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

The only duds in here so far are from vast troves of "hard SF" titans: Heinlein's snotty, superficial "It's Great to Be Back", Asimov's conventionally plotted "The Life and Times of Multivac", and Clarke's award-winning theological tearjerker, "The Star".

conveniently plotted, that is.

The Ascent of Wonder cont.: "Rappachini's Daughter" and "Vermillion Sands", wow--reminds me I gotta read some more short stories by Hawthorne and Ballard. Comparison made more striking for their not being in close proximity, although too bad that stations between incl. compartively labored exercises by Wilhelm and Benford. Donald Kingsbury brings a compellingly sympathetic, late 70s perspective on and of a whore heroine, in wicked media/techno-mogul paradise of San Francisco, and thence to the domain of an archetypal 50s SF Problem-Solving Man of Space(albeit one w his hang-ups rudely unveiled by omniscient narrator). Kingsbury, who published one story in the 50s and dropped out of SF 'til the 70s, def has the Problem-Solving thing down, and, for a guy from his generation, does pretty well with the female character development/sexual poiltics too, in a way that prob wouldn't have been genre-publishable in the 50s. Not meaning to be condescending re "for a guy from his generation", not that I'm so enlightened, but even I noticed he did kinda fumble it a couple times at least.

Nebula nominees, incl. lotta links to complete stories:
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/free-samples-of-the-nebula-award-nominees_b65704

Is "Life and Times of Multivac" the Asimov story where people keep asking their computer if entropy can be reversed some day? I like that one a whole lot.

No, but hopefully that Multivac story will be among the Asimov stories coming up---another somewhat unusual aspect of this offbeat "hard sf" anthology is how some authors reappear, every couple hundred pages or so. I've always avoided fantasy for the most part, but just read my first Pern, "Weyr Search", from 1967. Anthologists' alibi for inclusion: "Intentionally or not, McCafferty has bridged a connection between world-building af and world-building fantasy"--yeah, she wrote these early stories "under the tutelage of John W. Campbell", and this novelette fits in pretty well between Ursula K. and George R.R., though the Villain is really Villainy. But good shifts between points of view, and the anthology's currently emerging gallery of idiosyncratic heroines/protagonists here benefits from having an actual woman as author. World-building, yeah: think I might re-read Dune, for the first since high school (fantasy, ya got me; what next, westerns? H'mmm...)

please post yr thoughts if you read any of the nebula shorts/novelettes/novellas

i'm still reading Red Mars...

haha! but in fairness to myself, i keep putting it down for weeks at a time. almost done though! and then heaven help me i'm gonna read the other two. it gets really good in the last section. he's really not very good at character development though. i should know these people really well and aside from a couple of main characters i really don't. almost no backstory for anyone. lots of broad strokes. he saves all his energy for the science and tech.

ya there's a plot point that one character is married to another major character and i didn't even remember it when it came up at the end

i mean maybe i'm old-fashioned but if i travel with people for decades i should know them better. mostly everyone is just angry a lot so its hard to keep them straight. the structure of the book is kinda strange. but the overall plot is interesting enough. brainy writers can sometimes have trouble with the whole humanity thing. they want to describe martian canyons forever.

I always felt like the political systems were what ksr finds the most interesting in those books.

i thought it was his love for underground water supplies that kept him going.

did really like how he snuck in the whole *oh hey we all live forever now!* thing in the middle of the book.

loving Green Mars so far! kinda exactly what i wanted Red Mars to be like in a way. captivating. i realize now that Red Mars did have to set up all the tortured history/backstory but it took its time doing it. sooooooo glad to finally be done with that icky old waterstained discarded library copy of Red Mars. i threw it in the trash. felt cleansed. but KSR so smart to start the 2nd book where he does. you REALLY want to know what the hell happened after the revolution. and little by little he lets you know. a page-turner! plus, i love coyote and the kid.

dammit seward don't you DARE make me wanna reread the trilogy!!!

caek requested comments on these:
Nebula nominees, incl. lotta links to complete stories
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/free-samples-of-the-nebula-award-nominees_b65704

―

So here's what's at that linked page (tempted to try the KSR, but gotta at least finish the equally massive Ascent of Wonder first)

The nominees for this year’s Nebula Awards have been revealed, and we’ve collected free samples of all the nominees below–the best science fiction books of 2012.

