation that Deckard was also a replicant/android. And he can run another whole herd of unicorns through it for all that was worth. I am truly bothered by the fact that I can generally agree with the rest of the choices yet disagree about PKD. Excellent channel, appreciate the chance to vent :)
Asimov is the best Si-Fi I have ever read, in particular the Foundation Series and I’m not taking away anything that has been mentioned in this article. Asimov has coined a phrase, Hyper-space , that if materialized would be the realization of the of dream of many a physicist and engineer.
Terrific list. I concur, although I would replace 2001 with *Childhood's End*. Same theme, but I feel more eloquently told. Tough trying to limit it to five, isn't it?
How is childhoods end eloquent? Reading it in 2020, it's just a nice short story with an ending that was new and inventive when written, but has been copied and done to death since, and in more interesting ways
100% agree with this list, I will have added Foundation which is a personal favorite of mine, given I'm both as a Historian and a closeted maniac trying to secretly take over the world.
"Rendezvous With Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke is superior to his "2001: A Space Odyssey." (I consider Rama to be the best novel Clarke ever wrote.) In regard to a "look back," "Brave New World" is genuinely a sci-fi classic. However, "1984" by George Orwell is perhaps more relevant. In regard to "Dune," I can't fault you there. I merely want to add (and this is only something I discovered myself a couple of years ago) that Frank Herbert's son, in conjunction with another science fiction writer, created a dual prequel trilogy (six books) that are the equal of the original "Dune" (and, I confess, I never considered any of the sequels to "Dune" to be anywhere near as good as the original novel). The prequels, written twenty years ago (which surprised me when I discovered them, that they had been around for almost twenty years and I didn't even know they existed), are EXCELLENT, and are so extremely detailed in folding into the details of the original "Dune" that it's amazing they're not written by the same author. Finally, I want to draw your attention to three different authors (but two novels) entirely... (1) "A Deepness In The Sky" by Vernor Vinge. (2) "Saturn Run" by John Sandford, and Ctein. Both of these novels are EXCELLENT science fiction. The first one involves dealing with an extremely alien intelligent species, on an alien planet in a star system very different from our solar system. The second is in the context of... well, it's hard to give away any spoilers... but I'll just say that it's a great story dealing with Earth-centric political rivalries while also encountering contact from aliens from outside of the solar system.
This was a really good list. Solid choices. Brave New World is 1 of my fave books of all time. It has that timeless quality that always makes it feel like it could've been written in the modern day
Read Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley. Brave New World was a warning. Huxley's brother was trying to make it happen. Its definitely the most accurate dystopian future book.
H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" is one I would put high up on any list of classic sci-fi novels. His "Time Machine" is pretty good too. A lot of what he wrote could just as easily be called horror.
Maybe add Ringworld or Lucifers Hammer or The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven. In fact, many Niven novels could make the list. I like the inclusion of Heinlein - and again, many could make the list.
Good choices ... I only read Brave New World once, MANY years ago, and gave the book to someone else to read. I've still got a copy of Huxley's "Ape and Essence", which I read again a little over a year ago. It's also very good, thought-provoking. I have no idea how many copies of Stranger in a Strange Land I have bought ... and given away for someone else to read. Been considering buying it again, as it's been 15 years since I gave my last copy away. I'm a HUGE Heinlein Fan! Got damned near everything he ever wrote here in my antique Sci-Fi collection, so it just ain't right not to have his most highly acclaimed novel included. I've got some Phillip K Dick novels here. Gonna have to check and see if Electric Sheep is one of them. If not, I will rectify that situation! First time I started to read Dune, I read 100 pages and gave it back to my brother! (No, I'm NOT a slow reader!) The beginning of the book is almost nothing but necessary background information which allows you to appreciate the rest of the book, so it failed to keep my interest. That upset my brother so much that when the movie came out a few years later, he took me to see it, and the movie highlighted my complaint by having a Narrator explaining everything throughout the movie, particularly at the beginning. MANY years later I stumbled into a conversation where someone was talking as if the Dune series was the best literary creation of all time! I didn't even know that it had been continued as a series! The second time reading Dune the beginning was far more interesting as I already knew what it was referring to, which made it more entertaining. By the time I finished the series I was highly disappointed that there wasn't more of it! GOOD stuff! Am currently re-reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Blue Mars, after reading Red Mars and Green Mars. I HIGHLY recommend that series, particularly at this time in Human History. It's fascinating when Sci-Fi predicts the future and you live long enough to see their future become the present reality. We're NOT QUITE settling Mars yet ... but his predictions for Humanity have a lot of interesting parallels to the World we now live in. Now I'm off to watch your "Classic science fiction must reads 2.0" !
03:05 "the societal structures can be interpreted as a little dated" (talking about Stranger in a Strange Land) but only of you live outside the USA. If you're American they are still pretty much contemporary.
I think a short list of...anything is always going to be found wanting but I'm not militant about books. I agree with all your choices in so far as great scifi goes and I agree with a few specifically. Lists like this are a keg of dynamite with a slow fuse. Or antimatter in a degrading magnetic bottle. So nerdy. Thanks for your video. Stay safe.
