Which of 108 Vintage Sci-Fi books aged well? And which did not....

A Case of Conscience, this is going to have to go in the tedious bucket which is a little bit unfair because the first half I really enjoyed but the second half left me completely cold.

Robert Silverberg, A Time of Changes, , I really loved, and actually that was my first Robert Silverberg, , and I, , really liked his prose style, , still very silky smooth

I think I would put this in the still awesome category. It's one that I quite like to read again.

A World Out of Time, , I didn't love, didn't hate it either, so I'm going to put that in worth reading.

And this is a pretty good disaster tale. There's massive earthquakes, everything gets flattened.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, I thought that was a good but not great, , post-apocalyptic tale. , I liked it, set in, , Florida, if I remember rightly.

Babel 17, I, , think probably fits in the still awesome category.

It was perfectly readable, , I enjoyed it. There is a second and maybe even a third, , part to the series, which, , which at some stage I'll I'll I'll read, but didn't stick in my memory.

Ward Moore, Bring the Jubilee, I thought is really good. I loved it.

Harry Harrison's Captive Universe is an interesting generation ship tale with a premise that I won't say too much more about it except that it involves Aztecs.

I just didn't like it. I thought it was obvious the what I'm sure at the time was a shocking reveal concern- concerning the boss alien. Saw it coming a mile off.

Chocky is not my favorite Wyndham. You know, the standard of them is pretty good as the novels go.

I thought that was pretty good and there were a couple of really nice stories in this. I think I would call that still awesome.

Crash particularly I which I didn't like although that's you know, I read that years ago before I started focusing on this channel so my opinion of it is quite stale at this point.

J.G. Ballard's Crystal World, I thought worth reading, one of his earlier books and an area of African jungle undergoes a sort of alarming but beautiful transformation

Robert Silverberg, Downwards to the Earth, one that I enjoyed. His trademark prose, very good

The second one, I got tripped over repeatedly by the stupid apostrophes in everyone's names and all the names being similar one of them I think even called Topawe or it certainly reminded me strongly of that. And I just got bored.

And you know, I liked it perfectly well. It was a brisk read, very short, you know, done in a day.

And there were some interesting things about it, but overall it was a bit dull.

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, False Dawn, I would say holds up pretty well. It's a post-apocalyptic thing.

I liked it a lot. I think it's in the holds up pretty well category.

I just didn't find that interesting. I've generally enjoyed what I've read of Brian Aldiss, but I didn't enjoy Frankenstein Unbound really.

Frankenstein, on the other hand, I'm going to put in awful. I hated it. I hated it, properly hated it.

Fugue for Darkening Island, I think it's worth reading for historical interest. It's a challenging read in this in 2026.

Oh my days, there's a awful lot of incomprehensible jargon in it. It's all a little bit simplistic, I found. And you know, it's important historically, but doesn't work now as a as a story.

And , that was Galapagos and I liked that a lot better than Sirens of Titan

Those bits were pretty interesting. but the but the bits back on the space station with cuz a lot of waiting around and a lot of navel-gazing. I just didn't find it very interesting.

How holds up pretty well. that's the first of the Hooded Swan books. I liked it.

Michael Coney, Hello Summer, Goodbye. I loved this.

Angela Carter, Heroes and Villains, I read this recently. I'm going to put that in the holds up well category.

But High-Rise I really liked I liked the setting. It was a bit implausible in some respects

This was a mixed bag. There's five sections to this book. The first two or three I really liked, and the second two or three I liked less, but I'm going to put it in the holds up pretty well category on average, I think.

It was a bit dull in places, but it was interesting enough. and I thought, you know, done very well for what it's worth.

Gregory Benford's In the Ocean of Night. I will put that in holds up pretty well.

Inherit the Stars James P. Hogan, I thought that was really good. I enjoyed that.

It's It's a thin book, doesn't take long to read, but very interesting. Lots packed into quite short book.

