10 Hyperion (Dan simmons) 9 Old Man's War (John Scalzi) 8 Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegan) 7 Stories of your Life (ted Chiang) 6 A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller Jr) 5 Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky) 4 Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) 3 A Scanner Darkly (Philip K. Dick) 2 Masterpieces of Science-fiction (I. Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Gibson, Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin, Pohl) 1 The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin) Honorable mentions: Blindsight (Peter Watts) The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula K. Le Guin) The Sky Road (Ken McLeod)
I love that you have The Count of Monte Cristo on your shelf. My favorite book of all time (even though I normally read more fantasy/sci fi books with the occasionally horror or mystery/thriller thrown in) :D
@@bookjack A superlative list of winners. But I wonder, if u love Monte Cristo, how could the Bester reboot (variously "Tiger! Tiger!" or "The Stars My Destination") have failed to make even your Honorable Mentions list? Glad Chiang did make the list -- with such limited output, he doesn't always get such accolades. But his works that really stayed with and haunt me thru multiple re-reads are his "Tower of Babylon" (also in the "Stories of Yr Life" collection) and “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate,” in another collection, "Exhalation." It's so tough waiting for the next Chiang to appear! I also wish more people had the same reverence I have for Jack Vance (Game o Thrones' GRR Martin names him as a major influence) and Samuel R Delany (his novella "Empire Star" and story "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" are the most perfect distillations of the essence of sci-fi, the awe and wonder of encountering a new and splendid land, that I've yet found; perfect little haikus of concentrated brilliance).
Two of my favorite baby sitters while growing up were brothers - Antoine and Etienne Dumas. Their older brother Émile was already gone off to University so I never met him. Their father Robert looked just like Alexandre, but not fat. Émile and Etienne both became tennis pros/instructors.
@@bookjack If you love the Count, you should read "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester - its the Count of Monte Christo... in Space! Plus it is the first cyberpunk novel written all the way back in 1956.
Okay , here goes: I am only eighty years old and and was reading sic fi when I first learned to read. I am a mediocre, but prolific author myself of thirty volumes at the present. Included are sci fi short stories. Here is my top ten, that number twelve because of the inflation that is effecting almost everything these days. hehehehehehehe. Dune, no.1, but the rest in no particular order: Dragon Flight, Rendezvous with Rama, Eon, Ringworld, Looper, Lefthand of Darkness, Time Machine, A Princess of Mars, Norstrilia, A Fire in the Deep, Ender's Game. If you haven't read all of these, your sci fi PHD is still in progress.
@@jamesdylandean614 Thank you for putting _Norstrilia_ on your list. Cordwainer Smith doesn't get nearly enough respect. Like Ursula Le Guin, he's a very deep, lyrical writer. But...no Asimov? Or Zelazny? Or do you prefer their short stories? I actually like John Brunner as well, in particular _The Stone that Never Came Down._ More obscure than _Stand on Zanzibar_ (also a favorite).
@@lisagulick4144 There are many fine writers that didn't make my to list. Cordwainer Smith was a true inspiration to me, and I am proud to say that in my amateur writings, he is my master in storytelling. One of my favorites is: The Game of Rat and Dragon.
@@jamesdylandean614 I agree about "Rat and Dragon.". Smith liked cats IRL, so his writing about cat/human partnerships is no surprise (this also explains the underperson character C'mell). I think his creepiest short story in the Instrumentality universe is "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons." Brrr...don't ever mess with Norstrilia!
1977 Centerville MA, the oldest lending library in the USA. There is (was) a Kurt Vonnegut reading room. One day, summer 1977, I was looking for something to read and there was this hairy old rumpled man smoking cigarettes sitting at the table in the room... After sitting and talking with him for a while, he picked up the paperback he was reading, and held it up. His picture and bio on the back cover... Yes... There he was. After a while he said he had to get going. As he walked out, the fat little old lady librarian said, "Have a nice day Mr. Vonnegut". Confirming my jaw dropped stare. When I left, I asked the librarian if he came in frequently. She remarked, every once in a while, and she hated his chain smoking, but it IS his reading room, and he donated all the books in there, so...
But wait It gets better! I was already a massive Vonnegut fan and earlier that year My mother had taken me on a 1 month long tour of Australia. While there I had acquired a small library of paperbacks that I had not found in the US. Well about a week or so later, I once again found him in the Sturgis Library reading room and remarked on his books that I had found in the land down under. That I really loved the one called Welcome to the Monkey house because it referred to the speculative sewer systems under Cape Cod and resolved the joke about no word that rhymed with Orange... He looked at me with a frown when I mentioned the publisher. Apparently they didn't have a deal to pay him! I gladly handed him my collection of Australian Rip offs. A few weeks later, I found him yet again and I got a big smile a hand shake, and a hearty Thanks for bringing it to his attention. He also returned the books, Signed... Unfortunately, The books have been lost in multiple moves over the decades...
@@bookjack The Sturgis Library in Barnstable is the OG Longest Lasting. The One in Centerville is/was apparently a satellite Annex?. Of course, They didn't make that crystal clear to us as kids. But yeah, I found him in the one on Centerville Main St...
I'm a lifetime SF junkie (65 yrs old)who absolutely loved your list. I would probably have five or six of these novels on my own top ten list. It's really refreshing to see a young person enjoying the classic SF that I grew up with. If I could, I would suggest that you check out Clifford Simak, especially 'City' & 'Way Station's. I think you would like both of them. Keep the videos coming.
You have convinced me to delve into the "Masterpieces" collection! I am new to Sci-Fi (more Fantasy to this point). Love the reveal cards - thanks for your channel.
Strong sci-fi can offer a different perspective that is different from fantasy. Asimov, Clarke and Herbert earned their audiences by writing great stories that challenge their readers.
Well....I'll just add these top favorites of mine. Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" William Gibson's "Neuromancer: Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" Frank Herbert's "Dune" Also Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"
Snow Crash was a little long for me. Neuromancer I need to revisit. Hitchhikers Guide was awesome and probably deserved an honorable mention. Dune I haven't read (yet) 😅 And Enders Game is obviously top tier
Hyperion’s world is so rich and diverse. I enjoyed Fall even more so, just the idea of the Web and farcasters allowing you to travel to hundreds of world was captivating. The descriptive prose particularly when describing Hyperion (the planet) was very immersive.
I didn't enjoy Fall. The first book was great but when we get to flying carpets in the 2nd that's where I just don't see this as sci-fi anymore. I lean more towards hard scifi anyway.
I appreciate the video you shared on UA-cam that had great sci-fi recommendations. I like that most of the sci-fi books recommended were not of pop culture status, as it seems to be the case on UA-cam every time I search for the best sci-fi books. Dune always comes up, and although it's a great book, I'm sure there are other options. Thank you for providing detailed descriptions of each novel on your list. Your perspective is valuable, and I appreciate it.
Thanks so much! I really do like sharing lesser known books. So many recommendations out there but sometimes it's fun to go blindly into an obscure book
I really like what you're doing here BJ, so I subscribed. Le Guin, Dick, Tchaikovsky, Vonnegut et al, wow. Great takes. All well-read by yours truly and coveted. Well done. Cheers.
Nice special effects. Excellent list. Great reviews. What's not to like? 👍 I looked and I have "Harrison Bergeron" in The World Treasury of Science Fiction, David Hartwell, ed. -- so I'll give that a read on your recommendation. Three cheers for jingles! "You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!" So effective (the jingle, not the Pepsodent)
Great list! All solid choices. Hyperion and Left Hand of Darkness are also among my faves. You've got me pumped for Children of Time and Old Man's War, both in my TBR.
As someone who literally spent the day sorting through flood damage, throwing away my lifetime library of everything I've ever read, including The Left Hand of Darkness (So Good), including the now mold-destroyed copy of the first book I ever read; Journey To The Center Of The Earth, cherish your library. You're obviously literate with great taste, so I'm sure you do already....but savor that connection. It's heartbreaking if you lose it. New subscriber BTW.
This morning I threw away my English 1st edition of The Neverending Story by Ende. The entire book was printed in red and green ink. it was gorgeous. Such a waste. I'll ultimately get over it. Thanks for being a fellow book nerd.
@@veo_ I also went through flood losses during 2017 during Ike or Rita (forget which), and now, damned if I don't have lot of storm damage from Hurricane Beryl. And, get this ... I don't live on the Beach. I live in North Houston, about 30 / 40 minutes north. So, I'm 125 / 150 from the coast. But, yet, we still get hit with Hurricane damage. And, it fucking sucks. Already got enough SHIT to do in life, then damned -- if Nature doesn't give you so much more. At times, it's almost overloading and overwhelming.
Great to see Cat's Cradle and Left Hand of Darkness on the list. Surprised that Dune wasn't on the list, as well a Childhood's End. Have you read The Mote in God's Eye or Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?