I saw the Dune movie (David Lynch version) before I read it and have now read all of them - including those by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. Epic!! I also saw 2001 before I read it. That was back in 1968 and I've revisited it many times since then. Arthur C Clarke was a bloody genius. I still have old paperback copies of Stranger in a Strange Land and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep but I could never get into Brave New World at all.
I don't get the fascination with Dune. There are some good ideas in the book, but also some very bad ones. A couple of examples: - The Sardaukar learn to fight practically from birth, in one of the harshest environments known to mankind. Why are they so easily defeated by some people whose most important characteristic seems to be that they learned to effectively use water? - Why would a desert planet be turned into a greenhouse by removing all the water from its atmosphere?
And in a book with a Planetary Ecologist, implying the author had a credible understanding of ecology, of food webs and pyramids of biomass, he has a desert world biome with giant apex predators (sandworms) and microscopic producer autotrophs and as far as I remember, no tropic levels in between: simply not biologically credible. Great for a pure fantasy novel but not for something claiming to be credible science fiction. There are other things I disliked about the novel but I suppose those are more matters of personal taste such as the neo-feudal society, the return to swords because personal forcefields make projectile and directed energy weapons ineffective and the destruction of computers so Mentat people have to do all the memory and computation work. Just not my thing.
I'm curious, what did you like about that book? I really tried to like it, but I thought it was SO BORING. I couldn't force myself to look at the pages anymore after getting a little over half way through it.
"The Time Ships" by Stephen Baxter. Takes off where H.G. Wells "The Time Machine" ends. One of the most unpredictable and fascinating novels I've read. At over 500 pages, you better bring some snacks.
All good books and most in my top books list. We all have different top five books and I have to admit my top books have changed a reasonable amount over the years, possibly today my top five books today is; The Gods Themselves Asimov Isaac (Deep - basic human nature) Hello Summer, Goodbye Coney Michael (Deep - relationship & reality) Lest Darkness Fall De Camp L. Sprague (Fun adventure - Isaki) The Stone God Awakens Farmer Philip Jose (Fun adventure - Isaki) The Dispossessed LeGuin Ursula K. (Political - makes you think)
"...that everyone should grok." I see what you did there. Edited to add: I've read them all, though Brave New World was read under duress in high school. I may need to reread on my on recognizance. The Foundation series didn't make the list? It's the OG galactic empire epic.
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Ringworld - Gateway - To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Hyperion - Consider Phlebas - The Ophiuchi Hotline - Lord of Light - The Shadow of the Torturer - Hardwired
Heinlein also wrote Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet, Starman Jones, Have Space Suit____Will Travel, and the classic military science fiction novel Star Ship Troopers. Addendum to this post: The Star Conquerors by the late Ben Bova.
Like your picks.A few others that deserve a read ( Space Opera ) Catface/ Clifford D Simak The Forever War/Joe Halderman The City and the Stars/Arthur C Clark The Warlock Inspite of Himself/Christopher Stasheff River World Series/To your scattered Bodies Go/Philip Jose Farmer. The Lost Fleet (series)/John G Hemry/Under the pen name Jack Campbell.
In the realm of Space Opera, i think Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy stands out as one of the grandest works i have ever read. The paperback edition amounts to well in excess of 3700 pages. His other works, e.g. the Greg Mandel trilogy and the Commonwealth saga, are also highly recommendable.
I've read three, and I've seen movies based on four, including the two I haven't read. On top of that, I saw the TV miniseries based on one of the ones I haven't read. Brave New World was once my favorite book, though I have read a lot more since then, and it has some competition now. I read the Space Odyssey series recently, because it seemed like it was about time I finally read 2001 and 2010. I also read 1984 recently for the same reason, and that's one other classic science fiction book I would consider a must read. Going back much further, I would consider The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells a must read. A more recent must read is Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. I've previously seen movie versions of it, but they did not prepare me for reading the novel. It is an account of someone trying to contact the most inhuman of non-human intelligences. Lem also writes some great science fiction humor. He's up there with Douglas Adams, whose Hitchhiker series is also a must read.
Missing from the list: John Brunner, either Stand on Zanzibar or The Sheep look up. Alfred Bester, either The Stars my Destination or The Demolished Man.
Yes. I think Stranger in a Strange Land, the hippy's bible, is a good book for the young to read. It will give them a bit of insight into some of the forces shaping the 60s.
This list is meant for young people who have not yet read the beginning, foundational basics. It is also skewed toward stories that teach social lessons and/or morality, rather than being merely entertaining.
Phillip Dick, Man in High Castle, is pretty amazing. I couldn't get through Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I would add Ray Bradbury, Martian Chronicles - that is my all time favorite SciFi.
When i first read "Stranger in a Strange Land" (which i had borrowed from a friend) it captivated me so much that i just couldn't put it down. I finished it in less than 24 hours, and the next day i went to the book store and ordered a copy for myself. I have lost count of the number of times i have read it :D
@andyontheinternet5777 as the old saying goes "Everybody got their own thing." Me, I found the premise insane, and the story telling tedious. If you like it, that's you.
