PLEASE READ THIS POST BEFORE COMMENTING: Yes, I'm aware there are problems with audio during some parts of this video. If you comment on this, I'm probably just going to roll my eyes. Apologies nonetheless.
@LawrenceOnlineEnglish
2 ай бұрын
🙄
@user-jw7cq6gu6o
2 ай бұрын
Thanks again Stephen for a very interesting presentation. As a 69-year-old curmudgeon I'd lost interest in in SF writing after 1980, considering it to be too derivative and long winded. Since I found your channel however, I've realized that I'm missing out on some great stuff, so I have ordered a copy of The Glamour by Christopher Priest. I'm also a huge admirer of Silverberg so now The Face of the Waters is next on my list. I liked your earlier presentations on psychogeography as well. I've loved Greek myths since childhood and had a transcendent moment while on holiday on the island of Crete many years ago in my 40's where I suddenly understood them at an elemental level. I didn't have a name for the experience at the time, but now believe it was the effect of a kind psychogeography, though naturally nowhere near as deep as a native would feel. I've since felt it again walking in the landscape of the American West.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
I get that feeling in Italy, as you've probably guessed....
@diegobkn23
2 ай бұрын
I've only read Downward to the Earth by Silverberg, but I was impressed on how prolific, detailed and huge the world he was talking to me about with so few words, at the moment The Man in the Maze is being shipped to my shelf, I can't wait to read more Silverberg. I also have on my shelf A Wreath of Stars, but I'm actually reading A Fire Upon the Deep by the recently late Vernor Vinge. Once again thank you for sharing great titles and being so authentic with your reviews and your words. Love your channel
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Pleasure. The good stuff has to be shared, for as it spreads it raises the bar of enjoyment for all.
@unstopitable
2 ай бұрын
"Proficient"--you hit the nail squarely on the head. There was a time when you couldn't open an Analog or Mag of SF&F and not come upon a story by Resnick, it seemed. And it was for this very reason. "Dependably good enough," I would say. He never did it for me, though. I needed much harder drugs. Great video, Outlaw. And great observation.
@waltera13
2 ай бұрын
I love that a viewer got and sent you the missing matching the Neveryon! I had serendipitously gotten my hands on a very nice hardcover Berrington Bailey that you needed. I was going to take the loss and mail it off to you, but I didn't find your address anywhere listed. And then you got yourself a copy (Seeds of Evil, I believe.) well, no credit for near misses! I should find where it's printed sometime though. . . You never know what I'll come across. Found a lovely hardcover Sladek "The New Apocrypha" last month. Still, nothing quite like appreciative viewers sending you swag.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
People are astonishingly kind, I can never thank them enough.
@mondostrat
2 ай бұрын
Think I'll give 'Wreath of Stars' a go as 'Other Days, Other Eyes' is currently absurdly priced in the States. Thanks for your recommendations & reviews!
@psychonaut56
2 ай бұрын
Incidentally, today I learned from reading a new biography about the director Stanley Kubrick that Bob Shaw was tapped to work on the script for AI Artificial Intelligence, but soon left the project in frustration. I knew that Aldiss and Watson and Clarke also worked on it, but not Shaw as well. Quite a stable of authors, never to be recaptured. The more you know...
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Yes, quite something. My personal feeling is that 'AI' would not have worked as a Kubrick film anyway, much as I love SK.
@zamiadams4343
2 ай бұрын
Yet another cracking episode Stephen, jotted down the names of all books mentioned. I've started Brian Aldiss "Greybeard" and Robert Silverberg "The Second Trip" today. Also I commented on one of your videos asking about authors/books similar in style to Burrough's cut-up style and recently discovered the amazing "Kali Yug Express" by Claude Pelieu which completely blew me away. His style is nowhere near as fractured as Burroughs, it just flows as a book and it was an excellent read. Anyway, all the best!
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
I love 'GReybeard', am well overdue another re-read. Funnily enough I was thinking about that book today and also about 'The Second Trip' which is Silverbob at his most savage (with the possible exception of 'Thorns'). Next time I tackle these, it will be my fourth time for the former, third for the latter.
@rickkearn7100
2 ай бұрын
Thought provoking as always, OB! I can't help but view an author's proficiency through the eyes (ears?) of a musician and as such, I think of the story as a symphony and the way the author writes as being the collective performance of the orchestra. Some symphonies are magical, others are mundane, but a bad performance (author) can ruin a great symphony. That said, your constant cascade of great ideas never ceases to amaze. Really enjoyed this one, as I do all of the Outlaw Bookseller episodes. Cheers!
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
You're always so kind Rick, salutations to you!
