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

The Fabulous Clipjoint is pretty cool.

Just finished two SF novels:

Dan Abnett - Embedded - British author more famous for comics and licensed 40k fiction. This came out recently. Part of my ongoing quest to find some military SF that is at all comparable to Forever War. This isn't it unfortunately. An action-packed plot about a war correspondent whose conciousness literally gets embedded remotely into the brain of a frontline soldier. If anything it is a little too frantic - characters are developed and then inexplicably jettisoned; the narrative relies on a hackneyed Cold War paradigm; and the big reveal at the end is a bit meh and probably entirely predictable if you were paying more attention than I was. Not awful, fine if you want an easy read, but far from great.

Chris Beckett - Holy Machine - another British author. This came out in 2003 and I have had it hanging around for a while. I hated it at first. It has all the hallmarks of a debut novelist fnding his feet - cliched and barely credible speculation, simplistic philosophical concepts, bland description and characterisation. And yet, despite all that, somehow by the end it had grown on me. The matter of fact tone of the narrative, whether intended or not, actually succeeds in conveying a horrific, dreamlike quality that works well with the subject matter. Fair to say overall this is fairly average, but I will probably check out more of his writing in the future.

Currently I'm alternating between the Complete Chronicles of Conan and Songs of the Dying Earth, a mammoth collection of stories set in Jack Vance's Dying Earth milieu. The former is fantastic pulp writing (but I'm sure you knew that), provided you can look past Robert E. Howard's dodgy views on race, women etc; the latter, I've been reading since about February on and off and it ranges from excellent to decent, but basically if you have any interest in the Dying Earth stories at all, then there will be something for you here.

Finished Redemption Ark. Found it a little bit... silly, or annoying, or something. Hope I haven't burned out on teh new space opera. Think my major bones of contention were a) messages from THE FUTURE; and ii) typical Reynolds characters - everyone's a hard-boiled arsehole, and all the intrigue and plotting and power struggles are just office politics writ large.

It was not all bad though, got enough of a kick out of it to want to see the series to the end.

Read the first 10 pages or so of Rendezvous With Rama today, but I just can't deal with Clarke's flaccid writing style any more. Pedantic, flat and frankly boring, which is a shame as he was my favourite writer when I was a kid.

yeah, ppl had bigged up rama on ilx before so i gave it a go a little while ago and it was SO BORING - page after page of tedious description, some of the most cardboard characters/dialogue you'll ever read, and just a huge sense of anticlimax throughout - scientists explore empty spaceship thing for 300 pages YAWN. i do remember enjoying childhood's end many years ago, but i'm in no hurry to revisit that now.

am abt 100 pages into frank herbert's dune, which i've never read before. funnily enough, my copy has a powerblurb from clarke on the back, comparing it to lord of the rings (which had always put me off, before.) anyway, dune is great fun so far, the writing is kind of an odd mixture of the terrible and the strange, the poetic and the clunkily expository - i don't think i'[d realised before just how pulply this book is, with its boohiss baddies who 'mince' across mock medieval interiors while plotting against archrivals. the combination of 'hard' science fiction and standard fantasy tropes seems quite clever and herbert is v good on texture and detail - he's an impressive world builder, if nothing else.

i liked rama. was very science-led though - cylindrical spaceship's gonna need some gravity which means spinning. which means any water in it will for a toroidal mass. but wait, it'll be in deep space so that'll be frozen... etc.

> empty spaceship

it wasn't empty

read Rama recently, agree about Clarke but I half enjoyed this one.
Also Earthlight, again liked this one too

picked up Peter Hamiltons Dreaming Void and Bank's Algebraist from car boot recently, a steal but am dubious about Void (too much mind sci fi for my liking). Will give it a go though, quite enjoyed Hamiltons commonwealth saga.

but just started reading Naked Sun. It's the only robot book from asimov I've yet to read.

do i need to read ben bova? got something called the exiles trilogy in paperback at the store. 3booksinone. maybe i'll just read it. how bad could it be?

possibly one of the first sci fi books i read when i was a kid. a cool art teacher (who was amazingly good at sci fi art) died near where we lived. a friend of the family and somehow we got hold of all his old books. This was the one I managed to pick up.

Although being as young as i was i could never pick up the book without giggling at the authors name everytime.

i may have mentioned before how much i despise hamilton...

I had a quick snoop at the British Library SF exhibition yesterday... it looks very inspirational. I think the exhibition guide would make a good overview of the form.

some friends of mine in town have started a sci-fi book club! i'm not much of a joiner, but i might join in for this. first book is a canticle for leibowitz - which i still have never read - with discussion and drinks at a local watering hole in july.

i definitely enjoy the drinks part. every book club should include drinks.

and i think i am gonna read that ben bova trilogy. looks entertaining.

'BEND' 'OVER'
HAHAHAHA

"I had a quick snoop at the British Library SF exhibition yesterday"

I thought this was fantastic. So many great covers.

some friends of mine in town have started a sci-fi book club!

Our SF book club (run by Dublin Public Libraries) is total awesomeness. Our current book is "I Am Legend", and we have been promised "The Man In The High Castle", "A Scanner Darkly", and "The Island of Doctor Moreau" to follow.

every book club should include drinks.

wise words.

Off topic but i see you were quoted in the Entertainment Weekly piece on fan reaction to the last Game of Thrones episode, Dirty Vicar. Internet famous!

surely not, Number None? I don't think I have ever said anything anywhere about the Game of Thrones. Or have I?

I am looking at Entertainment Weekly now... do they just summarise every episode in an over-literal manner?