Many of these stories are available to read for free online. These are marked “COMPLETE” among the links. Here’s more about the awards:

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. Founded as the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965 by Damon Knight, the organization began with a charter membership of 78 writers; it now has over 1,500 members, among them many of the leading writers of science fiction and fantasy.

Nebula Award Nominees for 2012 (to be awarded in 2013)

Novel

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
Ironskin by Tina Connolly (Tor)
The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Roc)
Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Novella

On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Stars Do Not Lie” by Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
“All the Flavors” by Ken Liu (GigaNotoSaurus 2/1/12) COMPLETE
“Katabasis” by Robert Reed (F&SF 11-12/12)
“Barry’s Tale” by Lawrence M. Schoen (Buffalito Buffet) COMPLETE

Novelette

“The Pyre of New Day” by Catherine Asaro (The Mammoth Books of SF Wars)
“Close Encounters” by Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
“The Waves” by Ken Liu (Asimov’s 12/12)
“The Finite Canvas” by Brit Mandelo (Tor.com 12/5/12) COMPLETE
“Swift, Brutal Retaliation” by Meghan McCarron (Tor.com 1/4/12) COMPLETE
“Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia” by Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 8/22/12) COMPLETE
“Fade to White” by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 8/12) COMPLETE

Short Story

“Robot” by Helena Bell (Clarkesworld 9/12) COMPLETE
“Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12) COMPLETE
“Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes” by Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 4/12) COMPLETE
“Nanny’s Day” by Leah Cypess (Asimov’s 3/12) COMPLETE
“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” by Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed 7/12) COMPLETE
“The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species” by Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/12) COMPLETE
“Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain” by Cat Rambo (Near + Far) COMPLETE

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy

Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
Black Heart by Holly Black (S&S/McElderry; Gollancz)
Above by Leah Bobet (Levine)
The Diviners by Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry)
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
Enchanted by Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
Every Day by David Levithan (Alice A. Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)
Railsea by China Mieville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Fair Coin by E.C. Myers (Pyr)
Above World by Jenn Reese (Candlewick)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

The Avengers, Joss Whedon (director) and Joss Whedon and Zak Penn (writers), (Marvel/Disney)
Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin (director), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Abilar (writers), (Journeyman/Cinereach/Court 13/Fox Searchlight )
The Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard (director), Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (writers) (Mutant Enemy/Lionsgate)
The Hunger Games, Gary Ross (director), Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray writers), (Lionsgate)
John Carter, Andrew Stanton (director), Michael Chabon, Mark Andrews, and Andrew Stanton (writers), (Disney)
Looper, Rian Johnson (director), Rian Johnson (writer), (FilmDistrict/TriStar)

The novellas took some getting used to: they're the only linked stories aimed at the Young Adult market, and they're novellas, so lots of room for American frontier kids getting together with American frontier Chinamen (in "All The Flavors") and Earth kids (readers) getting together with frontier planet kids and adults, incl other species, for frontier planet buffalo barbecue (in "Barry's Tale"), But "All The Flavors" does develop into tempo shifts, especially when the Little House stuff gets interspersed with chapters about a Chinese boy who becomes the God of War (oops, spoiler). But that's not the end anyway.
Speaking of ends, we get several shading into various implications, w varying degrees of effectiveness. Also a few which faintly remind me of the era(s) when every science fiction story had to at least end on a note of hope, if not a huge turnaround into last second happiness. But here (thinking of one strong example at least) the note gets squeezed out, not with the strain of obligation, but something fought for and earned, by the character, writer and reader dammit. Also, the symbolism is never cryptic or ponderous--well, the alt-history framing in "Fade To White" is tiresome, but even there, pretty good character development, considering. Faves are "The Finite Canvas", where a hitwoman on the lam meets a female doctor exiled to Earth; "Swift, Brutal Retaliation" (a new ghost is the least and most of this family's problems, at the moment); and "Robot" (instructions given by an astronaut with and of dementia, also of residual rocket juice and hairline sharpness). But several others are almost as good, maybe *as* good, except for a few stumbles right at the end, which I usually allow for, but this is a contest after all (not that I can vote of course). Also they're poated on sites worth checking out otherwise, for readers and writers (yo Strongo, with some stories you mentioned you're looking to place)