I am just reading Dune now and loving it. Since making this list I've read Childhoods end and Note in God's Eye. Not sure either would make top 10 but I liked them both
I have yet to find a book as complex and beautiful as Hyperion. It was my first foray into reading. it took me a year to read all 4 books. I now read one book a week.
@@bookjack I was at my Jazz Club in Paris a few years ago. There was a US-French Jazz collaboration, they'd composed 7 pieces in the 7 modes, with each piece representing a different character in Hyperion. Fab stuff.
LeGuin is my favorite sci-fi author and probably in my top 3 authors overall. Her short fiction will stick with you for the rest of your life. And her novels are all great (even the ones people tend to ignore, like Roccanon's World and Planet of Exile). Since we have similar tastes, I highly recommend the following' _Wild Seed,_ by Octavia Butler The Imperial Radch Trilogy, by Anne Leckie (starting with _Ancillary Justice_ ). The Amaranthine Spectrum trilogy, by Tom Toner (starting with _Promise of the Child_ ... but don't let the surprise/ridiculous ending stop you from going on to book 2).
Thanks for the recommendations. I've read Ancillary Justice. Liked it but not enough to continue with the trilogy. That Butler book sounds interesting. I'll keep an eye out for it
Reading Vonnegut completely changed my world view and indeed my life. I discovered him by buying The Sirens of Titan off one of those spinning paperback book racks at a drugstore because the cover looked cool. I don't know why that book doesn't get much love. I heard that Jerry Garcia bought the movie rights so that's probably never going to happen. Great list btw. I'm working through Dan Simmons right now. The Terror is tremendous.
Agreed. So glad I picked him up again. Read Sirens of Titan recently and it rivals Slaughterhouse 5. Am planning on ranking all the Vonnegut books I've read pretty soon. Jerry Garcia? The guy from the ice cream?
Yes, I miss Ursula very much. Her willingness to allow a story to grow organically and move at a slower pace if needed, plus her absolutely beautifully-crafted prose, made her a star. And her championship of environmental issues, feminism, and freedom of artistic expression were inspiring!
@@bookjack the origins of the Shrike and a lot of the mysteries surrounding the war are explained in later books. Basically elements from each of the six pilgrim’s tales eventually factor in to the big overall story. It’s really satisfying.
If I recall correctly it was meant as one large work in 4 parts. I really liked the 3/4 books but I gather many people didn’t. Simmons is great author but he is big on references which everyone might not know. Here eg details of Keat as a poet.
OMG! You are the first person who has ever picked the same favourite book as me. Most people just look at me like 'huh?". Yes, it changed my life too. No other piece of literature has ever managed to get that close to explaining what love is. Le Guin is a genius.
You are so right about Vonnegut. I read Slaughterhouse 5 in my 20s and it was so boring, then I read it again (in my...early 40s) after so many recommendations and was blown away by how profound it was. I think it may be in my top books I have ever read now. I will try Cat's Cradle now because I really liked his style, and on your recommendation. Thanks.
I can get bored very easily, but Slaughterhouse Five was an absolute blast when I read it in my freshman year of college at 18. To each their own ig lol
Cat’s Cradle and Canticle are brilliant choices. We’re living in the age of Canticle (i.e. surrounded by Know-Nothings burning books). Impressed Left Hand is your #1. Nicely done. You’re clearly a deep thinker.
Slauterhouse 5 is definitely the best sci-fi book ever written,based on his time in Dresden as a POW during the bombing,realising he had not enough material to write about the horrors of war he came up with this masterpiece.The films also worth a watch as well
I am surprised to hear you couldn’t get into Dune; it’s certainly a LOT more politicking than I expected going in rather blind. Good picks though, I have not read many of these though I own A Canticle for Leibowitz and will be checking that out.
Hey Ryne thanks for watching. I tried Dune a very long time ago so I probably didn't have a lot of patience for all the diplomatic stuff. I'm sure I'll like it when I try again
@@bookjack One reason Dune impressed me so much is that Herbert pulled from many cultures/religions to create his world. Probably helped that I was raised Roman Catholic, so I really enjoyed the way the author used it for vocab/imagery.
@@bookjack Wow~ if you've not read it, you're in for a treat! I guess it comes under hard sci-fi, but it's not too difficult to follow and has some really unique qualities in terms of alien races and galaxy structure.
I agree that memories are connected to books. I have some books that I keep, not because they are worth rereading, but because of the feelings and memories attached. Love Ted Chiang, Dan Simmons and Walter M. Miller. Left Hand of Darkness is in my TBR. Not sure about Vonnegut and PKD. Will give them a try again some day.
Love your coverage of these books. I added some to my Reading List. Thanks for sharing your Likes. I really look up to you for having such a great channel that is really quite enjoyable.
I've never heard "Colony Ship" used. Back in the 60's and 70's when I was reading a lot of SF I knew them as "Generation Ship" stories. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" was a novel that still holds a place in my memory.
@@bookjack I think "colony ship" would be the set of all ships carrying people (or whatever) to make their home on a new world; "generation ship" would be the (slow-moving, by outer space standards) subset. So, all generation ships would be colony ships, but not vice-versa.
Wow. Great video...great list. All strong titles, although I'd probably only consider Left Hand of Darkness and Canticle for Leibowitz for my own top ten. I'm actually reading Children of Time now, so we'll see. But more importantly, I love the numbered paper covers! Did you actually make those?
I reread canticle for leibowitz recently because it makes so many top ten lists and I remembered being so bored with it I struggled to finish it in high school. I still found it to be a very slow plodding book without a real payoff. Maybe that’s the point.
1. Hyperion is one of my favorites too! 😊 2. The Fall of Hyperion is also good but I felt half a step or so down from Hyperion. 3. Dan Simmons used to be an English literature teacher and this often shines through quite brightly and even brilliantly in his works, for he really brings a literary intelligence and experience to his novels that elevates both his own craft as well as the genre in which he happens to be working in at the time. 4. After all, Hyperion is in a sense an SF version of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer in turn borrows heavily from Boccaccio's Decameron. And, like Chaucer building on Boccaccio, Simmons likewise builds on Chaucer, among others. In fact, one way to look at the whole of literature is as a series of great writers building off other great writers to create a uniquely artistic work for their time. 5. By the way, if you like Hyperion, and if you like Dickens or Victorian era literature as well, I'd recommend another Simmons novel titled Drood. Drood is premised on Dickens's unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Simmons used Dickens's real life friend Wilkie Collins as his narrative voice. Collins most famously wrote The Woman in White and The Moonstone, both published with Dickens's magazine, if I recall correctly. 6. Simmons also wrote The Terror, which was turned into a pretty good mini series. It's based on a (real life) failed 19th century British expedition to find the Northwest passage where the men end up in mutinies, cannibalism, and eventually death in Arctic lands. In the novel, they're also hunted by a mysterious monster.
Wow thanks for the Simmons lesson. I love how I can learn so much about books through comments like these. Pretty sure I've heard of the terror. It sounds right up my alley thanks!
@@bookjack yes think was a TV movie from mid 90s with Sean Astin but there's a free version here.. I re-watch it from time to time. amazing what they did with an 8 page story.
I would recommend a few that unfortunately fell between the cracks. 1) Radix - A.A. Attanasio ( not a very prolific writer, but one of Science Fictions greatest stylists. The way he verbalizes nouns will take your breath. An amazing novel, nominated for Best Novel Hugo. 2) Godbody - Theodore Sturgeon. Posthumously published novel, but probably his greatest literary work. 3) The Man In The Tree - Damon Knight. Very beautiful writer, was the main instructor at Clarion Writer's Workshop. 4) Rendezvous With Rama. Arthur Clarke's prophetic speculation about Mankind landing on an Oumuamua like object. 5) Dhalgren - Ssmuel Delaney. A tour de force. Tough to make it through the first hundred pages, but so worth it if you stick with it. 6) The Gaian Trilogy (Titan, Wizard, Demon) - John Varley. Science Fiction speculation at its most impressive.
@@bookjack Yes, Radix should have won the Hugo the year it was nominated. I'm 58, so a reading generation behind you. I was actually part of Orson Scott Card's Confederation workshop in 86 and me and the other students screamed our lungs out when he won the Hugo for Ender. But he really deserved it for Speaker. I quit SF a long time ago, and glad I did. The new woke awards politics are a disgrace to the genre. Asimov and Heinlein are probably spinning in their graves.
@@charlessomerset9754 "Woke awards politics"? When a lady named Alice Sheldon wanted to break into SF, she took the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. "He" was lauded and celebrated by all and sundry...but when Ms. Sheldon finally revealed her true identity, many fans abandoned her, even though her writing was the same. In fact, she herself complained that nobody wanted to talk about the stories anymore. Now, my point is: Would the editors of the SF magazines of the 1960's have given "Tiptree" a chance if his stories had come in under the name "Alice Sheldon"? (Nota bene: during the 1970's, she took on a second pen name, "Raccoona Sheldon", under which she wrote the terrifying "The Screwfly Solution". All of this is to explain why some "woke" is needed in the science-fiction field. There are lots of other talented voices out there, and their viewpoints are every bit as valid as those dead white men from the John W. Campbell age. I for one am glad to see those voices being given a live mike...as themselves, not a pseudonym.
