(' Tier D' )Reacting to Your Science Fiction List of Shame in detail

[@vintagesf]

This feels like the condensed version of a few years of KZbin recommendations and 40 years of book selling. Valuable! This video identifies the essential SF authors and some of their works. Look forward to your further adventures and recommendations! Be well!

[@SciFiFinds]

Many notes were taken from this video, with some of the authors appearing in the Pringle list I'm reading through. I aim to keep digging!

[@erikpaterson1404]

Wonderful insights. Thanks you

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Many thanlks, very kind!

[@mike-williams]

George Turner's first SF novels appeared in his early 60s, but he had a great reputation in "literary" fiction for three decades prior, plus writing SF criticism. I quite enjoyed those SF novels I encountered, maybe half of his output thus. I think I have a few hardbacks floating around in my TBR shelves.

[@salty-walt]

Oh Boy! Breakfast w/the Bookseller!

[@themojocorpse1290]

I like it when you just let it flow marvellous memory my man , I shall check out Angela Carter and CL Moore cheers. Steve

[@TakaTakaMuTaka]

Stephen, you’re doing such a service to future generations of SF readers by imparting your rich wealth of knowledge for all eternity on the interwebs!

[@chocolatemonk]

Good morning from across the pond. I got to watch about 10 mins before I must hit the road. I promise to be back!!!

[@thekeywitness]

I had to laugh when you mentioned my comment first. There were a lot of other authors mentioned by other people that I haven’t read as well, but I’m happy to say that a lot of the lesser known authors mentioned (Shepard, Shaw, et al) I HAVE read due to this channel. Thanks again!

[@Realhuntedmusic]

Outlaw RocknRoll calling Outlaw Bookseller ..thanks for your knowledge and recommendations my TBR list has gone into overdrive like you would not believe folks 😅♥️👊🏼

[@rickkearn7100]

Your comment saying, essentially, that SF is on its deathbed, about to have its head chopped off is a very sobering one. All the more so because of who made the comment! I figure that if Stephen E. Andrews is of that opinion then I might as well cling to my first SF loves from the 50's, 60's and 70's and forego the lost time exploring contemporary authors, especially SFF which, in my limited excursions into the realm of contemporary authors in that genre have been at the least unrewarding and at worst, an unforgiveable waste of time. Once again, OB, you have bolstered my preference for SF and mostly of the classic variety. That said, thanks for another fine episode, your riffing is beyond the pale in its scope and detail and riveting. I don't spend an hour of my life on any given day watching a YT channel unless it's beyond the pale in its scope and detail and is riveting. There it is, shameless patronizing accomplished. Cheers!

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING: If you are responding to my post about overrated SF authors, please make this clear in any comments you make here. Thanks everyone!

[@LiminalSpaces03]

I saw the announcements for this list of shame experiment and I actually tried to comment a few times, but ended up erasing them. I've been a reader most of my life, but I'm relatively new to the SF scene, so my list of shame is very long! I will say, I did read Wyndham and I'm so glad I did! So that's checked off the list of shame! I'll get your email from Richard and drop you a line next week! Been watching your channel for a long time, looking forward to chatting!

[@TauZeroSF]

Oh! A book spinner is just a website like Wheel of Names. I put all my SF books into the list and it will randomly select the next book I read. I got the idea from Matt at Bookpilled. Cheers from Alberta, Canada!

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Oh yeah, I recall him using that now...

[@TriangularPrismEssays]

Another great video. As much as I would like to see that "novella" happen, I hope the channel doesn't change much, because it is a marvel. Thanks for the knowledge and recommendations. (P.S. Commented other times as MAatwork, but abandoning that channel and moving on to 2 new ones. Cheers)

[@robertmicallef9732]

I haven’t enjoyed many by Brian Stableford but his novel, The Walking Shadows is brilliant. Im still stunped by the last page. And as a side note i was told Barrington Bayley inspired his depiction of evolution. Watson is also beilliant Miracle Visitors and Jonah Kit ate brilliant

[@robertmicallef9732]

Frontera is a perennial favorite, ive read it multiple times

[@kufujitsu]

I've got an old tattered copy of The Walking Shadows. Looking forward to reading it soon. & Ian Watson's books tend to be enjoyable at the very least - even his lesser books are packed with surprises...