'Brave New World' was on the list at my school; if I hadn't already been a fan of SF series and short story collections, that would have finished me on SF. The books we are made to read do not enlighten, they restrict. The generation that came after me do not read much SF, I have found. My favourites? 'The Skylark' and 'Lensman' series by E.E. 'Doc' Smith, almost anything by Chris Boucher, Larry Niven, Kornbluth, Asimov, some of Harry Harrison, much of Clarke, as you can see, I haven't been impressed by many of the more recent SF writers. While I have read and have liked Ian Banks 'Culture' books and stories, I feel the idea of a society that has arrived, however well described and however much incident fills the pages, to be less interesting than discovery, learning and overcoming conflicts.
Foundation series and robot series by Isaac Asimov Giant Star series by James Patrick Hogan Nul-A series by A.E. van Vogt. And Slan. Tschai by Jack Vance. Ringworld series by Niven
Almost any must read list is subjective due to personal preference. My own includes 1) Dune. Hopefully the new movie does it justice. 2) Stranger in a Strange Land. 3) The Moon is a Hardh Mistress* 4) Ringworld* 5) The Mote in God's Eye 6) The Foundation Series 7) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep 8) Childhoods End 9) 1984 10) The Reality Dysfunction 11) Fahrenheit 451 12) Lucifer's Hammer 13) Inferno** *I highly recommend trying audio books if possible **Anytime somebody has the chutzpah to plagiarize Danté and it works.
I really like your videos where you give a Book List. I'm new to your channel, but I am subbing. However, can I ask ... could you give us a list at the very first then create time stamps in your video where I can jump right to it? That'd save me time, and I'd like to know an overview of what you are talking about. Thank you.
Earlier Heinlein like "The Past Through Tomorrow" omnibus or "The Puppet Masters" or "Double Star". The Heinlein Juveniles, like "Tunnel in the Sky" or "Red Planet", or "The Star Beast" which was the first real novel I ever read, when I was around 8yo. Larry Niven's Known Space stories and novels, "Ringworld" the best known (but don't start there) and his shared universe tales of the alien Kzin. Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity", often held up as the hardest of hard SF. John Brunner's "Stand On Zanzibar", a landmark early in the New Wave, and Harry Harrison's "Make Room, Make Room" which was adapted into "Soylent Green". Fredrik Pohl with "Gateway", or "Age of the Pussyfoot" and "The Space Merchants" which will surprise you with their prescience. Poul Anderson's Flandry series (and so many others). James Schmitz of Telzey Amberdon fame, but try his "The Demon Breed" for an ultra-competent female action hero/ecologist way before Ellen Ripley came along (and why the hell it isn't a movie I can't say). Anything by Alfred Bester. I could really go on all day without even getting into the B List.
Liked your picks, although I think there are PKDick novels that are far better than 'Do Androids Dream...' Also liked it that you picked '2001', a novel I reread several times in my teens,a s I've always been an ardent fan of the movie. That said, I disagree that the novel "explains" the movie, or that it goes "deeper"; it's actually the other way around(to me): the movie goes far beyond the scope of the novel, to an extent that I sometimes wonder if Clarke actually understood what Kubrick did in the movie. Like someone once said: Kubrick left many questions unanswered, while Clarke's book(s) tried to answer too much. '2001' is more than just a scifi story about aliens and spaceships.
Um,Dune is not just one book. Frank Herbert wrote several Dune books and his son and friends have expanded the epic and now I've lost track of how many Dune books there are. They are not Herbert but they rock on their own merits.check them out.
I concur, though I've never read Brave New World, 1984 was close enough for me. I read all these books in the early '70s. When I heard about Blade Runner I was upset about the changes but Sean Young's Rachael was perfect and immediately recognizable in the press reports. 2001 started me on a journey to find everything I could by Clarke. I particularly liked "A Fall of Moondust" and "Tales from the White Hart." Stranger in a Strange Land had a profound effect on the social changes of the sixties and seventies. It's that important. I also enjoyed Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." Oh, but you missed Asimov. So very much there but you could do worse than starting with the Foundation trilogy.
@@kleinjahr The title i mentioned is the one used in the United Kingdom, and is the one i have; I'm well aware that the one you mention is the US title :)
I'll be the oddball out... I say read A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. And, while you're at it, read the whole John Carter series. Personally, I only loved the first 6 books in the series, but others will disagree.
I Grok Schlock! (Too be sure... NONE of your selections are schlock! But 'I grok Golden Age Sci/Fi' doesn't roll off the tongue!) & far be it from me to be one of those coattail-riders who got to add their $.02! But I beg you check out Brian Aldiss! Based on your reads, I'd start with 'The Dark Light Years' & take it from there!
Asimov and Foundation. The Foundation serie is "The Crown Jewel of the science fiction". Of newer writers Alastair Reynolds is certainly worth mentioning. Revelation Space saga or Pushing Ice, for example. There is nothing wrong with your list, except it is way too short.
For Heinlein , Double Star and Door Into Summer are better, Asimov missing , Foundation and Caves of Steel, and gad! the best science fiction ever written , Left Hand of Darkness by, Ursula K. Le Guin , More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, the stories of Cordwainer Smith are like no SF ever written before or since. Fred Brown, Fred Pohl, C M Kornbluth , Poul Anderson, James Blish are very important authors.
