TEN science fiction books to read in 2025?

[@LoveFactoryParties]

this is the coolest bloody channel i've ever followed. Happy 2025 mate thanks for the brilliant content you consistently put out

[@nunofernandes4501]

I hope you've had a Skibidi Rizzmas and wish you a Very Sigma 2025.

[@Kim_Miller]

I read Zamyatin's We early this year (the more recent Mirra Ginsberg translation) and loved it. It's hard to think that it is more than one hundred years old. And am looking forward to The Electric State - Stålenhag is another kind of magic. Also, you've put a few more on my TBR. I'm up to 89 so far this year - youtube seems to think I've got nothing else to do all day but sit around reading books.

[@soaringbumnm8374]

I respected King as a writer because he described reading his books as the equivalent of eating a bigmac and large fries.

[@Siderite]

yes! The antimemetics book was my favorite of the year!

[@VorosMedve]

Damo has finally succumb to the almighty algorithm and produced a cat video!!

[@Amadeus451]

It'd be cool to see a collaboration episode with MediaDeathCult on The Dispossesed and Ursula's work overall. Would be pretty cool, just sayin'...

[@georgesdelatour]

I loved reading There Is No Antimemetics Division.

[@TheChronozoan]

Your video on The Culture is what hooked me on your voice and mind.

[@EnemyOfEldar]

Hot damn I love your channel Damo. You will make this channel big, i can feel it in my bones. Or as reasonably big as a community of deep sci-fi consumers can be. Ive fallen off the wagon of reading this year so am getting back into it with trashy Halo books (which i got for Christmas). I dont think there is anything symbolically special in Halo though. Accept maybe its part of whatever evolution of sci-fi Alien, Starship Troopers and more recently Helldivers represents. Its a vision of sci-fi opposed to say, Star Trek and Mass Effect. But the main difference i see between sci-fi things is "design language". Like how do the characters interface with their world. Your channel, ever since you were on Rebel Wisdom (blast of the the past eh?), has opened the mind to the hidden conceptual depths of Sci-fi. Your Andor analysis blew me socks off i was "wow, didnt know star wars had it in it to be so deep". Always looking forward to collaborations you have with Vervaeke, who i think youre in the same group of philosopher. Please do more collab with philosophy nerds on the Sci-fi/philosophy is my hope for the year. All the best Damo.

[@GuitarUniverse2013]

I listened to the audiobook version of, ‘ all the light we cannot see’ and loved it a lot until I didn’t. I didn’t even realize that it had been a four series miniseries on Netflix, but the concept that the military wanted to discover if people from completely different times in the world could actually live together without completely going crazy, not to mention the off mentioned trope that they would destroy the world was a welcome change of pace for me. One of the odd things in the book was as time progressed one of our time travelers eventually became completely invisible to the ever increasing security cameras in and around London. It was a great idea, but one huge flaw was there was absolutely zero explanation of any hard science behind who would come up with the idea on bringing five or six different people from deeply, wildly, different errors into one time slice was never even broached. It kind of made the whole thing a little bit like the grade school, “ if you could pick any superpower, would you be invisible or would you rather be able to travel the speed of light. Of course everybody wants to be invisible so they can go into the girls gym locker, or what have you. I’m glad I found this channel as I have said and I will continue to support the best I can

[@thomascromwell6840]

You make everything so interesting. I often find other sci-fi reviewers to be lacking and to be mainly peddling surface level tropes. They and I can learn a lot from you. Have a happy new year's eve btw.

[@simonaustin5659]

Happy New Year Damo. Could the antidote to the up and coming movie, Electric State, be another Stalenhag adaptation, The Loop. In my opinion the whole series had it’s very profound passages and it was well worth a couple more revisits? Also I was hoping that you’d mention Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven and/or The Dispossessed for purely capitalist/marxist critique (as Le Guin was a self confessed anarchist), but I suppose I can’t always get what I want! Thank you for the recommendations 🎉

[@DamienWalter]

I think the ES movie looks promising. Visually if not tonally faithful.

[@SpiderMonkeyElf]

The cat interlude was brilliant

[@RedRosa]

Happy New Year!

[@athanatic]

I suggest we _might_ be in Heinlein's "Crazy Years" which he put 10 years earlier, but quite similar!

[@DamienWalter]

What did RAH say about them?

[@MrJudeWanamaker]

What country do you live in it? Looks tropical

[@AscensionGuitar]

Halfway throygh lake of darkness since recommended by you excellent work definitely reminds me of Iain m banks work a bit

[@exhaustpipes]

Sweet Scifi of Mine

[@EnemyOfEldar]

Ah now I get it. That was awesome in the background.

[@garibaldi9528]

And don't forget my book when its published! 'The Lords of History Volume 1' 🙂

[@taliesinian]

happy 2025, may we survive it.

[@rifz42]

There Is No Antimemetics Division. also the low budget youtube mini-series is good!

[@hjs9td]

With a faux version of Ten Years After's "I'd Love To Change The World" honking in the background, when all you've got is a Hammer and Sickle, everything looks like a nail and sheaf.

[@Tenebra98]

I have read Frankestein some time ago. I have also read Mary Shelley's The Last Man. As for Varoufakis, I despise that man and his party. He destroyed what was left of the Greek economy with his capital controls. We could not buy anything from outside Greece. I had to get my bf's brother to send me money on paypal to be able to pay for some subs. Varoufakis is in it for the money, and nothing else. I wouldn't be surprised if he used a ghost writer to write his "visions".