[@jawnsushi]

I don't think I'm intelligent enough to understand everything you discuss or to put into words why I like the books i do, but I enjoy watching your videos, especially because i seem to find myself agreeing with your opinions regarding popular modern scifi. Plus, you discuss authors and books that aren't the same 10-20 that most people seem to recommend. (Most of which i find i dislike) Have you ever discussed A Fire Upon the Deep? I liked the background ideas it builds on and have been looking for something that scratches that kind of itch.

[@_wookie_]

Thanks for wading through my over-long TBR list 😅 I started on Fury the other day-early days but I'm enjoying it so far-so I'll have until I'm done with that to decide whether to go with the Carter, Shaw, Ballard, or MacLeod next (leaning toward Carter as she's the only one of those I've read nothing from). I was thinking I'd tackle Adam Roberts chronologically, but I have been tempted by his more recent work so might just go for it now. Incidentally, I read Frontera earlier in the year and absolutely loved it - would make a great movie.

[@TauZeroSF]

Thanks for bringing up the one issue I have with the SF masterworks: the typeset! I’m so used to a “house style” coming from academia by reading Penguin, modern library, and Oxford World Classics. The changes from book to book threw me for a real loop!

[@waltera13]

Remember, Gollancz is is bad people, and they don't care if they make you feel bad. (Well, I understand Victor was OK, but he's not there anymore. . . ) They think they can buy your souls for pale yellow spines, and they seen to be mostly right.

[@goatman3358]

Thanks Steve, it was great to hear your replies to everyone (i put some more books onto the tbr/list of shame) :)

[@ingridfitz5677]

I will remedy my lack of reading Le Guin ASAP! this was fun to hear your thoughts on our confessions. 🤗

[@waltera13]

Since Covid I found that I *really* like her essays.

[@OmnivorousReader]

So true! I really cannot binge read anymore... I need to diversify or I get really annoyed and grumbly about an author/series. Not a single person mentions the Australians; Eaton, or Max Barry or Terry Dowling.... they should be.... Um, is it a accent thing? K. W. Jeeta - there is an SF author called Jeeta/Geeta? Google is not helping it keeps showing me the Bhagavad Gita (an awesome SF/mythology yarn, but not what I think you are talking about)?

[@AJBell-dh6ry]

I really like The Shockwave Rider. I think it's somewhat uneven, perhaps. But I love that Brunner is really going for it, during his BIg 4 period. He's blasting off, he's coloring outside the lines; readers and critics be damned.

[@kufujitsu]

Your take on K. W. Jeter is spot on. I've read five of his horror novels -: Mantis, In the Land of the Dead, Soul Eater, Dark Seeker, & The Night Man - & all of them hit the mark. & I still have three of his SF novels which I haven't read for some reason -: Dr. Adder, Infernal Devices, & Morlock Night - which is probably a sequel to The Time Machine. It's a shame that he has virtually stopped writing original novels, so that he could focus on mass producing those franchise novels..... & sadly, I have never read anything by Eric Brown. But his books look like the type of SF that I like to read - I'll have to check him out. Thnx.

[@vilstef6988]

An early Brunner like a lot is The Whole Man.

[@thomasp6034]

There was a very strange film that came out in 2020 based loosely on Olaf Stapleton's Last and First Men. Basically it's just narration (by Tilda Swinton!) combined with bizarre industrial sculptures. I liked it, it's eerie and totally different, and not too long at just one hour. I don't think I could deal with a full novel of Stapleton's philosophizing.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Yes, have a copy, striking work.

[@waltera13]

I rather liked it

[@zkinak2107]

I’ve wondered about Lewis Spiner’s Fronterra for some time! It’s gotten zero coverage up until this video (unless I missed you covering Spiner before). Two years ago, one of the professors at my university retired and decided to give away a lot of his SF collection. I ended up picking up Fronterra off a whim from his collection based off its premise.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

I mentioned it in one of my 'Top 10' videos a good while back and a fewe times since, I'm always passionate about it.

[@ralphmarrone3130]

I’m a big fan of James Tiptree. My favorite story of hers is A Momentary Taste of Being. I read it many years ago in her anthology called Starsongs of an Old Primate. I still have that old paperback.

