“The Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-philosophical-science-fiction-books/

I have read 9 out of the 27:
21. “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons
20. “1984” by George Orwell
18. “Childhood's End” by Arthur C. Clarke
17. “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
16. “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov
15. “Dune” by Frank Herbert
14. “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein
13. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
7. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury

I have seen the movie versions of “Annihilation”, “The Giver”, and
“Contact”.

Lynn

On Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 1:51:36 AM UTC-5, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> “The Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
>
> https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-philosophical-science-fiction-books/
>
> I have read 9 out of the 27:
> 21. “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons
> 20. “1984” by George Orwell
> 18. “Childhood's End” by Arthur C. Clarke
> 17. “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
> 16. “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov
> 15. “Dune” by Frank Herbert
> 14. “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein
> 13. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
> 7. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
>
> I have seen the movie versions of “Annihilation”, “The Giver”, and
> “Contact”.

I've read 13, and seen films of 9 (the sets have some overlap).

Pt

On 11/24/2023 10:51 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> “The Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
>
> https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-philosophical-science-fiction-books/
>
> I have read 9 out of the 27:
> 21. “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons
> 20.  “1984” by George Orwell
> 18. “Childhood's End” by Arthur C. Clarke
> 17. “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
> 16. “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov
> 15. “Dune” by Frank Herbert
> 14. “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein
> 13. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
> 7. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
>
> I have seen the movie versions of “Annihilation”, “The Giver”, and
> “Contact”.
>
I've read the book version of 'Annihilation' and seen the movie. The
movie was a low quality mess. The book was orders of magnitude worse
and the second and third books in the Southern Reach series were in a
full power nose dive from there.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 12:47:29 PM UTC-5, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

> >
> I've read the book version of 'Annihilation' and seen the movie. The
> movie was a low quality mess. The book was orders of magnitude worse
> and the second and third books in the Southern Reach series were in a
> full power nose dive from there.

I haven't read the book, but the science in the movie was pretty bad. The idea that the book was much worse is bothersome.

On Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 6:51:36 AM UTC, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> “The Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
>
> https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-philosophical-science-fiction-books/
>
> I have read 9 out of the 27:
> 21. “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons
> 20. “1984” by George Orwell
> 18. “Childhood's End” by Arthur C. Clarke
> 17. “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
> 16. “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov
> 15. “Dune” by Frank Herbert
> 14. “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein
> 13. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
> 7. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
>
> I have seen the movie versions of “Annihilation”, “The Giver”, and
> “Contact”.
>
> Lynn
The article goes from Philosphical to "what it means to be human" - and I think questions about what it means to be X are usefully answered by comparing X with Y, and preferably Z and theta as well. So which Science Fiction is good at comparing human and non-human? I nominate C.J.Cherryh's Chanur series, for the Hani, with the biology of intelligent lions, the more primate-like Mahendo'Sat (even more prone than humans to deal with people, rather than the organisations and authorities they represent and are given), the fragile, fearful, and highly culutural and manipulative Stsho, and the amoral (in the terms of other species) Kif. And yes, there is a human, Tully, not for the purposes of providing us with a viewpoint character, but for the purpose of occasionally describing Hani views of this not very prepossessing species. And you get balance of power politics as well.

On 11/25/2023 10:05 AM, artyw2@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 12:47:29 PM UTC-5, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>
>>>
>> I've read the book version of 'Annihilation' and seen the movie. The
>> movie was a low quality mess. The book was orders of magnitude worse
>> and the second and third books in the Southern Reach series were in a
>> full power nose dive from there.
>
> I haven't read the book, but the science in the movie was pretty bad. The idea that the book was much worse is bothersome.

The series was not a science fiction series. It used a vaguely SF
background to do deep soul searching philosophical ponders. For three
books. By the end of the third book I had lost count of number of
"gazing into one's own navel's navel" iterations it had gone through.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

On Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 12:47:29 PM UTC-5, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> On 11/24/2023 10:51 PM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > “The Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
> >
> > https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-philosophical-science-fiction-books/
> >
> > I have read 9 out of the 27:
> > 21. “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons
> > 20. “1984” by George Orwell
> > 18. “Childhood's End” by Arthur C. Clarke
> > 17. “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
> > 16. “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov
> > 15. “Dune” by Frank Herbert
> > 14. “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein
> > 13. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
> > 7. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
> >
> > I have seen the movie versions of “Annihilation”, “The Giver”, and
> > “Contact”.
> >
> I've read the book version of 'Annihilation' and seen the movie. The
> movie was a low quality mess. The book was orders of magnitude worse
> and the second and third books in the Southern Reach series were in a
> full power nose dive from there.

