Books that feel like the Twilight Zone

[@sjorgen9122]

My personal version of hell is being the first car in line when construction workers are trying to direct us

[@pipe2devnull]

The mustache story is many teenage boy's reality when they shave off their first feeble attempt at one.

[@SteveJubs]

Angela’s just such a good, considerate, and fun as f*** communicator

[@technocore1591]

What’s funny is as a kid I would watch the Planet of the Apes as the after school monster movie of the week. Consequently I always thought of Planet of the Apes as a monster movie. Years pass and as an adult I catch Planet of the Apes and was surprised at how much it wasn’t a monster movie. As the movie ends I think to myself, “Wow, that was more like a Twilight Zone episode than a monster movie!” And imagine my delight when the credit roll and damned if Rod Serling isn’t one of the screenwriters!!!!

[@meesalikeu]

you cant unsee the rod serling in it once you know. including the overall tone of the movie as an extended twilight zone episode. an amazing classic movie that gives you something new every time you watch it. 🎉

[@danbongard3226]

What's weirder to me is that the original novel was written by the author of The Bridge on the River Kwai. Unusual for an author to produce classic works in two different genres.

[@flangeinspector9959]

Black Mirror is "What if phones, but too much?"

[@Wingedmagician]

what if robot bees but 😂

[@tfkia356]

It's not exactly the same vibe, but most things by Philip K. Dick have an unsettling energy that's in the ballpark

[@gregorydavidson2744]

I read Ubik by Philip K Dick back in January and can confirm it has Twilight Zone vibes, especially the back-half of the story

[@Pablo-Herrero]

The theme of the first book reminds me a lot to "The Library of Babel" by Jorge Luis Borges.

[@nocakewalk]

Haha yep, that's explicitly stated in-universe in the book.

[@AndrewBlucher]

My favourite episode of the original series was To Serve Man. I would watch replays when I was 13 or 14 in the late 60s at night when no-one else was home.

[@jeromemckenna7102]

The phrase 'it's a cook book', is so memorable.

[@meesalikeu]

errybody likes that episode nigel. 🎉

[@jeromemckenna7102]

I am 72 years old, so I saw the Twilight Zone when it was new. It is a great example of what can be done with limited technology. Given how much of the writing was done by Rod Serling one can understand why he died so young.

[@CF565]

2:20 Man, I could not agree more about prestige tv. The endless cliffhangers and lack of resolution, or the padding of episodes and seasons with repreated red herrings, really annoy me these days. 5 or 10 years ago, when Netflix was blowing up, somebody said "Everyone with movie scripts are stretching them into series for streaming", and ever since then I can't help but ask "Does this need to be a series? Could it have been trimmed into a film and not wasted so much of my time?" And like 70% of the time the answer is annoying.

[@comment_section4766]

I think I made through about 10 episodes of BSG before losing my mind.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

How many feature length movies could be 10 minute short films? Although I’ll say that there are some well written exceptions to what you are calling prestige tv. I was pleasantly surprised by Fallout. There’s also a really fun 2-season series called Partriot on Amazon. Not “The Patriot”, just “Patriot”.

[@WinstonSmith0824]

For me, it's the constant need to ramp up, ramp up, ramp up. A series will start out with an interesting premise, but the need to always increase the stakes/threats leads to a ratchet-to-ridiculousness effect, where later seasons become unbelievable melodrama. It seems near-impossible to both keep your characters and situations grounded, while also keeping the tension high.

[@EinsteinsHair]

A few years ago I saw a low budget movie, Enter Nowhere. It was nice, but should have been condensed to one little Twilight Zone episode.

[@CreepyLookingTree-zv4qc]

You sit down to watch an episode of the Twilight Zone but it's an episode you've never seen before and all the actors are inexplicably shouting at each other all the time and everyone is angry and you have a bad time. At the end Angela Collier walks on screen to explain why this is what's ruining Start Trek. You look at the TV guide and every show on every channel is a different episode of "this is what's ruining Star Trek" you may have just entered the Twilight Zone...

