I am biased against PKD, haven't read one I really enjoyed yet! RP featured in the Zone video recently. There's so many I could have included. I'll do a part 2 of each decade at some point. Thanks for watching 👀!
@@SciFiScavenger I feel similar about PKD. Many of his books are a jumble that fail to hit the mark IMO. Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, and Do Robots Dream Android Sheep, are the only ones that have really stuck the landing IMO. Ubik in particular does something pretty interesting and I started off skeptical and it blew me away in the end.
@@isoundinfo I wasn't much into PKD when I was young, just appreciated some of his many unorthodox ideas. Only after I became interested in altered states of consciousness as obtained through the use of psychedelics, plus how all of this relates to religion, did I develop a new respect for his work. Ubik and The Three Stigmata are probably my favorite novels of his. You could say that what PKD does looks like SF, sounds like SF, tastes like SF but it really is something else...
I’m enjoying not only your concise summations, but the deft use of ‘wormhole’ transition fx and the various cover designs - most of the editions of these books that I read (don’t think I read Dreamsnake or Sweet Birds) were the UK editions that were prevalent here in Australia, and I find the jacket images do stimulate your recall of the book and are a huge part of the enjoyment. If I were to choose the best it would be Priest, Le Guin and Haldeman; books that I’ve reread in recent years. Cheers for the video, keep it up!
I continue to enjoy your deep dives into your myriad of novels old and new. When I see one I might want to read I’ll just fast-forward or mute until you have completed that particular essay because you continue to give a plethora of detail! Maybe you should add a (with spoilers) tag to your thumbnails
Hi Tom, thanks I continue to work on giving less away whilst still giving enough of a summary to intrigue. There are those that don't even like to read the blurb on the back of a book, these videos.probably won't work for them. Thanks for watching 👀!
A great selection for the most part. 70's was a very productive period for SF in general, imo. I might have included A Mote in God's Eye, Rendezvous With Rama and a couple of others.
Interesting picks that came with a bonus earworm sneaked in at the end. I assume it was intentional to focus on lesser known books and leaving out the big ones like Ringworld, Dhalgren, The Hitchhikers Guide or Mote in Gods Eye? And it reminded me that I still have to read The Inverted World …
so many to choose from! I almost went with HHGTTG but I think it appeals less in the US. And I'm saving the Moties for the first contact video. Cheers Michael, thanks for watching 👀!
I read Tau Zero and thought it was great. A real favorite. The Gods Themselves was also fantastic. A few blockbusters not mentioned are The Mote in God’s Eye by Niven and Pournelle. It is one of the best first contact novels I ever read. Its characters are almost Star Trekian to me. Its aliens are also very ingenious. A small drawback is it is dated to the 70s political structure. Another by them not mentioned is Lucifer’s Hammer. It’s an apocalyptical novel about a comet strike. These were big sellers.
@@stevezeidman7224 Agreed. One thing Mote does better than any other SF novel, imo, is describe how ships would reconfigure according to how they accelerate. Among all the other things this novel is known for, of course, but this detail always stuck with me.
Top list. I have read 4 of them so far - the others have been on my TBR for some time, but I'm thinking of getting into a bit of a Le Guinn phase soon, including The Dispossessed. Of the 70's SF I have read that aren't on your list I would recommend the following: A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (1971) 334 - Thomas Disch (1972) Dying Inside - Robert Silverberg (1972) The Fifth Head Of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe (1972) The Centauri Device - M John Harrison (1974) The Mote In God's Eye - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle (1974) The Lost Traveller - Steve Wilson (1976) Stolen Faces - Michael Bishop (1977) A Scanner Darkly - Philip K Dick (1977) We Who Are About To... - Joanna Russ (1977)
Tau zero was quite a trip, haha. How were they watching the Big Crunch, and subsequent Bang, from *outside* the universe? The Forever War is favorite of the decade. Tower of Glass a close second, though it was barely in the '70s, published spring 1970. However, I did just get a copy of the 1976 novelization of Star Wars ... the one written from a development script ... reading that with 48yrs of hindsight might blow me away LOL
Inverted World and Forever War are two of my favs; still quite a bit from this list I haven't pick up yet! It's not a novel, but I read Barry Longyear's Hugo winning novella Enemy Mine (1979) earlier this year and was quite impressed. Your description of Tau Zero makes it sound WAY more interesting than it actually was for me. It felt too much like a soap opera; A lot more relationship drama than I was led to believe. 😂
That was the bit I liked best! The physics was cool too, but it would have been super dry without the pesky people stuff. Was that Longyear novella the source for the movie of the same name? Cheers Renko, thanks for watching 👀!
