Back in the 90s I worked in an office with three English majors. We were talking about books one day and I innocently said I liked to read science fiction. Immediately, I saw all three of their noses turn upwards. So I got talking to them about it and was shocked to learn that all three of them honestly thought that ALL science fiction was basically Star Wars...spaceships, laser guns, battles in space, etc. They had all graduated from English programs, yet had never studied any sci-fi at all. I tried to explain to them the depth and richness of the sci-fi genre, but I don't think I convinced them. If I'd had this video to show them back then, it may have! Some excellent recommendations here and nice to hear about some books beyond the same old ones everyone recommends in this type of video. Timescape is one of my all-time favourites, and that Robert Silverberg one sounds intriguing. It's going on my TBR list now!
Yeah, I've come across the exact same prejudice, and am always pleased when someone actually wades out in SF and discovers it's as enriching as any other kind of literature. Hope you enjoy the Silverberg.
Glad you enjoyed the list! Inverted World remains fascinating right through to the resolution. I've heard some people claim the ending is far-fetched - as if the rest of the novel isn't!! Still one of my favourite hard sci-fi novels.
I love this SF Masterworks series. I read I am Legend last year and currently reading The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. Flowers for Algernon sounds amazing, going to pick that up next.
@@michaelbartlettfilm I'm enjoying it so far. Same basic premise and same feel as the 70s version though the plot is a bit different. Not seen the original version.
I've not read the expanded book-length version of 'Flowers for Algernon', but remember the original short-story version as beautifully written and quite moving. While not having read 'The Lathe of Heaven', I did watch a made-for-television adaptation which aired in 1980, and which I found intriguing and enjoyable. At least two of my favorite novels happen to be science fiction works, namely the 1962 'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess and '334' by Thomas M. Disch, first published in 1972. In 'A Clockwork Orange', which I now prefer to Stanley Kubrick's (in)famous 1971 screen adaptation, I love the author's ingenious and playful use of language, inventing a whole futuristic slang which distances the reader somewhat from the often brutal content. '334', which grew out of a series of related short stories that were earlier published separately, Disch postulates an enervated near future of the early twenty-first century, where desperate but resilient residents of an overpopulated New York eke out circumscribed lives of ever decreasing meaning and purpose. The novel becomes in some ways a kind of anti-science fiction, in that Disch insists that the future will never be that different from the present, at least in life's essentials. I find the author's prose and conceptions consistently compelling.
Though I like the film, I agree about Clockwork Orange. It's not just Burgess's use of language that makes the novel superior but the ending which deepens the themes of the story and casts it in a new light. I haven't got round to 334 yet, but thank you for reminding of it. I've been meaning to try it for ages.
It's a small quibble (about a book that wasn't even formally part of your 10 recommendations), but The Dispossessed isn't contrasting the worlds of Anarras and Urras as surrogates for the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Urras has it's own analogies to the U.S. and Soviet Union (A-Io and Thu). It's contrasting anarchy and centralized government. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union pursued high ideals (freedom, equality, etc.) and set up centralized governments to promote those ideals, but, in both cases, those governments ended up supporting different forms of inequality and authoritarianism. Could an de-centralized society rooted in principles of solidarity and mutual cooperation work better? Well, the book isn't subtitled "an ambiguous utopia" for nothing.
Yeah, good point. It's also interesting to compare Le Guin's vision of an anarchist society with that of Cecelia Holland in Floating Worlds. There's a similar pessimism about how it could be made to work, but Le Guin ultimately ends by being more positive and constructive, it seems to me, than Holland, who seems to see every kind of government as doomed!
Thanks for these recommendations. They all sound like books I would enjoy. The only one I have already read is "Flowers for Algernon." I saw an adaptation ("The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon") on American television in the early 1960s, and the American movie "Charly" (another adaptation) in the late 1960s. I read the book after seeing the movie "Charly." I enjoyed the book very much. I believe the book was expanded from an earlier short story originally published in some magazine. I have not read the short story version.
@@michaelbartlettfilm As usually is the case, I thought the book was better than the movie. But I did enjoy the movie -- at least enough for it to inspire me to read the book. I only saw the movie that one time, long ago. Cliff Robertson won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in "Charly," and as I recall I thought he did a good job in the role as written for the movie.
Will definitely check out the novel of "The Prestige." That is hands down my fav Nolan movie, even more than Memento. I never bothered looking into the book though...that shall be corrected in short order.
The Last Man On Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price is a really good Film and most definitely worth watching, for anyone who hasn't seen it !
Agreed...enjoyed it very much.
