Finally someone who hates hail Mary more than me. It is unrelenting in its attempt to be humorous. Andy weir is terrible.

Great video! I’d love to hear your opinions on Vonnegut if you havent reviewed anything from him already… if you have, could someone direct me to that video? Also would love to see your take on the Silmarillion.

You look like your well rested because of these books,In One of your reviews you talked about The planet Anaris from the disspossesed,I was wondering if you like to write short stories about your books to buld off the literature and update your computers main frame,plus download pictures from t3 universe that makes people wonder why the girls aint learning completely now the africans from africa are telling people to start their files at certain times like we want them taking our profiles and not pay a single payment for the use of my information.But the women shouldnt be so sleazy and forget the prisoners,the knowledge invlves the prisoners,People should even get money after theyve used medical record numbers to keep the numbskulls bound to Mental health,some dont care about any of this its very upsetting.

Obscure You may want to read The Armageddon Crazy by Mick Farren if you can find a copy.

Heading towards Chiang Mai soon. You’ve inspired me to go hunting!

I love that I've never heard of most of these, looking forward to checking some of them out.

Before it slips my mind: is anyone familiar with the work of the late Michael Shea, who I encountered in the mid '90's? Only TWO books crossed my path, but both made my head explode! Shea's thing was apparently doing "tributes," deliberately mimicking the style of his favorite authors. "The Color Out of Time" was his HP Lovecraft pastiche, and "Nifft the Lean" was his Jack Vance/ Cugel the Clever tribute. I won't bend your ear, but both were EXCELLENT and more than successfully built on the style & legacy of their source authors. "Nifft" in particular just OVERWHELMED me with its insane, psychedelic phantasmagoria of absolutely bizarre & disturbing wordplay & imagination. OK, there's only ONE Jack Vance, but this is like Jack Vance CONCENTRATE free-based. I THINK both paperbacks were published by Baen, and they are RARE, but just well worth seeking out.

I read fury a couple weeks back. It was just ok. Nowhere near as good as the stars my destination IMO but it was still entertaining to a degree

Dune as a B is heresy.

You and outlaw bookseller would be cool combo for sci-fi discussions.

Your intros are way too long. Pls shorten them !

I really enjoyed the Project hail mary audiobook but your points are really on the spot! it feels more like a blockbuster movie script (same stuff with the martian) but I still think this kind of thing is cool! specially for people that is not used to reading ... it was my first audibook and it really got me into this hobby.. and as a non native english speaker, I really do recomend that audiobook for who is learning the langague. anyways, nice video! added a lot of things to my tbr list! keep it up

Rotating the book on the brush rocks

WFH and don't work, but make bank and read books?

Read Blindsight, the #1 on your list, after seeing this video. My review: not hard sci fi as claimed, a mishmash of technical term droppings with endless depressing character discussion instead of ideas. There are so many great sci fi books, this would not have made it in my list. (Spoiler alert: the plot boils down to an unlikable crew of super-humans blowing up an alien ship, with the least likable character getting a ride back to earth in an escape pod.)

Best covers? How about the Dark Carnival U.K HC first, 1948 by Bradbury? His first published book, a great one and the cover is gorgeous. You have immaculate taste, There was a stack of books that appeal to me. 🚀

Great content

Star of the Unborn is $450 or not possible to access via numerous sources like internet archive, scribd, openlibrary etc. There is an ebook copy in german.

Not one full second wasted.

great literature doesn't want to be likeable.

I tend not to favor science fiction that incorporates kings, queens, princesses, dukes, knights, etc. If I want to read that I can read history or Shakespeare.

book

Totally agree about Roadside Picnic and Annihilation. The latter was OK, but I am done with Vandermeer. Roadside Picnic is memorable as is the movie by Tarkovsky.

Americans: she’s on my mount Rushmore Europeans: She’s on my Mount Olympus

I read a book every day in High School. Authors such as Fred Saberhagen, Roger Zelazney are largely unknown today.

