If you’re into multiverses, power plays, or high-stakes revenge served ice cold, you might just love my sci-fi novels. In Delphine Descends, journey with Kathreen as she rises from war-victim to galaxy-class powerhouse with a serious grudge. And in Black Milk, join Prometheus as he shatters the laws of time, space, and sanity for love (and maybe destroys the universe along the way). Links to both below 📖 Delphine Descends (Amazon link) shortlink.uk/P59l Black Milk (Amazon link) shortlink.uk/MHpv
Blindsight is one of the bleakest, most terrifyingly brilliant novels ever written. Not just a great, truly original, first contact novels but one of the best works of nonfiction period.
Great list! Definitely some books I’ve been meaning to read. My recent favorite first contact read was Fiasco by Lem. Then of course Blindsight for the creepy factor and Project Hail Mary for an optimism palate cleanser
"Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky also deserves a mention. Although the aliens themselves do not make an appearance (they have already left Earth, without interacting directly with any humans), it provides a very different and interesting perspective on the aftermath. This is the book the film "Stalker" is loosely based on.
As other people have already mentioned, Project Hail Mary is a great (and not overwhelming) story of first contact. Blindsight is also a fascinating (perhaps a little overwhelming) and unique vision of first contact. I have to admit that I felt I needed to be smarter to read Blindsight and I needed a cheatsheet to remember who all the characters were. But I'm glad I read it.
Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem. Explores the idea that we may meet aliens but have absolutely no commonalities or similarities to even begin to understand each other.
@@PretendGameDev 'solaris' drags the reader, in the better of the two translations I've encountered, through the various psychoses of the characters aboard the station- especially kelvin's personal tragedy & his recollections of the relationship foundering. the alien entity is animating all this from a distance, & making no other real attempt to communicate with the earthmen. in that sense, it is a first encounter, but so far off the dial in terms of traditional LGM stories that you have to wonder what Lem was actually trying to tell us. my reading- it's a guy having a bad time post-breakup & also having a bad day at work, but Lem uses Kelvin's extraordinary situation to put us into the characters' heads in a sometimes quite uncomfortable way.
I love Childhood's End, and if you can only have one Arthur C Clarke book in the list, I guess that's the one. But of course 2001 A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama both gave very different takes on the same concept, and all the decades ago when I first read them they utterly captivated me.
High Crusade by Poul Anderson. Aliens invade a medieval village just as it’s preparing to leave for the crusades. It does not go as planned for them and keeps getting worse. Told from the perspective of a monk chronicling events, it’s an extremely funny book.
Absolutely agree. I've read thousands of science fiction novels (1800s to 2010s) but Eon is an absolute standout. Thanks for the rec on Spin. Got to catch up on some more recent ones. Future vid, maybe explore Stanisław Lem's massive output of attempts at contact with incomprehensible aliens?
Eon is wonderful ideas sci-fi but an almost unread-ably opaque mess. I have read thousand of books, and in three languages, but I had to fight hard to finish Eon and Eternity.
I would also like to mention the mind blowing novel "Blindsight" by Peter Watts, where he uses a first contact scenario to ask how we can communicate with an extraterrestrial being that has superhuman intelligence but clearly has no consciousness or self-awareness (the "philosophical zombie"). He goes even further and raises the possibility that consciousness is an evolutionary dead end for humanity.
I've read most of these, but my favorite of them is Spin. I had thought it some truly intriguing ideas and I loved how well it all came together at the end. Like others commenting here, I would definitely recommend Blindsight. One of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read.
Great video, as usual. I have read many. The Mote in God's Eye and Eon quite some time ago. Starship Troopers - RAH - is sometimes overlooked as a first contact novel, I also suggest Storm Over Warlock - Andre Norton, and Martians, Go Home - Fredric Brown. There is a bunch.
Fantastic list and a couple I haven't read yet. I would also throw in Rendevouz with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. It feels so authentic and grounded, yet eerie and weird.
He recently made an entire overview/analysis video dedicated solely to the first novel from Clarke. So Darrel would have otherwise only repeated himself here if he had also included it.