I was so happy to see the Left Hand of Darkness is your favourite. I'm 78 years old now. But when I was 21, I lived on Camp Pendleton and I went to base library and started reading scienc fiction books. I just started at the beginning of the shelf and kept going. I will never forget whe I started reading the Left Hand of Darkness. I won't duplicate what you've already said so well, but for me at that moment, it was as if I had gone from black and white to color. I'm going to go back and read it again. Because you brought up some aspects that I think I missed even though I've read it a couple of times. I get frustrated at times because so many people who include her book focus on the fact that the people morph their gender as needed. One of the things that she did and was one of the first was to build awhole world In order to explore the ideas that she wanted to look at and that she wanted us to look at.
Thanks so much for this comment. It's a shame that the gender aspect has eclipsed the other aspects of this book. Hard to describe really how this book made me feel. I hope I did it at least partial justice
I can't argue with any of your choices. I have read most of them. I would only add Martian Chronicles from Ray Bradbury because so many of the stories can still ring true today (There will come soft rains). One other short story that has been with me for 60 years is Surface Tension by James Blish. Worth a quick read.
Really love your list. I've read 8 out of 10. Given that the Left Hand of Darkness is your number 1, I'm surprised there isn't any Ian M Banks in the list. I think you'd get a real kick out of the Culture.
I picked up and read the book Battlefield Earth because of the cover and absolutely loved it, even though the book cover had nothing to do with the story, but the Hyperion books show scenes from the story on their covers.
1. 'Resurrection' Van Vogt. 2. 'Ender's Game' Card. 3. 'Foundation' Asimov. 4. 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' Finney. 5. '2nd Foundation' Asimov. 6. 'The Currents of Space' Asimov. 7. 'Childhood's End' Clarke. 8. 'World Without Men' Maine. 9. ' Labyrinth of Evil' Luceno 10. 'Pawns of Null-A' Van Vogt
@@bookjack I would strongly advise reading _The World of Null-A_ first - _Pawns [Players] of Null-A_ is the sequel. Get the 1970 revised edition; it's clearer. And get ready to be a bit confused until you find the novel's rhythm (dreamlike, but that's just Van Vogt's style).
Do they have a partner program for Amazon for books? Or Kindle? If so, you should have them linked in the description for anyone to click through and purchase them.
When you said 'the book that got me into Sci-fi' I totally guessed Ender's Game. The ending blew my mind and literally made me gasp. So glad I read it as a teen. Great recommendations! Thank you
Too many comments for me to know if anyone mentioned this, but the parrot story is "The Great Silence" which is in his second collection EXHALATION. For somewhat comparable short fiction collections, I suggest Greg Egan's AXIOMATIC as well as his other collections, John Varley's THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION, Barrington J. Bayley's THE KNIGHT OF THE LIMITS, and - so as not to overstay my welcome, I'll limit things - Terrence Holt's IN THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS.
I've only read a few on your list, but they're on mine too: Ender, Scalzi and the Lathe of Heaven. I have Children of Time on my shelf waiting and I've restarted reading Blindsight. I've only read the Telling from Le Guin in addition to Lathe, but I know the the dispossessed and left hand still need to be read. Also, haven't dabbled with Dick yet, and Hyperion, Leibowitz are on to be read -list.
My favorite all time SF series (which is never mentioned in any lists) is Simon R Green’s Deathstalker series. 8 books overall some are better than others. But I highly recommend the first three novels: 1) Deathstalker, 2) Deathstalker Rebellion, 3) Deathstalker War!
Thx - good talk. Still not thinking of Sci-Fi when I read Vonnegut. Same goes for "A Scanner Darkly" . Ender's Game - ok, but very repetitious. I hope Card's next is better, as you indicated. Suggestion for you, Cixin Liu's "The Wandering Earth" if you haven't read it. A good starter for Liu's books as "The Three Body Problem" series isn't for everyone. (Which I think is his greatest.) Liu is Chinese, as opposed to Ted Chiang who now thx to you, is on my TBR list.
Hey BookJack this was really an amazing video. Do you have a goodreads to follow your reading lists? Also, do you have a list of favorite post-cyberpunk or cyberprep books?
Id recommend Neuromancer even though it was hard to get through at times. Gibson also wrote a short story called Dogfight which I loved. Snow Crash was far too long for me and read like an 80s action movie
I have one copy of Catchworld of English version. Unfortunately, I'm not good at reading English books. I want to send it to you. Do you have your own website or blog? I want to show you my address so I can send you Catchworld.
Does the left hand of darkness get good in the second half? That was one of the only sci fi novels I’ve read (probably of about 100) that I didn’t get more than half way through. Oddly though another was dune
The second half is better in my opinion specifically the final journey across the ice. But it is told in the same style as the first which is a bit sluggish
Thanks for mentioning call me joe, I read this in a science fiction magazine years ago and have never been able to remember the author or title. I’ve often thought it must have been inspiration for avatar. P.S. he’s on a Jupiter a heavy gravity planet.
Jack Vance's "Demon Princes" series - "Star King", The Killing Machine", "The Face", "The Palace of Love" and "The Book of Dreams". He's created a full universe, with complex societies histories and institutions -the IPCC - an interplanetary "police force", the Institute, a quasi-religious group throughout the whole oikumene (civilised space) dedicated to opposing progress. Sarkovy - a planet of poisoners - it's endless. Oh, and Frank Herbert's books "Whipping Star" (one of the two best stories I've ever read that really get across just *how* alien aliens are likely to be and the follow-up book "The Dosadi Experiment".
Really like the different book covers from around the world. I just can read with fully joy in my native language so I’m dependent on good translations specially in sci-fi.Many books won’t get a German translation non of them you mentioned here but in general.
Great list! I have read all but a Canticle for Leibowitz I might give it a go based on your description! My favorites on your list would be Hyperion and Cat's Cradle. Only one I dislike (Strongly!) is Old Man's War.
Great video Jack. All of this are great selections and I wouldn't disagree with any of them being in a top 10. Agree with you on Enders Game--Speaker for the Dead is probably even better. I haven't read The Sky Road, so that was interesting to hear about. The cover reveals are fun as well.
Yep, a very decent list IMO but i'm always curious when people talk about e.g. "how subjective these lists are" and then in practically the same breath say "objectively it's not a good book". If it's subjective (which I totally agree it is) then on what basis can you claim a book is or isn't "objectively good" ?
@@bookjack Personally i'm not convinced our subjectivity ever actually _does_ end - every supposedly objective metric of art appreciation i've seen offered up seems to me to be _ultimately_ subjective when you drill down into it (often not even that far) and the closest we can ever come to "objective" is just "enough subjective views in broad agreement to meet some arbitrary tipping point". Nuanced topic though.
@@bookjack Well, quite. That's one to keep the philosophers gainfully employed :). (and yeah, i'd noticed and appreciate how you frame your opinions BTW)
Life is subjective, it is difficult to be objective. I like to hear peoples opinions and thoughts on books as there is much to be learned from sharing.
Many good titles, especially Ms.Leguin. I have a single recommendation for you, EMPHYRIO by Jack Vance. Most copies out there have an editor's typo which occurred in the 70s and has been perpetuated ever since. It is more relevant today than in the day it was originally published. The theme of puppetry is ongoing as story progresses, and I have to stop there. I urge you and anyone reading this comment to find a copy and read it with an open mind. Nice to see that people are still reading Vonnegut's stuff, I liked his story TANGO, it's kind of like a Peter Cook & Dudley Moore sketch and that's just great. Thanks for the video, and I gotta say again, read EMPHYRIO.
Nice list. Personally I'd include The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, The Martian, Fahrenheit 451, and probably the entire Foundation series (if that's allowed). Honorable mention, pretty much anything by HG Wells.
He's so contemporary that I don't think people have fully absorbed how genius Weir actually is. He's written 3 books that will all be considered classics one day.
If the biggest achievement in reading is the way "Left Hand of Darkness" made you feel... you need to read some Sherri S Tepper. Especially "Raising The Stones" and "The Gate to Women's Country".
I am definitely old school in my choices. circa 1950's through the sixties. Number 1 for me, Martin Chronicles. Bradbury was the king and I read everything from his early short stories to his Greatest hits. Number 2 goes to Asimov. Go with his Foundation trilogy. 3 would be Clarke. I choose his early work, The City and the Stars. beautiful writing. .4 Delany wrote the beautiful, Dhalgren, street gangs at the end of the world. 5 Where would Science fiction be without H G Wells, For me The Time Machine came first. follow up with all the rest of his works. 6 Jules Verne included, take a Journey to the Center of the Earth, 7 Have fun with Phillip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series or take on Larry Nivins. Ringworld. 8 Blow your mind with David Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus. 9 get serious with Heinlein's. Stranger in a Strange Land. 10. a moving short story. Flowers for Algernon. by Keyes tons of great short stories, I use to collect the anthologies featuring the years best.