@sylvanyoung
2 ай бұрын
My first McDevitt was Ancient Shores . Later i got into the Hutchin novels..starting with The Engines Of God . Then it was the Alex novels . The books can be a bit dense , but McDevitt always manage to grab and hold my attention . I have read Risnick Santigo stories( legends ?) Westerns in space ? . Prolific vs proficient . Sometimes i am not sure what i want . I want more from my faves, but at what cost . Hacks ????( my bias opinion ) Only Shaw i have are Rugged Astronauts and the sequel .looking for more , not easy to find here . I have and love much Silverberg . I have The Face Of The Waters ...next on my tbr . ok enough emotion . Thanks for the video .
@ashley-r-pollard
2 ай бұрын
Yes is the answer, because in SF is more than just the language. YMMV and clearly does.
@themojocorpse1290
2 ай бұрын
I must read more Bob shaw read a few now and really enjoy his writing. Silverbergs The conglomeriod cocktail party arrived yesterday along with the broken bubble by PKD not read either before but still on that mission to read all things silver and PKD . Keep turning those rocks over and shining a light on the obscure Steve many thanks 🫡
@holydissolution85
2 ай бұрын
" Kirinyaga" novel ( fix-up of 8 short stories ) by Resnick is a must - read , I think... They were a real treat back in the 90s when I read them first individually in our croatian SF magazine ( most of those stories got an award, or were at least nominated .. EDIT : I just checked wiki ; 67 awards & nominations for novel & separate stories ) It's about the attempt for a kind of luddite / traditonal utopia for Kenyan Kikuyu people on the terraformed planetoid (& something always goes wrong in each story 😁 ) Also, two novellas : " 43 Antarean Dynasties " & " Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge " were also great.... ( both Hugo winners) I always figured that Resnick is one of those very productive writers with lot of mediocre stuff but with core ouvre that is top - top shelf like the works I mentioned ( Brunner was like that too, no ? )
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
"Seven Views..." I've read and I must say I was disappointed- but then it is a title that I think suffered from being hyped so much. It couldn't possibly live up to so much that is said about it. I'm still keen to read him, though.
@glloyd00
2 ай бұрын
Thanks, Steve for this video. I got even more from it than I usually do from your videos, because I have very fond memories from my teenagers years in the 80s of coming across Shaw and Silverberg in our local libraries (suburban Melbourne). Man in the Maze made me a devoted Silverberg fan. At Winters End also made a big impression. With Shaw it was the Warren Peace novels I found first, but I remember loving Other Days, Other Eyes as well. I recently started reading SF again, after a very long time away from it. I always wanted to read Shaw's Nightwalk but couldn't find a copy. That's a pity, because I loved it when I finally got to it a few months ago. I then read Killer Planet which was the very definition of proficient, but uninspiring. I re-read Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle but it failed to live up to my memories of it. Down the Line I also didn't enjoy much. Man in the Maze, to my relief, was still fantastic. That was the trip down memory lane inspired by your video. Thanks again. Speaking of trips, your Capri videos were unique in my experience on KZitem. Very enjoyable. Makes me very much want to visit there.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
I've never read 'Killer Planet' and of course it's a children's book, really. I generally love Shaw, but he hit his peak mid 70s for me and I found his 80s work patchy. 'Lord Valentine's Castle' I liked, but it felt very much as if it were done for commercial reasons- which it pretty much was- compared to the brainburn intensity of the earlier works. I think you mean 'Up The Line', which divides a lot of people- it's a romp, I felt, not entirely serious and just Silverbob playing with the old Heinlein time paradox/sex thing with the greater literary freedoms of that time. 'Man in the Maze' still stands up for me too, so do check out my video about it if you've not seen it. Thanks for the comment on the Capri videos- the view numbers have been pitiful compared to the average (Much shallower) Capri videos out there and they cost me an arm and a leg to do, plus they coicided with me falling very sick with polymyalgia. I'm going back there next year for a proper holiday and to film the parts I couldn't get to in 2023.
@michaeldaly1495
2 ай бұрын
Just finished the Shaw book - excellent stuff. Regarding Haiti - you may be aware but France imposed absolutely brutal reparation costs on the country, effectively setting it back 100 years or more in terms of development. The noted economoist Thomas Picketty recently estimated France owes Haiti 28 billion dollars for its historical exploitation. - it has been called 'the greatest heist in history'. Decolonization has wrecked many, many countries and it has almost certainly nothing to do with racial reasons. Anyway, really liked the vid, keep up the good work.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Yes, the reparations continued for over 100 years, shocking. My reading on Haiti was C LR James' 'The Black Jacobins' decades ago. I did not state and wasn't implying specifically racial reasons, but wider cultural ones which are more likely to have numerous causes. A look at the wikipedia page entitled 'corruption in Haiti' is revelatory on this. Glad you enjoyed the Shaw!