[@heblanchard]

Observations (1) the cat seems summarily unimpressed with the future, 2025, and humans - as it should be, and (2) great chuckle: 'no video clips no music' followed immediately by a video clip and music - you got me fair and square there, my cat wondered why I was laughing (3) Lake of Darkness was great (I actually ordered it from the UK to ensure I could read it asap - no regrets) however, it was an effort to actively suppress envisioning the final scene from Disney's The Black Hole whenever I read it (you'll see what I mean).

[@RagnarDollabill]

Love the Sweet Child of Mine background

[@UnclePengy]

They did a short film series on "There is no antimemetics division"... pretty creepy.

[@GuitarUniverse2013]

When we meet the aliens, they, no doubt, we’ll have Science Fiction too. That is the most awesome and scariest idea I’ve ever heard of that I’ve never thought of…! The only thing that’s ever come close to that is when I was joking around my friends in seventh grade Talking about how gross the aliens were and then my friends and I started ragging on each other about, “what about the way we look don’t you think we’ll scare the shit out of some alien?” and although that’s not exactly the same that idea definitely lives within. The realm of aliens will have science fiction, which means that they will imagine many different kinds of cultures and societies and we might just be as scary to them as they are to us.

[@dimitriskai261]

Commenting for algo's sake! Also, interesting suggestions. I may follow up on them.

[@HobieH3]

Where the eff is my jetpack?!?

[@williansatencio-rn1hl]

The smartest booktube video i ever watched 😂

[@crafterman_3867]

bro why the crotte is there skibidi toilet, THIS IS AWESOME

[@Arwir]

Am I crazy or is that a piano rendition of Sweet Child of Mine?

[@DamienWalter]

Not crazy

[@holyfreak86]

Antimemetics? Can't found it

[@DamienWalter]

There Is No Antimemetics Division

[@holyfreak86]

@DamienWalter ?

[@DamienWalter]

@@holyfreak86 ?

[@albydaniels]

@@DamienWalter there is no book called there is no antimemetics division, ok

[@DamienWalter]

@@albydaniels You don't know that yet

[@danguillou713]

Having read Frankenstein I will tell anyone who'll listen that it's not worth it. It's awfully overwritten, loaded down with purple prose and dated shallow moralisms. If you need to get a summary for some reason, go watch OverlySarcasticProductions illustrated version, much more enjoyable than rawdogging the full experience. If you do want to actually read gothic fiction, pick up a copy of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by the superb craftsman Robert Lewis Stevenson. Or just re-read Dracula. I'm happy to see a shoutout to fellow swede Simon Stålenhag and his mindblowing work. (Aside: the å isn't an ah-sound, it's pronounced something like more or all. Perhaps "Stallenhag" rather than "Stahlenhag".) Cheers

[@DamienWalter]

Rarely does anyone so determinedly declare their own poor reading skills.

[@danguillou713]

@@DamienWalter Frankenstein is written by a teenager noob. It's a couple of interesting ideas heavily handicapped by the lack of skill of the writer. That's a hill I'm ready to die on. I know it's not the conventional view, but go and re-read it yourself and then tell me I'm wrong again.

[@naftalibendavid]

Inspiring!

[@Alfador42]

I only watched for the action packed movie clips

[@tiago2012]

Cool tailand pants, where do you live bro ?

[@devenscience8894]

If I remember correctly, he lives in Bali.

[@KoreMike13]

Yanis Varoufakis is more of a tankie / fascist fellow traveller than a socialist

[@DamienWalter]

All subsets of socialist

[@RedRosa]

Right now he is, but I wouldn't totally dismiss him (yet). He has a deep heterodox understand of economics and finance and at least tries to think toward the future. In a recent interview, it seems as though he has come around on the global authoritarian threat from China et al.

[@KoreMike13]

@RedRosa can you point me to the interview? Up to now I've only heard him talk like a Kremlin mouthpiece. It would have to be a pretty big flip if he was now pro-NATO and Ukraine

[@RedRosa]

@@KoreMike13 So, I was responding in the context of a recent interview he did with Zizek. I had been ignoring him since after the invasion of Ukraine for the reason you stated. I just reviewed some of his recent writings and, unfortunately, not much has changed in that regard. I will discontinue recommending him until something changes.

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

Hey, enjoy. 💪😎✌️ 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ "Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge; hope's strength resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again." 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ --Diamond Dragons (series)

[@shlockofgod]

These sci-fi stories just address straw-men of capitalism. They are all fundamentally about the state / government. Capitalism is just the scapegoat.

[@SpiderMonkeyElf]

“Real capitalism has never been tried, just wait!”

[@shlockofgod]

@@SpiderMonkeyElf It's been tried. It's the reason we live in fantastic abundance and hunger no longer exists. The state and socialism are parasites on it.

[@troydavis1]

@@SpiderMonkeyElf😂😂😂😂😂. Same with real communism of course !! 😊

[@SpiderMonkeyElf]

@@troydavis1 glad you got the reference ;)

[@jnnx]

Keep tellin’ yourself dat, SON!

[@pauljazzman408]

Great video as ever. Loved that you started your list with Adam Roberts 'Lake of Darkness'. I've read the hardback, listened to the Audiobook and met Adam at a sci fi writers weekend. Lake of Darkness is sort of Adam's answer to Ian M Banks culture novels. Loved your podcast with him too. 'Evil as a Virus' that's great. I must also read the other books on your list too. I'd fallen out of love with socialism, but I don't love the worst excesses of capitalism or the alt right. Maybe I can get back to socialism through sci fi, and Yanis. Have you watched 'You are not left wing' by Andres Acevedo aka 'The Market exit'?

[@DamienWalter]

I have not. It's true, I'm not left wing! But it is the current direction of research.

[@DamienWalter]

oh I did see it, I like his channel

[@mtnimt4724]

The Nerf gun your home defense? Or your guard cats?