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

One more from the Hitchthology: "Evening Primrose", by John Collier: a poet forsakes this cruel world and stumbles into a subculture of people living among posh Manhattan department store mannikins. Light touch flicks momentum, through eerie elegance, tawdriness and plain dust: the poet's a fule, but his streaky point of view is increasingly hard to dismiss, as he veers into a romance a bit more tragic than comic. This is prob the most Hitchcockian story in the whole thing.

There's a great John Collier collection put out by NYRB

yeah fancies and goodnights. it's great.

i haven't read any new sf or fantasy in a while, what's good

What have you read in the past that you liked? (just need some touchstones)

Afraid Sturgeon's Law is still in effect after all, thomp.

Just read Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and can recommend it - with caveats. It's a very well done first contact story, uses the common device of alternating before/after chapters to ratchet up the tension, finely managing the balancing act of keeping the reader intrigued by the mystery but not frustrated by the lack of answers. And when the final answer comes it's suitably, maybe even overly devastating. The main characters are an unlikely mix of types and personalities who get on so uproariously well it's almost sickening, and it's certainly implausible how uniquely qualified they all are for their mission (while at the same time being almost the last people on earth you might imagine being selected for such an honourable and dangerous undertaking).

The main problem though is the religious element, of which there are two aspects. The first is that the Jesuits are running the show, and they seem to be trying to atone for the mistakes of catholic conquests past. Instead of assuming the natives are savages fit for slavery and extermination they make the opposite mistake of coming with hearts completely open (but minds equally closed). In an interview Russell says first contact is "impossible to do right" but it's hard to imagine it being attempted more naively than here. Of course if you think that men of the church (and they are largely men here, although there are "strong female characters") are and always will be starting from flawed intellectual premisses then their failure becomes perhaps slightly more plausible, though no less ridiculous. The second aspect is that there is a strong theme of theodicy running through the book, and like all theodicies it is a nonsense. The last pages almost made me want to throw the book across the room with their acquiescence to "the mystery" - and yet I can't help but be slightly pleased to hear that there is a sequel which explores the problem further. A slight masochistic trendency, but the skiffy was strong enough to make putting up with the other stuff worthwhile.

What have you read in the past that you liked? (just need some touchstones)

if you're not interested in making an argt for the objective value of the things you think are good why would i even begin to trust your judgement??

ledge that just makes me want to read a set of spoilers so i can go 'oh ok then', also how do you feel about 'a case of conscience' by james blish

"yeah fancies and goodnights. it's great."

i have the original paperback of this. tons of fun.

if you're not interested in making an argt for the objective value of the things you think are good why would i even begin to trust your judgement??

if you're not interested in not being a dick, why should anyone bother to recommend things to you?? ffs

ledge that just makes me want to read a set of spoilers so i can go 'oh ok then', also how do you feel about 'a case of conscience' by james blish

I'm gonna stick up for The Sparrow, it's a good yarn well told and I'm looking forward to the sequel. Haven't read the Blish but it sounds *ridiculous*, I could only read it as a reductio ad absurdum - but that's how I'd treat any work with religious themes tbh. Harry Harrison's short story An Alien Agony is more my style.

Up next: China Mountain Zhang.

Craig Harrison: The Quiet Earth -- 1981 NZ novel, basis for the rather great 1980s film

http://stuffpoint.com/apocalyptic-and-post-apocalyptic-fiction/image/215013-apocalyptic-and-post-apocalyptic-fiction-the-quiet-earth-screenshot.jpg

Man wakes up, finds out everyone else on earth has vanished, due to experiment he was working on and was attempting suicide to escape the effects of

http://www.listal.com/viewimage/4015515

http://i2.listal.com/image/4015515/600full-the-quiet-earth-screenshot.jpg

Oh man, loved that film.

if you're not interested in making an argt for the objective value of the things you think are good why would i even begin to trust your judgement??

Fuck man, I just wanted to know what books you've liked in the past, but since you're only interested in pure mythical objectivity no one will ever be able to help you.

Or to put it another way, most of your posts on this thread have been about books you've disliked or merely tolerated. What have you liked?

i haven't read any new sf or fantasy in a while, what's good

read adrian tchaikovsky's 'shadows of the apt' series theres like 8 or 9 of them now, all in paperback. it doesnt really have any ambitions or themes or ideas, parts of it read like a teenager idling expanding on his favorite d&d campaign setting other parts like a teenager writing a pastiche of his favorite airport novels. all of it strongly reminds me of being a teenager, of being in love with the idea of another world, another place, which i value strongly. i also like the characters, theyre either generously uncomplicated or complicated in familiar, satisfying ways, he also doesnt go in for the prestige cable-drama mystery-spinning that martin and jordan do, the edges of the plots arent ever obscured, he saves all that for the world itself i think. idk, i like them a lot

yahhh i started leafing through the one i sent you but i had this v d&dish feeling of, i don't know this campaign world at all, what to make of it

they might do a decent job of scratching that itch though

sheesh you guyz i thought that was a pretty decent joke wot tomp made

china mountain zhang is so far 80 pages of whiny douche in search of a plot.

"Four billion years ago Mars was a much a safer place than Earth. Maybe we have resurrected Martian proteins. Maybe the last universal common ancestor (the first life) formed on Mars and transferred to Earth," commented Prof Sanchez-Ruiz.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23591470

Also like the bit about mutation.

Teleportation is here---and then there.
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/3495/20130816/scientists-achieve-teleportation-electronic-circuit-first-time.htm

Finally got around to reading Hamiltons Great North Road, after buying it for my kindle months ago. Very impressed thus far, based on the fact I am struggling to put it down.