@SciFiScavenger It was! I hear they expanded the story into a longer work around the time the movie was release (haven't seen the movie). I read the original novella in a collection from the era.
Nice to have actually read no fewer than five of this selection: A Time of Changes, The Dispossessed, Dreamsnake, The Forever War and The Gods Themselves; All of which I'd happily recommend. I have Inverted World, Kindred and The Female Man on the shelf to read, though Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang piques my interest most. I would suggest Eartwind by Robert Holdstock, and The Walking Shadow by Brian Stableford, which made David Pringle's top 100.
Great video. I want to check out the first three books now. Inverted World never appealed to me before. The Gods Themselves is good, but not Asimov's best - it was an experiment, by his own admission. He wanted to play with multiple points of view.
A fine list of books, of which I've read six - not bad going! The only one I really didn't get along with is Kindred. While I wanted to like it, I found Butler's totally flat, affectless prose to be increasingly annoying and her steadfast refusal to use metaphor or simile seems really odd to me. By contrast, The Forever War is one of only a handful of books I've ever read twice, a superb piece of work.
Hi Andy, I really liked Kindred! I didn't notice any issues with her prose, I was focused on the story which I thought was great. Each to their own! Thanks for watching 👀!
@@SciFiScavenger - I know, ever since the rain came to our soggy little island the tempreture has plummeted. I couldn't get warm this evening, I was wrapped up in dressing gown and blanket. Perishing! ;P
John Brunner's novels of this time are well worth a read: prophetic and dystopian. Stand On Zanzibar - overpopulation, genetic engineering Shockwave Rider - technology overpowering individuality, also criminal takeover of american poliitics The Sheep Look Up - ecological collapse leading to societal collapse Jagged Orbit - unrestrained racism meets unrestrained weapon purchases What's amazing is that we're living in *all* of them, simultaneously.
Hi Howard, SoZ and JO were late 60s, but SR is a great shout for the 70s. I think included SoZ in a similar video on the 60s from a month or two back. I'm really keen to read Shockwave Rider. Thanks for watching 👀!
Yesterday The Forever War and today, the Gods Themselves were on sale. I got both of them. 🎉. I think I was too young to read them when I did back in high school, so I'm looking forward to rediscovering them. 🤓 As the holidays are upon us, more sales are appearing in both print and ebook form. I'm going to have to control my purchases. 😮🙄. Today is triple points, so I'm just going to get ONE more...🐶😛
I do like your videos, but -and I might be mistaken- but you always seem to be quickly reading a script. It might help to improvise a bit, it would give your videos more... authenticity. Cheers.
Thanks, this one in particular is a bit rushed, unfortunately. I do use a script for this type of video, it becomes unmanageable for me without one. For other types of video I am weaning myself off for exactly the reason you say. Maybe I'll get to the stage where I just wing it, but trust me, right now the results would not be good viewing. I continue to work on it. Thanks for watching 👀!
No offense, but this video plays more like a community college lecture on cocaine than a shared enthusiastic guide to the subject. All I got out of it was a breathless academic monologue about something. 🤷🏻♂️
@@SciFiScavenger My comment turned out more harsh than I intended. But I do think speaking more slowly would get your message out with increased clarity and appeal. Why do so many YT channel hosts think their videos have to be called like a horse race?
Video is very fast paced (maybe the edition is not helping adding synchronously new cuts) and the books are quite well known for Sci-fi readers. Still very good recommendations! Thanks @@ProfessorEchoMedia