I like this list as it is a lot more familiar to me than the bookjack's. Farmer's Riverworld series was really good, but I think Jack L. Chalker's Well of Souls series is better (imho).
Good two series there, @Ivor. Loved PJF's Riverworld series. I read Niven's Ringworld when only 2 of them. Those books were excellent. Also, DARK IS THE SUN by PJF was top tier.
I had no idea Hyperion was a fix up novel! I have yet to read it. Had planned to last summer but never did. Children of Time was my favorite book of the year when I read it. I agree Children of Ruin was not quite as good, but I still loved it. Have you checked out Children of Memory? I’m going to start that very soon.
Have you read Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory by Orson by Orson Scott Card? It might turn out to be your 4th (........5th?) favorite short story ever. Stories of Your Life. I'll check to see if the library has that. Children of Memory/Time/Ruin. I have all 3 staring back at me on my TBR, but Uncreation comes out in 5 days so that'll be first.
New to sci fi reading. I have been interested in Sci Fi since watching 3 body problems on Netflix. Of course I have watched many SCI fi films but clearly I am missing out on many stories and philosophies. I now am starting to understand that Sci FI is a incredibly broad genre that has so much to offer for anyone who is willing to endure the nuances and fiction of "Sci FI" I hope this list can lead me in the correct direction with my readings.
Glad to hear that :) I just started watching 3 Body too. Was really interested in how they would do the VR scenes. Those were my favorite parts in the book
Allen Steele wrote a book that, for me, became the bar for hard sci-fi. Nothing I’ve read since has surpassed it although there are many near to, or as good as. The book is Orbital Decay, and it is followed by Lunar Descent, and then Clarke County, Space. An absolutely solid story all through. Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama series was the one for me before that. I’m kinda grooving on The Expanse right now! :)
I struggled to enjoy Vonnegut in high school and college too. I might have started to come around at the end but I haven’t read him since so I should probably give him another look.
You didn't mention any Gene Wolfe, so I assume you haven't read him yet(?). Book of the New Sun is fantastic, but I bring him up because The Book of the Long Sun is a Generation Ship story unlike any other. It's in the middle of his "Solar Sequence" but you don't have to read Book of the New Sun (although you should) to enjoy it.
Sci Fi lends it self to short stories because it is predominately based in Ideas rather than character or plot development. The heavy use of slang made A Clockwork Orange a tough read for me, although the story was really good.
@@bookjack Trust me its labeled as YA since it starts with the cast at around 16-18 years old, but it is very dark and brutal. Its the definition of adult scifi fantasy with decapitation, cursing, war, and more. You should definitely check it out since the last book is coming out in july!
I'm older than you. I would have Stranger In A Strange Land, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, I Robot, Foundation, Ringworld, The Stainless Steel Rat. And if you were to read Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories, you would probably greatly like at least some of them.
![The 15 Best Sci-Fi Books I've Ever Read [Updated]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pP0XnfC1jVM/mqdefault.jpg)
![The 15 Best Sci-Fi Books I've Ever Read [Updated]](/img/tr.png)
10 Hyperion (Dan simmons)
9 Old Man's War (John Scalzi)
8 Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegan)
7 Stories of your Life (ted Chiang)
6 A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller Jr)
5 Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
4 Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
3 A Scanner Darkly (Philip K. Dick)
2 Masterpieces of Science-fiction (I. Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Gibson, Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin, Pohl)
1 The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin)
Honorable mentions:
Blindsight (Peter Watts)
The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula K. Le Guin)
The Sky Road (Ken McLeod)
Correction: Kurt Vonnegut
Cixin Liu! I agree with Ursula K Le Guin being amazing 😇 Great list!
I love that you have The Count of Monte Cristo on your shelf. My favorite book of all time (even though I normally read more fantasy/sci fi books with the occasionally horror or mystery/thriller thrown in) :D
I love The Count of Monte Cristo. Going to make a top 10 Classics video soon. Will be in the top 3 for sure
@@bookjack A superlative list of winners. But I wonder, if u love Monte Cristo, how could the Bester reboot (variously "Tiger! Tiger!" or "The Stars My Destination") have failed to make even your Honorable Mentions list? Glad Chiang did make the list -- with such limited output, he doesn't always get such accolades. But his works that really stayed with and haunt me thru multiple re-reads are his "Tower of Babylon" (also in the "Stories of Yr Life" collection) and “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate,” in another collection, "Exhalation." It's so tough waiting for the next Chiang to appear! I also wish more people had the same reverence I have for Jack Vance (Game o Thrones' GRR Martin names him as a major influence) and Samuel R Delany (his novella "Empire Star" and story "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" are the most perfect distillations of the essence of sci-fi, the awe and wonder of encountering a new and splendid land, that I've yet found; perfect little haikus of concentrated brilliance).
Two of my favorite baby sitters while growing up were brothers - Antoine and Etienne Dumas. Their older brother Émile was already gone off to University so I never met him. Their father Robert looked just like Alexandre, but not fat.
Émile and Etienne both became tennis pros/instructors.
@@bookjack If you love the Count, you should read "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester - its the Count of Monte Christo... in Space! Plus it is the first cyberpunk novel written all the way back in 1956.
I’m glad to hear there’s another hard sci-fi fan that enjoyed Old Man’s War as much as I did. It’s fun.
It is a really fun book. For some reason people expect more from it and are disappointed
Okay , here goes: I am only eighty years old and and was reading sic fi when I first learned to read. I am a mediocre, but prolific author myself of thirty volumes at the present. Included are sci fi short stories. Here is my top ten, that number twelve because of the inflation that is effecting almost everything these days. hehehehehehehe. Dune, no.1, but the rest in no particular order: Dragon Flight, Rendezvous with Rama, Eon, Ringworld, Looper, Lefthand of Darkness, Time Machine, A Princess of Mars, Norstrilia, A Fire in the Deep, Ender's Game. If you haven't read all of these, your sci fi PHD is still in progress.
My Sci-Fi PHD is definitely still in progress lol. I don't even qualify for a BA without having read Dune
@@bookjack Progress is part of an intelligent life, sir!
@@jamesdylandean614 Thank you for putting _Norstrilia_ on your list. Cordwainer Smith doesn't get nearly enough respect. Like Ursula Le Guin, he's a very deep, lyrical writer.
But...no Asimov? Or Zelazny? Or do you prefer their short stories?
I actually like John Brunner as well, in particular _The Stone that Never Came Down._ More obscure than _Stand on Zanzibar_ (also a favorite).
@@lisagulick4144 There are many fine writers that didn't make my to list. Cordwainer Smith was a true inspiration to me, and I am proud to say that in my amateur writings, he is my master in storytelling. One of my favorites is: The Game of Rat and Dragon.
@@jamesdylandean614 I agree about "Rat and Dragon.". Smith liked cats IRL, so his writing about cat/human partnerships is no surprise (this also explains the underperson character C'mell). I think his creepiest short story in the Instrumentality universe is "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons." Brrr...don't ever mess with Norstrilia!
"Hyperion" is just mindblowing. The priest's tale is still the most terrifying thing I have ever read.
And the Scholar's Tale is just heartbreaking. My favorite sci fi novel ever.
@@carlosbranca8080 Agree. I bought it last year to have my own and have to read it again.
Fax, same thing I feel of the novel
Yes, very good! Though I was so disappointed by second book I couldn't even finish it
@@carlosbranca8080 Agreed on the scholars tale, once it clicks it was heartbreaking. What a book though, so good.
1977 Centerville MA, the oldest lending library in the USA. There is (was) a Kurt Vonnegut reading room. One day, summer 1977, I was looking for something to read and there was this hairy old rumpled man smoking cigarettes sitting at the table in the room...
After sitting and talking with him for a while, he picked up the paperback he was reading, and held it up. His picture and bio on the back cover...
Yes... There he was. After a while he said he had to get going. As he walked out, the fat little old lady librarian said, "Have a nice day Mr. Vonnegut". Confirming my jaw dropped stare. When I left, I asked the librarian if he came in frequently. She remarked, every once in a while, and she hated his chain smoking, but it IS his reading room, and he donated all the books in there, so...
The man himself! I would have loved to be at one of his talks. Might check out that library, I love close enough to it
But wait It gets better! I was already a massive Vonnegut fan and earlier that year My mother had taken me on a 1 month long tour of Australia. While there I had acquired a small library of paperbacks that I had not found in the US. Well about a week or so later, I once again found him in the Sturgis Library reading room and remarked on his books that I had found in the land down under. That I really loved the one called Welcome to the Monkey house because it referred to the speculative sewer systems under Cape Cod and resolved the joke about no word that rhymed with Orange...