[@meesalikeu]

shouting at each other all the time is what killed seinfeld more so than larry david leaving.

[@PinkKittenTech]

The Factory is basically an allegorical version of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber.

[@germanfranco4863]

Two of my favorite episodes: "Time Enough to Last", a clip of which you included in the video, and "Once Upon a Time", featuring Buster Keaton. A play that has quite a bit of a Twilight Zone vibe to me is "Waiting for Godot" (written in 1948-49, published in 1952), by Samuel Beckett. This play was first performed on January 5, 1953; "Nothing in the Dark" was originally aired on January 5, 1962. Although there is no resolution in the former as in the latter, they could be 'siblings', as you say (pretty cool idea). Loved the quote from "Factory", I can totally relate. Thank you so much, great video. Cheers.

[@dukeofthebump]

My recommendations are "The Futurological Congress" by Stanislav Lem, and "The Master of Space and Time" by Rudy Rucker.* Also don't watch 1983's "The Twilight Zone: The Movie" but do listen to the episodes of Behind the Bastards where they talk about it. The story of the making of that movie is like a twilight zone episode where the moral is "don't give someone unfettered access to helicopters just because he's a rich and famous movie director" *edit: and "Why Do Birds" by Damon Knight! Maybe the most twilight zone book I've ever read

[@TRSONFIRE]

Joined you few weeks ago and I'm sure this channel will have a terrific grow. Also thanks for the attention and care on details like the spoiler alerts or the books in the commentary box! Keep it up with the great content!

[@dufourea]

if you want another good Twilight Zone vibe in a sleek modern package, definitely check out There Is No Antimemetics Division (by qntm). i forget what i was talking about.

[@ToTheWolves]

Shredding paper all day? Sounds great. Like 0% responsibility lol

[@yourneighborkevin]

I liked this video as soon as I pulled it up and realized you were keeping it black and white. I wish I could have liked it again when I saw the book covers in color.

[@fino5996]

You said in a previous video that you love reading plays and in this that you're trying to be international with your reading so I have a recommendation for an Irish play. Philadelphia, Here I Come by Brien Friel. It's quite short and is about a young lad living his last day in '60s Ireland before emigrating to America. I found it so emotionally engaging and thought provoking about cultural identity and I hope you give it a try.

[@ReinReads]

Borne by Jeff Vandermeer & Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor have those Twilight Zone vibes.

[@linksauce_1]

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street and The Shelter are some of my favorites. I love the way social cohesion/good times atmosphere goes right out the window when someone feels threatened. Reminds us that we're still animals ultimately

[@MichaelMarquez-m3b]

The best part of The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street is the fact that the aliens are only toying with them and the group is already falling apart. The actual invasion hasn’t even started yet.

[@bgroesser]

OMG! Short Stay In Hell is a book I recommend to almost everyone. I was dumbfounded when you mentioned it. It is SOOOOO good. But as a former mormon, it hits different. As an engineer, the library was freaking me out. And last I checked, it was a cheap read on Kindle. I love the book and it's subversion of expectations. Like I said, as a mormon, this thing is shocking. And yes, a BYU professor wrote it.

[@timonsku]

2:20 gives me Sense 8 flashbacks, so good but ripped out of its prime

[@g.mitchell7110]

It wasn't one of the choices you listed, but if you want a modern anthology show that has a Twilight Zone feel to it, you should absolutely seek out and watch Inside No. 9. Every episode is a self-contained story that stars the two creators and takes place inside a single location that is labeled #9, and most have a major twist near the end. They vary in tone and subject matter and type of twist. One episode is a nearly silent slapstick comedy about a pair of inept burglars attempting to steal a painting, while another was disguised as a quiz show so well that half the audience didn't know it was a Number 9 episode until things turned dark. If you want to sample it to see if it's to your taste, basically everyone agrees that the best episode is 12 Days of Christine, but others standouts include Mr. King, Wise Owl, Tom and Gerri, To Have and To Hold, The Last Weekend. Even if it doesn't sound like something you'd like, you owe it to yourself to at least watch 12 Days of Christine. It's one of the best anthology episodes of any TV series ever.