@@Sci-FiOdyssey try "The Dragonriders of Pern" series - got me hooked with the first one, and there are around 2 dozen books, counting the ones her son wrote.
@@Sci-FiOdyssey How about Ursula K. LeGuin? Her "Earthsea" novels are really good. Mind you, they are more Fantasy than Sci-fi, but still worth a read in my opinion.
I've read them all, but Dune is my favorite. I read it as a young woman, and along with its sequels, it became my "Other World." Frank Herbert was a great world-builder. Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick are also two of my favorites. Other books I have always cherished in the science fiction genre are The Martian Chronicles and Rendezvous with Rama.
Marjorie Donnett love all the Rama books.
Rendezvous with Rama is AWESOME!!!
1984 it's easily my favorite book. If you haven't read it in years or you were forced to in high school I would recommend that you try it now as an adult, you may be pleasantly surprised.
1984 is a dystopia classic that really illustrated how a society can be aggressively made totalitarian
Brave New World is another dystopia classic that illustrates a totalitarian society that is made totalitarian through coaxing rather than force, something that is a very real in the modern world.
The first half of Stranger in a Strange land is my favorite half of a sci-fi novel that I've ever read. Book changed a lot when the author came back to it years later to write the second half.
so many years ago I remember pondering wtf does this novel turns into religious cult ideology half-way through...
I would add either of The Demolished Man or The Stars My Destination (sometimes known as Tiger Tiger) by Alfred Bester.
Happiness is ignoring the world because you are busy defending the earth in your starship.
These are my must-reads:
- Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance
- Dreams and Shadows by C Cargill
- Great Fighter Jets of the Galaxy 1 by Tim Gibson
Never knew the 'The Tempest' and 'The Brave New World' connection! Thanks for that.
All classics, great list. My #1 (by far) SF book is Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.
Solaris was ok, but try "The Futurological Congress" for mind bending weirdness.
The Soviet era Russian film version of Solaris is a challenging film. Beautiful to look at but why four hours?
Greg Bear deserves a mention with his Eon novels. More of a 1980s feel than 70s or earlier, but there are some mind-blowing concepts and reveals in there.
Agree (Blood Music, Darwin's Radio, Forge of God, Anvil of Stars, all great too)
@@Jambi14 Yes sir! (Or ma’am, or whatever is appropriate for your gender) 👍🏻 (Blood Music is awesome.)
Totally agree...he is a science fiction writer of note.
100% agree with you
Blood music was the childhoods end of it's decade.
Thank you, I plan on reading all of these books. I have already started reading a stranger in a strange land and I am thoroughly enjoying it.
Read them all before 1970. My copy of 2001 was signed by Clarke when he visited the satellite Lab I worked at in the late 70's. He gave a nice talk on renting scuba equipment from a place near his home in Sri Lanka.
I’ve read these all a long time ago, I may have to read them again. I also love the Foundation series by Asimov.
A very nice basic start collection of wonderful classics for those youngsters who really need to see the beginnings. Ought to wet their appetites for an expanded list, too many greats to list. As I have enjoyed all these and much much more since I discovered Science Fiction, and later Fantasy - Dragons of Pern, Lord of the Rings, and again, so much more, I have always been a master fan of the stories, the plots, the wonderfully different worlds and concepts I was exposed to in my reading. But I must say, I discovered Heinlein early on, ( 1961, 9 yrs. old, public libraries, school libraries, the Boys' Club libraries, and his stories all taught me from childhood through college and still in my re-readings how to be honest, moral, flexible with problems, resourceful, and so on. I consider R. A. Heinlein to be a great teacher and my Mentor. ,
Excellent choice of classics.
Let me throw in the epic The Mote in God's Eye by Niven/Pournelle and the imaginative Inverted World by Christopher Priest.
I just found out about the channel.
I gree with many things as well as I disagreed with others...
But when you said that reading about the Dreming Androinds and watching the movie about the replicants is something vastly diffirent I can say: I totally agree.
And I Love both of them.
Berserker by Saberhagen. First Men in the Moon, by H.G. Wells. The Amber series by Zelazny. The Riverworld series by Farmer. The World Of Tiers series by Farmer. Worlds of the Imperium by Laumer. Ringworld by Niven. Deathworld by Harrison.
And just for a sense of humour "Harrison's Bill, the galactic hero....
You forgot 'The Mote in God's Eye'. Larry Niven, and 'Ringworld'. Nice voice and you sit still and don't wave your arms about. Good presentation.
... ALL Niven, I think - there are no bad ones. I confess to liking the Known Space stories better than, say, the world of The Magic Goes Away, though.
If you like the Bene Gesserit in the first Dune book, you will love them in book five and six.
I think Forbidden Planet was one of the first really good science fiction films I ever saw. Later I heard that it too was somehow based on Shakespeare's Tempest. I'm still working on that.
I have read Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep three times without comprehension. It appears to me to be three unrelated short stories randomly kludged together. And I truly despised City in the Crystal, I thought that was infuriatingly stupid. After reading several other of his books I have actually given up on him. He has lots of good ideas but his writing style is so erratic that it is virtually unreadable for me. But I have proven myself wrong in this regard before.