He looked at me with a frown when I mentioned the publisher. Apparently they didn't have a deal to pay him! I gladly handed him my collection of Australian Rip offs. A few weeks later, I found him yet again and I got a big smile a hand shake, and a hearty Thanks for bringing it to his attention. He also returned the books, Signed...
Unfortunately, The books have been lost in multiple moves over the decades...
@@bookjack The Sturgis Library in Barnstable is the OG Longest Lasting. The One in Centerville is/was apparently a satellite Annex?. Of course, They didn't make that crystal clear to us as kids. But yeah, I found him in the one on Centerville Main St...
That's too bad. But a great memory and a great story!
I actually cheered when you revealed A Canticle for Leibowitz! My favourite sci-fi book of all time.
Woohoo! Great Book
@@bookjack Me too! and my Mom.
Couldn't get into it in my 20s, will try again in my 60s.
its about epistemology, the philosophical content goes over the head of a lot of sci fi readers@@TheMisterGriswold
@@TheMisterGriswoldyeah, I read it a couple years ago, didn’t like it.
Great selection for #1 ! The author needs more modern recognition, such excellent writing
I'm a lifetime SF junkie (65 yrs old)who absolutely loved your list. I would probably have five or six of these novels on my own top ten list. It's really refreshing to see a young person enjoying the classic SF that I grew up with. If I could, I would suggest that you check out Clifford Simak, especially 'City' & 'Way Station's. I think you would like both of them. Keep the videos coming.
You know me well! I've read both of those since making this list and have loved them both. Glad you enjoyed it :)
You have convinced me to delve into the "Masterpieces" collection! I am new to Sci-Fi (more Fantasy to this point). Love the reveal cards - thanks for your channel.
Happy to hear that. Glad you enjoyed it :)
Strong sci-fi can offer a different perspective that is different from fantasy. Asimov, Clarke and Herbert earned their audiences by writing great stories that challenge their readers.
Well....I'll just add these top favorites of mine.
Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"
William Gibson's "Neuromancer:
Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"
Frank Herbert's "Dune"
Also Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game"
Snow Crash was a little long for me.
Neuromancer I need to revisit.
Hitchhikers Guide was awesome and probably deserved an honorable mention.
Dune I haven't read (yet) 😅
And Enders Game is obviously top tier
Your list is also mine. Snow Crash is the best Steampunk/Cyberpunk genre. Better than Gibson and his own later novels
Hyperion’s world is so rich and diverse. I enjoyed Fall even more so, just the idea of the Web and farcasters allowing you to travel to hundreds of world was captivating. The descriptive prose particularly when describing Hyperion (the planet) was very immersive.
Still looking for a copy of the sequel. I'd love to return to that world
Only dune has marched that series. The 2 nd book is the 1nd half of one book. Publishers wouldn’t let him publish a book that big at the time
I haven't read any sci-fi. So can it be a beginning sci-fi for me, or should I wait?@@countfloydschillerhorrorth2090
I didn't enjoy Fall. The first book was great but when we get to flying carpets in the 2nd that's where I just don't see this as sci-fi anymore. I lean more towards hard scifi anyway.
your vulnerable honesty in your reviews earned my trust. great picks. thank you for adding to my reading list.
:) Happy to help. Thanks for watching
I appreciate the video you shared on UA-cam that had great sci-fi recommendations. I like that most of the sci-fi books recommended were not of pop culture status, as it seems to be the case on UA-cam every time I search for the best sci-fi books. Dune always comes up, and although it's a great book, I'm sure there are other options. Thank you for providing detailed descriptions of each novel on your list. Your perspective is valuable, and I appreciate it.
Thanks so much! I really do like sharing lesser known books. So many recommendations out there but sometimes it's fun to go blindly into an obscure book
I really like what you're doing here BJ, so I subscribed. Le Guin, Dick, Tchaikovsky, Vonnegut et al, wow. Great takes. All well-read by yours truly and coveted. Well done. Cheers.
Thank you so much. Glad you enjoyed it
Omg you have NO idea how much I appreciate the fact that you got into the video IMMEDIATELY. Instant like
I watch enough UA-cam to know what the people want 😁
Nice special effects. Excellent list. Great reviews. What's not to like? 👍
I looked and I have "Harrison Bergeron" in The World Treasury of Science Fiction, David Hartwell, ed. -- so I'll give that a read on your recommendation.
Three cheers for jingles! "You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!" So effective (the jingle, not the Pepsodent)
I've got that treasury as well 🙂 Thanks for watching
Great list! All solid choices. Hyperion and Left Hand of Darkness are also among my faves. You've got me pumped for Children of Time and Old Man's War, both in my TBR.
I definitely included Lathe of Heaven after watching your top 15 list. Glad you enjoyed mine
As someone who literally spent the day sorting through flood damage, throwing away my lifetime library of everything I've ever read, including The Left Hand of Darkness (So Good), including the now mold-destroyed copy of the first book I ever read; Journey To The Center Of The Earth, cherish your library. You're obviously literate with great taste, so I'm sure you do already....but savor that connection. It's heartbreaking if you lose it.
New subscriber BTW.
So sorry to hear that man. I have a relative who lost everything to Katrina so I know how you must feel. Glad I can at least offer some distraction ❤️
This morning I threw away my
English 1st edition of The Neverending Story by Ende. The entire book was printed in red and green ink. it was gorgeous. Such a waste. I'll ultimately get over it. Thanks for being a fellow book nerd.
@@veo_ I also went through flood losses during 2017 during Ike or Rita (forget which), and now, damned if I don't have lot of storm damage from Hurricane Beryl. And, get this ... I don't live on the Beach. I live in North Houston, about 30 / 40 minutes north. So, I'm 125 / 150 from the coast. But, yet, we still get hit with Hurricane damage. And, it fucking sucks. Already got enough SHIT to do in life, then damned -- if Nature doesn't give you so much more. At times, it's almost overloading and overwhelming.
I just read A Scanner Darkly a few weeks ago. Shook me to my core.
I am in the Speaker for the Dead>>>Ender's Game camp.
Awesome list, great stuff.
PKD is good at that. Thanks for watching
Great to see Cat's Cradle and Left Hand of Darkness on the list. Surprised that Dune wasn't on the list, as well a Childhood's End. Have you read The Mote in God's Eye or Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?
I am just reading Dune now and loving it. Since making this list I've read Childhoods end and Note in God's Eye. Not sure either would make top 10 but I liked them both
I have yet to find a book as complex and beautiful as Hyperion. It was my first foray into reading. it took me a year to read all 4 books. I now read one book a week.
It does have a certain kind of magic to it
@@bookjack
I was at my Jazz Club in Paris a few years ago. There was a US-French Jazz collaboration, they'd composed 7 pieces in the 7 modes, with each piece representing a different character in Hyperion. Fab stuff.
LeGuin is my favorite sci-fi author and probably in my top 3 authors overall. Her short fiction will stick with you for the rest of your life. And her novels are all great (even the ones people tend to ignore, like Roccanon's World and Planet of Exile).
Since we have similar tastes, I highly recommend the following'
_Wild Seed,_ by Octavia Butler
The Imperial Radch Trilogy, by Anne Leckie (starting with _Ancillary Justice_ ).
The Amaranthine Spectrum trilogy, by Tom Toner (starting with _Promise of the Child_ ... but don't let the surprise/ridiculous ending stop you from going on to book 2).
Thanks for the recommendations. I've read Ancillary Justice. Liked it but not enough to continue with the trilogy. That Butler book sounds interesting. I'll keep an eye out for it
how about the dispossessed
Reading Vonnegut completely changed my world view and indeed my life. I discovered him by buying The Sirens of Titan off one of those spinning paperback book racks at a drugstore because the cover looked cool. I don't know why that book doesn't get much love. I heard that Jerry Garcia bought the movie rights so that's probably never going to happen. Great list btw. I'm working through Dan Simmons right now. The Terror is tremendous.
Agreed. So glad I picked him up again. Read Sirens of Titan recently and it rivals Slaughterhouse 5. Am planning on ranking all the Vonnegut books I've read pretty soon.
Jerry Garcia? The guy from the ice cream?
@@bookjackidk if you're joking but Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead band
Also Sirens of Titan is a masterpiece. My personal favorite 📚
Fantastic list! People seem never to claim Vonnegut as an SF author because he’s “literary,” as if those categories are exclusive.
Subscribed after the #1 reveal. Le Guin is just phenomenal.
Glad you agree :) Thanks for watching
Yes, I miss Ursula very much. Her willingness to allow a story to grow organically and move at a slower pace if needed, plus her absolutely beautifully-crafted prose, made her a star. And her championship of environmental issues, feminism, and freedom of artistic expression were inspiring!
The Hyperion Cantos is definitely one of my all time favourite sci fi series ever. Love it!
I'm wondering if I should add the sequels to my TBR
@@bookjack the origins of the Shrike and a lot of the mysteries surrounding the war are explained in later books. Basically elements from each of the six pilgrim’s tales eventually factor in to the big overall story. It’s really satisfying.