[@thomasp6034]

I wondered what you thought of Orbital, the Booker prize winner? Worth reading?

[@deeebeee1758]

I liked this video. It made you seem available and gave a sense of having a chat with you. Next to having us all over to your place in Bath I think this is a good format. I wrote of my disappointment with Joe Abercrombie. I have come back to science fiction and fantasy after a very long time away and was hoping to discover some new things. I read a lot of fantasy in particular in my youth, and catching up with that has been a mixed bag. On the one hand I loved the Black Company series by Glen Cook, whose focus is narrowly on the ground level characters and whose prose is terse and direct. I have also really enjoyed George RR Martin, who writes like a Victorian with wit and discipline. This First Law thing though, what a sloppy, over larded mess. People always mention the characters, but they are so overwritten they are a bore to me, there is no discovery, no sense of ambiguity, we know literally every thought Glokta has and none of them are particularly penetrating. I think a good writer or a good editor would have turned out a decent pair of books of around 300 pages each, but at 1600 or 1700 pages, this is just a mess. The entire first volume could have been a chapter! All I am asking, Outlaw, is this. Is there a good fantasy novel written after 1985 that I might dig, given that I have read and loved and gone back to Moorcock and Brackett and Burroughs and Howard and Leiber et al, over and over, or should I just stick to the old crew?

[@marsrock316]

For me, the pinnacle of fantasy is the main ten Malazan books by Steven Erikson, starting with Gardens of the Moon. There's plenty of discovery, while still leaving some mystery; there's plenty of ambiguity because Erikson does not handhold you.

[@deeebeee1758]

@@marsrock316 That's in my TBR pile for 2025. Thank-you - that's good to know.

[@_wookie_]

If you're moving over to more SF anyway then M John Harrison's 'Science-Fantasy' Viriconium' books are worth a look, and you may like Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun'. China Mieville's 'Bas Lag' books are fun (although if brevity is important maybe start with 'The Scar'), Susanah Clarke's work too (Piranesi is nice and short). For more straight-up Fantasy I enjoyed The Library Ladder's videos on Guy Gavriel Kay (kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqKwdp6lac2dpKM) and Tad Williams (kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3i2n4J_nNOqn9E).

[@deeebeee1758]

@@_wookie_ Awesome. Thank-you. Wolfe is already on my 2025 TBR pile, and I have read some Miellville. I'll look into the others.

[@broken1394]

Great instalment! Have you thought/tried getting an interview with Silverberg? Do you think if WSB had met PKD they would have talked about anything aside from cats?? Have a great weekend, everyone.

[@shannonm.townsend1232]

That is an excellent question :-)

[@dodahedron]

Who is WSB?

[@MichaelM-ev9ek]

If I may add one author: Greg Egan's short stories are superb and address very interesting scientific speculations. I am still surprised how the sf booktubers who I'm watching seem to ignore him.

[@louishenderson4516]

47:52 ouch 😂

[@psychonaut56]

I read Frontera based on your recc from an earlier video...great book.

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

Glad you liked it. Great stuff, right?

[@quantok]

Don't confuse the M.A. Foster who wrote "Gameplayers of Zan" with the contemporary female writer of soft erotica! And that's the book to start with in the Ler (new humans) trilogy. A 100-year experiment in forced evolution produces a new species of human. The scientists hoped for supermen; what they got were a few thousand new humans who turned away from tech toward a simple crofter existence in a small nature reserve. The only anachronism is the strange 'game of life', Zan... There's considerable ingenuity in Foster's world-building - the Ler social mores seem quite alien until you grasp just how different their physiology is from ours. It's a long book which proceeds at a walking pace but the journey is one I've made several times in re-reading. There's also an omnibus, published in 2006. Hamlyn only published two of the three Ler books in the late 70s, so you need that omnibus or the US DAW for the final part of the millennia-spanning story. He wrote just 8 books, making it easy-ish to be a completist.

