Finally! Someone mentions stand on Zanzibar! Unbelievable how much the picture he paints looks like our world now! Amazing book that more people should read!

It can be a little strange to hear a modern opinion on the sci-fi of the 60s and 70s. I was in my teens through most of the 70s and, as an avid sci-fi nut, read pretty much anything that was available - certainly all those books in this list. I don't recall any sense of 'mind-blowing' though; it was just how things were at the time. 😎 I'm a little surprised that the 'Illuminatus' trilogy by Shea and Wilson is not on the list - that really was mind-expanding! Also rather more light-hearted (but still mind-expanding) was The Greenwich Village trilogy of 'The Butterfly Kid', T'he Unicorn Girl' and 'The Probability Pad' by C. Anderson, M. Kurland and T.A. Waters respectively. Keep up the excellent exploration of the genre! 👍

@ElGato1947

Ай бұрын

The Illuminatus Trilogy should get an entire episode to itself. I read it many years ago when I didn't know about conspiracy theories. Now, a couple of decades later, I'd enjoy it if someone put together a short essay showing which story lines spoofed which popular conspiracy theories. The Trilogy was ahead of its time.

@Raiment57

Ай бұрын

Goodness, yes, the Illuminatus trilogy was a true mind-fuck. It had a deep and lasting impact on my early 20s mind. Also formative for me were Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels (especially The Final Programme) and early J. G. Ballard such as Drowned World and Atrocity Exhibition.

@SteampunkEngineering

Ай бұрын

@@Raiment57 I think that Cornelius' character progression from 'The Final Programme' through to 'The Condition of Muzak' is one of the most remarkable in sci-fi. And it is quite telling that my Fleet Carrier in the space game Elite:Dangerous is named 'The Deep Fix'. 😉

Dhalgren, Slaughterhouse 5, Lathe of Heaven ... some of my all time favorites in your list. My two favorite authors from that period are Samuel R. Delany and Roger Zelazny.

The aesthetics in your videos are just ❤❤

A shoutout for Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie “Stalker” based on the Strugatsky brothers’ novel. And while it may be a bit outside your scope, one of the oddest sci-fi novels I’ve read lately is “XXX” by Rian Hughes

@ElGato1947

Ай бұрын

The Strugatsky brothers along with Tarkovsky wrote the screenplay for Stalker(1979).

Strange coincidence. UKL and PKD graduated from the same high school in the same class, but they didn't recall if they ever met.

I'm thrilled that you put Moorcock's "Behold The Man" at the top of the list! Here's a guy who hung out with the Rolling Stones, wrote lyrics for Blue Oyster Cult and partied with Jimi Hendrix. If anyone can be considered a rockstar among sci-fi authors, it's Michael Moorcock!

Love the art you use in all your vidios.

Once again, thank you, Darrel. You are one of the best on YT!

Watching this great video, I kept thinking about Son of Man, by Robert Silverberg, published in 1971. I literally found this book (in a used car my dad bought) when I was in 8th grade. Scenes like the slow zone where it takes years to move one step, or another where the protagonist dissolves in a river to form into a carrot like vegetation, had me pondering its concepts years after I read it.

Some New Wave books I remember and enjoyed for that period are The Son of Man by Robert Silverberg, The Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg, The Iron Dream and Men in the Jungle by Norman Spinrad, Dr Adder by K.W. Jeter, Ambient by Jack Womack.

Love these vids. Your passion for the genre is palpable 🤗 keep it up!

WOW! What a great video, one of your best. I never understood Dahlgreen, read Roadside in Russian (widely assumed the "forbidden" areas symbolized censored parts of society of the USSR - thought and location), Lathe showed that a one-answer-fixes-all-problem approach leads to more problems but (for me) it was repetitive. Scanner (the book) was so powerful. Behold the Man was exquisite ("Jesus Comes Again" by Vardis Fisher is a great non-sci-fi similar work). Dick's Radio Free Albemuth, VALIS and Divine Invasion were A++ (based on the same theme) but the last one, the Transmigration of Timothy Archer was just too "woo woo".

I would add the purple book by Philip Jose farmer and futurological congress by Stanislaw Lem

Great video! Just added quite a few to my TBR list!

Excellent selection. I must admit I haven't read Dalgren but I love Samuel R Delaney's other books. He's a great world builder and if I had to choose an all-time favourite (which is almost impossible, lol) it would be his Babel-17. The Lathe of Heaven is in my top fave list and I would also add Inverted World by Christopher Priest (1974) and Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys (1960). Cheers, Darrel. :)

@GentleReader01

Ай бұрын

I need to go ahead and read Dalgren this year. I’ve let almost sixty others go by without doing so. :)

@DevonExplorer

Ай бұрын

@@GentleReader01 Yes, I keep meaning to as well. :)

Great list! 👍🏼 If I may suggest another one by PKD: “Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said”?

@meesalikeu

22 күн бұрын

good one, but that was an early pkd high water written in the 1950s i think, but technically before the new wave began.