Ive only seen the movie, and didn't like it much. It didn't seem to have much of a point.

Pt

Lynn wrote:
> “The Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
>
> https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-philosophical-science-fiction-books/
>
> I have read 9 out of the 27:
> 21. “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons
> 20. “1984” by George Orwell
> 18. “Childhood's End” by Arthur C. Clarke
> 17. “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
> 16. “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov
> 15. “Dune” by Frank Herbert
> 14. “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein
> 13. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
> 7. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury

My list:

24. Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
22. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
20. 1984
17. A Canticle for Leibowitz
16. Foundation
15. Dune
14. Stranger in a Strange Land
13. Brave New World
11. Frankenstein
7. Fahrenheit 451
5. Contact
3. The Lathe of Heaven
2. Cloud Atlas

None of these stories seem particularly philosophical to me. Beings
a short story, "Scream," is on Livingston's list allow me to share a
story of similar length, superior to all of the above in regards to
philosophical exposition - "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius" (Borges).
A sample of story snippets are show below. Perhaps they provide
enough insight for readers familiar with some of the Livingston
list to see my point.

"To one of these Gnostics, the visible world was an illusion
or, more precisely, a sophism."

Nouns are formed by an accumulation of adjectives. One does
not say "moon" but rather "air-bright on round-dark" or
"pale-gold of-the-sky" or other combinations. In this
particular example, the mass of adjectives denotes an actual
object; the fact is pure chance. ...

The planet’s metaphysicians seek neither truth nor the
appearance of truth; rather, they seek to astonish. ...

The books are different too. Fictional works embrace a single
plot, with all conceivable permutations. Works of a
philosophical nature invariably contain both a thesis and an
antithesis, the strict pros and cons of a theory. A book that
does not encompass its counter-book is considered incomplete. ...

At present, one of Tlön’s churches takes the platonic view that
a given pain, a given greenish shade of yellow, a given
temperature, a given sound, are the only reality. All men, in
the dizzying moment of coitus, are the same man. All men who
recite a line of Shakespeare are William Shakespeare. ...

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

On Saturday, 25 November 2023 at 18:27:40 UTC, Andrew McDowell wrote:
> On Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 6:51:36 AM UTC, Lynn McGuire wrote:
> > “The Best Philosophical Science Fiction Books” by Dan Livingston
> >
> > https://best-sci-fi-books.com/the-best-philosophical-science-fiction-books/
> >
> > I have read 9 out of the 27:
> > 21. “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons
> > 20. “1984” by George Orwell
> > 18. “Childhood's End” by Arthur C. Clarke
> > 17. “A Canticle for Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
> > 16. “Foundation” by Isaac Asimov
> > 15. “Dune” by Frank Herbert
> > 14. “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein
> > 13. “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
> > 7. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury
> >
> > I have seen the movie versions of “Annihilation”, “The Giver”, and
> > “Contact”.
> >
> > Lynn
> The article goes from Philosphical to "what it means to be human" - and I think questions about what it means to be X are usefully answered by comparing X with Y, and preferably Z and theta as well. So which Science Fiction is good at comparing human and non-human? I nominate C.J.Cherryh's Chanur series, for the Hani, with the biology of intelligent lions, the more primate-like Mahendo'Sat (even more prone than humans to deal with people, rather than the organisations and authorities they represent and are given), the fragile, fearful, and highly culutural and manipulative Stsho, and the amoral (in the terms of other species) Kif. And yes, there is a human, Tully, not for the purposes of providing us with a viewpoint character, but for the purpose of occasionally describing Hani views of this not very prepossessing species. And you get balance of power politics as well.

Usually I don't read Dan Livingston's output,
and this time, I have only searched to find,
apparently, no reference to
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_W._Campbell>
""Write me a story about a creature that thinks
as well as a man, but not like a man."

Problems:

Elsewhere, the same line is given as,
""Write me a story about a creature that thinks
as well as a man, or better than a man, but not
like a man."