They're all worth reading!

outside of the YA and the movie nominations, only one person i've heard of. oy

lol at The Mammoth Books of SF Wars

Starting in on Dhalgren, see you guys in a while.

i don't need to read this book by david weber do i? BY SCHISM RENT ASUNDER! about futuristic space christians. okay just typing that makes me not want to read it. i'll put it out in the store. from the bestselling author of the HONOR HARRINGTON series!

still loving Green Mars!

Back to xp The Ascent of Wonder Rucky Rucker's "Message Found In A Copy of Flatland" is a good stoner comic strip mezzanine, oddly preceding Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations", once controversial for its ending, first of all among genre formalists, and I heard about about it as techonerd male chauvinism, but it repeatedly spells out tragic necessity (trying so hard not to spoil it), and is actually some kind of principled tearjerker--a softhearted, downscale "Billy Budd", kind of--sniffle. Garsh, kinda startling/ Aye, but then we're with our correspondent in the field, contemplating and watching out for "The Land Ironclads", courtesy H.G. Wells (damn, what a voice he has, in sev short stories I've come across lately). A bunch of dated doo-doo, then "The Very Slow Time Machine", which goes for baroque far more successfully than several in here, and might be best summarized by Swamp Dogg: "Pucker up while I back up." What other Watson should I read?

Ian, that is.

Another from The Ascent of Wonder: Bruce Sterling's "The Beautiful and Sublime", narrated by a crafty romantic set designer Kevin Spacey was born to play, with ambitions of the heart further stressing out the crazy tech heads whose inventions made possible the Golden Age of Foo Foo, in which manly Golden Age SF Problem Solvers are increasingly marginalized/quaint. Wicked satire, but got me caring about the characters, to a degree totally unexpected. Which makes two Sterling stories I've ever gotten into, counting the one I was bugging on upthread, "Black Swan." Not "Dori Bangs," def not The Difference Engine. but maybe I'll re-read the relatively recent one involving 3-D printing's effect on society etc. Others?

There was a Sterling short in an old volume of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (iirc) (maybe around 90 or 91?) which blew me away at the time. It was a really fractured, interesting take on fantasy though the details have become verdigris in my mind at this point... always meant to follow up on his short work but never did.

Mozart in Mirrorshades, obv.

don't remember his other joint from that collection at all, will check it out when i get home.

Red Star, Winter Orbit - Sterling/Gibson. Discontent aboard space station in Soviet dominated future, seems happily irrelevant, also 0% cyber and .05% punk so what it's doing in the quintessential cyberpunk anthology idk, oh except maybe because Sterling was the editor... Mozart in Mirrorshades is jolly, slight, also hilariously offtm in its futurology: pop music more valuable than oil? LOL.

thanks dow. i'm on holiday this week so i'm finally getting round to checking them out properly.

Thanks guys. I googled Best Fantasy And Horror, which, if sfsite.com is right, incl Sterling's "Dori Bangs" in 1989, "Denial" in 2005. Don't remember the former being as you describe, although Greil Marcus and some other rock writers excitedly commented at the time, so maybe I should re-read. Just seemed predictably entrophic, like a lot of stories involving rock figures.

Hm then where was that story? It must've been in one of the monthly anthologies...

Decided to go through the rest of Mirrorshades. Too many stories riding on the coat tails of tiresome new wave language games or featuring some male protagonist with emotional issues we are supposed to find fascinating but who is basically a borderline sociopathic asshole. But Mozart... is good enough, The Gernsback Continuum is all-time, if tragically short, and Petra by Greg Bear is delightful but hardly SF let alone cyberpunk. Which is fine, I just wonder what it's doing in there.

Oh and Tales of Houdini by Rudy Rucker is intriguing enough for me to consider checking out the collection of his it came from (The 57th Franz Kafka, c'mon how tempting is that title?)

lol wait he was mentioned upthread and i found all his stories online (http://www.rudyrucker.com/transrealbooks/completestories/) - wasn't so impressed with the flatland tale.