I liked Vernor Vinge's Deepness in the Sky. In the far future, a group of humans, high tech space traders, picked up some radio signals from a weird star system and, assuming some specy otherthere may be having their industrial revolution, they mount an expedition, hoping to find unconventional technologies or resources to use & trade. By weird, i mean their star goes bright and dark every few decades/centuries, yet somehow something intelligent lives there.
There were a lot of interesting concepts in that book. Trade federations with shared cultural identity as a requirement for membership, translators that were so good at their jobs that they could make highly alien species relatable, relationships between people aging unevenly due to cryo sleep...
Thanks for the recommendations. Two of my favorite first contact novels are “The Pride of Chanur” and “Foreigner” by C.J. Cherryh. “The Sparrow” by Mary Doria Russell is also quite good.
First contact is one of my favorite sub-genres. Since Bear and Reynolds have already been mentioned I'll mention some others. Shadows of Eternity by Benford, Dawn by Butler, Bowl of Heaven/Shipstar by Niven/Benford.
Great list, thanks. Have read nearly all of them. Personally, I would add the old but good "The Black Cloud" by the late Astronomer Fred Hoyle. Also, "Pandora's Star" & "Judas Unchained" (really one book), split into two parts. The Alien (Morning Light Mountain), is one the most original and strange Aliens, in all of Science Fiction.
He recently made an entire overview/analysis video dedicated solely to the first novel. So he would have otherwise only repeated himself here if he had also included it.
Great video as always - might I recommend as an honourable mention "Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds - I rather enjoyed it. Another would be "Intervention" by Julian May, and the Galactic Milieu Series in general.
I've read an Alastair Reynolds novel. It wasn't a first contact one, but about a select group of generically modified humans that live an enormous life span and spend their time traveling the galaxy to visit other worlds as merchants of a sort. Due to time dilation, it mentions how entire civilisations can rise and fall, or planets becoming inhospitable by the time they make a single circuit of the Milky Way. It is called House of suns and I really enjoyed it. I think I'll read pushing ice now, thanks for the suggestion y'all!
So glad that you mentioned "The Mote in God's Eye" - Larry Niven is a long-time favorite and his collaboration on this novel with Jerry Pournelle has resulted in what I consider to be the quintessential first contact story!
C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series is such a great first contact story. I like it because humans are the visitors and superior technological power...until they're not. 😂 It's really more space opera than anything else but if you love politics it's a great read. I just did a re-read this year and came to appreciate the sub themes of legacy, cooperation, and progress. Progress is especially potent because the series explores the notion of whether giving technology to a less advanced society is harmful and the question of how helping a less advanced society avoid mistakes your society made changes their cultural and technological trajectory.
Haven't read Spin but this this idea of something isolating earth from outer space was, afaik, originally conceived in Egan's Quarentine as The Bubble, although is not entirely clear this was made by an alien civilization.
I'd recommend 'Marrow' by Robert Reed, a huge mystery where we encounter the technology but not the alien builders, the protagonists explore a craft larger than Jupiter with no decernable purpose other than traveling through the galaxy. Stephen Baxter's whole Xelee sequence is just stunning, the grasp of massive engineering is compulsive reading and the answer to the 'Great Attractor' is breathtaking.
Luv the Blakes 7 cup in the bookshelf, had almost forgotten about that series. Used to watch it as daytime TV on Super Channel back in the mid to late 80s. well played, sir.
They recently released a blu-ray boxset with the first series (more shall follow); everything is remastered and VFX shots have been all improved. Like they did it with Star Trek TOS back in 2006 and later also with ST: TNG.
Here is a really great First Contact Book - Not well known but a brilliant read (IMHO): FADE-OUT by Patrick Tilley . Anybody who has read it, let me know what you think
I love Fade Out. It is one of the seminal books of my youth. I still vividly remember the fate of Friday, and the brutal way it was written. Absolutely recommend this book. And of course The Amtrak Wars, which is in a way a First Contact story.