If you can can choose two from PKD; then for a second Moorcock I'd shout out the Final Programme and the other Jerry Cornelius books. A series of shattered, holographic narratives scattered across a string of interweaving 20th centuries. A very tasty world Mr Cornelius. Your failure mention J.G. Ballard is glaring omission, even if his name isn't a penile double entendre.

insanely inspirational video!

Im kind of pleased that I've read most of these. Not a fan of scanner darkly but currently rereading Roadside Picnic, its great and Behold the man is super short too.

@meesalikeu

22 күн бұрын

roadside is literally my fav scifi novel, or should we say novela really.

Great video!

loved all of these books. behold the man especially is like a way more eye opening twilight zone episode than tv would ever allow, so its a great read and the prose is perfectly on point.

great vid!

I loved Roadside Picnic! I havnt got to A Scanner Darkly yet, but I adored Ubik!

Thanks ❤

oh and to add a new new waver to your list it would be the dark short story collection deathbird stories by harlan ellison.

The images are amazing. Would love to look up the artists - are they linked somewhere?

Lathe of Heaven, the nearest LeGuin gets to PKD territory.

I've read The Lathe of Heaven and A Scanner Darkly but will have to check out the others. BTW Public TV did a decent movie of The Lathe of Heaven and there is an animated A Scanner Darkly. Nice list Darryl.

@Kim_Miller

Ай бұрын

The Scanner Darkly movie looks animated but is made with Rotoscope. They make a normal movie and process it so that each frame is redrawn to look like animation. It's a great effect for a movie which deals with themes of hiddenness and deception . Thanks for the info of the Lathe of Heaven movie. I went looking and found two of them. One from 1980 and one 2002. Now to go looking for them.

“Shit got weird” indeed. Love New Wave SF

What's the story on the art shown here? Especially 'Behold the Man'.

Would Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land fit in.

'Sheeps look up' by John Brunner, my all time favourite. Btw... From where are the pics you use?

@thepaellaman

Ай бұрын

Looks like midjourney. He could just paste in snippets of his text as a prompt.

Hey. Could you talk about Cosmic Horror in Science Fiction?😂

Babel 17 by Samuel Delany is also great.

@subraxas

Ай бұрын

Babe: Pig in the City?

@palantir135

Ай бұрын

@@subraxas don’t know that novel

@subraxas

Ай бұрын

@@palantir135 🙂

I am a writer. Thanks

Thanks for the video. I gave up on Valis halfway through, I lost interest. When I read Lathe of Heaven after LeGuin's more famous novels, I found it a fun read, but it seemed like a YA novel. Perhaps I will reread it after your insights.

If you really want your mind blown you need to read Son of Man by Robert Silverberg. It came out in 1971 and has to be read to be believed. It is totally emblematic of the wild time that was the early 70s. Son Of Man is an ultra psychedelic declaration of the wonder and infinite possibility of what it means to be human set against a far future Earth that is mythological in its splendor. Introspection, exploration, and sexual liberation abound and the characters are fascinating while at the same time being relatable. This book left a profound imprint on my 14 year old psyche when I read it many moons ago. Read it and thank me later.

@Joe-lb8qn

19 күн бұрын

Just bought it. If its rubbish I'll send you a Venmo request for £0.99p 😂

@strawberrylemonadekristina

18 күн бұрын

@@Joe-lb8qn I put my hand on my heart when I say that you won’t be asking for your money back. 😉.

I read "Lathe of Heaven" when it was first published in 1971. I've fallen in love with everything by LeGuin ever since.

I just can't get behind Dhalgren. I can't not understand something and like it, unlike William Gibson who wrote the forward. A lot of it is more "slice of life" than scifi anyway.

I'm afraid you are way off beam as to what New Wave SF is when you include the Strugatsky Brothers and Lem. By default, New Wave SF was limited to the anglophone world and as Lem and the Brothers were behind the Iron Curtain and not even writing in English. Those authors come from different traditions to both the US and UK New Waves, which were also in themselves different.

Sci-fi is a term invented by Forrest Ackerman in the 50's to describe crass mass entertainment featuring ray guns and bug eyed monsters. When discussing science fiction as art and literature, the correct term is SF.

@QTr_Ent1701

Ай бұрын

🤓

@ElGato1947

Ай бұрын

Well, EX-CUUUUZE MEEEEEE!

@joebrooks4448

Ай бұрын

Well. Yes, the term did apply to the 1950s films, etc. And Ackerman was a fan of bad films, but also good films, and he represented Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, A E Van Vogt, and more. Hardly hack writers... From what I have read, he just shortened Science Fiction, as he had a penchant to do with a lot of terminology! He was a fan and quite a character, it seems. I have one of his anthologies.

@SteampunkEngineering

Ай бұрын

What's wrong with ray guns and bug-eyed monsters?

@Kim_Miller

Ай бұрын

One of the world's great coincidences is that the man who invented the ray gun was named Ray. Just think how silly it would sound if it was invented by somebody named George or Michael. 😀

Your videos would be so much more interesting if you didn’t read off a script and simply talked about books like you would with friends. Now it’s like listening to someone read a wikipedia page. It’s the imperfections that are interesting to viewers, not flawless narrative.

Valis ❤