[@futurestoryteller]

"Phones are bad" is the most reductive possible critique of Black Mirror, and I think it's telling that it's also the most popular critique of critique of Black Mirror

[@gametheorymedia]

This is great, and a nice diversion here on your channel; I'm always looking for that TZ vibe in books & short stories, and I'll be checking all of these out! :D

[@mattmorgan2525]

Thanks for all these book recommendation videos. I've since read The Stepford Wives and am enjoying Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Can't wait to get stuck into some of these. I would love a list of short books if you feel like it. :)

[@cuppiesaur]

OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS VIDEO ♥

[@cj1986x]

Oh I love the classic Twilight Zone too and can't get into newer reiterations of it. You nailed my personal grievance with prestige TV. I find it exhausting the way they draw things out while you never know if you are getting invested in a show that'll be canceled next month and ugh. Been there, done that. I'm still bitter about Dark Matter--not the Blake Crouch thing on Apple TV but the 2015 SyFy series. I want my Android arc, dammit. As a SFF reader I carry that over to SFF books where I tend to stay away from many of the popular big series and prefer shorter works, like a novella I can read in half a day. So I'll be checking some of these out for sure. I've read The Yellow Wallpaper back in college when I led philosophy reading group (yeah, I was that nerd), and I'm just not a Scalzi fan (am a Trekkie though), but the rest looking intriguing.

[@queenvrook]

The 1980's Twilight Zone was initially edited by Harlan Ellison, until the inevitable conflict with the studio. Before he left the show, the episodes are worth watching. He wrote a couple of the stories as well, of which "Paladin of the Lost Hour" is pretty good. Also, did you watch Night Gallery, Rod Serling's later show? Very good indeed.

[@bluemooninthedaylight8073]

There are some real gems in the Ellison years. I can recall them to this day, and I haven't watched them since the '80s. Might as well toss in Tales From the Dark Side. It's more camp than serious, but there's some genuinely weird and dark episodes that are worth the watch.

[@bubbafug00gle51]

Funny to me that I am old enough to be her dad... and in the 80's kids thought it was weird for me to be into a black-and-white show from "the old days". TZ writing has held up for 60 years and counting

[@rod451]

I hope you keep doing reviews! Ilike that you get your books from the thrift store. It’s nice to hear about books of different eras or just not new releases.

[@joshuastencel28]

I just wanted to thank you in the most genuiously unmaicious way ever possibly written. You have introduced me to one of those books that Stephen King stated in "On Writing", that was so terribly written that someone was actually paid for it and he's a professor. But, "A Short Time In Hell" was exhaustively terrible. It made me think, I can write better than that. And you have given me Hope, with a capital "H". Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are awesome!

[@6pades]

so real for the sweater im already in halloween mode

[@ToTheWolves]

Twilight zone made me anxious. But like a lot of things do so idk

[@gladyslucas198]

Do other old, black and white shows also make you anxious? I have a random theory that watching really old shows makes some people feel weird/anxious/uncomfortable.

[@Corncycle]

I read A Short Stay in Hell thanks to this video and loved it, thanks for sharing your reads :) I had to suspend my disbelief a bit about the man who does the computations near the end (I found it hard to believe no one else would even try to estimate what he calculated beforehand) but I found it very unique how scale was approached in the book, both in physical dimension and in time

[@supernanify]

New subscriber here, and I just wanted to say that this is the booktube channel I've been waiting for. Speaks to my soul. Thank you. As for Twilight Zone books, I just read A Tidy Armageddon by BH Panhuyzen - 8 soldiers emerge from a bunker to find that all manufactured items humanity has ever made have been stacked into 9-storey blocks spanning all of North America. Also the people are gone. It's a little too slow-paced but I found it very emotional and thought-provoking, and the premise feels very Twilight Zone to me.

[@zorgus2002]

Thanks for the recs!