I don't even know why Ridley Scott felt the need to acknowledge Blade Runner as being based on PKD's book. They barely share more than character names. And while I enjoyed the movie I think Mr. Scott is in error with his interpretation that Deckard was also a replicant/android. And he can run another whole herd of unicorns through it for all that was worth. I am truly bothered by the fact that I can generally agree with the rest of the choices yet disagree about PKD.
Excellent channel, appreciate the chance to vent :)
Excellent list, but missing Asimov. Most would say Foundation, but my choice would be The Gods Themselves.
"The Gods Themselves" is a great novel (but hey, it _IS_ Asimov so that's to be expected) and so is his "The End of Eternity"
Read all of them. Great analysis. Believe the movie “destination moon” based on Heinlin’s “spaceship Galileo” should be mentioned.
Asimov is the best Si-Fi I have ever read, in particular the Foundation Series and I’m not taking away anything that has been mentioned in this article. Asimov has coined a phrase, Hyper-space , that if materialized would be the realization of the of dream of many a physicist and engineer.
Terrific list. I concur, although I would replace 2001 with *Childhood's End*. Same theme, but I feel more eloquently told. Tough trying to limit it to five, isn't it?
Childhood's End is certainly a great novel too.
How is childhoods end eloquent? Reading it in 2020, it's just a nice short story with an ending that was new and inventive when written, but has been copied and done to death since, and in more interesting ways
100% agree with this list, I will have added Foundation which is a personal favorite of mine, given I'm both as a Historian and a closeted maniac trying to secretly take over the world.
Bravo! Very solid picks and great commentary
"Rendezvous With Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke is superior to his "2001: A Space Odyssey." (I consider Rama to be the best novel Clarke ever wrote.)
In regard to a "look back," "Brave New World" is genuinely a sci-fi classic. However, "1984" by George Orwell is perhaps more relevant.
In regard to "Dune," I can't fault you there. I merely want to add (and this is only something I discovered myself a couple of years ago) that Frank Herbert's son, in conjunction with another science fiction writer, created a dual prequel trilogy (six books) that are the equal of the original "Dune" (and, I confess, I never considered any of the sequels to "Dune" to be anywhere near as good as the original novel). The prequels, written twenty years ago (which surprised me when I discovered them, that they had been around for almost twenty years and I didn't even know they existed), are EXCELLENT, and are so extremely detailed in folding into the details of the original "Dune" that it's amazing they're not written by the same author.
Finally, I want to draw your attention to three different authors (but two novels) entirely...
(1) "A Deepness In The Sky" by Vernor Vinge.
(2) "Saturn Run" by John Sandford, and Ctein.
Both of these novels are EXCELLENT science fiction. The first one involves dealing with an extremely alien intelligent species, on an alien planet in a star system very different from our solar system. The second is in the context of... well, it's hard to give away any spoilers... but I'll just say that it's a great story dealing with Earth-centric political rivalries while also encountering contact from aliens from outside of the solar system.
I like how your books are clearly well read!
This was a really good list. Solid choices. Brave New World is 1 of my fave books of all time. It has that timeless quality that always makes it feel like it could've been written in the modern day
Read Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley. Brave New World was a warning. Huxley's brother was trying to make it happen. Its definitely the most accurate dystopian future book.
Excellent list with an emphasis on literary quality.
Good review. I already read them all. Excellent picks and commentary.
Stranger in a Strange Land? In Heinlein's own words "Ugh, what some writers will do for money".
Perhaps Asimov's I Robot series in it's place.
H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" is one I would put high up on any list of classic sci-fi novels. His "Time Machine" is pretty good too. A lot of what he wrote could just as easily be called horror.
I've done most of HG Wells and I agree that Time machine and war if the world's are the best.
Maybe add Ringworld or Lucifers Hammer or The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven. In fact, many Niven novels could make the list. I like the inclusion of Heinlein - and again, many could make the list.
Larry Niven's entire Known Space universe is great.
@@asdf51501 hear Hear
Good choices ... I only read Brave New World once, MANY years ago, and gave the book to someone else to read. I've still got a copy of Huxley's "Ape and Essence", which I read again a little over a year ago. It's also very good, thought-provoking.
I have no idea how many copies of Stranger in a Strange Land I have bought ... and given away for someone else to read. Been considering buying it again, as it's been 15 years since I gave my last copy away. I'm a HUGE Heinlein Fan! Got damned near everything he ever wrote here in my antique Sci-Fi collection, so it just ain't right not to have his most highly acclaimed novel included.
I've got some Phillip K Dick novels here. Gonna have to check and see if Electric Sheep is one of them. If not, I will rectify that situation!
First time I started to read Dune, I read 100 pages and gave it back to my brother! (No, I'm NOT a slow reader!) The beginning of the book is almost nothing but necessary background information which allows you to appreciate the rest of the book, so it failed to keep my interest. That upset my brother so much that when the movie came out a few years later, he took me to see it, and the movie highlighted my complaint by having a Narrator explaining everything throughout the movie, particularly at the beginning.
MANY years later I stumbled into a conversation where someone was talking as if the Dune series was the best literary creation of all time! I didn't even know that it had been continued as a series!
The second time reading Dune the beginning was far more interesting as I already knew what it was referring to, which made it more entertaining. By the time I finished the series I was highly disappointed that there wasn't more of it! GOOD stuff!
