My Science Fiction & Fantasy Books: What's Worth Keeping?

If you would like to see in-depth reviews of single books, where I am able to share my thoughts in greater detail and care less about KZbin content restrictions, please visit my Patreon. $5 gets you everything.
/ bookpilled
Join my Discord server:
/ discord
Follow me on Instagram:
@book.pilled
My other KZbin channel, about reselling things online:
/ thriftalife

[@Bookpilled]

The Whatnot auction will be tomorrow, Wednesday the 19th, at 6pm Pacific. If you're a new Whatnot user, this link will give you a free $15 credit: whatnot.com/invite/thriftalife If you're already a user, here's the direct link: www.whatnot.com/live/a4b279d0-b182-478d-9d9e-0d7beb92e518

[@OLJeffo]

Barlowe's Guide is definitely a powerful gateway drug for readers in my generation. I'm still ticking off these books when I can -- I finally read Mission of Gravity last year, hoping to read Vance soon.

[@slygore]

I loved Engine Summer.

[@deadcowaroma5787]

Can you give us a warning when you’re about to disassemble the Sci-fireplace so we can properly brace ourselves for the flood of emotions? Please?

[@Parker307]

I would be reluctant to get rid of my Sibley guide to but I find myself using the app much much more. So maybe some future purge it will go. The addition of the element of audio in the app overrides the smaller images, plus the phone is lighter too.

[@bjammin187]

You definitely need to at least try Life During Wartime by Lucius Shephard, so I’m glad you kept it. Had a huge impact on me in my early 20’s, the writing style is quite astonishingly lush and literary. Just don’t ask me about the plot ( unclear) or the books meaning (still unclear). Greatly regret now giving away my copy. So if you hate it and do want to sell, let me know, I’ll pay double :)

[@joncarroll2040]

That Changeling is a decent Zelazny and if I'm not mistaken it looks like the illustrated edition by Esteban Marotto which is brilliant.

[@TheSharkPadlock]

Anyone keep a list of all these that he mentions in his keep/get rid of videos? He has mentioned 8 in less than one minute. I'd love to have a list of this stuff, but I cannot keep up! lol

[@b.a.7228]

Dun-sane-ee. FOURTH MANSIONS is based, in part, on Christian mystic Teresa of Ávila's INTERIOR CASTLES. Oh, that Jack Vance is gorgeous. James Morrow is great. ENGINE SUMMER is great. The Herzog is great. NATIVE TONGUE is good. Swanwick is great. Love the Yates.

[@winstonschwarz1636]

I read Against Nature recently. Huysmans best book is La Bas however.

[@awldune]

Ringworld has a lot of interesting ideas, most importantly the ringworld itself (ever heard of a game called Halo?). But the story, characters, etc are not Niven's best and those things are his weak point to begin with. IMO his best solo work is his short stories.

[@codycoudray9751]

Unimportant, but where is that shirt from?? I like it.

[@yelisieimurai]

Schizmatrix plus is a good book.

[@vmiximv]

thnx Bookpilled

[@simonquinn5583]

thoughts on Demon Princes??

[@Bookpilled]

Haven't read it yet

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

You and I are so on the same page with much of your general fiction: 'The Jungle' is such an important book, agreed. Hamsun, Fante, Bukowski, Orwell (have you read 'Coming Up For Air'? If not, read it before re-reads of 'Animal Farm' and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' as they are a thematic trilogy - I love 'Aspidistra' too, but then Comstock works in a bookshop), good to see Dazai being read these days, Ellis all great stuff.... I used to like Miller a lot but I've ditched most of the books I ever owned by him (I read at least fifteen of them), Nin I can't get on with either, there's a clinical coldness there that I find distasteful. I met Knausgaard once, hell of a nice guy, incredibly imposing physically, he's an ice-blue eyed Nordic giant, kept expecting him to produce a broadsword and cleave someone in twain from shoulder to thigh in once sweep in the classic anti-heroic fantasy mode. Had a great time discussing obscure Scandi fiction with him. That Russ is uncommon even in the UK, where it was issued. Yarbro? I love her, have read around forty of her books, one of my idols. Keep on selling...

[@Bookpilled]

I have read Coming Up for Air, yes. I found a great little paperback copy at a thrift store a while ago before I'd ever heard of it. A great book but read early and I remember it only in outline. I have yet to actually read Knausgaard. He's the final stop on my "dreary literary machos" tour.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

@@Bookpilled -He's OK, but not front rank I'd say, but I had fun talking to him about Hamsun et al. The moments in 'Coming' that prefigure the later books are really striking, I feel and I love the Wells homage he does- describing a retail outlet in the Edwardian period reminded me of 'Kipps' and 'The History of Mr Polly' and I'm convinced Barrington J Bayley got the idea of 'The Garments of Caean' from the tailoring bits in the former. Keep on keeping on, my friend.

[@ajaxplunkett5115]

Reconsider Van Vogt's Space Beagle - part inspiration for the film Alien ( 1979 ) and the D&D monster the Displacer Beast!!!