Cool list. Have read almost all of them (multiple times) including the recommendations, only exceptions are Spin and Excession. Reminded me to pick up the moties again soon for a reread. And as a bonus not to many things I needed to add to my buy / read list this time (only Excession perhaps, not sure yet) 😂
The whole Eastern European wing of Sci Fi is painfully lacking from this great, but incomplete list. For me, no first contact novel has ever been as eye-opening and thought-provoking as Stanislaw Lem's "His Masters Voice", depending on your world view maybe even the most realistic of first-contact narratives. No wide-eyed western Star-Trek-y spectacular meeting or heroic exploration, but chance, incompetence, incomprehension and overburdening; "Fiasco" by Lem is even more bleak - maybe we don't even recognise aliens before we accidentally destroy them and/or ourselves. Also, of course: "Roadside Picnic" by the Strugatzky brothers is equally impressive. I always think that this tradition of SciFi gives a far better account of how alien some really advanced species and their impact would actually feel, bordering on the unrecognizable and incomprehensible.
Not a novel (it's a short story) but the ultimate 'first contact' is Final Encounter by Harry Harrison. Can be found in the collections 'Galactic Empires' by Brian Aldiss and 'Two Tales and Eight Tomorrows' by Harry Harrison. 22 pages, but you haven't covered first contact until you've read it.
These lists are at the same time great and frustrating, because there are so many books to choose from. No Rama? Niven has lots of alternatives on his own as well. And if you really want to take "extraterrestrial" to the next limit, try Heinlein's "The number of the beast"! John Varley's Titan is a "first contact" that - in a sense - eventually turns out to not be the first. Just too bad most Jack Vance is already way past _first_ contact.
I don't know how to discuss it without spoiling something, so here it goes. Procceed at your discretion. The Lost Fleet series (now more of a universe) started out being a straight military series, but, from the beginning, there were some hints of something... else. Fast forward some twenty books and we are starting to see the first steps of mankind into a multi species society. And it's fascinating to read, the humans slowly (oh so slowly) figuring out the quirks oftheir galactic neighbors. Very much worththeread, even if the beginnings is a little crude.
I'm missing "To Serve Man" ;-). And it could be argued that "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a first contact novel as well. It's been a while since I read it though, and a lot of the plot elements and motifs have probably become mixed together in my head.
Contact has a pretty big problem in the ending: the aliens just say `hi, we'll talk to you again when you are more mature.' Titanic expenditure of resources on Earth and they didn't offer any type of continued contact outside of a vague future.
I have read _Childhood's End_ and _Three-Body Problem._ I liked both (the TV adaptation of the latter was also great). I have had _Excession_ on my reading list for a while. I quit _Consider Phlebas_ after reading a quarter of it, wondering how can this author have fans. But everybody says, 'read Excession, read Excession!' so sure, why not.
I have already read all of those except for Spin and Excession. All of them have been excellent reads. I started reading the culture series, but, just wasn't really getting into it. Will check out Spin soon.
Blindsight is brilliant. Patricia Anthony, a quirky, original writer, penned several first contact stories though in tangential ways. God's FIre (the Inquisition), Happy Policeman (today), Flanders (WW1) and the hilarious but eventually dark Brother Termite. I'm always looking for something new AND good; Anthony was a revelation.
I like how you didn't explain the first contact in "Spin" at all. The novel kind of does the same. Don't misunderstand: I really mean that in a good way.
4:12 _"...How aliens the Moties feel. They're entirely unique, biologically, mentally and culturally... The book dives deep into the messiness of communication, trust and the ethical dilemmas that come with meeting a species that is so different."_ Umm... no. It's a great book and the Moties are wonderful, but psychologically they're human (with specialized savant varieties).
"The Harvest" by Robert Charles Wilson, is another of his first contact books. Beautifully written - as you'd expect from Wilson. & it's a very bleak book, as you've probably gathered from the title....... It was inspired by a famous book & movie franchise which I won't mention, but it goes it's own way, & doesn't imitate at all. Probably my favorite first contact book.
I tried reading The Mote in God's Eye, but found the characters flat and the exposition clunky. I bailed after 100 pages, but now I wonder if I shouldn't have forced myself onward. Oh, well.
Nah bro, personally I couldn’t get the appeal that others have for this book. For me I gave it a 5/10. Was ‘ok’ thats all. Was expecting too much I guess but I cant recommend it.
