rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

The Wind-Up Girl - yes I read this about 2 months ago. Very, very good debut. Imaginative, great world, convincing speculation, non-cliched take on a potentially overdone subject (climate change). I think what led it down slightly was that some of the central characters were more interesting and fully developed than others (e.g. the US Calorie Man was incredibly underwritten and seemed to act as a cypher to allow the author to explore the setting more than anything) and the plot was a bit meh.

But yeah very excited to see where Bacigalupi goes next.

Agreed, the plotting was off, and certain strands didn't get picked up fully or were written out too quickly when they had to be sacrificed to bring things to a close. I'd say there's room for a sequel except I don't know if Bacigalupi would even be interested, or if he wants to go in a whole new direction.

If you are interested in the world, there are a couple of short stories that pre-dated the novel in the same setting, although I've only read one "The Calorie Man". I think one is about Hock Seng's backstory (he was best character imo).

He released another novel Ship Breaker but it is a YA thing so I think I'll give it a miss and from wiki it looks like there is another novel slated for this year The Alchemist (with J.K. Drummond - who s/he?).

OH MY GOD I'M AN IDIOT SHIP BREAKER IS ONE OF MINE

And it is glorious.

Ok maybe I will check it out then...

Not "mine" rly but "ours". I try to be oblique about that stuff on teh innernets so I can pan a book if I want to w/o being traceable.

I've just started "Foundation and Empire" for SF book club. It seems a bit more thrill powered than Foundation itself, which is nice.

That series just gets worse and worse.

mmm, I had heard otherwise, at least with regards to F&E and 2F.

A bit into F&E, though, I would have to say that it still has the problem that the Foundation people are all really smarmy. I always find myself rooting for the people they defeat.

Sorry that was a bit dismissive, but I just couldn't get on with it. I only read the first three, not all the sequels, prequels, etc. I hated the concept of psychohistory. I hated that Seldon's plan was basically unquestioned and there seemed to be no moral dimension. I hated the idea of elite cadres of technocrats as the only hope for the galaxy etc etc. It just hasn't dated well on the whole.

I read the original trilogy and a couple of the sequels and the prequel when I was younger. I re-read the original series again last year and thought it was mediocre - not well written and pretty dry. From what I remember the prequel is more fun to read but a bit dumb and the sequels just try and shoehorn the Foundation and Robot universes together.

Guardian Review is an SF special today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/guardianreview <- main page link will probably change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/14/science-fiction-authors-choice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/13/iain-banks-science-fiction-genre
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/14/science-fiction-authors-interviews

and this is to tie in with the upcoming British Library Science Fiction exhibition, Out Of This World, which opens on the 20th until Sept

a few details here
http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/outofthisworld/outofthisworld.html

That's added a few to my to-read list. The current list in full:

City by Simak
Light by Harrison ... or maybe not, the blurb did a good job of putting me off.
The Stars My Destination by Bester
The City and The Stars by Clarke
Solaris by Lem
Redemption Ark by Reynolds
... and something by Octavia Butler.

Am curious as to exactly what non-SF SF books Banks thinks he's referring to in his somewhat absurd and condescending piece.

Light has got three storylines, ledge, they alternate chapters, so if you don't like one you might like the other two.

(i have the Bester if you'd like a lend, ledge. also have Redemption Ark but that's too heavy to lug around)

The City And The Stars was my favourite Clarke when I was a kid, if that counts for anything.

Just finished Robert Silverberg's Dying Inside, the self-hatred gets a bit much at times but I suppose that's the point. Can anyone recommend any more SF with a contemporary setting (contemporary to the time it was written anyway) that doesn't involve any world-changing events occurring? SF with an interior slant I guess. Maybe there's some obvious candidates but I'm not thinking of them.

James Tiptree Jr short story anthology is on the way, I'll dip into it next week probably.

tad williams could write a whole other novel about how not to pace a novel

haha

which series are you reading? they all have terrible structure but memory, sorrow & thorn is probably the best

(i have the Bester if you'd like a lend, ledge. also have Redemption Ark but that's too heavy to lug around)

chz, but i've *cough* obtained *cough* ebooks of both of these ;)

lamp it is those! i think they have a lot of merit in various things so far but i kind of lost all hope when i was about 200pp in the second one and realised that the main characters were p much going to spend the entire novel going from point a to point b. so now i am taking a lot longer to read it.

i've always wanted to write a short story about a drug designer living in a future where drugs are legal because it's the only way the entertainment business can make any money anymore. maybe based on peter saville, somebody highly influential, but not really so much part of the mainstream and getting on a bit. has something similar been done before? must have.

problem is, i can't write for shit and my grammar's gone down the pan since uni.

