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

started reading Psycho Shop an unfinished Alfred Bester novel that Roger Zelazny finished after Bester's death. couldn't do it. too silly or something. the zazzy hepcat talk was bugging me.

so, went for *Destiny Doll* by Simak. reading now. so far so weird. i dig it.

You might like Simak's City too. I've also got his Way Station, haven't read it yet. I'm strung out on short stories, one a day. Haven't found a Simak collection yet--anybody?

Finally went back to and finished Damon Knight's Rule Golden and Other Stories. As prev mentioned, the title story comes first: boondocks newspaper editor, too smart for his own good, finds himself drafted to study an alien captive, his job during what may be his own prison term. The alien manipulates him into faciltating their escape, and during their time on the run across the world--could be a pre-Le Carre thriller, mainly about the stress of adaptation and paradigm shift.For the alien also:he's here to keep Earthlings to venture into Galaxy w freakishly violent drives intact--but such a rare dilemma and new solution, who knows what results will accrue. Easy enough to pick up on this, despite the genre patterns. Also in "Double Meaning," which moves a bit beyond didactic demonstration of didactism's tight-assed limations. The uptight protagonist, threatened by having to consult with an uncouth postcolonial, as they search for an alien impersonating a subject of Earth's Galactic Empire, is also plotting his own rise from the lower classes by manipulating a neurotic aristocrat into marrying him. He (hope he's)wearing down her resistence in various, plausibly projected ways (this was 50s pulp for middle school geeks??) Again, easily picked up implications (he can't go into Les Liasons D-etail), and invivations to speculate, like about what happens after the genre-typical happy-ish ending. "The Earth Quarter" is post-Imperial, postcolonial, except now the freakishly violent-tending Earthlings are in galactic ghettos, still somehow dependent on exports from supposedly ruined Earth, and trying to cope with mental and physical exile. "The Dying Man" is not dystopian, but again, slowly grokking the still-human nature of Earthopian life. I better end this, but the collection, the de facto series, gets better as it goes along, too.

"from venturing into galaxy w freakishly violent drives intact," that is. "Could be a pre-Le Carre thriller, mainly (kinda something else)" not meant to imply Knight doesn't have his own knack for moving sometimes bloody-minded tacticians around the 4-D chessboard.

anybody read Tatyana Tolstaya's "The Slynx"?

i have and it was good

today at the thrift store i bought: the best of c.m. kornbluth paperback and a hardcover of greg bear's slant.

thinking of this thread i went to the used store around the corner and bought:

kim stanley robinson: antarctica (hardcover), green mars, blue mars, icehenge

rudy rucker: the hacker and the ants, freeware

(and a frederik pohl twofer paperback with drunkard's walk and the age of the pussyfoot)

i have read those pohls. they are both pretty okay. i remember almost nothing about the first one, except learning what a drunkard's walk was.

speaking of Kornbluth & Pohl (their Merchants would prob approve Amis's inflated blurb)
http://www.sffaudio.com/images11/SFMASTERWORKSTheSpaceMerchants565.jpg

wtf @ blade runner rip-off cover

Hey. let free enterprise ring! Here's the one I used to have
http://cache.io9.com/assets/images/8/2009/11/1349544308_8668299a8f_b.jpg

Suitable art fo Mad Men

Michael Dirda is on the case: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/robert-sheckleys-store-of-the-worlds-reviewed-by-michael-dirda/2012/05/16/gIQAVzmpUU_story.html

Let’s say you are a devoted fan of Kurt Vonnegut’s books ... Where else can you find similar instances of sly, macabre wit, of such black-humored, gin-and-tonic fizziness in storytelling?

The answer may be unexpected: among the many masters of satirical science fiction and fantasy.

yeah, real unexpected there

seems like a weird thing for nyrb to bring out, is it another lethem baby

WP book critic writing for general audience and not readers of this thread shocka. And in fact how well is Sheckley known these days in sf circles, outside of The Sluglords? Or Sladek?