Bears Eon was a good read but suffers from the same problem as Clarke’s 2001. The sequels prove that even the writers themselves did not have any idea where things should actually be heading in the next installment. I stopped with Clarke after he wrote that totally unresolved one about a space cruise ship and a mysterious garage on the banned moon with, if I remember correctly, an actual carport. Especially that last bit was a giant dud after all the monolith stuff 🤣
If you're looking for interesting First Contact books, check out C.J. Cherryh's Chanur's Pride or Cuckoo's Egg.They are first contact novels, but from the perspective of aliens meeting humans.
No Rendezvous With Rama, disappoint. :< Then again, its sequels are terrible so far, and I'm halfway through them wishing they were never written. A Mote In God's Eye was a bit of a disappointment too. Might be the time it was written, but it felt a bit too sexist to me.
Dear author, can you please avoid putting sound screamers, or at least make em much quieter, it’s really annoying and makes your great video significantly less enjoyable
If you’re into multiverses, power plays, or high-stakes revenge served ice cold, you might just love my sci-fi novels. In Delphine Descends, journey with Kathreen as she rises from war-victim to galaxy-class powerhouse with a serious grudge. And in Black Milk, join Prometheus as he shatters the laws of time, space, and sanity for love (and maybe destroys the universe along the way). Links to both below 📖
Delphine Descends (Amazon link) shortlink.uk/P59l
Black Milk (Amazon link) shortlink.uk/MHpv
💜 + 🖤
Larry Niven's "Footfall". Fantastic aliens with their own slant on first contact!
I was going to recommend this. Footfall is absolutely amazing. Probably my favorite first contact story of all time.
I'd recommend Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts.
_Blindsight_ is a great book, with at least two really original science fiction ideas... But its big reveal at the end is stupid and makes no sense.
Blindsight is one of the bleakest, most terrifyingly brilliant novels ever written. Not just a great, truly original, first contact novels but one of the best works of nonfiction period.
@@Blank-yo3lrit's a stone cold classic that has only gotten more prescient with the impact of LLMs and the works of the biologist Michael Levin
Yep , loved them both
Starfish is good aswell
Great list! Definitely some books I’ve been meaning to read. My recent favorite first contact read was Fiasco by Lem. Then of course Blindsight for the creepy factor and Project Hail Mary for an optimism palate cleanser
Quite a few people down here in the comments have happened to mention and recommend the Fiasco; seems to be a popular book. :)
"Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky also deserves a mention. Although the aliens themselves do not make an appearance (they have already left Earth, without interacting directly with any humans), it provides a very different and interesting perspective on the aftermath. This is the book the film "Stalker" is loosely based on.
It also influenced Vandermeer's 'Annihilation', which is also another decent first contact novel.
"loosely" being the operative word here.
Both book and film are works of sheer beauty.
“The Mote” is one of my favorite books of all time. I read in the 70s. I felt the characters were kind of Star Trekian.
Absolutely, the writers really spoofed on the Enterprise crew, especially Scotty.
Yes! I expected him to say “I dinna ken the engines can take it”
As other people have already mentioned, Project Hail Mary is a great (and not overwhelming) story of first contact. Blindsight is also a fascinating (perhaps a little overwhelming) and unique vision of first contact. I have to admit that I felt I needed to be smarter to read Blindsight and I needed a cheatsheet to remember who all the characters were. But I'm glad I read it.
Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem. Explores the idea that we may meet aliens but have absolutely no commonalities or similarities to even begin to understand each other.
also hmv, same author, also fred hoyle's various takes on the idea.
Not quite first contact but more of a ... first conversation? Solaris by Lem is amazing.
@@PretendGameDev 'solaris' drags the reader, in the better of the two translations I've encountered, through the various psychoses of the characters aboard the station- especially kelvin's personal tragedy & his recollections of the relationship foundering.
the alien entity is animating all this from a distance, & making no other real attempt to communicate with the earthmen.
in that sense, it is a first encounter, but so far off the dial in terms of traditional LGM stories that you have to wonder what Lem was actually trying to tell us.
my reading- it's a guy having a bad time post-breakup & also having a bad day at work, but Lem uses Kelvin's extraordinary situation to put us into the characters' heads in a sometimes quite uncomfortable way.