[@vortimer2351]

The Barlowe seems to be unearthing a completely forgotten childhood memory for me - I think I might have read it alongside the Terran Trade Authority Handbooks.

[@slygore]

I got a book club edition. I read many of the books referred to in it as a result. He had another book I didn't like as much. I took it out from my library many times as a boy

[@holydissolution85]

Maske Thaery" is one of the best Vance books...it's only at the beggining that it might be infodumpy & confusing ( but it was perfect to me )... Don't sell Zindell's Neverness & Wolfe's Latro / Soldier books.....

[@chrisw6164]

I didn’t love A Princess of Mars, but when I read it my headspace wasn’t great AND I didn’t know it was Burroughs first book. So I am required to circle back and try Burroughs again.

[@tectorgorch8698]

Yup, I've started Tropic of Cancer three or four times, never get past p. 15 or 20. Same experience with a few other Millers.

[@akiyrjana6558]

Of all the world here is a Finnish musician and a writer who knows many of your throwaways. Good books, good world! I love scifi, but Miller's Tropics were one my initiatory in books about modernism and then kind a of poetry of sexuality. Not a genius in letters Miller is one of the great mnemoniacks of western bookery. His stories about remembered ghosts of genitalia seen and tasted is a genus of poetry in itself. (Love that you are keeping the Severian tetralogy. My favorite series of all time. And I hate it too.) And Cyberiad! The best. Depending upon the geniousity of the translator.

[@annoyingmorlock]

I'm curious how you like Crowley's "Engine Summer", what you think of it. And of course Mann's" Paxwax" - I liked it. (He was from the UK, lived in New Zealand since 1969 and died there september 2022)

[@Caliburnius]

"Willard" is the movie from Ratman's Notebooks.

[@routex1]

A lot of nice covers

[@noahmatuszewski8085]

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials was a great source for finding SF to read when I was in my early teens! Truly a wonderful book!

[@elliotwalton6159]

I took a screen shot of the Art of Memory. Sounds like necessary reading, if not memorizing.

[@bookjack]

I read a short story by Lucius Shepard not long ago called Salvador. It was grisly, haunting Vietnam inspired stuff. That book looks to be about the same. Would recommend if you have the capacity for a downer

[@ralphmarrone3130]

Engine Summer is one of my favorite novels. I read it when it was published way back when and I still think about it. Just a beautiful book. Rush That Speaks is one of my favorite characters of all time.

[@rickkearn7100]

This was like watching speed-chess! Fastest run-through of a big pile of SF books ever, I'm sure of it, BP. Well done. Hardest trick is keeping the triage going! Cheers.

[@pjm9568]

So funny that you have Space Relations. I remember learning about that book in the summer of 2019 (three guesses why) and when I read what it was about I was like "Oh come ON!"

[@thaichichaitea7956]

Oh dang I had that barlowes illustrations book when i was a kid and had no idea what a treasure I had.

[@the_purple_mage]

I am sometimes surprised at how famous Naked Lunch is compared to Cities of the Red Night which is (imho) a far superior book in both style and substance. Consider giving it a try before giving up on Naked Lunch!

[@ajaxplunkett5115]

Dont sell the Satyricon hardcover !!! - tongue and cheek a bit but that's the "book" moral dilemma : to keep or not to keep books in the public domain ? Easy to find - ro read , yet that individual book is beautiful.

[@WordsinTime]

If you’ve read it, what did you think of Doomsday Book? I own a copy but haven’t read it yet.

[@Bookpilled]

Haven't read it yet. I hear mixed things.

[@grene1955]

The Man In The Maze is one of my favorite SF books ever...would make an incredible movie!

[@thesci-fished]

I agree with you, it's been one of my favourites for a very long time as well

[@sandyhausler5290]

Thank God, you kept Zelazny’s This Immortal. You’re selling/have sold all your other Zelaznys!

[@camillagilmore1547]

Naked Lunch is not a great book to get into Burrows with. I'd recommend reading Junk and then And The Hippos Boiled in their Bathtubs, which he wrote with Kerouac and then going back to Naked Lunch.

[@Parker307]

Are you going to do a video where you load up the kindle/ereader? Or show what you have loaded up on it to read in the near ish term

[@thescrewfly]

For future reference, despite writing in French, Huysmans is originally a Dutch name and the "huys" part is therefore pronounced more or less (not quite) like house. It's actually the Dutch word for house ("huis" is the modern spelling).

[@Bookpilled]

Houseman it is

[@Scottlp2]

Doorways in The Sand by Zelazny was an SF comedy. Great fun but unsure if the silliness would work for today's audience.

[@donaldb1]

7:22 "The same artwork..." From _The Casle of the Pyrenees_ by Rene Magritte.

[@ajaxplunkett5115]

glad you kept E.R. Eddison -

[@peterpuleo2904]

"The Worm O..." is very difficult to read.

[@ajaxplunkett5115]

@@peterpuleo2904 it is in Edwardian english but i bought into it once the narrator is abandoned and becomes an early Secondary World fantasy. The scene with the Manticore is awesome.