[@mhlightable]

One book that reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode was "Special Topics in Calamity Physics"

[@George-rk7ts]

Awesome content, Dr. Angela Always is.

[@TikiTikiRumba]

'Nothing but the Rain' by Naomi Salman has a v Twilight Zone feel - a novella set in a town where the unceasing rain washes away people's memories bit by bit. The ending really packs a punch!

[@juliavixen176]

I like "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" and "Nick of Time".

[@zinger0466]

Best show ever! I actually originally watched it on primetime. If you like the original Twilight Zone. Check out the Outer limits., another classic.

[@sfitzsi]

Enjoyed your Twilight Zone inspired picks! The black and white video really took me back… I found/watched “Nothing in the Dark” on the web. Redford is so gentle in dealing with her fear of the unknown! You might like a couple of Ingmar Bergman films that deal with mortality: The Seventh Seal and Fanny and Alexander.

[@Henderburn2]

I might love this channel more than Angela’s science content

[@jpa5038]

My favorite episode is still "He's Alive." That monologue by the character Ernst is simply put amazing. Also really nice seeing a young Dennis Hopper. "That's what we said, too. They were brown scum. Temporary insanity, part of the passing scene, too monstrous to be real. So, we ignored them or laughed at them. Because we couldn't believe that there were enough insane people to walk alongside of them. And then one morning, the country woke up from an uneasy sleep, and there was no more laughter. The Peter Vollmers had taken over. The wild animals had changed places with us in the cage. But not again. It mustn't happen again. We can't let it. We simply can't let it happen again. All, all that nightmare. Oh, no. No, not this time." There are times I feel like Ernst. I can't wait for November to be over and past.

[@catsupchutney]

Excellent point about Black mirror. I never really noticed until you pointed it out. Serling wrote about human nature, which is a more fundamental concept to explore.

[@Merlandese]

The thing I like about Twilight Zone, old and new, is that it really is a reflection of what people are thinking. It may seem like the older ones are better for whatever reason they resonate, but let's not forget how many of them were "what if the literal Devil showed up," which is not a sort of thought we worry about today. The Literal Devil does not threaten our human soul today the way that social issues and technology do. Great shows, and great book picks!

[@MichaelMarquez-m3b]

I always remember this scene from the movie “Broadcast News”: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jIa6eaRup76antk

[@nyefan]

Another good Twilight Zone book - Permutation City by Greg Egan

[@navicore]

thx for this reminder - best show ever

[@hayden4868]

you mentioned it in passing, but please make a star trek video!! i’d love to hear anything you have to say about it❤️❤️

[@DanLyndon]

You should definitely read Inverted world by Christopher Priest.

[@locklanh]

omg thank you for reminding me about redshirts i bought it a decade ago and forgot to read it

[@GSBarlev]

It's good. Definitely worth reading.

[@losri2947]

The only thing that comes close to OG Twilight Zone is OG Outer Limits

[@isaidpianissimo2475]

Video idea: recently you did a review of despair, and the guy who wrote that wrote another book about a feller named HH and a young gal who toured the US together. Can you do a review of his other more infamous book?

[@DeDraconis]

I feel you so much on wanting to "just watch an episode." I haven't really watching The Twilight Zone but I may give it a try. I only remember one episode that I'm not sure if it was that show or The Outer Limits, but this couple of kids were being chased by Death and tried to hide in this town full of bicentarians+ that never died cause Death didn't know it was there somehow. Won't synopsis the rest.

[@quangobaud]

I'm going to contribute to this conversation by saying one thing ... "Badgey!"

[@Edward-zw9ld]

Great channel.🎉

[@ParanoidMarvin]

So this channel called jeffiot made a video essay about The Moustache (the scariest book I've read). It was so good! They even made a short film enacting the story! Strongly recommend.

[@olletsocse1123]

If you want to keep the purity of the original run, I wouldn’t. The “reboots” are like, cute homages to the original.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

But I would certainly enjoy watching her react to TV shows and saying, “It’s fine” in that slightly annoyed tone.