I love Childhood's End, and if you can only have one Arthur C Clarke book in the list, I guess that's the one. But of course 2001 A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama both gave very different takes on the same concept, and all the decades ago when I first read them they utterly captivated me.
Just finished Childhoods End. Brilliantly philosophical work from a guy more famous for nuts-and-bolts hard sci-fi. Much better than Rama imo.
High Crusade by Poul Anderson. Aliens invade a medieval village just as it’s preparing to leave for the crusades. It does not go as planned for them and keeps getting worse. Told from the perspective of a monk chronicling events, it’s an extremely funny book.
Sounds awesome. I’ll check it out!
Absolutely agree. I've read thousands of science fiction novels (1800s to 2010s) but Eon is an absolute standout. Thanks for the rec on Spin. Got to catch up on some more recent ones. Future vid, maybe explore Stanisław Lem's massive output of attempts at contact with incomprehensible aliens?
Eon is wonderful ideas sci-fi but an almost unread-ably opaque mess. I have read thousand of books, and in three languages, but I had to fight hard to finish Eon and Eternity.
@@uncletiggermclaren7592 Thousand?!!! 😲 😲 😲
For real?
A lot of Stanislaw Lem's books. I especially want to mention "Fiasco". Also a story where the roles are flipped.
Been looking for that comment, "Fiasco" is really worth reading
I would also like to mention the mind blowing novel "Blindsight" by Peter Watts, where he uses a first contact scenario to ask how we can communicate with an extraterrestrial being that has superhuman intelligence but clearly has no consciousness or self-awareness (the "philosophical zombie"). He goes even further and raises the possibility that consciousness is an evolutionary dead end for humanity.
Darrel talked about this one on one of his other videos, but don't remember what the occasion was.
Really glad I read those books before reading this comment. Massive spoilers there.
I liked "Footfall" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
I like that on a list of First Contact books, the book you list first is Contact.
👍
I've read most of these, but my favorite of them is Spin. I had thought it some truly intriguing ideas and I loved how well it all came together at the end. Like others commenting here, I would definitely recommend Blindsight. One of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read.
it always makes my day when i see you have posted a new video :D
Thanks!
There is another Greg Bear book I would recommend: The Forge of God
A wonderful story, Anvil of Stars', it's sequel is just as good.
Great video, as usual. I have read many. The Mote in God's Eye and Eon quite some time ago.
Starship Troopers - RAH - is sometimes overlooked as a first contact novel, I also suggest Storm Over Warlock - Andre Norton, and Martians, Go Home - Fredric Brown. There is a bunch.
Merry Christmas, Darrel-san! 🙂 ❤
Thanks so much! Merry Christmas 🎄 ☺️
Fantastic list and a couple I haven't read yet. I would also throw in Rendevouz with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. It feels so authentic and grounded, yet eerie and weird.
He recently made an entire overview/analysis video dedicated solely to the first novel from Clarke.
So Darrel would have otherwise only repeated himself here if he had also included it.
I liked Vernor Vinge's Deepness in the Sky.
In the far future, a group of humans, high tech space traders, picked up some radio signals from a weird star system and, assuming some specy otherthere may be having their industrial revolution, they mount an expedition, hoping to find unconventional technologies or resources to use & trade. By weird, i mean their star goes bright and dark every few decades/centuries, yet somehow something intelligent lives there.
Love Vinge!
There were a lot of interesting concepts in that book. Trade federations with shared cultural identity as a requirement for membership, translators that were so good at their jobs that they could make highly alien species relatable, relationships between people aging unevenly due to cryo sleep...
Thanks for the recommendations. Two of my favorite first contact novels are “The Pride of Chanur” and “Foreigner” by C.J. Cherryh. “The Sparrow” by Mary Doria Russell is also quite good.
👍 Someone else has also mentioned and recommended The Sparrow down here. ❤
I also went for pride.
First contact is one of my favorite sub-genres. Since Bear and Reynolds have already been mentioned I'll mention some others. Shadows of Eternity by Benford, Dawn by Butler, Bowl of Heaven/Shipstar by Niven/Benford.