@erikpaterson1404
Ай бұрын
I'll be quite happy if all new science fiction , whatever returned to the original yellow jackets - very happy - I can't say I'm thrilled about much of the artwork on our books these days
@outlawbookselleroriginal
Ай бұрын
Agreed. Most book covers are terrible now with a few exceptions- slathered in text, with artwork produced on computers and designed to look the same as everything else. Boring.
@BobGrygier
2 ай бұрын
Thank you for sharing your SF knowledge.. what a treasure of works I need to read in my wishlist.. thank you again.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
We do what we can here.
@OmnivorousReader
2 ай бұрын
oh wow.... I think I actually read Wreath of Stars, so long ago that I barely remember it. Might try and revisit; ghosts in a mine, Africa... it sounds really familiar. Haven't read any Priest recently either - should do something about that. Proficiency! really important, but never enough on it's own, in my estimation.
@KCreading-Writing
2 ай бұрын
Been so busy as of late I am catching up on the previous two weeks of your videos. I highly recommend Richard Howard's _Space for Peace: Fragments of the Irish Troubles the Science Fiction of Bob Shaw and James White_ for an academic view of their writing. As for _A Wreath of Stars_ , Howard sees the novel's heart as the human relationship to the sublime, "technology allows human access to a sublime experience of the natural world, its ability to reveal previously unseen entities confusing the status of scientific fact, and the position of the human in relation to the technological sublime."
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Yeah, I've considered reading that myself. Thing is, I think the Sublime is a common theme in SF- the 'sense of wonder' as it was called in the Golden Age is very much like the Sublime of the Romantics- a combination of awe, terror and beauty. Adam Roberts suggests this in his Ted Talk in which he says that SF is like Poetry. I mention the sublime here regularly in SF and other contexts- for example, it is in the Prior Park walking video posted earlier this week and notably in my video on 'Frankenstein' and Cyberpunk and also in my videos here about Hawkwind. I'm a bit of an obsessive re Romanticism and its basis in the Sublime.
@KCreading-Writing
2 ай бұрын
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Well said, Stephen. I’ve always appreciated, and come to love, SF writers or works when they illuminate or elicit variations on the sublime-say, Kantian subjective versus Hegelian objective, the terror of Burke’s sublime or Longinus’ expression of triumph over the insurmountable.
@smallscalefutures
2 ай бұрын
Thanks for the shout out Steve...glad the Delany reached you in good order...enjoy it 🙂
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Will do! Thanks again!
@SlowDazzle11
2 ай бұрын
Stephen, I'm really enjoying your channel. Thanks for all the great videos. I must get Delany's "Tales of Neveryon" since I have Volumes 2-4. I actually acquired these a few days ago for £6 from a local charity shop! Very good condition- so quite a bargain. I've recently started reading Delany, but I overlooked him when I read SF in my teens. I concentrated on the other Ds- Disch and Dick. I think I'll get on with Delany since he merges SF and literary theory- I like both!
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
I'm reading 'Tales...' at the moment and loving it. He's one of the absolute greats.
@salty-walt
2 ай бұрын
Classic O.B. - moving sideways across topics and authors. Thank you, I enjoyed. Always glad to hear about what's "in" the books. Enjoyed, and I too am unsure what to think of Resnick & Mcdevitt. The Gollancz Masterwork you mentioned doesn't ring a bell, I wonder if there is a "Most Iconic" or "fan fave" to watch out for from these two authors.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
One blogger posted a roundup of best SF booktubers about a year ago and said that while he didn't like my digressive style and that I tended to focus on plot over analysis, he was going to stick with me as I clearly knew more than the rest. My approach with SF has always been to describe notion and plot in a way that attracts the reader- the mix of novum and character is what I think stimulates the desire to read a book for yourself. I wouldn't say my analysis is secondary, I just put it second as it were. I think Matt at Bookpilled does the same, but probably emphasises 'analysis' - or in my view 'foregrounds his response' (which is always an engaging one with him). It was his disappointment with 'A Wreath of Stars' in a recent review that prompted me to revisit the book- he conflated the two male characters in his review (I know he's not been well recently and if you're not enjoying a book, attention can waver), which was interesting as I was thinking about Matt's views as I re-read the book, itself an interesting point to re-read from. I must thank him for stimulating me. The Resnick I'd most like to read is 'Birthright', which I can't find a copy of anywhere over here. His story with "Olduvai Gorge" in the title is very acclaimed, but I found it little more than above average.