[@raresaturn]

Bug Jack Baron kind of predicted the whole Rogan social media thing

[@jimflannery9563]

And the QAnon thing …

[@RodneyAllanPoe]

Heh. I got turned off Bob Shaw after reading ORBITSVILLE - thanks for confirming my experience. I have one or two other Shaws in my moving boxes, so I'll dig them out for 2025. Top video, too. Your reactions clips are always worth several views. CHASM CITY, THE PREFECT and HOUSE OF SUNS by Reynolds are terrific SF-horror novels...leave him alone!!! 😝

[@outlawbookselleroriginal]

We'll have to disagree on Al Reynolds, I'm afraid, but as I said, he is a nice guy, met him at a club called Tiger Tiger at a Gollancz event back in 2006. Shaw is worth a seconf look, my friend.

[@mormengil]

I've only read House of Suns from him, but I really liked it. His writing style is not the best, it definitely fits the "scientist doing fiction" tradition of lower literary merit and higher conceptual one. It did not hurt to read him but that is as far as I would go. But I really loved the things he talked about and the concepts he explored in that book, so I am going to go on and try more from him. And to be honest, Zima Blue was one of my all time favourite shorts from Love Death and Robots, so I expect to like his short stories too. The important part of being a reader for me is to enjoy yourself. You need to sort of triangulate what you really enjoy, but also take the occasional risk beyond that. I will never understand reading things you do not enjoy because others do. Life is short, and reading should be a joy not a chore! Much love to everyone here!

[@HakimALIGHT]

I know you are a Hawkwind fan... what SF novel would you say is most Hawkwind-like?

[@jackkaraquazian]

I would say Iain M. Banks is essential (as well as his literary books as Iain Banks). Transition could easily have been a New Wave novel. Seems unfair to try and plant the state of Modern SF on his shoulders, far more likely to be due to the resurgence of Star Trek back in the 90s (as well as Babylon 5, Farscape, etc). As far as I'm aware, the Black Corridor wasn't mostly written by Hilary Bailey, she wrote the parts set on Earth.

[@shannonm.townsend1232]

One day I will find a copy of Kathe Koja Bad Brains

[@JackMyersPhotography]

I don’t understand the dislike of productive writers? It’s doesn’t change quality for a seasoned artist. Ellison, Moorcock, Hemingway, Dean Wesley Smith, Sanderson, Koontz can all write (or wrote) fast, often single drafts whether they admit it or not. I think Adrian has tapped into the same passion and notion with his productivity.

[@raresaturn]

More Aussie SF: Greg Egan, Max Barry, Lee Harding, Sean Williams, even Matthew Reilly is worth a read for Crichton-like blockbusters

[@fordprefect80]

Anyone read A Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison? I watched the film a while back and enjoyed it. I haven't tracked the novel down yet but it's on my to read list.

[@russ9117]

I just don't understand how you can say Iain Banks writing is adolescent yet say Hothouse by Aldiss is brilliant. Hothouse reads like 1960's YA. It's so simple and cheesy. I'd argue Banks, while maybe overrated, rejuvenated a stalled and rather boring state of science fiction.

[@steved1135]

Agreed wholeheartedly. Maybe it's just a subjective thing. Like your Aldiss example, I find Heinlein's prose to be adolescent. Banks, for me, completely rejuvenated SciFi for me after c. 10 years of running into the same old boring stuff.. ( with the exception of Peter Watts...) Or maybe perhaps it's misinterpretation. I acknowledge that some of Banks' dialogue is often lighthearted, even flippant, typically for the Minds, or a carefree Culture agent, but that's simply character building. I never saw Banks as 'space opera' or 'worldbuilding', both of which I too am bored with, but rather those elements were there just to provide environment. Environment for a protagonist with a serious typically moral or conceptual problem. In the late 80's and the 90's, besides William Gibson, and the occasional Charles Stross, I couldn't find another SciFi author who was worth my time than Banks. And if it weren't for Banks, I wouldn't have found Rajaniemi ...

[@waltera13]

Wonderful! I know it's not your style, in fact it's contrary to your style. Contrapuntal even, but this does make me crave an organized "These are the books I think are foundational to SF" video. Not the best. Not your book. Perhaps your new book. . . "Don't be a dummy your whole life, read these 50 science fiction books to get a good, solid foundation in understanding the genre" Or something, . . . you can work on the title. . .