Great list, thanks. Have read nearly all of them. Personally, I would add the old but good "The Black Cloud" by the late Astronomer Fred Hoyle. Also, "Pandora's Star" & "Judas Unchained" (really one book), split into two parts. The Alien (Morning Light Mountain), is one the most original and strange Aliens, in all of Science Fiction.
Peter Hamilton is my favorite SF author, but those arent exactly first contact novels as we know other races
Great review, but I would have included Rendezvous With Rama!
He recently made an entire overview/analysis video dedicated solely to the first novel.
So he would have otherwise only repeated himself here if he had also included it.
Great video as always - might I recommend as an honourable mention "Pushing Ice" by Alastair Reynolds - I rather enjoyed it. Another would be "Intervention" by Julian May, and the Galactic Milieu Series in general.
Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll check them out!
I second Pushing Ice. Really interesting premise.
I've read an Alastair Reynolds novel. It wasn't a first contact one, but about a select group of generically modified humans that live an enormous life span and spend their time traveling the galaxy to visit other worlds as merchants of a sort.
Due to time dilation, it mentions how entire civilisations can rise and fall, or planets becoming inhospitable by the time they make a single circuit of the Milky Way.
It is called House of suns and I really enjoyed it. I think I'll read pushing ice now, thanks for the suggestion y'all!
So glad that you mentioned "The Mote in God's Eye" - Larry Niven is a long-time favorite and his collaboration on this novel with Jerry Pournelle has resulted in what I consider to be the quintessential first contact story!
C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series is such a great first contact story. I like it because humans are the visitors and superior technological power...until they're not. 😂 It's really more space opera than anything else but if you love politics it's a great read. I just did a re-read this year and came to appreciate the sub themes of legacy, cooperation, and progress. Progress is especially potent because the series explores the notion of whether giving technology to a less advanced society is harmful and the question of how helping a less advanced society avoid mistakes your society made changes their cultural and technological trajectory.
You've a remarkable grasp of the contemporary vernacular.
Fantastic list. I’ve been meaning to check out Banks for some time and this winter might be perfect for that. Thanks!
Yes! Do it!!! Banks will make your life 90% better. Guaranteed! 👍
Haven't read Spin but this this idea of something isolating earth from outer space was, afaik, originally conceived in Egan's Quarentine as The Bubble, although is not entirely clear this was made by an alien civilization.
I'd recommend 'Marrow' by Robert Reed, a huge mystery where we encounter the technology but not the alien builders, the protagonists explore a craft larger than Jupiter with no decernable purpose other than traveling through the galaxy. Stephen Baxter's whole Xelee sequence is just stunning, the grasp of massive engineering is compulsive reading and the answer to the 'Great Attractor' is breathtaking.
Luv the Blakes 7 cup in the bookshelf, had almost forgotten about that series. Used to watch it as daytime TV on Super Channel back in the mid to late 80s. well played, sir.
They recently released a blu-ray boxset with the first series (more shall follow); everything is remastered and VFX shots have been all improved. Like they did it with Star Trek TOS back in 2006 and later also with ST: TNG.
I thought Eon was a bit boring, but the sequel, Eternity, ROCKS!!
Here is a really great First Contact Book - Not well known but a brilliant read (IMHO): FADE-OUT by Patrick Tilley . Anybody who has read it, let me know what you think
I love Fade Out. It is one of the seminal books of my youth.
I still vividly remember the fate of Friday, and the brutal way it was written.
Absolutely recommend this book. And of course The Amtrak Wars, which is in a way a First Contact story.
Let me recommend Calculating God (2000) by Robert J. Sawyer. It is a very different, philosophical and heartwarming take on first contact.
There is a pretty decent "first contact" anthology series by Peter Cawdron. "Cold Eyes" for example is an excellent hommage to "The Mote".
I recently read Fear the Sky by Stephen Moss. Great combination of first contact and spy thriller
Awesome. I’ll take a look at it!
Cool list. Have read almost all of them (multiple times) including the recommendations, only exceptions are Spin and Excession. Reminded me to pick up the moties again soon for a reread.