Interesting, that was the big letdown of Hyperion... the ending
If I recall correctly it was meant as one large work in 4 parts. I really liked the 3/4 books but I gather many people didn’t. Simmons is great author but he is big on references which everyone might not know. Here eg details of Keat as a poet.
I liked it, but it was a bit pretentious at times. The weird simping for John Keats for example.
OMG! You are the first person who has ever picked the same favourite book as me. Most people just look at me like 'huh?". Yes, it changed my life too. No other piece of literature has ever managed to get that close to explaining what love is. Le Guin is a genius.
And the most lyrical prose. Awesome.
Agreed! I've recommended it to so many people who DNFed it. Glad to find somebody who appreciates it the same as me. Amazing book
'Winning Reading ' is a great phrase. Thanks for an interesting list. Top five are great. I like that your books are your biography.
Glad you liked them. Just finished In Cold Blood. A dark point in my biography and my bookshelf. Amazing book though
Nice list. If you haven't yet you might want to try The Forever War. A must read for anyone who likes military science fiction.
I read that a little while ago. Classic stuff for sure. Not as smooth as Scalzi though imo
Hyperion has a cool cover, from a time when covers drew readers into Genres.
It drew me in for sure
You are so right about Vonnegut. I read Slaughterhouse 5 in my 20s and it was so boring, then I read it again (in my...early 40s) after so many recommendations and was blown away by how profound it was. I think it may be in my top books I have ever read now. I will try Cat's Cradle now because I really liked his style, and on your recommendation. Thanks.
Yes I feel exactly the same. I'd also recommend Welcome to the Monkey House a book of short stories
I can get bored very easily, but Slaughterhouse Five was an absolute blast when I read it in my freshman year of college at 18. To each their own ig lol
It’s the you that you bring to a book that determines what you get of it. Great books give you more as you grow. Lesser books are those you outgrow.
I’m opposite, read it when I was 17 and loved it, read it again when I was a little older and it didn’t hit the same
Thanks for the upload! Cool video!
Cat’s Cradle and Canticle are brilliant choices. We’re living in the age of Canticle (i.e. surrounded by Know-Nothings burning books). Impressed Left Hand is your #1. Nicely done. You’re clearly a deep thinker.
Thanks for the video.
The world building in Children of Time is jaw dropping.
Slauterhouse 5 is definitely the best sci-fi book ever written,based on his time in Dresden as a POW during the bombing,realising he had not enough material to write about the horrors of war he came up with this masterpiece.The films also worth a watch as well
Films? Wow somehow I didn't know they made films. Would be really hard to do
Loved it when I was a teen. Now I would find it irritatingly meandering.
If you and Bookpilled get in a room together, I think a singularity might be generated
Yeah 😅 We always seem to have similar viewpoints
My algo said the same thing.
I am surprised to hear you couldn’t get into Dune; it’s certainly a LOT more politicking than I expected going in rather blind. Good picks though, I have not read many of these though I own A Canticle for Leibowitz and will be checking that out.
Hey Ryne thanks for watching. I tried Dune a very long time ago so I probably didn't have a lot of patience for all the diplomatic stuff. I'm sure I'll like it when I try again
@@bookjack One reason Dune impressed me so much is that Herbert pulled from many cultures/religions to create his world. Probably helped that I was raised Roman Catholic, so I really enjoyed the way the author used it for vocab/imagery.
A Fire Upon the Deep should be in every sf list. Nothing compares.
Will look for that one. Thanks for the recommendation
@@bookjack Wow~ if you've not read it, you're in for a treat! I guess it comes under hard sci-fi, but it's not too difficult to follow and has some really unique qualities in terms of alien races and galaxy structure.
Also the sequel is good and apparently has some distinct similarities to Children of Time.
@@stovic1442 That's definitely on my TR list 👍
I agree that memories are connected to books. I have some books that I keep, not because they are worth rereading, but because of the feelings and memories attached. Love Ted Chiang, Dan Simmons and Walter M. Miller. Left Hand of Darkness is in my TBR. Not sure about Vonnegut and PKD. Will give them a try again some day.
I'm holding onto a lot of books not worth rereading as well 😅
Love your coverage of these books. I added some to my Reading List. Thanks for sharing your Likes. I really look up to you for having such a great channel that is really quite enjoyable.
Wow thank you! Glad you're enjoying it
Your reveal cards are awesome!
I've never heard "Colony Ship" used. Back in the 60's and 70's when I was reading a lot of SF I knew them as "Generation Ship" stories.
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" was a novel that still holds a place in my memory.
I have heard generation ship before. Not sure why I said colony? Do people call them colony ships too? 😅
@@bookjack I think "colony ship" would be the set of all ships carrying people (or whatever) to make their home on a new world; "generation ship" would be the (slow-moving, by outer space standards) subset. So, all generation ships would be colony ships, but not vice-versa.
Wow. Great video...great list. All strong titles, although I'd probably only consider Left Hand of Darkness and Canticle for Leibowitz for my own top ten. I'm actually reading Children of Time now, so we'll see. But more importantly, I love the numbered paper covers! Did you actually make those?
Yes my wife and I spent a night doodling. Was relaxing :) Glad you enjoyed
I reread canticle for leibowitz recently because it makes so many top ten lists and I remembered being so bored with it I struggled to finish it in high school. I still found it to be a very slow plodding book without a real payoff. Maybe that’s the point.
@@scottchristofersen2367 Yeah. I guess it's not what you'd call action packed. Sorry it didn't work for you.
1. Hyperion is one of my favorites too! 😊
2. The Fall of Hyperion is also good but I felt half a step or so down from Hyperion.
3. Dan Simmons used to be an English literature teacher and this often shines through quite brightly and even brilliantly in his works, for he really brings a literary intelligence and experience to his novels that elevates both his own craft as well as the genre in which he happens to be working in at the time.
4. After all, Hyperion is in a sense an SF version of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer in turn borrows heavily from Boccaccio's Decameron. And, like Chaucer building on Boccaccio, Simmons likewise builds on Chaucer, among others. In fact, one way to look at the whole of literature is as a series of great writers building off other great writers to create a uniquely artistic work for their time.
5. By the way, if you like Hyperion, and if you like Dickens or Victorian era literature as well, I'd recommend another Simmons novel titled Drood. Drood is premised on Dickens's unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Simmons used Dickens's real life friend Wilkie Collins as his narrative voice. Collins most famously wrote The Woman in White and The Moonstone, both published with Dickens's magazine, if I recall correctly.
6. Simmons also wrote The Terror, which was turned into a pretty good mini series. It's based on a (real life) failed 19th century British expedition to find the Northwest passage where the men end up in mutinies, cannibalism, and eventually death in Arctic lands. In the novel, they're also hunted by a mysterious monster.
Wow thanks for the Simmons lesson. I love how I can learn so much about books through comments like these. Pretty sure I've heard of the terror. It sounds right up my alley thanks!
yes! Harrison Bergeron is also a favorite of mine. I liked what they did with the film adaption too. That story lives in my head.
Didn't know there was a film adaptation. Good to know :)
@@bookjack yes think was a TV movie from mid 90s with Sean Astin but there's a free version here.. I re-watch it from time to time. amazing what they did with an 8 page story.
Thanks for the synopsis, it helped me choose which ones I should look for. Like your presenting style. Subscribing.
Happy to help :)
Love the practical number effects! Great video.
Thank you!
I would recommend a few that unfortunately fell between the cracks.
1) Radix - A.A. Attanasio ( not a very prolific writer, but one of Science Fictions greatest stylists. The way he verbalizes nouns will take your breath. An amazing novel, nominated for Best Novel Hugo.
2) Godbody - Theodore Sturgeon. Posthumously published novel, but probably his greatest literary work.
3) The Man In The Tree - Damon Knight. Very beautiful writer, was the main instructor at Clarion Writer's Workshop.
4) Rendezvous With Rama. Arthur Clarke's prophetic speculation about Mankind landing on an Oumuamua like object.
5) Dhalgren - Ssmuel Delaney. A tour de force. Tough to make it through the first hundred pages, but so worth it if you stick with it.
6) The Gaian Trilogy (Titan, Wizard, Demon) - John Varley. Science Fiction speculation at its most impressive.
Thanks for the recommendations. Most do seem like buried gems because I've never heard about them. Raddix sounds particularly interesting
@@bookjack Yes, Radix should have won the Hugo the year it was nominated. I'm 58, so a reading generation behind you. I was actually part of Orson Scott Card's Confederation workshop in 86 and me and the other students screamed our lungs out when he won the Hugo for Ender. But he really deserved it for Speaker. I quit SF a long time ago, and glad I did. The new woke awards politics are a disgrace to the genre. Asimov and Heinlein are probably spinning in their graves.
@@charlessomerset9754 "Woke awards politics"?