That collection of women's stories edited by Virginia Kidd has a fantasy author, Elizabeth Lynn, who wrote the Chronicles of Tornor in the late '70s, I think. Her novels had characters who were subtly gay. They couldn't be obviously gay during that time period, unfortunately, and still get published by a mainstream press. I remember them as being pretty good books, and I was disappointed that she didn't have more works in print.

I'm really happy that you're liking Joanna Russ. She taught the advanced writing class at the University of Washington when I was attending the UW in the 1980's. I was a Lit major, not a writing student, but the writing students all said she was a serious and sometimes intimidating writing teacher. I remember reading a story of hers called "The Little Dirty Girl" that really resonated with me. And "The Female Man" was one of the key books in the Modern Women's Lit class (along with Margaret Atwood's "A Handmaid's Tale," Anne Rice's "Interview with a Vampire," and Susanna Moore's first book, "My Old Sweetheart"). Ah, the '80s.

Don't Bite The Sun has a setting very similar to Logan's Run.

I also just read Thorns a couple of weeks ago, and agree that while it rattled along at a good pace, most of its ideas have been done better elsewhere. The idea of two characters who seem super compatible but in fact will push each other away through their own complexes was interesting, but didn’t lead to anything. That said, I would be happy to try another Silverberg novel. This was good enough that I’m sure he’s capable of hitting the mark for me with a later book.

Instrumentality Of Mankind was my first 'unknown' find, picked because of the cover 50 years ago. I still love Cordwainer Smith.

I have been looking for Star of the Unborn since you first mentioned it. Yesterday on a whim I went into a thrift store and there it was! It is in very good condition and the bonus it was 32 cents.

Discovered this a bit late, but I just wanted to say 'thanks' for putting Simak's 'City' out there. It's brilliantly written, and very reminiscent of Eastern European literature in that a serious and moving point is wrapped in sometimes absurd vignettes.

Peter Watts. The best.

I'm a Jack Vance fanatic, & I was able to catch up with Jack & read this on publication in 1984. I LOVE IT, Jack's absolutely unique sense of humor REALLY ran riot here, and of course I was fully "on board" with the Vance bandwidth by then, so I was fully receptive. (Your comparison to PG Wodehouse is quite astute.) My first words on Vance are always that he's an acquired taste, to be sure. I will say that his "Demon Princes" & "Planet of Adventure" series are VERY mainstream escapist sci-fi that are also OUTSTANDING & accessible vehicles for Jack's singular talent.

Wait, why is "naturalistic" a loaded term as a descriptor for writing in literary criticism?

my mt rushmore would be lem, gibson, pkd & vance. still have alot to read mayb the spontaneous mid part will attract the gen zers. spry as ever

Matt even more grump/sarcastic in this video than usual.

Robert Silverberg also wrote and published nonfiction books. About archaeology.

I’m a huge fan of Roadside Picnic. The reader on Audible is pitch perfect

Blindsight is an amazing book.

Do you like "Change the sky and other stories" more, or "The shadow people"?

Came here to say, after seeing a comment from a butthurt YT commentor elsewhere over this video, thank you for talking about Joanna Russ, keeping talking about her, it gives me joy to see people who think they are the primary audience for SF and all SF content ought to pander to them getting mad over someone talking about Joanna Russ because they are fucking clueless and incurious about the actual history, evolution and scope of SF. And as someone who's long admired Silverberg's later works, no, no one reads his early stuff. I can confirm this to be true. I actually didn't even know he wrote early pulp stuff until maybe 20 years after reading Dying Inside back in the 1980s because no one ever talks about it. Also RIP Barry Malzberg.

BTW I just saw that Barry Malzberg died yesterday. :( Full obit on Locus mag website News section.

Will sure read. Thank you fellow stranger.

Nice to see you outside.

When was George Carlin not funny?

I finally found Star of the Unborn. I haven't read it yet as i am waiting for holiday chaos to pass so i have no interruptions!

I bought the Library of America edition of Joanna Russ that has all her major works purely based on your recommendations. So far, I am blown away. Thanks for introducing me to this amazing author.

So very clear about these obfuscations. One thought, about endowments and federal funding. First, like federal loans, research grants go direct to scientists, though some institutions within u's.

Piers Anthony's Phase series works of the premise of a game just as malzberg did.