@ thomp yeah its something common to all his series ive read - they build up decent momentum but he really has a hard time creating small but exciting moments in his stories - theres lots of pointless rehashing of old arguments while walking :/

that said theres some stuff in the middle books that love, & he has a lot of str8 up cool ideas, like i read them & tht 'thats really cool'.

also simon taking several hundred pages to realise he is having prophetic dreams

also i am assuming that prester john's sword is the sword that is missing? people are taking a long time to work that out too

-

xpost

see the last chunk of the first book was really well constructed, so i thought he'd got the hang of it? but i guess not. i can but hope the third one is all-action

Write it anyway max, nobody can write for shit without practicing.

enjoyed MS&T but yeah it is a bit 'stuff happens' throughout

what a rubbish criticism but you know

Can anyone recommend any more SF with a contemporary setting (contemporary to the time it was written anyway) that doesn't involve any world-changing events occurring? SF with an interior slant I guess. Maybe there's some obvious candidates but I'm not thinking of them.

John Wyndham's 'Chocky' comes to mind--small kid's mind is invaded by consciousness of friendly, advanced alien; his dad tries to work out wehat's going on and makes contact

I suspect Iain Banks is referring to people like Atwood, Paul Theroux (who wrote an atrocious SF novel called O-Zone) and so forth

Can anyone recommend any more SF with a contemporary setting (contemporary to the time it was written anyway) that doesn't involve any world-changing events occurring? SF with an interior slant I guess. Maybe there's some obvious candidates but I'm not thinking of them.

Theodore Sturgeon, esp. More Than Human.

Pattern Recognition maybe. haven't finished it.

Yeah, that and Spook Country fit. I haven't read the 3rd part of the trilogy yet.

I suspect Iain Banks is referring to people like Atwood, Paul Theroux (who wrote an atrocious SF novel called O-Zone) and so forth

O-Zone does sound pretty bad. Have never read any Atwood but I thought she had more cachet among the SF community (she has won an Arthur C Clarke award after all), although her snobbish claims that she writes speculative not science fiction won her no friends I'm sure.

Banks may also mean Ishiguro and his book about body harvest clone people. I also heard that that guy who wrote Devil In A Blue Dress wrote some dreadful SF book set in San Francisco.

Can anyone recommend any more SF with a contemporary setting (contemporary to the time it was written anyway) that doesn't involve any world-changing events occurring? SF with an interior slant I guess. Maybe there's some obvious candidates but I'm not thinking of them.

Flowers for Algernon?

Lots of Ray Bradbury stuff would fit that model as well.

Aldiss' Report on Probability A, no question.

Thread has convinced me to have a mostly SF summer, mainly to get on with the 25 or so paperbacks I have collected but not gotten round to.

tell us what they are, xyzzzz

i also have made a point of picking up any cheap science fiction, from 'classic' authors i recognise, over the fast few years - and consequently now have towering heaps of unread, possibly never to be read, pbks in the spare room. i love the covers, as much as anything. i went on this splurge after reading The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, which i thought was stunning... but i've not read any SF novel since that's as subtle or clever.

anyway, i have been enjoying this thread, and learning from it.

Have you read other Le Guin?

Her 'The Lathe of Heaven' is also excellent, plus of course 'The Left Hand of Darkness'. And 'The Word for World is Forest' is also pretty clever, if a little dated now

i read A Wizard of Earthsea recently. is this the origin of the "wizard school" trope? everything in the book felt familiar (partly because i'm too old for it).

'Left Hand' is excellent; it's no less subtle than 'Dispossessed' but I found the politics in the latter a little dry, the adventure in the former more gripping. I love every single Earthsea book; the first one is probably more 'for kids' than the rest, I'd at least give 'The Tombs of Atuan' a go as well. I know they're not the most acclaimed, but I love the last two, where after a long break she suddenly returns to Earthsea and examines it under a whole new light.

As for other subtle, clever SF: Stanislaw Lem's 'His Master's Voice' is very philosophical - also scientific, psychological, sociological, political - and with a very mature kind of world-weary pessimism.

In other news, a FEMALE CHARACTER has just appeared in Foundation and Empire.

^oh yeah this was another issue I had with the series...

goddamn female characters. It was going great and then he had to ruin it.

damn right ;)

On the covers of The Dispossessed.

nice - spanish cover is missing though, here it is:

http://www.scyla.com/biblioteca/751.jpg

i've recently finished the stars my destination (pretty hokey plot and character wise, but admirable world-building given its era), and the cyberiad (moderately amusing very inventive fairy tales for adults).