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I get that feeling in Italy, as you've probably guessed....

Pleasure. The good stuff has to be shared, for as it spreads it raises the bar of enjoyment for all.

People are astonishingly kind, I can never thank them enough.

You're always so kind Rick, salutations to you!

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.

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.

"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.

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!

We do what we can here.

Yes, quite something. My personal feeling is that 'AI' would not have worked as a Kubrick film anyway, much as I love SK.

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.

@@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.

I'm reading 'Tales...' at the moment and loving it. He's one of the absolute greats.

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.

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.

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.

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. . .

BTW - congrats on the good if slightly left-handed review!

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.

Weird, right?

Stoned immaculate 🫡

Thanks- Walking Bookseller needs all the help it can get. New video in 24 hours.

Will do! Thanks again!

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.

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.

There is some excellent SF out now as well just as there was some real trash years ago too.

@@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! 🤯🤯🤯

@@hanniffydinn6019 It was, pure and simple.

@@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.

Very true. I like a lot of those writers myself- Farmer is one.

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.

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.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal ok. Thanks for answering. Love your content.

...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...

@@erikpaterson1404 Ahh.. thanks Erik.. von Braun the Nazi/NASA rocket designer? I didn't know he'd written any SF. New knowledge every day.