And as a bonus not to many things I needed to add to my buy / read list this time (only Excession perhaps, not sure yet) 😂
The whole Eastern European wing of Sci Fi is painfully lacking from this great, but incomplete list. For me, no first contact novel has ever been as eye-opening and thought-provoking as Stanislaw Lem's "His Masters Voice", depending on your world view maybe even the most realistic of first-contact narratives. No wide-eyed western Star-Trek-y spectacular meeting or heroic exploration, but chance, incompetence, incomprehension and overburdening; "Fiasco" by Lem is even more bleak - maybe we don't even recognise aliens before we accidentally destroy them and/or ourselves. Also, of course: "Roadside Picnic" by the Strugatzky brothers is equally impressive. I always think that this tradition of SciFi gives a far better account of how alien some really advanced species and their impact would actually feel, bordering on the unrecognizable and incomprehensible.
The whole Eastern European wing... DEI in action, good stuff.
Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is the most unusual first contact book I have ever read.
So Jack Sparrow was actually an alien the whole time? :D
That would pretty much chime with his antics and personality. :)
The Sparrow. One of my favorites.
Way Station, Clifford Simak is an interesting, if not amusing take on 1st contact
Tachyon Web by Christopher Pike, a book from my childhood that I always return to every year.
Merry Xmas Darrel! 🎄
Merry Christmas 🎄 🎄🎄☺️
Rendezvous with Rama was fun
Great recommendations thank you
Glad you like them!
Not a novel (it's a short story) but the ultimate 'first contact' is Final Encounter by Harry Harrison. Can be found in the collections 'Galactic Empires' by Brian Aldiss and 'Two Tales and Eight Tomorrows' by Harry Harrison. 22 pages, but you haven't covered first contact until you've read it.
These lists are at the same time great and frustrating, because there are so many books to choose from. No Rama? Niven has lots of alternatives on his own as well. And if you really want to take "extraterrestrial" to the next limit, try Heinlein's "The number of the beast"! John Varley's Titan is a "first contact" that - in a sense - eventually turns out to not be the first. Just too bad most Jack Vance is already way past _first_ contact.
The Sparrow is a must read
I don't know how to discuss it without spoiling something, so here it goes. Procceed at your discretion.
The Lost Fleet series (now more of a universe) started out being a straight military series, but, from the beginning, there were some hints of something... else.
Fast forward some twenty books and we are starting to see the first steps of mankind into a multi species society. And it's fascinating to read, the humans slowly (oh so slowly) figuring out the quirks oftheir galactic neighbors.
Very much worththeread, even if the beginnings is a little crude.
I'm missing "To Serve Man" ;-).
And it could be argued that "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a first contact novel as well. It's been a while since I read it though, and a lot of the plot elements and motifs have probably become mixed together in my head.
I've read EON twice, and all the following parts. Love it. And all the RAMA series.
Contact is one of my all time top ten favorites
After the Holy Bible? :D
Has to be "pride of chanur" . Lone human found by aliens.
Loved this when I read it first.
First things first. Picard. No question about it.
Contact has a pretty big problem in the ending: the aliens just say `hi, we'll talk to you again when you are more mature.'
Titanic expenditure of resources on Earth and they didn't offer any type of continued contact outside of a vague future.
I have read _Childhood's End_ and _Three-Body Problem._ I liked both (the TV adaptation of the latter was also great).
I have had _Excession_ on my reading list for a while. I quit _Consider Phlebas_ after reading a quarter of it, wondering how can this author have fans. But everybody says, 'read Excession, read Excession!' so sure, why not.
Rendezvous With Rama is THE greatest contact book.
You sure?
I have already read all of those except for Spin and Excession. All of them have been excellent reads. I started reading the culture series, but, just wasn't really getting into it. Will check out Spin soon.
4:07 reminds me of the "To Serve Man" Twilight Zone episode😍 thanks for all the great recs.
Blindsight is brilliant. Patricia Anthony, a quirky, original writer, penned several first contact stories though in tangential ways. God's FIre (the Inquisition), Happy Policeman (today), Flanders (WW1) and the hilarious but eventually dark Brother Termite. I'm always looking for something new AND good; Anthony was a revelation.
Great!👍👍👍📚🤖🐲🚀
I like how you didn't explain the first contact in "Spin" at all. The novel kind of does the same. Don't misunderstand: I really mean that in a good way.
