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

Raymond F. Jones “The Person from Porlock” 1947 seems like pre-Gick for a while, but nah pre-Dick!

Ready to waste some time in nostalgia? Seems that hundreds of issues of Starlog and Omni are now available for free at archive.org as epub or pdf downloads, or to read online...

http://archive.org/details/starlogmagazine

http://archive.org/details/omni-magazine

Isaac Asimov “The Last Question” 1956 nah

this one's a classic, by far his best idea for a story imo

If only don could do this kind of consumer guide for the entire corpus of sf. He would save us a lot of time and trouble.

Would get The Ascent... if I could find it in ebook form but don't want any more massive skiffy anthologies cluttering up my shelves.

In that case Sense of Wonder is your only man.

How much? Ok ok it is genuinely massive. Maybe too massive.

Maybe. And you probably have some of the stuff in there already under separate cover and some other stuff is in public domain. Still it is massive.

it's only 990 pages. a c clarke has a short stories collection that big himself. j g ballard has two volumes, both that order of magnitude.

990 large format pages in tiny type with virtually no margins, allegedly.

Anther site called this the death song of stars: very cool, but the following account has more meat; dig the Christmas burst too.
http://www.universetoday.com/101486/new-kind-of-gamma-ray-burst-is-ultra-long-lasting/

hey, don, this is for you. rufus and i came up with a sci-fi cowboy jam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPCQ9Wnd3hI

Holy Moly, thanks Skot & Rufus! Sail on, Starchild and Sonship.

Ready to waste some time in nostalgia? Seems that hundreds of issues of Starlog and Omni are now available for free at archive.org as epub or pdf downloads, or to read online...

http://archive.org/details/starlogmagazine

http://archive.org/details/omni-magazine

― brad palsy (Jon Lewis), Thursday, April 11, 2013 5:52 PM (1 week ago)

wow thx, had an omni sub in the early 80s, some great art + design in that mag

Some good science fact & fiction too; I've got a collection of the latter somewhere. But then they went all UFO anal probes (and maybe cattle mutilations, Meninblack etc) all the time.

Speaking of interstellar cowboys, here's the Horsehead Nebula (quite an array of sightings out there, but looking for one without too restrictive a copyright--source of this 'un is NOAO/Aura:
http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/images/d4/horsehead.jpg

sorry
http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/images/d4/horsehead.jpg

But the first link does open up huge

dow re: copyright of nasa images, see http://blog.bookcoverarchive.com/2009/04/713/

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls8no4cNgd1qdgcd4o1_500.jpg

Luna?

it's kelis

and a dog

Right-click detection links it to "Bloodchild", but not seeing how, although she's surely a Bloodchylde o' my-ee-eye-iinnne.

She's apparently reading some Octavia E.? Maybe with training for the doggie, although that's usually more vice versa, in my experience.

that is what that book is, i have read it, omg kelis and i have read the same book, i wonder if she likes me??!

So logic would dictate.

i KNEW being logical would pay off!!

http://www.aljazeera.com/video/americas/2013/04/201342371648245168.html

one way ticket to mars!

wasn't there already a 'reality' tv show that spoofed a mission to somewhere spacey?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Cadets_%28TV_series%29

(oddly, that wasn't the one i was thinking of)

I promised upthread to let y'all know when the subs calls came out for my new anthologies. Ready to rock with the first one, details here: http://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/airship-shape-bristol-fashion/

It's Bristol-rooted steampunk, so it's a bit niche, but if anyone wants to contribute, you don't have to live locally. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

If you *are* near Bristol, we're kicking it off with a workshop run by a local historian, Eugene Byrne, on Wednesday.

The next one will be more open and pay better but I don't have an eta for it yet.

Came to tell everybody to check out David Crosby's intro to Baby is Three: Volume VI The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon

that david crosby?

zora when is this workshop, i am going to be in bristol once or twice in the next month or so

None other. Apparently CSNY hired Sturgeon to write a film for them, but they all went to him one by one and tried to get him to tailor it to what they wanted their character to be.

Weds coming i.e. May 1st. It's at the Shakespeare Tavern on Prince St at 18:30.

ah, i'll be in oxford. have a good one tho

my mind is refusing to process the idea of theodore sturgeon and the byrds being on the same page

You should read what Phil Lesh said

'wooden ships' is, like, sci-fi

Bristol-rooted steampunk

I am not really into steampunk as a whole but I'd like it a lot more with more docks and railways and suspension bridges, so I am all for this

anyway best wishes for your new collection!

Thanks thomp, & spacecadet. I'm not big into steampunk either, but the publisher wanted it and there is a very active steampunk scene in Bristol. It should be fun. Eugene has given talks for us at BristolCon and they were A+.

halfway through babel-17 and it's brilliant

Cool! It's still my favorite Delaney book

lots of interesting ideas. love all the stuff with language (there's a great bit where rydra's explaining how the cibarians (?) were able to build a highly sophisticated power plant from a nine word sentence). the poetry's awful tho imo

has the feel of a young man's book but he's clearly a very smart young man

speaking of steampunk, dig sources too: H.G. Wells has lots of rude risky stoptime fun in "The Accelerator", which might be where Nicholson Baker got the idea for The Fermata, but that one goes on too long (brevity is the sole of stoptime wit)

Babel-17 hits some kind of sweet spot where the ideas are really interesting and the ambition doesn't seem to overtake the writing chops.

i read two books by bob shaw. i think i have now read five books by bob shaw. i can't decide if he's genuinely interesting or just mediocre in a quirky way.

I think he's genuinely interesting, though not always good enough a writer to fully carry out his ideas in a satisfying way. amd a bit unpleasantly misogynistic at times (I read his Two-Timers recently, which was pretty vile about women)

Have been meaning to read wooden spaceships thingy.