[@olletsocse1123]

@@MarcosElMalo2 and the drawn out exhale

[@danbongard3226]

As a fan of the original Twilight Zone who is also old enough to have watched the 1985 revival when it aired, I would recommend it. Like the original series, a pretty good percentage of the episodes were based on short stories by science fiction and/or horror writers. The first season in particular is really good. Fun factoid: George R. R. Martin wrote five episodes, back during his "my novels aren't selling, I'll try TV writing instead" phase.

[@chrisofnottingham]

Cancelled series gets me absolutely mad. I'm still not not over Firefly, or the Sarah Conner Chronicles. Both had so much to offer

[@kamiphenonymous2855]

Summer Glau.

[@catmate8358]

If you haven't already, please read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. It was written in 1915 but relates quite disturbingly to our modern life and work environments.

[@oneoftheorder]

If you like books about hell, you should try Iain Banks's "Surface Detail" (as well as his other books in the Culture series which have no narrative relation to hell; they can functionally be read in any order since they are largely episodic from novel to novel). It takes place in a the only depiction of a sci fi utopia that I've encountered which may surpass the Federation (or at least looks like a Federation in a distant future beyond Star Trek). I forgot which channel, but original Twilight Zone used to be marathoned around Thanksgiving on broadcast tv. I usually caught some of those, and I own a few dvds of my favorite episodes.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

I enjoyed his Culture series. A friend passed on a copy of Hydrogen Sonata, which got me started. I think it was his last of the series before he died. Anyway, I enjoyed it the most.

[@MarcosElMalo2]

Yes, the Thanksgiving Marathon. On a back bedroom small TV set at the house of my two maiden great-aunts. It was “the kids’ thing”, after we got bored of the adults but before face-stuffing time.

[@josiahslack8720]

Strongly second the recommendation. I checked through the comments to see if anyone had mentioned it before I had a chance to.

[@coolsenjoyer]

In the game Alan Wake there's this tv show called Night Springs that is pretty much the in-universe equivalent of Twilight Zone. In the first game you can find bunch of TVs that play episodes of it. They're really short but pretty fun and cheesy. The sequel has a DLC that's basically a collection of playable episodes of the show.

[@TypoKnig]

My favorite TZ episode is “A World of His Own”, about a writer. Redshirts is great, and very meta.

[@thegreatzinetar]

Closest show I've seen to 'Twilight Zone' is 'Inside No. 9'

[@MichaelMarquez-m3b]

I’ve never seen the film myself but supposedly “The Vast of Night” has a very Twilight Zone feel to it.

[@KyleMaxwell]

I also grew up watching the old B&W Twilight Zone. Somehow the very first Black Mirror episode gave me such anxiety that I couldn’t watch the rest of it. Also Shirley Jackson often has similar vibes.

[@mccaine1]

There is a novella titled "There is no Antimemetics Division". If you want something that is, IMHO, quintessentially resonant with the core of the "Twilight Zone", I can't think of anything in print (except, maybe, "The Unfortunate Profession of Jonathan Hoag", by Robert Heinlein) that fits the bill.

[@someoldguyinhawaii4960]

There are a number of 80s episodes I really like. My Favorite of all is Her Pilgrim Soul.

[@k-vn-7]

Some of the 80s TZ episodes were great. The trucker who accepts a job hauling mysterious cargo, but finds he's actually carrying souls to hell. The guy stuck between moments, where construction crews are assembling the next moment in time. And one called "Nightcrawlers." Nightmares from Vietnam. I was just old enough to get it and it scared me half to death.

