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

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.

i just started this book. had to start somewhere with her! she's only written 34734837442424 books.

http://www.andre-norton.org/coverart_gallery/android_at_arms_1.jpg

http://www.andre-norton.org/coverart_gallery/android_at_arms_2.jpg

i love pictures of andre norton.

http://cdn3.iofferphoto.com/img/item/172/736/495/X24XBq8dGE5osKS.jpg

http://i3.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/-1/draft_lens2152220module11280018photo_1220293661AndreNorton-lady04.jpg

huh, i think she taught me second grade

I read "I Am Legend" (or "I AM TEH LEGEND") by Richard Matheson over the weekend. It is really gripping. Some may say, of course, that it is not SF.

in other news, loving the Andre Norton pictures. I would have enjoyed her books even more if I had known what she and her cats look like.

I also love the Andre Norton pics.

More AH than SF, but I finished Kingsley Amis' The Alteration recently and enjoyed it greatly. I'm wondering if I should seek out The Anti-Death League or even New Maps of Hell or the Spectrum anthologies he edited (probably out of print at this stage)?

New Maps is very interesting, but obviously about 60 years out of date. His fantasy novel, 'The Green Man', is bloody good, too. Haven't read The Anti-Death League. He did another SF novel, Russian Hide and Seek, about a USSR-invaded UK, which I also haven't read, but is meant to be good.