Kindred by Octavia Butler is awesome. I loved it. it's a very harrowing tale very interesting, well done

Kite World by Keith Roberts. I love this, too. I'm going to put this up on Still Awesome.

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, me, this was awful. And I know that's heresy for some of you because many of you will have loved it having read it probably much younger than I am. I didn't get on with it at all.

I liked it. You know, nothing special, it was pretty good.

Man Plus by Frederik Pohl, I think in the whole got pretty well category. interesting study about a man who's running an experiment or a science project to see if we can adapt humanity for life on a harsh environment, Mars perhaps.

I thought it was pretty good interesting description of life on a version of Mars, anyway. And an interesting description of autism as in a science fiction, but not something you see very often.

Mind Bridge by Joe Haldeman, put that in the worth reading category.

Samuel R. Delany, Nova, I think that the same a pretty unusual space opera, space opera of the new wave, let's say. I thought done very well.

Bob Shaw, Orbitsville, classic big dumb object book. , pretty well done.

We'll call it still awesome just on the basis it was the really the first ever generation ship science fiction novel serialized in one of the science fiction magazines in the '40s, I think, and then appeared in the '50s in novel form, is how I read it. I think it's still really good.

Bob Shaw, Other Days, Other Eyes, really good, still awesome.

Pervane Bikis Roberts I loved this book. very English a sort of sort of fix-up or episodic in nature but set in a alternate history where Elizabeth the First has been assassinated

And it's nice and quite well done. But after about half of it, you've had enough. It's quite sweet a bit sickly even

So I found it to be pretty dull, actually. And it's you know, it's Clark's writing is not that interesting. He's pretty dry and didn't work for me at all.

I perhaps unreasonably was just was just expecting there to be more, you know, space adventure. And actually, it was all pretty much underground. so, there wasn't any hooded swan action. Didn't like it that much.

Clifford Simak, Ring Around the Sun. I think I'll put that in the worth reading category.

Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys, I might put that in the tedious category and I'll put it there mainly out of because my expectations were not met.

A.E. van Vogt, Slan, I found tedious, didn't like it much. I've enjoyed a couple of other A.E. van Vogt books certainly more than this one. I just didn't find it very engaging.

I there were aspects of it I really liked, but there were long sections where the protagonist is basically looking up stuff in academic texts in the library and then reading them out to us. Boring as all hell.

Heinlein, Starman Jones, worth reading, not so-so.

So it was a kind of a interesting from a cosmological point of view, but also if it was only that it would have been a bit dry, but the interactions between the crew I thought were done quite well as well.

I think there are, , two probably two or three , short stories which really stand out that might, , that might be in the still awesome , category, but I think overall, , holding up pretty well is pretty fair.

Beast Master by, , Andre Norton, sadly I didn't like at all, I'm going to put that in the tedious category. I just didn't get excited by at all, it's a bit a bit workaday, I felt.

And some interesting stuff in there, but you know nothing that blew my socks off.

It was one of my favorites from my teens. I thought it was still holds up remarkably well.

I didn't love it and even John Harrison doesn't like it much these days but it does some interesting things that among the first space operas I think to involve a entirely unheroic main character.

This was a favorite of mine when I was in my teens. I've read it a number of times and I reread it a year or two back. I loved it.

The characters are boring, the situation was boring, nothing really happens.

By I still really like it. It's a comfort read for me as sort of thing I can kind of pick up at any point and read.

John Christopher, The Death of Grass. I think this is in the still awesome category. Fantastic things fall apart tale.

Demolished Man, personal favorite of mine. I read it when I was It was among the first science fiction books I've ever read, actually. And I think I would put this in the still awesome category.

It's still reads well. It's Ursula K. Le Guin so the prose is very good. But it is, as I say, a little bit dry.

I thought this was really good. I think that can go in the still awesome category.

