Merry Christmas! I like your ambitious plans. There's something about aiming high and even if you miss it, you're still better off than if you aimed low. Something like that. It sounds like you have a workable plan. It's also good that you truly like writing. Best wishes on everything.

Happy Holidays Nerdius. Sounds like big and exciting plans for next year. Have appreciated tagging along with your videos. Have a great 2025.

Merry Christmas! I hope you a wonderful time.

I highly recommend the movie "The man from Earth". It's kind of unknown, but man, I think it's one of the greatest sci fi movies ever! Good channel you have here, sir.

Interesting discussion. Hard to really nail down the point at which someone becomes "well read" precisely, if that is one's goal. On the point of being an incompletist, we are all one of those (as you alluded to) but its only a matter of degree.

Are you considered well read if all you’ve read is Pornucopia by Piers Anthony? Asking for a friend 🤔 Joking aside, I found this to be a thoughtful video, thank you.

I've read a few Star Trek novels and the quality varies so much that I think on average you'd be reading mostly terrible books. I guess if you never read anything else though, you'd have nothing to compare it to. I've read loads of sci fi, new and old, one thing I've noticed is how far back some Ideas they keep presenting as new go; there are stories from the 30s, 40s and earlier that hold up really well.

i read an article or an interview with Roger Zelazny in which he said that the movie "Damnation Alley" paid for his house in New Mexico. Or maybe it was Arizona. In any case, it was his primary residence. I totally recommend "Lucifer's Hammer."

And Babylon 5 was this series reimagined, except modernised with a post modernist spin attached.

A fantastic read, five stars from me!

I adore these books! Loved getting your thoughts on the series!

You did a video about the preface to Star Maker a couple weeks ago., but not specifically about the book itself and its place on your list.

I believe that "2001" the movie/book was based on an Arthur C. Clarke short story, "The Sentinel." I could look it up, but sometimes it's nice to just wonder about things.

A great SF novel. Zelazny touches on many topics and issues in this one. A touch of new wave, the massive flashback and the pretentious speaking style of the false religion used by the ship's crew to control the population probably contributes to that use as well.

Absolutely true about Doomsday Book and Connie Willis. I’ve been reading some of her this year and have really enjoyed it.

well done

Love Solaris

Your dogs names are so wonderful! This book seems great, thank you so much for sharing this.

In 1976, the Film Society of Case Western Reserve University (in Cleveland, Ohio) launched their first annual Science Fiction Film Marathon. It was held in Case's auditorium. The movies started at 8 p.m. on Friday night and went on until 2 or 3 a.m. Sunday morning. Many people brought sleeping bags and food (though there were concession stands.) We figured out, early on, that the best place to be was on air mattresses right on the stage. It was one of the high points of our year. We went almost every year until 8 or so years ago. I suppose that as you get older, your interests change. But for a long time, this was a very special event and is the source of some very special memories. That was my 1976. In January, the CWRU Film Society will host the 50th Marathon.

I never thought about writing like that, examining life. Wow! I can see that now. I read to live another life, to be in that story for a time, so I've never really thought about about the writer. Thank You

"Too busy living life" is just a not so pithy way of denigrating someone else's choices. Heat death wins in the end so do what you like.

Interesting to see what writing at cafe's was like before laptops were a common thing. Maybe there is some beauty in the process of writing with ink on paper instead of the hundreds of distractions on our smart devices.

Every word of yours is so true and I wish everyone could think in such way; there’s not a single route of living, in such case… we would simply be robots (even robots don’t all function the same way). You’re very awesome! Thank you for sharing this much needed video, you’re amazing!

This sounds really interesting. That passage about patriotism is food for serious though. This is why it's important to read books.

Sadly, Heinlein’s genius was seriously crippled by being trapped in a time when females got short shrift. Though he gives women great power it’s always through their use of “feminine wiles”. I’ve always loved his writing, but as I grew up I really lost interest in him though I hold many things Lazarus Long said to heart and quite insight. Great review.

Spoilers!

interesting take. enjoyed the review. also cool that you use the standard of having won both the hugo and nebula. I did my own reviews on youtube of this very same list (of course, starting with dune in 65). yet...jeepers, i must be getting grumpy in my old age: i slagged this book. won't get into details (its in my review. kzbin.info/www/bejne/babXinqio6Z8ftk. though this review is pretty disjointed, admittedly ). quite a treat to see how others view the same material

What a piss-poor review. Guy doesn't even say what's good about the book.