There is an amount of controversy upon whether
Campbell would allow a creature to be better than
a man. Perhaps that is not the same as to /think/
better than a man.

I expect that WikiQuote probably reflects its source
correctly. The citation is to "Theodore Sturgeon, in
the introduction to the 1977 English translation of
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky",
so it need not be the only telling of this quote.

What about women? Arguably Isaac Asimov's female
characters are revelatory. Perhaps not revelatory
about how women think.

I continued reading Campbell's _Solarite_, in which
the proposed space-going male bachelor apartment
is in fact an exchange for the main characters'
conventionally constructed shared bachelor apartment.
One of the men seems to be fashioned by nature
for kitchen work, by his own estimation - brilliant
scientist or not. So no doubt, things are kept in order.
Servants aren't mentioned yet, but that doesn't mean
that there are none. But probably not in the spaceship.
Have they moved on from _The Skylark of Space_ or not?

On Sunday, November 26, 2023 at 10:36:40 AM UTC-5, Robert Carnegie wrote:
[snip]

> Elsewhere, the same line is given as,
> ""Write me a story about a creature that thinks
> as well as a man, or better than a man, but not
> like a man."
>
> There is an amount of controversy upon whether
> Campbell would allow a creature to be better than
> a man. Perhaps that is not the same as to /think/
> better than a man.
>

Re: Campbell

[quote]

This work [ATLAS SHRUGGED] is science fiction in the same sense George Orwell's 1984 was.

[/quote] John W. Campbell quoted at

http://www.troynovant.com/Franson/Rand/Atlas-Shrugged-as-SF.html

I'm trying to remember who came up with the insight that while it includes
force fields, advanced metallurgy and a dystopian future the crucial science
in Rand's novel is _philosophy_.

See also her ANTHEM, a cousin of Zamyatin's WE and Orwell's 1984.

--
Kevin R

On Sun, 26 Nov 2023 08:00:15 -0000 (UTC), Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:

>None of these stories seem particularly philosophical to me. Beings
>a short story, "Scream," is on Livingston's list allow me to share a
>story of similar length, superior to all of the above in regards to
>philosophical exposition - "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius" (Borges).
> A sample of story snippets are show below. Perhaps they provide
>enough insight for readers familiar with some of the Livingston
>list to see my point.
>
I would definitely disagree with you on Orwell and Huxley. If "'If you
want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face
– for ever." is not philosophical what is? (I'd argue that's the most
memorable line of Nineteen Eighty-Four though the final line "He loved
Big Brother" must surely rank)

On 11/25/2023 12:05 PM, artyw2@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 12:47:29 PM UTC-5, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>
>>>
>> I've read the book version of 'Annihilation' and seen the movie. The
>> movie was a low quality mess. The book was orders of magnitude worse
>> and the second and third books in the Southern Reach series were in a
>> full power nose dive from there.
>
> I haven't read the book, but the science in the movie was pretty bad. The idea that the book was much worse is bothersome.

The movie was weird. I liked it. I did watch it for free on Netflix.
Twice.

Lynn

Horny wrote:
> Don wrote:
>
>>None of these stories seem particularly philosophical to me. Beings
>>a short story, "Scream," is on Livingston's list allow me to share a
>>story of similar length, superior to all of the above in regards to
>>philosophical exposition - "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius" (Borges).
>> A sample of story snippets are show below. Perhaps they provide
>>enough insight for readers familiar with some of the Livingston
>>list to see my point.
>>
> I would definitely disagree with you on Orwell and Huxley. If "'If you
> want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face
> ? for ever." is not philosophical what is? (I'd argue that's the most
> memorable line of Nineteen Eighty-Four though the final line "He loved
> Big Brother" must surely rank)

IMHO _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ is covert cultural criticism disguised
as fiction. "The floggings will continue until morale improves." Big
Brother stomps Winston until Winston learns to love Big Brother.

From my perspective, proper philosophic fiction compares and contrasts
ideologies. Aristotelism versus Platonism, for instance.
Among other things, Borges creates a fantastic 2-D "visual geometry"
based upon planes as a counterpoint, so to speak, to Euclidean
geometry's point. Borges' fantastic visual geometry contains no such
Euclidean points.
The Borges is not an allegory for real life. It's not reality
disguised as fiction.

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.