@salty-walt
2 ай бұрын
I don't think I said you were lacking analysis, I'm just genuinely glad that you tell us something more about what is actually inside the book than others. Some people so fear spoilers or are so quick to get into their opinion that you don't really get much past the setup. I can imagine / extrapolate quite a bit from a blurb and often what I imagine is better than what I get! Getting more images and chunks of flavor of what is actually inside the book helps prevent me from imagining something better; or at least keeps my expectations in line. Likewise, I am okay with a meandering associational lecture, and quite enjoy yours. I know it's your style and it's the way that you *want* to make your videos, so there's little sense in pointing out that were they more "formally" organized, and easier to index you would get more views. You would be making videos that you don't want to make and you would be making them the way you don't want to. Probably hating shooting them too. It wouldn't be your voice! You be you! It does mean, however, I will have to *occasionally* ask you where to find some information in that back catalogue tho . . I mean: "which 38 minute Michael Moorcock video has a 7-minute review of a Barrington Bailey, or was it M John Harrison book in the middle?" I mean I can't even trust my memory; I thought that book with Olduvai Gorge in the title was by Robert Charles Wilson! You've already got me on my back foot before I give an epic response to your epic response! So take it with three grains of salt. . .
@salty-walt
2 ай бұрын
BTW - congrats on the good if slightly left-handed review!
@iantoo3503
2 ай бұрын
Hi Steve, thanks for the video. I think that if I'd discovered Bob Shaw earlier in my reading career - after Clarke or Asimov - I'd be a fan. I find his style very agreeable, but lacking in the sort of finesse you get from Silverberg and the characterisation fails to involve me. It's very hard, once you've tasted excellence to go back to proficiency. When I saw you were reading The Face of the Waters, I was excited to hear your opinion because I lived in hope of uncle Bob regaining his pre-hiatus heights. I had suffered the disappointment of Tom O'Bedlam, but was hopeful for The Face of the Waters and Kingdoms of the Wall. Your comments about TFotW have helped adjust my expectations; not that later Silverberg is at all bad, but the surpassing excellence of The Book of Skulls, Dying Inside or The World Inside clearly did not reassert itself. In reality, it's a very mild disappointment and no reason to begrudge the man his retirement.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
I think the moment where Shaw gets closer to Silverberg is 'Other Days, Other Eyes'- he doesn't come close aside from that. Silverberg is far from being a hard SF writer like Shaw, I'd say. Those themes of power, transcendence, transformation and redemption are so often there- he's a writer of the body, but also of the spirit.
@hanniffydinn6019
2 ай бұрын
The big question is was SF writing better in the past? Does modern SF match up? 🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
If you watch my backlist I raise and address this issue constantly. Genre SF was at its best between 1950 and 1990, since then it's been in steep decline. Not only that, but Modern SF ended in the 1980s as Modernism ended as a period in the history of cultural production. When people say 'Modern' in everyday language, they mean 'Contemporary'. SF became Postmodern in a critical sense with late Cyberpunk then collapsed into a black hole of eclectic postmodernism (when every work references others as a fundamental part of its being) with the Space Opera Renaissance of the late 1980s. Today's Genre SF is obsessed with Identity Politics and/or Hard Science self-indulgence and hasn't had any genuinely new moments of evolution and revolution as it did between 1950 and 1990. In that way, it's like all the art, trapped in a loop of repetition and remixing. There are exceptions of course, but fewer of them than there ever where before.
@joelstainer65
2 ай бұрын
There is some excellent SF out now as well just as there was some real trash years ago too.
@hanniffydinn6019
2 ай бұрын
@@outlawbookselleroriginal I feel what I read as a kid (Arthur c clake, Isaac Asimov et el ) had greater impact and still remember the stories I read. I can’t say the same for modern sci fi, just seems uninspired, unoriginal & forgettable. I don’t think it’s me getting older! To me sci fi was definitely better in the past! 🤯🤯🤯
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
@@hanniffydinn6019 It was, pure and simple.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
@@joelstainer65 There has always been real trash, you're right. However, if you look over the course of genre SF history, there are far, far fewer memorable and groundbreaking books after the end of the 1980s. If you look at Pringle's 'Science Fiction 100 Best Novels' (which covers 1948-1984) then Di Filippo & Broderick's 'Science Fiction 101 Best Novels' (its sequel, which covers 1985-2012) you'll notice how unfamiliar many of the choices in the latter are- many of them only had one or two printings and have not endured, while the majority in Pringle's book are still around and have enjoyed multiple reissues. This is because- as I've said here and in videos many times- Genre SF is an evolutionary and revolutionary form that relied on Modernist innovation for its material to create fresh novums - and as with more or less all the arts, the ideas have run out, as we used them up during the age of Modernism.