Vonda McIntyre's The Exile Waiting, I think worth reading. Some interesting world building.

Some interesting aspects to it, some of which are a little bit kind of off-color, let's let's say from a 2026 perspective, but I thought, you know, considering its time done very well

But I thought it was I thought it was great. Very well done.

Grim, bleak read with almost no redeeming features in terms of hope, but I thought done very well and very sticky.

Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man, I think I'm going to put that in the worth reading category. It was fine. Didn't love it.

I'm going to I'm going to put it in the holds up pretty well. It's a classic for a reason.

The Island of Doctor Moreau was probably the least favorite of my reads of HG Wells last year. I'm going to put it in mid table there. It was It was all right.

I didn't like it as much as some of the others we'll see in a minute, but I still I still thought it was good.

I thought it was great. You know, I do like her writing.

Classic early space opera. I enjoyed it. I think that's in the holds up pretty well category.

Leigh Brackett, The Long Tomorrow, I thought it was fab and that was my first Leigh Brackett. I thought her writing was fabulous and a very interesting setting

Next up is Walter Tevis, , The Man Who Fell to Earth, which , which I really liked. You know, it didn't , didn't blow my socks off, but I thought it was done very well.

Man in the Maze by Silverberg, I didn't like that one very much. I didn't dislike it, but it was fairly mid-table Silverberg for me.

The Midwich Cuckoos, Wyndham, that will have to go in the holds up pretty well category. a classic, of course. Not my favorite of his, but pretty good.

The Main God's Eye, classic space opera. I think I'm going to put that in the awesome category. I really loved it.

I got a bit confused and found it difficult to follow because there are so many similar clones having similar relationships with their similar clone counterparts. And it just got frankly a bit difficult to keep track of them.

it's worth reading. It's interesting. Doesn't work as well as the rest.

Heinlein's Puppet Masters worth reading. Didn't love it. Interesting sort of red peril tale reds under the bed type thing from the 1950s I think.

there were one or two things about it I liked about it, but generally speaking, I think it's fair to say I hated it.

it does hold up remarkably well. I so it was good, definitely worth your time if you haven't read it.

I thought it was in the worth reading category. It didn't do much for me and but that could just be because I'm a grumpy 50-year-old.

H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, I think that's still very much awesome. Foundational science fiction text.

Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. van Vogt, I think that was good. It's episodic and it follows the voyage of the Space Beagle

Sexy cat lady does in fact make an appearance in the book but overall it's pretty tedious. It's over long. It's twice as long as it needs to be and a bit of a jumble.

H.G. Wells War of the Worlds still awesome. I read that last year for the first time and I loved it.

The Garments of Caean by Barrington J. Bayley, I thought this was in the I'm going to put this in the still awesome category.

Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch I'm going to put in the worth reading category as well. Didn't particularly like it.

Silverberg, Thorns, I think I would put this in I liked it better than The Man in the Maze, so let's put it in the holds up pretty well.

Philip Jose Farmer's To Your Scattered Bodies Go I'm going to put in the I'm going to put it in the holds up pretty well just because it's interesting. it's a bizarre premise.

Tower of Glass Silverberg, I'm going to put that in the holds up pretty well category. I enjoyed it more than more than Man in the Maze again.

It was all right. Some interesting things about it. Didn't blow my socks off.

Trouble with Lichen, I think also in the same category, strong female protagonist, unusual for a book written in the 1950s. one of Wyndham's best, I really liked it.

Asimov Up the Line, I think that is in the holds up pretty well category. It's time travel as tourist business and there's some interesting things about that

Let's put that in holds up pretty well. I liked it. It's a trademark kind of bucolic style that Simak does very well

It's perfectly good space adventure. He did some interesting things with the crew of the spaceship involved.

Kate Wilhelm Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, I thought that was great. Certainly holds up pretty well, arguably still awesome. I really liked it.

So that was interesting. I think that can go in the holds up pretty well category.