When a lady named Alice Sheldon wanted to break into SF, she took the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. "He" was lauded and celebrated by all and sundry...but when Ms. Sheldon finally revealed her true identity, many fans abandoned her, even though her writing was the same. In fact, she herself complained that nobody wanted to talk about the stories anymore.
Now, my point is: Would the editors of the SF magazines of the 1960's have given "Tiptree" a chance if his stories had come in under the name "Alice Sheldon"? (Nota bene: during the 1970's, she took on a second pen name, "Raccoona Sheldon", under which she wrote the terrifying "The Screwfly Solution".
All of this is to explain why some "woke" is needed in the science-fiction field. There are lots of other talented voices out there, and their viewpoints are every bit as valid as those dead white men from the John W. Campbell age. I for one am glad to see those voices being given a live mike...as themselves, not a pseudonym.
I was so happy to see the Left Hand of Darkness is your favourite. I'm 78 years old now. But when I was 21, I lived on Camp Pendleton and I went to base library and started reading scienc fiction books. I just started at the beginning of the shelf and kept going. I will never forget whe I started reading the Left Hand of Darkness. I won't duplicate what you've already said so well, but for me at that moment, it was as if I had gone from black and white to color. I'm going to go back and read it again. Because you brought up some aspects that I think I missed even though I've read it a couple of times. I get frustrated at times because so many people who include her book focus on the fact that the people morph their gender as needed. One of the things that she did and was one of the first was to build awhole world In order to explore the ideas that she wanted to look at and that she wanted us to look at.
Thanks so much for this comment. It's a shame that the gender aspect has eclipsed the other aspects of this book. Hard to describe really how this book made me feel. I hope I did it at least partial justice
always liked pkd but havent gotten 2 scanner yet. androids and ubik are my faves so far
pkd ranked vid?
Good idea. Still have a few more to go through on my TBR. Read Maze of Death recently. Classic Dick
@@bookjack looking forward to it. added to tbr
I love his stories that he tells as he went through these books. Especially the proposal one. What a sequence of events
I can't argue with any of your choices. I have read most of them. I would only add Martian Chronicles from Ray Bradbury because so many of the stories can still ring true today (There will come soft rains). One other short story that has been with me for 60 years is Surface Tension by James Blish. Worth a quick read.
Thanks for the recommendations. Martian Chronicles was a great read
Really love your list. I've read 8 out of 10. Given that the Left Hand of Darkness is your number 1, I'm surprised there isn't any Ian M Banks in the list. I think you'd get a real kick out of the Culture.
I actually haven't heard of that somehow. Thanks for the recommendation!
Really loved this! Thank you!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I picked up and read the book Battlefield Earth because of the cover and absolutely loved it, even though the book cover had nothing to do with the story, but the Hyperion books show scenes from the story on their covers.
1. 'Resurrection' Van Vogt. 2. 'Ender's Game' Card. 3. 'Foundation' Asimov. 4. 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' Finney. 5. '2nd Foundation' Asimov. 6. 'The Currents of Space' Asimov. 7. 'Childhood's End' Clarke. 8. 'World Without Men' Maine. 9. ' Labyrinth of Evil' Luceno 10. 'Pawns of Null-A' Van Vogt
I've been wanting to read something from Van Vogt. I'll keep an eye out for that one. Thanks :)
@@bookjackst. Resurrection is free on the net. The Pawns aka Players of Null-A can be picked up used. Read The World of Null-A 1rst
@@bookjack I would strongly advise reading _The World of Null-A_ first - _Pawns [Players] of Null-A_ is the sequel. Get the 1970 revised edition; it's clearer. And get ready to be a bit confused until you find the novel's rhythm (dreamlike, but that's just Van Vogt's style).
Well done, and will take some of your favorites as recommendations.
Hope you enjoy them as much as I did :)
Do they have a partner program for Amazon for books? Or Kindle? If so, you should have them linked in the description for anyone to click through and purchase them.
When you said 'the book that got me into Sci-fi' I totally guessed Ender's Game. The ending blew my mind and literally made me gasp. So glad I read it as a teen.
Great recommendations! Thank you
The ending totally got me too!
Too many comments for me to know if anyone mentioned this, but the parrot story is "The Great Silence" which is in his second collection EXHALATION.
For somewhat comparable short fiction collections, I suggest Greg Egan's AXIOMATIC as well as his other collections, John Varley's THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION, Barrington J. Bayley's THE KNIGHT OF THE LIMITS, and - so as not to overstay my welcome, I'll limit things - Terrence Holt's IN THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS.
Someone did mention that 😅 my bad. And thanks for the recommendations
I've only read a few on your list, but they're on mine too: Ender, Scalzi and the Lathe of Heaven. I have Children of Time on my shelf waiting and I've restarted reading Blindsight. I've only read the Telling from Le Guin in addition to Lathe, but I know the the dispossessed and left hand still need to be read. Also, haven't dabbled with Dick yet, and Hyperion, Leibowitz are on to be read -list.
You've got lots of masterpieces in your future. Hope you enjoy
Hyperion is still one of the best for me - read it when I was young and it has just stuck with me ever since.
My favorite all time SF series (which is never mentioned in any lists) is Simon R Green’s Deathstalker series. 8 books overall some are better than others. But I highly recommend the first three novels: 1) Deathstalker, 2) Deathstalker Rebellion, 3) Deathstalker War!
I've heard of that series. Will keep an eye out
Wonderful video, thank you.
You're welcome. Glad you enjoyed it :)
Thx - good talk.
Still not thinking of Sci-Fi when I read Vonnegut. Same goes for "A Scanner Darkly" .
Ender's Game - ok, but very repetitious. I hope Card's next is better, as you indicated.
Suggestion for you, Cixin Liu's "The Wandering Earth" if you haven't read it.
A good starter for Liu's books as "The Three Body Problem" series isn't for everyone.
(Which I think is his greatest.)
Liu is Chinese, as opposed to Ted Chiang who now thx to you, is on my TBR list.
I loved 3 Body Problem but felt the trilogy got a little too dense for me as it went on. Still great stuff though. Thanks for watching
Hey BookJack this was really an amazing video. Do you have a goodreads to follow your reading lists? Also, do you have a list of favorite post-cyberpunk or cyberprep books?
Thanks. I don't have a goodreads and have only read a few cyberpunk novels but am hoping to make some more list videos
Awesome, would you recommend any off the bat?
Id recommend Neuromancer even though it was hard to get through at times. Gibson also wrote a short story called Dogfight which I loved.
Snow Crash was far too long for me and read like an 80s action movie
Hi, I'm a Japanese Sci-Fi writer. I like "Catchworld" by Chris Boyce. Have you read it?
I haven't heard of it no
I have one copy of Catchworld of English version. Unfortunately, I'm not good at reading English books. I want to send it to you. Do you have your own website or blog? I want to show you my address so I can send you Catchworld.
Does the left hand of darkness get good in the second half? That was one of the only sci fi novels I’ve read (probably of about 100) that I didn’t get more than half way through. Oddly though another was dune
That is, it was just boring …
The second half is better in my opinion specifically the final journey across the ice. But it is told in the same style as the first which is a bit sluggish
I thought Dune dragged in the middle but the beginning and end were exciting
Thanks for mentioning call me joe, I read this in a science fiction magazine years ago and have never been able to remember the author or title. I’ve often thought it must have been inspiration for avatar. P.S. he’s on a Jupiter a heavy gravity planet.
Awesome! Happy to bridge that gap. I've never heard that story talked about on here otherwise
Jack Vance's "Demon Princes" series - "Star King", The Killing Machine", "The Face", "The Palace of Love" and "The Book of Dreams". He's created a full universe, with complex societies histories and institutions -the IPCC - an interplanetary "police force", the Institute, a quasi-religious group throughout the whole oikumene (civilised space) dedicated to opposing progress. Sarkovy - a planet of poisoners - it's endless. Oh, and Frank Herbert's books "Whipping Star" (one of the two best stories I've ever read that really get across just *how* alien aliens are likely to be and the follow-up book "The Dosadi Experiment".
Thanks for the recommendations. I read The Dying Earth recently. I know Jack Vance expanded on that world a lot too
Really like the different book covers from around the world. I just can read with fully joy in my native language so I’m dependent on good translations specially in sci-fi.Many books won’t get a German translation non of them you mentioned here but in general.
I bet Left Hand of Darkness has a good German translation. Probably Hyperion too
@@bookjack Hyperion absolutely yes. one of my all time favourite and the best Simmons Book.
Great list! I have read all but a Canticle for Leibowitz I might give it a go based on your description! My favorites on your list would be Hyperion and Cat's Cradle. Only one I dislike (Strongly!) is Old Man's War.
Old Man's War was definitely an outlier. I hope you like Canticle for Leibowitz. Kind of slow at first but stick with it
Wait, regarding Hyperion: isn't the part about the impending Invasion (the way he worded it) a major spoiler?
Maybe kind of but you're the first to mention it
Old Man's War was pretty awesome. I just read it, not long ago.