Am currently re-reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Blue Mars, after reading Red Mars and Green Mars. I HIGHLY recommend that series, particularly at this time in Human History. It's fascinating when Sci-Fi predicts the future and you live long enough to see their future become the present reality. We're NOT QUITE settling Mars yet ... but his predictions for Humanity have a lot of interesting parallels to the World we now live in.
Now I'm off to watch your "Classic science fiction must reads 2.0" !
A respectable list. Thanks for posting.
03:05 "the societal structures can be interpreted as a little dated" (talking about Stranger in a Strange Land) but only of you live outside the USA. If you're American they are still pretty much contemporary.
I think a short list of...anything is always going to be found wanting but I'm not militant about books. I agree with all your choices in so far as great scifi goes and I agree with a few specifically. Lists like this are a keg of dynamite with a slow fuse. Or antimatter in a degrading magnetic bottle. So nerdy.
Thanks for your video. Stay safe.
I hope you have read The Foundation series. One of my very favorite books is The End of Eternity by Asimov.
I have read lots of Asimov but not the foundation series. It's actually on my reading list for this year 😁
@@Sci-FiOdyssey You're recommending stuff but haven't read Foundation?
SMH
I saw the Dune movie (David Lynch version) before I read it and have now read all of them - including those by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. Epic!! I also saw 2001 before I read it. That was back in 1968 and I've revisited it many times since then. Arthur C Clarke was a bloody genius. I still have old paperback copies of Stranger in a Strange Land and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep but I could never get into Brave New World at all.
Great list of wonderfully written books. I'm a big Heinlein fan.
My favourite Heinlen novel is "Stranger in a Strange Land"
I don't get the fascination with Dune. There are some good ideas in the book, but also some very bad ones. A couple of examples:
- The Sardaukar learn to fight practically from birth, in one of the harshest environments known to mankind. Why are they so easily defeated by some people whose most important characteristic seems to be that they learned to effectively use water?
- Why would a desert planet be turned into a greenhouse by removing all the water from its atmosphere?
And in a book with a Planetary Ecologist, implying the author had a credible understanding of ecology, of food webs and pyramids of biomass, he has a desert world biome with giant apex predators (sandworms) and microscopic producer autotrophs and as far as I remember, no tropic levels in between: simply not biologically credible. Great for a pure fantasy novel but not for something claiming to be credible science fiction. There are other things I disliked about the novel but I suppose those are more matters of personal taste such as the neo-feudal society, the return to swords because personal forcefields make projectile and directed energy weapons ineffective and the destruction of computers so Mentat people have to do all the memory and computation work. Just not my thing.
So glad I found your channel! Still, I was hoping to see Stanislav Lem's Solaris in this video :)
I'm curious, what did you like about that book? I really tried to like it, but I thought it was SO BORING. I couldn't force myself to look at the pages anymore after getting a little over half way through it.
Starmaker, more ideas in that book than anything I can recall.
It's hard to argue with any of your choices. Five great examples of classic SF that has influenced the genre.
Stranger In A Strange Land, wonderful book...
"The Time Ships" by Stephen Baxter. Takes off where H.G. Wells "The Time Machine" ends. One of the most unpredictable and fascinating novels I've read. At over 500 pages, you better bring some snacks.
Nightmarish? It sounded like fun. Where's my Soma ration?
Every suggestion is rock solid
All the Enders Game books by Orson Scott Card are awesome.
All good books and most in my top books list. We all have different top five books and I have to admit my top books have changed a reasonable amount over the years, possibly today my top five books today is;
The Gods Themselves Asimov Isaac (Deep - basic human nature)
Hello Summer, Goodbye Coney Michael (Deep - relationship & reality)
Lest Darkness Fall De Camp L. Sprague (Fun adventure - Isaki)
The Stone God Awakens Farmer Philip Jose (Fun adventure - Isaki)
The Dispossessed LeGuin Ursula K. (Political - makes you think)
Nice seeing ‘Banks on your shelf.
"...that everyone should grok." I see what you did there.
Edited to add: I've read them all, though Brave New World was read under duress in high school. I may need to reread on my on recognizance. The Foundation series didn't make the list? It's the OG galactic empire epic.
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
- Ringworld
- Gateway
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go
- Hyperion
- Consider Phlebas
- The Ophiuchi Hotline
- Lord of Light
- The Shadow of the Torturer
- Hardwired
Heinlein also wrote Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet, Starman Jones, Have Space Suit____Will Travel, and the classic military science fiction novel Star Ship Troopers. Addendum to this post: The Star Conquerors by the late Ben Bova.
Like your picks.A few others that deserve a read ( Space Opera )
Catface/ Clifford D Simak
The Forever War/Joe Halderman
The City and the Stars/Arthur C Clark
The Warlock Inspite of Himself/Christopher Stasheff
River World Series/To your scattered Bodies Go/Philip Jose Farmer.
The Lost Fleet (series)/John G Hemry/Under the pen name Jack Campbell.
Another good series by Phillip Jose Farmer is the World of Tiers.
In the realm of Space Opera, i think Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy stands out as one of the grandest works i have ever read. The paperback edition amounts to well in excess of 3700 pages. His other works, e.g. the Greg Mandel trilogy and the Commonwealth saga, are also highly recommendable.