[@Hitaro9]

I have two potential recommendations. China Miéville is a phenomenal writer who practically defines the New Weird genre. His books aren't short but they tap into that incredibly human feeling in strange circumstances vibe. "This Census Taker" is a shorter novella about a boy whose father keeps chucking corpses into an infinitely deep pit. Ted Chiang is super famous for being phenomenal and if you haven't read anything of his you definitely have to. "Hell is the absence of god" for example is a short story about a man whose wife is killed in a old testament style miraculous visitation of an angel. He needs to bring himself to love God so that he can get into heaven and be with his wife again, but yknow, God did kill his wife so there's conflict there

[@nocakewalk]

I actually stopped the video and read A Short Stay in Hell, and OMFG it hit me like a freight train an eternity light years long. 10/10 would get existential crisis again. Please more people read it, I need to discuss it 😅.

[@carlosvergara4132]

The Orville - a sci fi show that's a lot like TNG but for more modern audiences, with more humor thrown into it, and it's episodic! :D

[@MichaelMarquez-m3b]

They made a segment (not full episode) of the 80s TV revival of The Twilight Zone based on Arthur C. Clarke‘s short story “The Star” that I really found interesting.

[@Mj323_bb]

Giving this a thumbs up, but paused near the beginning so I can maybe sample one or more of the three stories with no into beyond the title/author. Twilight Zone: also one of my favorites. They also used to marathon it over Labor Day weekend as an alternative/ and perhaps homage to the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon. it's not necessary to watch any of the reboots, but decent episodes are definitely out there in those seasons. I saw a fraction of them in their original runs and sometimes stumble into a reminder or mention of an episode wandering the internet or youtube, in which case i may hunt down and enjoy a rewatch, but it's pretty optional. If you can get access to Serling's Night Gallery, like on one of those sideband retro broadcast tv stations in your city/area, I would try to (( eventually )) watch all of those. Oh, some are truly =horrible=, but there are a good handful that are every bit as good as the best Twilight Zone's. Usually something written by Serling or Beaumont or Matheson or even Lovecraft. And a small fraction are both super-short and funny, like on-purpose funny. Definitely a bit more horror in this anthology, but often worthy If you'd like to =read= old stories that would have often fit into the original twilight zone (I bet some actually did), look for copies of Judith Merril 's SF: The Year's Greatest Science-Fiction and Fantasy, a series that ran from 1956 to 1968. Most volumes included a summary of the year's science fiction and a list of honorable mentions. The average quality is =very= high with many true classics represented. Five or ten of my all time favorite short works are in these volumes, and I've never found a better edited similar series. You will never go wrong buying a used copy of one of this series. Links to table of contents can be found in the wonderful Internet Speculative Fiction Database at isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?8316

[@jpsenna3091]

"Blindness" by Jose Saramago ticks the T-zone box and round the world (Portugal). The style of writing is (intentionally) a bit disorienting, but an interesting read. My favorite episode was "A Nice Place to Visit" that ending made the blood run cold through my ten year old veins.

[@juliavixen176]

As a little kid, I saw the 1980's Twilight Zone, and because I didn't understand some parts of a story, my misinterpritations were much scarier than what the story actually was.

[@FLM-nn8ms]

If you want to watch something which nails that Twilight Zone vibe, I heartily recommend the 2019 film The Vast of Night. A haunting sci-fi horror drama set in the 1950s.

[@JAM35137099]

You should check out The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories compiled by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer, which is basically a collection of Weird (capital W) short stories and is like a compendium of twilight zone episodes. Some have even been adapted to Twilight Zone episodes maybe? I may have made that up. Anyway the genre and the compendium is A*; well worth checking out. A personal highlight worth looking into is The Window - Bob Leman.

[@Tychoxi]

someone edited the original planet of the apes movie as a twilight zone episode and it's great

[@Chewxy]

La Moustache is a nice short movie on Prime Videos too :)

[@hellaradusername]

It's a Creepypasta, but Radio Silence. It's a very short story about getting a response to the messages we've been beaming into space from just 20 light years away. (spoilers below) "Be quiet or they will hear you"

[@brossjackson]

Some other books that have a Twilight Zone vibe: There's a lot of TZ paranoia and reality blurring in Philip K Dick's books, and something like "Time Out of Joint" or "Flow my tears, the Policeman said" is probably something of a sweet spot for TZ vibes without going completely surreal (something like Ubik or The Three Stigmata of Palmer K Eldritch may be too over the top for proper TZ vibes, though they're really cool). I'd also recommend "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula LeGuin (I'd recommend anything by LeGuin just on principle, but Lathe of Heaven specifically for the TZ aspects) You get a bit of a postmodern TZ vibe in some of Jonathan Lethem's books, like "As She Climbed Across the Table" (I think you'd enjoy it whether or not it scratches the TZ itch).