@LawrenceOnlineEnglish
2 ай бұрын
Good stuff
@waltera13
2 ай бұрын
KZitem has been offering up your back catalogue to me all morning, but do they tell me you've posted a NEW video? No. Wandering, wandering in hopeless net Out here in the KZitem there are no new vids Out here we is sidelined Algorithmic . . With apologies to J. Morrison
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Weird, right?
@themojocorpse1290
2 ай бұрын
Stoned immaculate 🫡
@JackMyersPhotography
2 ай бұрын
Resnick won five Hugos, and was nominated 37 times. He founded an SF magazine too, Galaxy’s Edge. If prodigious output is a signal one is a hack, then Resnick is in good company. SF historically has plenty of adored authors who had massive output, often under several pen names.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Very true. I like a lot of those writers myself- Farmer is one.
@CLIFTON1314
2 ай бұрын
I have read a couple of books by Resnick ( Ivory and Paradise. Which retells the history of Kenya, substituting a distant, alien planet for the African country ). And from memory I would rate his writing as proficient
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Yes, a friend of mine is very big on those books. 'Ivory' was published in the UK late 80s, but he never made much of a splash in Britain.
@user-mb9ll9wy6g
2 ай бұрын
Hi. Got here finally after 9 seconds..
@athoszubiaur2144
2 ай бұрын
as always, thanks, steve. i must say that i read a bit of mcdevitt and then lost interest for some reason. i liked what i read well enough but...chose not to go further. perhaps i should revisit? we'll see. it's much the same story with bob shaw though your brief summary of wreath of stars has caught my attention. i must read other days, other eyes as well now. and you've put silverberg on my radar as well. i will add face of the waters to my growing list of silverberg books i need to read. i will continue to give your other channel a look cheers, mate!
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
Thanks- Walking Bookseller needs all the help it can get. New video in 24 hours.
@erikpaterson1404
2 ай бұрын
Lovely reviews. I love Bob Shaw. His short stories are amazing and pack a punch. Face of the waters was my first foray into Silverberg. I think it put me off.. but a nice story nonetheless.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
The problem with very prolific writers like Silverberg is that it's very easy to start with the wrong book by chance: had I read 'The Face...' as my first I'd not have gotten much further, though I liked it, it wasn't anywhere near his finest work as I said.
@theplacebeyondspacetime
2 ай бұрын
I want to write some scifi but I worry that living in a rural underdeveloped area where I have limited exposure to technology would be a detriment to anything I could dream up in a narrative. Do you think being exposed to a lot of contemporary technology is a requirement to write science fiction?
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
No, I don't think it is. The real challenge now is to come up with something original. Watch my 'Elements of SF' series of videos to look at how SF stories are constructed.
@theplacebeyondspacetime
2 ай бұрын
@@outlawbookselleroriginal ok. Thanks for answering. Love your content.
@miljenkoskreblin165
2 ай бұрын
In my opinion collaborations aren't really true, 50:50, type deal. Clarke/Gentry Lee - Lee did the writing. Clarke/Baxter - totally, 100% Baxter Baxter/Pratchett - Let's say 98% Baxter Niven/ Pournelle - except Inferno, Pournelle was main writer. Benford/Brin - reads way more like David Brin novel (that's why it isn't very good). Asimov/Silverberg - Bob did the whole job. I think younger writer does the work, with older author just dropping ideas and sugestions. I haven read Casandra Project, but it sounds more Mcdevitt than Resnick.
@outlawbookselleroriginal
2 ай бұрын
I'd say it's more McDevitt too. I agree re the Benford/Brin point- Greg B is a far more ambitious writer than Brin, I'd say. Your first three were all done for commercial reasons, same with the last one.
@user-mb9ll9wy6g
2 ай бұрын
Can you remind me which SF novel has Elon (someone) as a Mars colony leader? Great vid. Not finished it yet.. but I can tell
@erikpaterson1404
2 ай бұрын
...1952 sci-fi novel The Mars Project, Wernher Von Braun predicted that a human colonist with the name or title "Elon" would be the leader of Mars and establish a Council of Elders...
@user-mb9ll9wy6g
2 ай бұрын
@@erikpaterson1404 Ahh.. thanks Erik.. von Braun the Nazi/NASA rocket designer? I didn't know he'd written any SF. New knowledge every day.
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