Yeah, the man who also brought you Inverted World, Lethem, so I say more power to him. And his co-conspirator, Alex Abramovich. Dirda too. Note to thomp, you will not like the intro to this book.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a9/Utopia14%28Vonnegut%29.jpg

Utopia 14? What the.. oh I see.

i know vonnegut is other things than 'a science fiction writer' -- but i'm sure the writer of the sentences i quote is aware that he was, amongst other things, 'a science fiction writer'. i think it's a pretty dishonest thing to write; i think it's re-entrenching divisions in a fairly pointless way, to say 'hey you can get something like vonnegut if you go and dirty your hands with this science fiction guy', when actually vonnegut's aesthetic emerged from certain conceptions of sf self-seriousness as much as anything, and if you read vonnegut and don't get that you're not a very good reader

sorry that's a bit of a tangent

i just think the comparison is framed in a dishonest & a patronising way, and i think the rest of the article betrays little more than a passing familiarity with sheckley (who i'm not expert on myself, admittedly - i don't even much like him)

OK, I see your point. I thought I saw another twist in there, I was reading it as "The answer may at first seem unexpected"

Note to thomp, you will not like the intro to this book.

hahaha

i had a look at the intro and i don't know what i'm meant to be not liking about it so ¯\ (o_o) /¯ , i guess

The bending over backwards overly defensive I'm trying desperately hard not to say it but I'm kind of ultimately forced to say it anyway you may think he is "only" an sf writer but he is actually really good position.

Should have added the word "blues" at the end.

i feel like you don't really get my position here

I got it a few posts back but I kept pursuing this other, unrelated line of inquiry. Sorry

Latest thrift store scores:
Path Into The Unknown--The Best of Soviet Science Fiction. No creds for ed or trans. Dell PB '68, orig MacGibbon & Kee Ltd, UK '66. Reputable? Intro by Judith Merril, which I've just skimmed because I don't want to be prejudiced (she's v. opinionated). She mentions some are late Stalin-era, compares them to the post-(most of 'em, I think). Is sometimes frustrated by translations, but cites several pushing their way through, especially "Wanderers and Travellers," by Arkady Strugatsky. He and brother Boris wrote "An Emergency Case." Plus, two by Ilya Varshavsky, one each by Vladislav Krapiivin, Sever Gansovsky, G. Gor, and Anatoly Dneprov. Didn't Sturgeon edit (or get his name on) an another collection of Soviet S.F.? What other Soviet of post-Soviet antholgies should I check?

Oh yeah, also from the thrift store:
The Year's Best Horror Stories XIV. DAW PB '86 , edited by Karl Edward Wagner. Incl.Charles L. Grant, Ramsey Campbell, Tanith Lee, David J. Schow, William F. Nolan, and Dennis Etchison, among many others--mostly 80s names for sure, where are they now? Horror was an 80s boomtown.
Revelation Space, Ace PB 2002, by Alastair Reynolds. Liked his anthologized stories OK, and this sports ravin' blurbs from Locus, Stephen Baxter, many others. So--?
Best of Damon Kinght, the only hardback in this haul(SF Book Club ed)

Speaking of the 80s, I read the Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic and Hard To Be A God back then, both very festive.

"The New Planet" by Konstantin Yuon, 1921. Da!
http://s.wordpress.com/imgpress?fit=1000,1000&url=http%3A%2F%2Frussiansf.files.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F01%2Fyuon_new_planet-better2.jpg

where do i start with octavia butler? she seems so cool but i have never read any of her stuff. the patternist series?