@@oberon0023
Not come across that series. Will have to hunt it up. Thanks for the Info.
@@BertGrink
Another one i don't know. Looks like i've got alot or reading to do.
I've read three, and I've seen movies based on four, including the two I haven't read. On top of that, I saw the TV miniseries based on one of the ones I haven't read. Brave New World was once my favorite book, though I have read a lot more since then, and it has some competition now. I read the Space Odyssey series recently, because it seemed like it was about time I finally read 2001 and 2010. I also read 1984 recently for the same reason, and that's one other classic science fiction book I would consider a must read. Going back much further, I would consider The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells a must read. A more recent must read is Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. I've previously seen movie versions of it, but they did not prepare me for reading the novel. It is an account of someone trying to contact the most inhuman of non-human intelligences. Lem also writes some great science fiction humor. He's up there with Douglas Adams, whose Hitchhiker series is also a must read.
The signs of a book lover, creases and tears of a well-read and loved book.
Missing from the list:
John Brunner, either Stand on Zanzibar or The Sheep look up.
Alfred Bester, either The Stars my Destination or The Demolished Man.
Also Brunner’s Shockwave Rider “
Greg Bear's The Forge Of God. Excellent novel and the scariest "end of the world" scenario ever put on paper.
Seem to remember the bit at Yosemite where the guy sees the continental plate tip up, epic.
Yes. I think Stranger in a Strange Land, the hippy's bible, is a good book for the young to read. It will give them a bit of insight into some of the forces shaping the 60s.
This list is meant for young people who have not yet read the beginning, foundational basics. It is also skewed toward stories that teach social lessons and/or morality, rather than being merely entertaining.
Phillip Dick, Man in High Castle, is pretty amazing. I couldn't get through Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I would add Ray Bradbury, Martian Chronicles - that is my all time favorite SciFi.
When i first read "Stranger in a Strange Land" (which i had borrowed from a friend) it captivated me so much that i just couldn't put it down. I finished it in less than 24 hours, and the next day i went to the book store and ordered a copy for myself. I have lost count of the number of times i have read it :D
"Dune"? OMG, it was everything I could do to *force* myself to read that steaming pile of drek for a class I took.
Really? I loved that book. I thought it was the best science fiction novel I ever read. I didn't care much for the sequels though.
@andyontheinternet5777 as the old saying goes "Everybody got their own thing." Me, I found the premise insane, and the story telling tedious. If you like it, that's you.
@@andrewreynolds9371 👍
'Brave New World' was on the list at my school; if I hadn't already been a fan of SF series and short story collections, that would have finished me on SF.
The books we are made to read do not enlighten, they restrict.
The generation that came after me do not read much SF, I have found.
My favourites? 'The Skylark' and 'Lensman' series by E.E. 'Doc' Smith, almost anything by Chris Boucher, Larry Niven, Kornbluth, Asimov, some of Harry Harrison, much of Clarke, as you can see, I haven't been impressed by many of the more recent SF writers.
While I have read and have liked Ian Banks 'Culture' books and stories, I feel the idea of a society that has arrived, however well described and however much incident fills the pages, to be less interesting than discovery, learning and overcoming conflicts.
I have read them all, still I would place "The Expedition of the space Beagle" by A.E.Van Vogt as number one and "UBIC" by Philip Dick as number 2
Its actually " The Voyages of the Space Beagle" excellent read
Anything by Peter F Hamilton or Iain M Banks would be a good start.
Nice list, but for me fahrenheit 451 is the best si-fi
Foundation series and robot series by Isaac Asimov
Giant Star series by James Patrick Hogan
Nul-A series by A.E. van Vogt. And Slan.
Tschai by Jack Vance.
Ringworld series by Niven
I grok it...
Almost any must read list is subjective due to personal preference. My own includes
1) Dune. Hopefully the new movie does it justice.
2) Stranger in a Strange Land.
3) The Moon is a Hardh Mistress*
4) Ringworld*
5) The Mote in God's Eye
6) The Foundation Series
7) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
8) Childhoods End
9) 1984
10) The Reality Dysfunction
11) Fahrenheit 451
12) Lucifer's Hammer
13) Inferno**
*I highly recommend trying audio books if possible
**Anytime somebody has the chutzpah to plagiarize Danté and it works.
I really like your videos where you give a Book List. I'm new to your channel, but I am subbing. However, can I ask ... could you give us a list at the very first then create time stamps in your video where I can jump right to it? That'd save me time, and I'd like to know an overview of what you are talking about. Thank you.
Earlier Heinlein like "The Past Through Tomorrow" omnibus or "The Puppet Masters" or "Double Star". The Heinlein Juveniles, like "Tunnel in the Sky" or "Red Planet", or "The Star Beast" which was the first real novel I ever read, when I was around 8yo. Larry Niven's Known Space stories and novels, "Ringworld" the best known (but don't start there) and his shared universe tales of the alien Kzin. Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity", often held up as the hardest of hard SF. John Brunner's "Stand On Zanzibar", a landmark early in the New Wave, and Harry Harrison's "Make Room, Make Room" which was adapted into "Soylent Green". Fredrik Pohl with "Gateway", or "Age of the Pussyfoot" and "The Space Merchants" which will surprise you with their prescience. Poul Anderson's Flandry series (and so many others). James Schmitz of Telzey Amberdon fame, but try his "The Demon Breed" for an ultra-competent female action hero/ecologist way before Ellen Ripley came along (and why the hell it isn't a movie I can't say). Anything by Alfred Bester. I could really go on all day without even getting into the B List.