Back in the 90s I worked in an office with three English majors. We were talking about books one day and I innocently said I liked to read science fiction. Immediately, I saw all three of their noses turn upwards. So I got talking to them about it and was shocked to learn that all three of them honestly thought that ALL science fiction was basically Star Wars...spaceships, laser guns, battles in space, etc. They had all graduated from English programs, yet had never studied any sci-fi at all. I tried to explain to them the depth and richness of the sci-fi genre, but I don't think I convinced them. If I'd had this video to show them back then, it may have! Some excellent recommendations here and nice to hear about some books beyond the same old ones everyone recommends in this type of video. Timescape is one of my all-time favourites, and that Robert Silverberg one sounds intriguing. It's going on my TBR list now!
Yeah, I've come across the exact same prejudice, and am always pleased when someone actually wades out in SF and discovers it's as enriching as any other kind of literature. Hope you enjoy the Silverberg.
This is a really fascinating list! Thank you for your recommendations. I am currently halfway through Inverted World and thoroughly absorbed.
Glad you enjoyed the list! Inverted World remains fascinating right through to the resolution. I've heard some people claim the ending is far-fetched - as if the rest of the novel isn't!! Still one of my favourite hard sci-fi novels.
I love this SF Masterworks series. I read I am Legend last year and currently reading The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. Flowers for Algernon sounds amazing, going to pick that up next.
You know, I've still never read Body Snatchers, despite adoring the film. Must get round to it one day.
@@michaelbartlettfilm I'm enjoying it so far. Same basic premise and same feel as the 70s version though the plot is a bit different. Not seen the original version.
I've not read the expanded book-length version of 'Flowers for Algernon', but remember the original short-story version as beautifully written and quite moving. While not having read 'The Lathe of Heaven', I did watch a made-for-television adaptation which aired in 1980, and which I found intriguing and enjoyable.
At least two of my favorite novels happen to be science fiction works, namely the 1962 'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess and '334' by Thomas M. Disch, first published in 1972. In 'A Clockwork Orange', which I now prefer to Stanley Kubrick's (in)famous 1971 screen adaptation, I love the author's ingenious and playful use of language, inventing a whole futuristic slang which distances the reader somewhat from the often brutal content. '334', which grew out of a series of related short stories that were earlier published separately, Disch postulates an enervated near future of the early twenty-first century, where desperate but resilient residents of an overpopulated New York eke out circumscribed lives of ever decreasing meaning and purpose. The novel becomes in some ways a kind of anti-science fiction, in that Disch insists that the future will never be that different from the present, at least in life's essentials. I find the author's prose and conceptions consistently compelling.
Though I like the film, I agree about Clockwork Orange. It's not just Burgess's use of language that makes the novel superior but the ending which deepens the themes of the story and casts it in a new light. I haven't got round to 334 yet, but thank you for reminding of it. I've been meaning to try it for ages.
It's a small quibble (about a book that wasn't even formally part of your 10 recommendations), but The Dispossessed isn't contrasting the worlds of Anarras and Urras as surrogates for the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Urras has it's own analogies to the U.S. and Soviet Union (A-Io and Thu). It's contrasting anarchy and centralized government. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union pursued high ideals (freedom, equality, etc.) and set up centralized governments to promote those ideals, but, in both cases, those governments ended up supporting different forms of inequality and authoritarianism. Could an de-centralized society rooted in principles of solidarity and mutual cooperation work better? Well, the book isn't subtitled "an ambiguous utopia" for nothing.
Yeah, good point. It's also interesting to compare Le Guin's vision of an anarchist society with that of Cecelia Holland in Floating Worlds. There's a similar pessimism about how it could be made to work, but Le Guin ultimately ends by being more positive and constructive, it seems to me, than Holland, who seems to see every kind of government as doomed!
Thanks for these recommendations. They all sound like books I would enjoy. The only one I have already read is "Flowers for Algernon." I saw an adaptation ("The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon") on American television in the early 1960s, and the American movie "Charly" (another adaptation) in the late 1960s. I read the book after seeing the movie "Charly." I enjoyed the book very much. I believe the book was expanded from an earlier short story originally published in some magazine. I have not read the short story version.
Such a moving novel. I've never seen the movie - I'll hunt it down.
@@michaelbartlettfilm As usually is the case, I thought the book was better than the movie. But I did enjoy the movie -- at least enough for it to inspire me to read the book. I only saw the movie that one time, long ago. Cliff Robertson won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in "Charly," and as I recall I thought he did a good job in the role as written for the movie.
Will definitely check out the novel of "The Prestige." That is hands down my fav Nolan movie, even more than Memento. I never bothered looking into the book though...that shall be corrected in short order.
The book's better...and wackier!
@@michaelbartlettfilm But does it feature David Bowie as Tesla? I think not :)
@@frankb821 OK, good point!
"God, I love this" video...❤
God, I love this comment! Thanks, BangZoom!