Top 10 Sci-Fi Books from the Golden Age! 

I’ve read and enjoyed all of these except for Return From the Stars. I’ll have to add it to my TBR!

Reading 'Day of the Triffids' right now, in fact. It has a very memorable opening line, and in portions, seems utterly contemporary and not dated at all, which is part of what makes it a classic. Thanks for another great list, Bart.

Nice list, I've read them all except for the Lem's, but I will be rectifying that soon. All classic science fiction reads IMO. Cheers.

I have read all bar one on that list the one I have not was the second Stanislaw Lem, I did not do well with Solaris, so I never explored any more if his work. It has been so long since I read Flowers For Algenon that I am definitely due a re-read. Thank you for another good video.

I really need to re-read Solaris, I read it a number of years ago, and I think I was just too inexperienced at the time as it didn't land with me at all.

Clearly I need to give Stanislaw Lem a shot. 🇵🇱 Especially since it looks like he writes short books! 🎉

Solaris was excellent, and I enjoyed the Bill Johnston translation I just read. I need to read more of these Golden Age gems. Thanks for this awesome list!

Great list! I’ve only read a few of those you listed. Never read any Lem, but he’s on my radar now. Only person I’d add is Robert Heinlein. Loved Starship Troopers!

I was a teenager in the 60s and read some of these way back then. But my most recent first read among them was Solaris. I saw the movie many years ago (I've got all of Tarkovsky's movies here at home) and although I liked the movie it never drove me to read the book. However, that changed after hearing last year about a new translation. The widely known one was translated from a French translation and didn't have good reviews. The new translation was direct from Polish and Lem's family gave it their support. It's by Bill Johnston. Then I got out the movie to watch again. The book is a bit darker than the movie, I think because it makes us generate our own visual world which can allow us to leave more stuff in the shadows and to throw our inner images into the future. The movie traps us in a world of bygone fashion styles (lots of "thank God we don't wear that any more" crochet and fishnet clothing, lots of orange and brown clothes) and throws us into the past instead of into the future.

I am embarrassingly under-read when it comes to Stanislaw Łem. But I have so many of his books in boxes now, I really should fill this gap in my education!

Great picks! Greatly enjoyed the ones that I've read and look forward to the rest.

Read all but Return From the Stars. I will have to read this one.

Curious if you read Sirius by Olaf Stapledon? Another book from a dogs perspective with extraordinary intelligence

From this era, I have not read beyond the 40s. My recommendations, that you did not have in your list: The World of Null-A, Lest Darness Fall, The Skylark of Space, Slan, Animal Farm.

In Starship troopers (1959), I think, by Robert A. Heinlein, far in the future an interstellar spaceship drops out of hyperspace near a far away star, and the captain orders the navigator to calculate an orbit around an orbiting planet. The navigator pulls out his slide rule.......... 😳

Great pick with Solaris as your #1. It's one of my favourite novels of all time.

This video just increased the size of my TBR list significantly. 😅Good work Bart and I'm glad to see 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 getting some love!

I have read most of those books when I grew up in my early teens because my older brother bought them and kept them in our shared room, some I read at school (1984, Farenheit 451) and they are great stories. I just saw your collaborative video with the Words In Time channel and I think that I have a copy of Way Station that you are searching for. I have so many books that I have to keep them in boxes. I subbed your channel and I will be checking out your other videos.

No, the one that I saw was a one - person theater A guy set by tgd table and dictated journal entries to a taoe-recorder. Chilling. Especially because we used to have an autistic girl in our class at the beginning of the year. Some of his mannerisms were exactly like hers.

I loved “Flowers for Algernon”! What a story- so thought provoking!

Great list! Glad I can say I have read a decent amount of these. Some how I have still yet to read Foundation however.

I'm pretty new to reading science fiction so I've only read 3 books on your list, 1984, Childhood's End and The Day of the Triffids. I thought they were all great reads. Really enjoyed your video.

Childhood's end is a great read, as are so many Arthur C. Clarke books including Rendezvous with Rama and of course 2001 a space odyssey. A.C. Clarke is also credited as being the first to suggest geostationary satellite orbits, which revolutionized communications. He later joked about how he should have patented THAT idea.

Flowers of Algernon I saw the play first. One of the have to do school activities. So from the very beginning I was ready to suffer through and run home... I am personally responsible for changing the mind of a person who allready forged a note from parents permitting him to avoid it. 😊

I read Flowers for Algernon in 1959 or 60.

IMHO, SF's golden age was 1930-1959.

Sorry Bart, it has to be said you are completely wrong on your statement that 'most scholars' think the Golden Age ended circa 1963 - the Golden Age has long (and I mean many. many decades- at least fifty plus years) been used to cover the period 1939 to 1946 or to early 1950s latest. Look it up in the 'Encyclopedia of Science Fiction' (3rd Edition Clute & Nichols, now a website)- this is the long established critical authority on SF. 'Ages' in SF are defined by the influence of certain editors and magazines until the end of the 1960s. The 1950s was the age of social and satirical SF fostered by 'The Magazine of Fantasy and SF' and 'Galaxy'. Robert Silverberg has been quoted as saying that the 1950s was a true golden age, as it was better than what is called the golden age- and he'd know. 'Golden Age' refers to 1939-1946 because of John W Campbell's dominance and steering of the field in the USA through his editorial standards and philosophy in 'Astounding'. Anyone who likes Lem is a good guy in my book, but I'm afraid to say my friend, your critical standard in this one re the historical perspective and agreed terminology is way off. Best of luck, otherwise.

Saved by the bell!