[@RicardoGutierrez-co9mh]

I recommend STORIES OF YOUR LIFE by Ted Chiang, a collection of wonderful short stories that I think you will enjoy like the TWILIGHT ZONE short stories. The story “The Story of Your Life” was adapted to the big screen as the movie ARRIVAL, the one about the 7-legged aliens that write in circles. Any how, I loved the movie and loved the stories and I think you will too.

[@breakalockerman]

The twilight zone is spooky bro

[@friend_trilobot]

The book I've read that comes closest to a twilight zone vibe is probably Lathe of Heaven by Le Guin, but its way longer and more variagrated. A TZ episode about it would be possible but much more streamlined. For those interested [spoilers]... Its about a guy who can change reality with his dreams, but he doesn't want to bc he has blipped people out of existence through it and takes drugs to avoid sleeping/ sleep without dreaming. But he gets caught and sent to a therapist who finds out he actually can change reality and then the therapist uses hypnosis to make him dream specific things to actively change reality. The scariest part is the Therapist ostensibly wants to make the world a better place but just makes everything worse despite his best efforts, bc the problems are too complex, his perspective is too limited/ he's self- centered and has character flaws, and/or the fact the he has to go through another person's mind to do it so its imprecise or sideswiped by the subconscious. But i think it's a very powerful message about why giving 1 person too much power is bad, or at least bound to be ineffective, even if they have good intentions. The world is too complex, you must work with our through other humans with human tendencies, and we alone are too limited

[@ShakyVertex]

these were great suggestions. ive read redshirts already and loved it and his newer book, starter villain as well. some more books that remind me of twilight zone episodes are a lot of phillip k dicks works. 'time out of joint' and 'flow my tears the policeman said' specifically feel like classic ttz stories to me. three stigmata also to an extent but maybe that lacks any morality lesson and is more of a psychedelic trip report. anyway, thanks for the video! enjoyed it!

[@willstack6188]

TZ & TOS had great writers…..like Iain Banks…..try Inversions ! ❤ your podcast 😊

[@Lexivor]

I liked the 1980s Twilight Zone when I was a kid, but I haven't watched it recently so I don't know if it holds up. It's amusing to me that you didn't mention the 2002 TZ revival, people seem to have forgotten that version completely.

[@david51987x]

Try Ted Chiang's short story 'Other People' for a very personal Hell with a bit of a Twilight Zone vibe.

[@TheBookclectic]

I loved all your comments. You have the opinion of a 40+ year old person. You don't look anywhere near 40. You're a good girl. I like you! ❤

[@aarond0623]

I would recommend "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K. Le Guin for a Twilight Zone type story.

[@MichaelMarquez-m3b]

It has nothing to do with scifi or fantasy but if you really like Rod Serling there is a really good movie titled “Patterns” he wrote the screenplay for that takes place in a business environment. It was one of the influences on Mad Men.

[@therocinante3443]

My favorite episode ever is, "The Midnight Sun."

[@davidgould3297]

Reading Around The World is a very good idea for videos.

[@romankosarev7440]

My recommendation is "I'm thinking about ending things", Netflix movie and the book. Book is very short and spooky, film is very long and spooky as well

[@olletsocse1123]

Also would you do your top 10 Discworld books?

[@rdhill316]

So speaking of books that are like Twilight Zone, a few years ago I found out that some episodes were based on short stories published in various Sci-Fi pulp magazines. So I went on eBay & Abe Books & I'm slowly building a collection of the old Sci-Fi magazines that featured stories that later inspired Twilight Zone episodes.