I used this story’s name for my first story anthology because I had the fantasy that people would like my stories so much that I would be considered a “new Franz Kafka”— certainly not the first “new Franz Kafka,” but maybe the fifty-seventh.

poignant

Okay, DJP/others, I'm about 10% of the way through the first Black Company book. It's... good? But I'm not hooked yet. It seems a little schizo so far, a little werepanther this, forlorn wizard that. Does it settle into some kind of normalcy, or does it just continue lurching from (admittedly cool) dark conceit to dark conceit? Everything seems a little underbuilt at the moment.

ledge I was annoyed by the Rucker "Message Found In A Copy of Flatland" at first, but then decided I liked all the stuff about food and drink, esp. the "taste like salmon" bit (trying not to spoil this non-brilliance for those who haven't read it). What I said about stoner (mucnchies). I haven't come across that many of his short stories, but really enjoyed some of his novels, esp The Hollow Earth, which is kind homage to Poe's proto/pre-science fiction, but better than any of the actual such I've read so far (haven't gotten to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym yet). Does remind me that Poe may have invented the detective story, of ratiocination and all: Rucker's more the inventive rationalist than the stoner here, though weird enough too.

"munchies", that is (jeez).

He does have a certain stylistic something. "The 57th Franz Kafka" turns out to be a creepy tale that relies on its central idea for atmospherics, the idea itself remains a germ, a skeleton, tantalisingly unexplained. It's an ok trick but one yearns for more flesh on the bones - and "Schrodinger's Cat" provides it, as it works up to a climax both hilarious and unsettling. Will work my way through the rest of the stories during idle moments.

More from The Ascent of Wonder: Tiptree's "The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things To Rats" goes beyond/far far into its head-on Animal Liberation (or at least SPCA) themes, for some even more cage-rattling cosmic/visceral savage/wit/threnody/slash/slash/slash---different than Ballard's "Cage of Sand", yet not, in some ways. Could see the latter as as hour-long Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, if they ever got this bold (maybe the 80s retoolings of either/both). The Tiptree would prob still be too upsetting, even for cable goreheads. Not that it's got much onstage gore, but.

Computer guardians, coming to yourcells!
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_22898974/biological-computer-created-at-stanford

half price sale at the used book store in town.

kampus - james e. gunn

mutiny in space - avram davidson

the road to nightfall - collected stories volume 4 - robert silverberg

childhood's end - arthur c. clarke

they walked like men - clifford d. simak

through the eye of a needle - hal clement

gender genocide - edmund cooper

the wind from the sun - arthur c. clarke

three hainish novels - ursula k. le guin

starwater strains - new science fiction stories - gene wolfe

a knight of ghosts and shadows - poul anderson

chronopolis and other stories - j.g. ballard

a canticle for leibowitz - walter m. miller, jr

beyond this horizon - robert a. heinlein

the sheep look up - john brunner

the squares of the city - john brunner

the avengers of carrig - john brunner

son of man - robert silverberg

world's fair 1992 - robert silverberg

the dream master - roger zelazny

a short, sharp shock - kim stanley robinson

the way the future was - a memoir - frederik pohl

master of time and space - rudy rucker

city - clifford d. simak

deux x - norman spinrad

Terribly, terribly sad news about Iain Banks. Fucking cancer.

http://www.iain-banks.net/2013/04/03/a-personal-statement-from-iain-banks/

:(

Oh noooo goddammit!!!

God he's only 59, fuck this.

Into the home stretch w The Ascent of Wonder: Hilbert Schenck is the Walrus, or at least a walrus, big meaty through big salty waves of concepts and details--mind the wiring--in "The Morphology of The Kirkam Wreck", and everything else I've come across (though he handles the humans better here than in "Send Me A Kiss By Wire", also and unnecessarily included in this volominous volume). It's all gotta be awesome seascapes, testing the laws of probability and New England expertise. Here, we also get aliens (or somebody) observing/tweaking Earthly mutability, and kidding/celebrating Problem-Solving SF, in a more tobacco-bearded way than usual. Arrrggh, mates!