Great video Jack. All of this are great selections and I wouldn't disagree with any of them being in a top 10. Agree with you on Enders Game--Speaker for the Dead is probably even better. I haven't read The Sky Road, so that was interesting to hear about. The cover reveals are fun as well.
Thanks glad you agree. I'll get around to my top 210 someday :)
Yep, a very decent list IMO but i'm always curious when people talk about e.g. "how subjective these lists are" and then in practically the same breath say "objectively it's not a good book". If it's subjective (which I totally agree it is) then on what basis can you claim a book is or isn't "objectively good" ?
You definitely have a point. I'd like to think I can see where my subjectivity ends but of course I can never truly know that
@@bookjack Personally i'm not convinced our subjectivity ever actually _does_ end - every supposedly objective metric of art appreciation i've seen offered up seems to me to be _ultimately_ subjective when you drill down into it (often not even that far) and the closest we can ever come to "objective" is just "enough subjective views in broad agreement to meet some arbitrary tipping point".
Nuanced topic though.
You put it very eloquently. I do my best to not frame my opinions as truths... Because what even is truth?
@@bookjack Well, quite. That's one to keep the philosophers gainfully employed :).
(and yeah, i'd noticed and appreciate how you frame your opinions BTW)
Life is subjective, it is difficult to be objective. I like to hear peoples opinions and thoughts on books as there is much to be learned from sharing.
Left hand of Darkness is a solid choice. I recently read it.
did you get to Mayflies, by Kevin O'Donnell Jr. (1979) on your colony ship binge? It is defs my favourite in that theme.
No, I didn't! Thanks for the recommendation
Many good titles, especially Ms.Leguin. I have a single recommendation for you, EMPHYRIO by Jack Vance. Most copies out there have an editor's typo which occurred in the 70s and has been perpetuated ever since.
It is more relevant today than in the day it was originally published.
The theme of puppetry is ongoing as story progresses, and I have to stop there.
I urge you and anyone reading this comment to find a copy and read it with an open mind.
Nice to see that people are still reading Vonnegut's stuff, I liked his story TANGO, it's kind of like a Peter Cook & Dudley Moore sketch and that's just great.
Thanks for the video, and I gotta say again, read EMPHYRIO.
Thanks for the recommendation. Haven't seen that one around, but I'll keep an eye out
I would vote for these 2 additions, both of which totally absorbed me: Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy, and Michael Crichton's "Andromeda Strain."
Foundation, yeah.
Nice list. Personally I'd include The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, The Martian, Fahrenheit 451, and probably the entire Foundation series (if that's allowed). Honorable mention, pretty much anything by HG Wells.
I liked a lot of those as well. Although Moon is a Harsh Mistress was a little dry for me.
James P Hogan's Inherit the stars should be high on anyone's list. A story so clever, i'm amazed it was never picked up by Hollywood.
I was pulled in by the cover. And read a bunch more Hogan after that.
You’re missing out if you haven’t read “Project Hail Mary”, by Andy Weir of “The Martian”. One of the best books I’ve ever read.
He's so contemporary that I don't think people have fully absorbed how genius Weir actually is. He's written 3 books that will all be considered classics one day.
If the biggest achievement in reading is the way "Left Hand of Darkness" made you feel... you need to read some Sherri S Tepper. Especially "Raising The Stones" and "The Gate to Women's Country".
I will! Comparisons to LeGuin are high praise and pretty rare. Thanks for the recommendation :)
I am definitely old school in my choices. circa 1950's through the sixties. Number 1 for me, Martin Chronicles. Bradbury was the king and I read everything from his early short stories to his Greatest hits. Number 2 goes to Asimov. Go with his Foundation trilogy. 3 would be Clarke. I choose his early work, The City and the Stars. beautiful writing. .4 Delany wrote the beautiful, Dhalgren, street gangs at the end of the world. 5 Where would Science fiction be without H G Wells, For me The Time Machine came first. follow up with all the rest of his works. 6 Jules Verne included, take a Journey to the Center of the Earth, 7 Have fun with Phillip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series or take on Larry Nivins. Ringworld. 8 Blow your mind with David Lindsay's Voyage to Arcturus. 9 get serious with Heinlein's. Stranger in a Strange Land. 10. a moving short story. Flowers for Algernon. by Keyes tons of great short stories, I use to collect the anthologies featuring the years best.
Love Flowers for Algernon. Love The Martian Chronicles. Dhalgren on my TBR. Good list but yes very old school 🙂
Wow. Dhalgren so does not fit on an old school list.
You need to pay homage to Mary Shelley for creating the genre and the mad scientist archetype. Frankenstein monster still resonates today.
I like this list as it is a lot more familiar to me than the bookjack's. Farmer's Riverworld series was really good, but I think Jack L. Chalker's Well of Souls series is better (imho).
Good two series there, @Ivor. Loved PJF's Riverworld series. I read Niven's Ringworld when only 2 of them. Those books were excellent. Also, DARK IS THE SUN by PJF was top tier.
Jack have you ever read the 224-Verse by Jason Russell? Just recently discovered it, very good stuff. Would love your opinion if you get to it.
Haven't heard of that one but I'll add it to the list Thanks :)
I had no idea Hyperion was a fix up novel! I have yet to read it. Had planned to last summer but never did. Children of Time was my favorite book of the year when I read it. I agree Children of Ruin was not quite as good, but I still loved it. Have you checked out Children of Memory? I’m going to start that very soon.
Wasn't planning on reading Children of Memory, but that's probably not fair of me. Still great books even though they're not as good as the first one
Have you read Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory by Orson by Orson Scott Card? It might turn out to be your 4th (........5th?) favorite short story ever.
Stories of Your Life. I'll check to see if the library has that.
Children of Memory/Time/Ruin. I have all 3 staring back at me on my TBR, but Uncreation comes out in 5 days so that'll be first.
I have not read that but am always looking for more favorite short stories of all time 😅 Thanks for the recommendation
New to sci fi reading. I have been interested in Sci Fi since watching 3 body problems on Netflix. Of course I have watched many SCI fi films but clearly I am missing out on many stories and philosophies.
I now am starting to understand that Sci FI is a incredibly broad genre that has so much to offer for anyone who is willing to endure the nuances and fiction of "Sci FI"
I hope this list can lead me in the correct direction with my readings.
Glad to hear that :) I just started watching 3 Body too. Was really interested in how they would do the VR scenes. Those were my favorite parts in the book
Allen Steele wrote a book that, for me, became the bar for hard sci-fi. Nothing I’ve read since has surpassed it although there are many near to, or as good as. The book is Orbital Decay, and it is followed by Lunar Descent, and then Clarke County, Space. An absolutely solid story all through. Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama series was the one for me before that. I’m kinda grooving on The Expanse right now! :)
Rama was a fun read. He manages to build a lot of suspense inside that ship
@@bookjack yes, and did an amazing job at building an alien environment.
Excellent list.
I struggled to enjoy Vonnegut in high school and college too. I might have started to come around at the end but I haven’t read him since so I should probably give him another look.
You definitely should. Amazing author. Amazing ideas
You didn't mention any Gene Wolfe, so I assume you haven't read him yet(?). Book of the New Sun is fantastic, but I bring him up because The Book of the Long Sun is a Generation Ship story unlike any other. It's in the middle of his "Solar Sequence" but you don't have to read Book of the New Sun (although you should) to enjoy it.
Correct I haven't read him but I want to so thanks for the recommendation :)
Left hand of darkness is a masterpiece…
Sci Fi lends it self to short stories because it is predominately based in Ideas rather than character or plot development. The heavy use of slang made A Clockwork Orange a tough read for me, although the story was really good.
The slang did take awhile to get used to but really gave the book a unique feel. Still waiting on the right opportunity to call someone a prestoopnik
reading hyperion right now, the scholars tale is one of the finest sections of a book i've read in a long time
I really like that one. Thanks for the positive comment :) Been getting a lot of Hyperion hate recently
@@bookjack no problem, I get longer space operas not being some people's cup of tea but it's hard to deny the book isn't masterfully crafted
Hyperion is my favorite! The man who cried God is the best story in the book! Thanks for the video sir.
Thanks for watching :)
have you checked out red rising?
I have books 1 and 2. Would probably be good for me to venture a little into YA
@@bookjack Trust me its labeled as YA since it starts with the cast at around 16-18 years old, but it is very dark and brutal. Its the definition of adult scifi fantasy with decapitation, cursing, war, and more. You should definitely check it out since the last book is coming out in july!
Wow I had a lot of false assumptions. I'll add it to my TBR. Thanks!
I'm older than you. I would have Stranger In A Strange Land, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, I Robot, Foundation, Ringworld, The Stainless Steel Rat. And if you were to read Harlan Ellison's Deathbird Stories, you would probably greatly like at least some of them.
almost forgot Day Of The Triffids and The Chrysalids
also, The Demolished Man
I have never come across any Deathbird books but you've put it on my radar thanks
John Wyndham has just recently made his way onto my list