So many first sequels have been the best movies in a franchise, but I never really thought about it in a unified way until you pointed out so many all at once. I think one obvious reason a Part II movie is better is if the first movie was good enough that the sequel had a much larger budget (e.g., Empire Strikes Back, Terminator 2, Aliens). A larger budget not only means better production values, but it also means that they can be more ambitious. For example, many of the effects in Terminator were actually pretty cheesy, and there's just no way they could have done the liquid metal effect on the same budget; the same with Aliens -- if they'd tried to film such an expansive story on the budget of the original movie, they would have had to limit the scope so much that it would have looked like bad set pieces. But what really made thos sequls better than the originals was that they used that increased budget to tell a bigger story -- not necessarily a better story, but a different one, and definitely bigger. Alien was a haunted house in space, a quiet, understated horror movie; Aliens was a huge mutlifaceted action movie. Superman introduced the character and his backstory, but it was really a small movie -- it didn't do anything exceptional with the character; Superman 2 had the big battle scenes that really showed off his abilities. Plenty of sequels have been terrible because they had a bigger budget but no idea what to do with it, whereas these movies used bigger budgets to tell bigger, *grander* stories. Not necessarily better stories (Superman 2 wasn;t an especially *good* story....), but definitely more expansive than the originals. Aliens was kind of an obvious choice -- "Hey, insteadof just one alien, let's have abunch of 'em this time!" -- but instead of just rehashing the original with three aliens stalking everyone on a spaceship, they made it a much BIGGER story in every way. And this I think is one reason that following sequels struggle to live up to the promise of that first sequel. Wow, Aliens was HUGE! We should make another one -- but we already used the "more aliens" idea, so what do we do now? Okay, T2 made Arnold a Good guy, so what do we do now? It's easy to expand the original concept into a bigger, better movie, but once you've done that (once), it's a lot harder to up the stakes *again* in a different enough way that it's not going to seem derivative. I think that's why so many open-ended TV shows jump the shark (literally, in the case of Happy Days) -- the writers get to the point where they canlt think of anything new that isn't completely ridiculous or out character. (And another problem is with the studios. When T2 or Aliens make a gazillion dollars, the studios want another movie *just like that one* that is going to make just as much money. But, of course, another movie *just like that one* isn't going to be original enoug to make *that much money*. The nest movie needs to tella different story -- but if it;s *too* different, the studios won't greenlight it.....)

Vionda Mackintoytr Zenna Henderson, Anne Maxkaffery

You need to rewatch 2001 about 100 more times!

Books are useless today. This SPINES is just another rip off--of which the world is full.

I misspoke early in the video and said "one hundred novels" when I meant "movies."

Growing up in the age of Duck and Cover drills in school and the Cuban Missile Crisis, science fiction of the space exploration kind was a ray of hope that there could be a future, any future at all. It gave me hope in a world obsessed with the Doomsday Clock and the inevitability of nuclear annihilation. Somehow we made it this far. Reading different authors gave me the only respite from the bombardment of hopelessness. Thank You

So i need to be sure this is it before going forward, test the waters and all that. Thanks for the advice

A great series, science inaccuracies aside, great concept and storytelling. The ending also being depressingly Human

Hi, Do you know of a reading of this book by Victor Bevine? I would like to hear it. Thank you.

Its been encouraging to see such widespread condemnation of this company. Or maybe it's just the bubble I exist in (likely)

11.22.63 was surprisingly good. I enjoy Stephen King in general but it felt like a book where I didn't have to feel guilty for liking it! Alas Babylon is wonderful as well. A shame about not pursuing life in the library but sounds like you made the right choice. Happy reading!

From TechCrunch: "Spines’ production plans, Niv said, start from about $1,200 and can go up to $5,000, depending on how many services an author is requesting. Users are given options for cover illustrations, but more options might come with higher costs. There is a professional on the team who gets involved as well, Niv said. There is also distribution membership, billed monthly, which starts at $19/month and can go up to $49/month, depending on where you would like to be distributed. Royalties on sales are split the same for everyone: Authors get 70% and Spines gets 30%. Niv said that this is a great improvement on other publishers, which typically give authors between 10% and 20% of sales. Lastly there is a management fee, which again varies depending on services rendered." So in addition to $1200-$5000, you also pay a monthly fee to have the books "distributed", PLUS a "management fee", PLUS they take 30% of your gross sales. Definitely a scam.

ai is scary

I hope you have enough time and energy to read all of those, but still reading shouldn’t be like a chore, I’m very glad that you don’t push yourself to read anything.

I really enjoyed this review, and it's very good to know it's a top ten best sci-fi in your opinion! Now, have you read Fever House? Definitely more in line with direct horror, which we also have Paul Tremblay's Horror Movie: A Novel, which is a cursed tape story in a new and interesting way. I look forward to checking out the rest of this series!

One of my favorite novels. One aspect that I think is often overlooked is how FUNNY the story is. The interactions between Challenger and Professor Summerlee are great, as well as the fact that the plot is essentially kicked off by Malone wanting to impress a girl

Adams said that he got the idea for the book while backpacking through Europe. For whatever reason, he was laying in the grass at night, looking at the night sky, and the title just popped into his head. "Ford Prefect" was a small English car produced in the forties and fifties. If would have been as commonly recognized by the English as "Honda Civic" would be in the States. The BBC version was superb. Low production values but that's not important. This might be the series you're talking about.

I'm pretty sure the R.E.M. show at the bandshell was in the fall of '84. Another band that played there, quite possibly in '85, was Missing Persons.

You’re amazing! Your videos are always very enjoyable. By the way, what’s your favorite book by Asimov?, as you had a letter in one of his novels too! Which is so awesome.

Officer Friendly lol nice 😎

That is a delightful story. Thanks. :)

Don't want to offend you, but you are so "old" and "clueless" about modern writing. Ever thought about the possibility, that your outdated novel is no longer interesting for the now clearly younger audience? Ever thought about that it's not the fault of those sites but your outdated, generic writing and approach?