I grock this.
This is a good list. These were all fantastic reads.
Arthur C. Clark’s “Childhoods End”.
Good shout! I'd also add City and the Stars. Rendezvous with Rama is also one of my childhood favorites.
Childhoods end, read today is a bore fest
I can’t quarrel with any of your choices.
Good choices! 🤗
Liked your picks, although I think there are PKDick novels that are far better than 'Do Androids Dream...' Also liked it that you picked '2001', a novel I reread several times in my teens,a s I've always been an ardent fan of the movie. That said, I disagree that the novel "explains" the movie, or that it goes "deeper"; it's actually the other way around(to me): the movie goes far beyond the scope of the novel, to an extent that I sometimes wonder if Clarke actually understood what Kubrick did in the movie. Like someone once said: Kubrick left many questions unanswered, while Clarke's book(s) tried to answer too much. '2001' is more than just a scifi story about aliens and spaceships.
Check Stanisław Lem books.They are excellent.
Um,Dune is not just one book. Frank Herbert wrote several Dune books and his son and friends have expanded the epic and now I've lost track of how many Dune books there are. They are not Herbert but they rock on their own merits.check them out.
I concur, though I've never read Brave New World, 1984 was close enough for me. I read all these books in the early '70s. When I heard about Blade Runner I was upset about the changes but Sean Young's Rachael was perfect and immediately recognizable in the press reports. 2001 started me on a journey to find everything I could by Clarke. I particularly liked "A Fall of Moondust" and "Tales from the White Hart." Stranger in a Strange Land had a profound effect on the social changes of the sixties and seventies. It's that important. I also enjoyed Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
Oh, but you missed Asimov. So very much there but you could do worse than starting with the Foundation trilogy.
All your choices are fine books. Wonder if you've read 'The Mote in God's Eye'?
I haven't, no. Sound interesting. I'll take a look.
@@Sci-FiOdyssey It's an excellent book, and so is its sequel, "The Moat around Murcheson's Eye". Highly recommendable.
@@BertGrink I think you mean, The Gripping Hand.
@@kleinjahr The title i mentioned is the one used in the United Kingdom, and is the one i have; I'm well aware that the one you mention is the US title :)
Explore Robert L Forward....James Blish.....etc.
There are some days when I almost wouldn't mind an enslaved pseudo human.
need "I Robot". Defined the laws of robots that are in use in real life today.
While Asimov's laws of robotics are in use in other robot fiction, real life robots are not that advanced yet.
J G Ballard and Stanislaw Lem are both excellent authors.
I'll be the oddball out... I say read A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. And, while you're at it, read the whole John Carter series. Personally, I only loved the first 6 books in the series, but others will disagree.
I Grok Schlock! (Too be sure... NONE of your selections are schlock! But 'I grok Golden Age Sci/Fi' doesn't roll off the tongue!)
& far be it from me to be one of those coattail-riders who got to add their $.02! But I beg you check out Brian Aldiss! Based on your reads, I'd start with 'The Dark Light Years' & take it from there!
Asimov and Foundation. The Foundation serie is "The Crown Jewel of the science fiction". Of newer writers Alastair Reynolds is certainly worth mentioning. Revelation Space saga or Pushing Ice, for example. There is nothing wrong with your list, except it is way too short.
And you got a new sub
A stranger in a strange land did not age well in my opinion, The Foundation however did. .
For Heinlein , Double Star and Door Into Summer are better, Asimov missing , Foundation and Caves of Steel, and gad! the best science fiction ever written , Left Hand of Darkness by, Ursula K. Le Guin , More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, the stories of Cordwainer Smith are like no SF ever written before or since. Fred Brown, Fred Pohl, C M Kornbluth , Poul Anderson, James Blish are very important authors.
The lost star ship is the best and its on youtube as an audio book
Nothing but hype!
We've been told the same thing many times!!
How is it theres no Ray Bradbury on this list?
I agree. Limiting the number, leaves too many other classics not to be listed.
Have you read any Anne McCaffrey? Or Mercedes Lackey, just be careful with Lackey, as she also writes fantasy.
I haven't. Can you suggest a book and I'll check her out?
@@Sci-FiOdyssey try "The Dragonriders of Pern" series - got me hooked with the first one, and there are around 2 dozen books, counting the ones her son wrote.
@@michaelmills5972 Thanks, I'll take a look.
@@Sci-FiOdyssey How about Ursula K. LeGuin? Her "Earthsea" novels are really good. Mind you, they are more Fantasy than Sci-fi, but still worth a read in my opinion.
Love "The Dragonriders of Pern" series ... some of my all time favourites
SOLARIS by Stanislaw Lem !!
Both American and Russian screen versions f..ed the book up.
Brave New World graphic novel available
John Brunner?