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

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.

maria read ready player one on the kindle and loved it and now she's reading ender's game! yay!! two sci-fi fans in the house are better than one! rufus is reading and loving ready player one now too. I might have to read it next since they like it so much. guess its a hot property. they are already making a movie out of it.

two timers i think is 'sort of interesting' about women in a horrible way. 'orbitville' is just horrible.

scott i'm sorry to break it to you but 'ready player one' is the worst thing ever written.

it's definitely up there

oops, I won't break it to those guys. i'd never heard of it. hey, its a start, right?

Grinning, he produced an item from his inventory and held it up. It was an old Atari 2600 game, still in the box … “Know what this is, hotshot?” I-r0k said, challenging me. “I’ll even give you a clue … It’s an Atari game, released as part of a contest. It contained several puzzles, and if you solved them, you could win a prize. Sound familiar?”

(…)

“You’re joking, right?” I said. “You just now discovered the Swordquest series?”

I-r0k deflated.

“You’re holding Swordquest: Earthworld,” I continued. “The first game in the Swordquest series. Released in 1982.” I smiled wide. “Can you name the next three games in the series?”

(This continues for two pages.)

“Whatever,” (I-r0k) said over his shoulder. “If I didn’t spend so much time offline, getting laid, I’d probably know just as much worthless shit as you two do.”

Wazabout NYRB new edition of Kingsley Amis's The Alteration?

so much prettier than my version

http://www.nybooks.com/media/images/productimage-picture-the-alteration-289.png
vs
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41lEd7nGNML.jpg

my version = my COPY

Perhaps you can stock both in your tiny bookstore

"Sell it to the world's tiniest bookstore!"

scott i'm sorry to break it to you but 'ready player one' is the worst thing ever written.

i read this recently on a friend's strong recommendation (!), it's terrible and my eyes hurt from the constant rolling, but it does have a convincing near-future (energy crisis, everything is shitty, you have to live near a city but no one can afford to live in the city, but we have amazing technology to distract/isolate ourselves).

that's kind of the convincing near-future at this point though right? i would much rather read, say, a dystopian future where society exists solely as convoys of gaz-guzzling eighteen-wheelers. who have no internet access.