Got hooked on Clarke in the seventies. There's the Worldwar series by Harry Turtledove. Gordon Dickson's Way of the Pilgrim.
0:14 Those words is it possible to use them together in a sentence like that?
Day of the Triffids is pretty good too.
4:12 _"...How aliens the Moties feel. They're entirely unique, biologically, mentally and culturally... The book dives deep into the messiness of communication, trust and the ethical dilemmas that come with meeting a species that is so different."_
Umm... no. It's a great book and the Moties are wonderful, but psychologically they're human (with specialized savant varieties).
I’m found a book that isn’t available or listed anywhere “Forest of the Night” by Matti Stuci to be one of the best first contact novels I’ve read.
I’ll be referencing this video for quite some time
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James White, "All Judgment Fled". It needs to be a film.
P*rn? 😀
I would suggest Illegal Alien by Robert J Sawyer. First contact amd courtroom drama.
"The Harvest" by Robert Charles Wilson, is another of his first contact books. Beautifully written - as you'd expect from Wilson.
& it's a very bleak book, as you've probably gathered from the title.......
It was inspired by a famous book & movie franchise which I won't mention, but it goes it's own way, & doesn't imitate at all.
Probably my favorite first contact book.
Totally off topic. Have you done a series on cyberpunk sci-fi fiction? I’m new here and have not seen all I’ve missed.
Yep. Check out his playlists.
Vernor Winge a Fire upon the deep also with telepathic group shared mind dogs
Gibraltar Earth by Michael McCollum
First book in trilogy. Earth versus alien empire.
The funniest first contact book has to be “Agent to the Stars” by John Scalzi (one of his first books).
thanks--one of these days do "alien aliens"...things where the aliens are REALLY alien. Obviously Solaris but what else
alien encounter itch
no, that's a different kind of book
Kirk of Picard stopped being a good yardstick the moment STP came out :(
I tried reading The Mote in God's Eye, but found the characters flat and the exposition clunky. I bailed after 100 pages, but now I wonder if I shouldn't have forced myself onward. Oh, well.
Nah bro, personally I couldn’t get the appeal that others have for this book. For me I gave it a 5/10. Was ‘ok’ thats all. Was expecting too much I guess but I cant recommend it.
Your description of Eon sounds like a direct cribbing of Rendezvous with Rama.
"Cribbing"?
@ well, it’s not plagiarism… and cribbing (INFORMAL
copy (another person's work) illicitly or without acknowledgment.)
@@williamderkatzen8987
OK. Thank you. Didn't know this slang-term.
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Anything which is more cosmic horror?
Any of the ten or so Alien novels. Xenomorphs are scary.
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Try "The Flight of the Aphrodite" for a start. Starts out as down-to-earth "truckers in space" and rapidly descends into "Event Horizon" territory.
Bears Eon was a good read but suffers from the same problem as Clarke’s 2001. The sequels prove that even the writers themselves did not have any idea where things should actually be heading in the next installment. I stopped with Clarke after he wrote that totally unresolved one about a space cruise ship and a mysterious garage on the banned moon with, if I remember correctly, an actual carport. Especially that last bit was a giant dud after all the monolith stuff 🤣
Best scifi first contact is men are from mars woman are from venus.
LOL!!!
Enough drama to rival a season of Dinasty? LOL Are you way older than you look?
Lol I’d like to think so but tbh most modern references are lost on me 🙃
If you're looking for interesting First Contact books, check out C.J. Cherryh's Chanur's Pride or Cuckoo's Egg.They are first contact novels, but from the perspective of aliens meeting humans.
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No Rendezvous With Rama, disappoint. :< Then again, its sequels are terrible so far, and I'm halfway through them wishing they were never written.
A Mote In God's Eye was a bit of a disappointment too. Might be the time it was written, but it felt a bit too sexist to me.
He recently made an entire overview video dedicated solely to the first book.
He would have been only repeating himself here.
Dear author, can you please avoid putting sound screamers, or at least make em much quieter, it’s really annoying and makes your great video significantly less enjoyable
The Mote. Best. Sci-fi. Novel. Ever.