Guess you're not the Dirty Vicar on twitter then?

nope, have not yet been assimilated to Twitter. A bit annoying to hear that the Dirty Vicar name has been nabbed already, as I bet has my real name and every possible other name I might want to pick.

Xpost: oh wait, this is their recap rather than review I am looking at.

Well, a tweet by whoever stole your name was quoted in a piece about negative fan reaction to the latest episode. I just assume every moniker on the internet is unique

James Tiptree Jr aka Alice Sheldon is my new favourite sf writer, although supposedly her novels weren't great. But the short story collection I've been reading (Her Smoke Rose Up Forever) contains some astonishing pieces. Don't think there's too many sf writers who write in the present tense much either, it creates a pretty strange atmosphere.

That book is terrific, especially the Arkham House edition with Klimt cover and Clute intro. Bought the bio but haven't read it yet

started on Algebraist and just couldn't get into it so for now decided to read hitchhikers guide, need some comic relief sci fi.

I have just started I AM LEGEND. I was particularly creeped out by all the vampire zombie ladies trying to lure the hero out of his house for sexy time.

Yes, the power of his masculine appeal is so strong, even undead wimmenz can feel it.

I just finished Theodore Sturgeon's 'More than Human' - I really enjoyed it, just what I was looking for after a run of very mediocre SF novels. Surprised to find out afterwards that it was published in 1953. Definitely a precursor to New Wave. The story revolves around the emergence of a new type of human, a 'gestalt' symbiotically linked organism, consisting of several ordinary humans with different psychic abilities. It's a fixup novel I believe and the first two stories are the best - it loses steam in the concluding section, but generally very well-written, very unusual take on the 'next-stage-of-evolution' type story (probably hackneyed implausible concept now, but the execution is good enough to get round it - I can imagine it must have felt extremely radical for SF in 1953).

Yeah, I remember liking the story a lot better than the novel version.

i have almost finished that steven erickson novel. oy.

i almost bought a copy of 'rogue moon' this morning, decided to wait until the next time the bookstall guy was at the market, now regret this decision

rogue moon is ridiculous.

I can't think of any Sturgeon I wouldn't recommend 100%.

i read rogue moon as alastair reynolds mentioned it in an interview. there is a good story in there (split personalities, exploration of alien artefact), but there's a lot of guff around it, yes.

I can't think of any Sturgeon I wouldn't recommend 100%.

― Mr. Patrick Batman (WmC), Thursday, June 23, 2011 12:44 PM (33 minutes ago)

Just reread Rendezvous With Rama for the first time in probably 25 years (after first giving up on it last week). The plot & scenario are really compelling, but Clarke really couldn't create an interesting human character, eh. I suppose you don't need to when you have THE CYLINDRICAL SEA and BIOTS etc but it'd be nice if they were a little less dull. I'm guessing the sequels are unreadable tosh?

Idk, I read the sequels so they can't be literally unreadable, on the other paw I don't remember anything about them.

Aw, come on, I really liked Rogue Moon!

Reynolds probably talked about it because he basically ripped it off (admitting as much in the story itself) in 'Diamond Dogs'

None other than M. John Harrison put Rogue Moon on his list of favorites so I imagine it can't be that bad. Can't even remember if I ever read it, been intending to (re)read it for a year

'Diamond Dogs' I remember being really great up until the total lack of an ending.

Looking forward to the new Reynolds actually (although i haven't read his latest yet). More optimistic apparently

just started reading the man who folded himself and the introduction suggests rama's non-characters were an intentional throwback to an earlier era of sf (it comes up because rama won the nebula/hugo awards over gerrold's book)

My problem with Rogue Moon is all the cod psychologising. I've no problem in theory with examining the detailed internal lives of characters - I love Henry James after all - but when your characters are all one dimensional caricature arseholes(*) and everything's viewed through a kind of bogus freudian filter, then no thanks. Honestly there were not a few points in it when people's motivations and actions made literally no sense to me.

(*) Connington is amoral and manipulative, openly testing Hawks and anyone else he meets for weaknesses. He takes Hawks to see Al Barker, an adventurer and thrill-seeker. Hawks also meets Claire Pack, a sociopath of a different kind. Where Connington covets power, and Barker seems to love death, Claire enjoys using sex, or the prospect of sex, to manipulate men.

i don't think diamond dogs is the only thing that AR's written that rogue moon has influenced. am thinking of the other alien structures with traps in them (the mazey sphere, the repeated paths thing in pushing ice). but these may be sf tropes, i don't think burgis invented them.

latest AR, Terminal World, disappointed me. reminded me of Dark Tower or Mad Max with balloons. needed (many) more spaceships.

next one is the first part of the 11 parter iirc.

not quite? according to you know who

In June 2009 Reynolds signed a new deal, worth £1 million, with his British publishers for ten books to be published over the next ten years.[5]
He is presently working on the first novel in a trilogy called Poseidon's Children (Previously know by Reynolds working title, the 11k series), a hard sf trilogy dealing with the expansion of the human species into the solar system and beyond, and the emergence of Africa as a spacefaring, technological super-state several centuries down the line over the next 11,000 years.[6] The first book will be titled Blue Remembered Earth, book 1 of Poseidon's Children.[7]

ah, there's the confusion right there:

"Previously know by Reynolds working title, the 11k series"

thank fuck though, no-one should ever have to read an 11-part series.

i'm hoping they're all going to be revelation space length 8)

and that i live long enough to read them all.

(only other decalogy i can think of was l ron hubbard)

i liked that ben bova book! the three book trilogy thing. properly epic and all. and sad. i definitely felt like i was on that damn ship with them for centuries. i like books like that. where you kinda can't believe where it ended up given where it started.

sounds like my kinda thing, will look out for it.