I like Tarkovsky's version of Solaris
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/6/24/1308916809537/solaris-007.jpg

Wild Seed (from the Patternist series) and Kindred first come to mind, very favorably. This is a pretty good overview:
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/butler_octavia

i prefer the xenogenesis series to the patternist series but both are dope

[Wild Seed (from the Patternist series) and Kindred first come to mind, very favorably. This is a pretty good overview

Alos, Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents if you feel like some civilisation-falling-apart stories. The 'Bloodchild' short story collection is also a good intro

yeah it all sounds so good. i became intrigued by the illustration and description of anyanwu from "wild seed" in barlowe's guide to fantasy, need to read her asap.
http://lcart1.narod.ru/image/fantasy/wayne_barlowe/gtf/Wayne_Barlowe_Anyanwu.jpg

oh hi saturday night, could i be more of a dork.

god the cover art by wayne barlowe is so good too
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0vq9dt1XQ1r6agxto1_500.jpg

Duh I'd by it for that! Same artist did your prev pic post?

yeah, wayne barlowe - he is amazing. i bought barlowe's guide to fantasy (illustrations of characters from fantasy books) and "barlowe's guide to extra-terrestrials" on ebay for less than a dollar. here's the alzabo from "book of the new sun"!
http://lcart1.narod.ru/image/fantasy/wayne_barlowe/gtf/Wayne_Barlowe_Alzabo.jpg

it's been really good inspiration for things to read!

those look like books i could love.

i really liked Destiny Doll by Simak. all my fave SF books make me sad. so many cool ideas and moments in a slim paperback. can't really ask much more from fiction or art.

gonna read frederik pohl's The Man Who Ate The World story collection next. then dig into some of the non-SF paperbacks i brought home yesterday. maybe alternate SF/non/SF/non...i'm kinda comfortable reading nothing but space operas at this point in my life. reality is a drag. i learn more and think more reading sci-fi then i do most straight lit these days.

at the thrift store, they had tons of those mercenary/doomsday/road warrior paperbacks and i was SO tempted to buy a bunch of them even though i know they are mostly terrible. i do love the IDEA of the genre though. "Jake Callahan survived World War III and warily joined a resistance movement hidden in the mountains of what was once Colorado, but would he be able to outlive the ultimate test of his formidable Navy SEALs skills..."

okay, i made that quote up, but that's kinda how they all go.

the main problem with them, despite the prose quality, is they often have truly scary political egenda, KKK-style

xpost Farnham's Freehold is a proto-survivalist saga, re US vs USSR boom-boom, but not KKK--in the context of 60s Heinlein, and along w xpost Glroy Road maybe his peak, though Stranger In A Strange Land (not as good) is where I got off the electric star-spangled bus, man. The kind yall are talking about I first and last was aware of in late 70s/early 80s, when Wal-Mart landed in my Granny's town, up in the hills. When the Soviet Union caved in, the subgenre did too, as a Wal-Mart-acceptable thang (Wal-Mart of course *was* the mainstream by then). Went more underground/indie, with overt, foregrounded anti-ZOG, how-to for mental militias. Before that, there was at least one movie vs. Soviet occupation, Red Dawn, created by John Milius, I think. Also did The Wind And The Lion and some of the Apocalypse Now drafts. Survivalism's also on "reality" TV, in terms of building and stocking shelters. target practice, big pronouncements etc-- w.carefully edited sociopolitical explications re Obamafication and beyond.

survivor etc. seem more occupied with saying ALLIANCE a million times than pushing any survivalist agenda

No, this is a more recent trend, and on maybe Nat Geo, the History Channel? Flicking past 'em, I don't watch much

Has anybody out there read Star Trek books by big name authors? Library's got a trilogy by KW Jeter, orig noted for Dr. Adder, also note that link of him reading steampunk version of "The Red Shoes" upthread. And they've got at least one Trek title by Greg Bear (plus a discard of his Forge of God, is that good? Only Bear novel I've read was Blood Music, good skewering on SF's New Age tendencies)

Forge of God is decent, apocalypse via evil alien fuckheads but not taking the usual route of massive militaristic spaceship invasion, the aliens' modus operandi and motivation is rather more inscrutable and even wtf in places iirc.

Wouldn't touch a star trek novelisation with a ten foot bat'leth.

Yeah that's Damon Knight's notion, his aliens are alien, though so far most of his evil fuckheads are human, in the 50s stories I've been reading. Don't think Jeter's Trek trilogy is novelization, just authorized use of ST characters/elements, might be wrong though.