Hamilton doorstops are only fit for the shredder imo. Love this amazon comment:

The characters are not up to par with other books from Hamilton, but I guess when writing a single book instead of the standard trilogy you have to cut some corners

Convincing characters in a mere 1100 pages? The very idea!

In other news, China Mountain Zhang didn't improve. A bildungsroman to nowhere of an unaffecting nonentity in a cardboard world.

finished that Cosmos Latinos anthology awhile ago and it made me bummed more of certain authors work is not in English. As anthologies go it cuts a wide swathe, and its interesting that while there are a lot of historical analogues to English-speaking (or European) scifi writers, the evolution of the genre in Latin America *completely* skips/missed out on the 30s-50s. Like, there was just nothing done in the genre - the whole Gernsback/Campbell revolution and all that came after it has no equivalent in Latin America, that stuff may have gotten read here and there but it just made zero impact. It isn't until the late 60s that Latin American writers really start getting back into the game - magazines/publishers/conventions/awards spring up etc. Unfortunately, the few pieces I was really impressed with appear to be the only works in translation by the respective authors. I guess I need to learn Spanish (and Portuguese)

aaaaanyway just ordered Olaf Stapledon's Starmaker and K.W. Jeter's Death Arms. Currently reading M. John Harrison's "Empty Space: A Haunting".

Presumably you have already read Light and Nova Swing, Shakey. Which Cosmos Latinos writers did you like?

Also came to say I really enjoyed this thing called Adrift on the Sea of Rains: Apollo Quartet 1 by a guy name Ian Sales, who is some kind of blogger/gadfly. It is mostly really hard sf with a super-pulpy plot device thrown in, based on the premise that the Apollo missions kept going for a while longer and the US established a permanent presence on the moon, but the astronauts end up getting there stranded because something bad is happening on earth. The technical detail is amazing and adds to the story instead of being boring- he assumes they are using the same hardware as the real-life Apollo missions or upgrades thereof - and it is perfectly complemented by the atmospheric stuff about Cold War paranoia and What It Is Like To Be The Moon.

yep I've read the other two. Harrison is not a writer I have a good grasp of - I have a bunch of his shorter New Worlds stuff and then these three more recent sci-fi novels, but it seems like he did next to nothing of interest in the years in between, except for this Virconium stuff (which I am not interested in, lol)

Best stuff from Cosmos Latinos:
Braulio Tavares - “Stuntmind” (Brazil 1989). This story is amazing. It's very short, comprised of nothing but brief, diary-like passages which appear to chronicle (at first) the diary of one of the fantastically idle rich. contextual clues eventually lead to the conclusion that humans have made contact with aliens, who do a kind of "mind-swap" with certain human subjects (the titular "stuntminds"). the aliens see this as a great, one-sided deal - they get to experience all the sensory variety of humans/earth, while all humanity gets is some scientific knowledge. this shitty description is not really doing the story justice, its a marvel of economical construction and clever inversions of classic sf tropes.
Pepe Rojo - “Gray Noise” (Mexico, 1996). Verrrry cyberpunk and sort of depressingly prescient story about a guy who's a "living camera", uploading whatever he sees of interest (which is invariably murders/suicides/terrorist bombings etc) to a newsfeed.
Hugo Correa - “When Pilate Said No” (Chile, 1971). First contact story crossed with "what if aliens had their own jesus" with the human captain of the expedition in the role of Pilate. things don't go well.
Michel Encinosa - “Like the Roses Had to Die” (Cuba, 2001). This was the one story that featured some conventional sci-fi "action" (ie characters undertaking violent mission to rescue somebody, shooting guns etc.) with a lot of China Mieville-sort of window-dressing (human-animal hybrids! unpronounceable drug names! mysterious and shadowy organizations!) except I hate Mieville and this was much more enjoyable.

Harrison is not a writer I have a good grasp of
How sharper than a Shakey's tooth.

Really like yr. descriptions, James and Shakey, but okay by me if no equiv./influence of 30s-50s Hugo/John W. Jr tradition is represented (maybe they did have it, but the editor didn't care for it? Maybe they did, but it sucked? Maybe it didn't, but not enough enough room/$ ? An anthologist on BookTV.org was describing a lot of attempted shakedowns/cockblocking by publishers--and this was a poetry anthology! The smaller the loot, the bigger the fight, as at least one observer of academic infighting observed)
But also, wondering if 30s/50s etc. were necessary stages of development, necessary for stuff I liked better later? Like, if Campbell hadn't come along and helped Heinlein, maybe (the commercial/critical success of) Heinlein's more excitable stuff wouldn't have led me and other everbudding geeks to Bester and then New Wave etc.?

the way it was addressed in the (dry, academic) introduction, the editors made it sound like there was literally little to no sci-fi produced in Latin American countries during the period. For all kinds of reasons (political, sociological, academic, economic etc). And it's not that I'm a huge fan of that period in English language sci-fi (far from it), just that from a historical perspective on the genre, that period was REALLY formative, it laid the groundwork for so much that came after. The familiar tropes and cliches of the genre that later generations had such fun overturning and screwing with were largely set in place during that period. But in Latin America, it seems like they went straight from H.G. Wells and Jules Verne in the late 19th century (and this book claims the first time machine story is actually some Spanish thing I'd never heard of just fyi) to the New Wave in the late 60s. It just seems strange from a developmental point of view, like a child that ages 40 years in a day.

A ... star ... child?

I'm reading "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" by Pohl. Keep wanting to skip the Robinette Broadhead sections. Apart from that it's good.

Also read "Make Room, Make Room" by Harry Harrison, it was pretty poor. Much prefer his funnier stuff.

Started Apollo Quartet 2: The Eye With Which The Universe Beholds Itself, which takes place in a different Apollo-based timeline. So far so good. Think the third one will have some of the Mercury 13 going up

sounds intrestin, will try and remember to get the first one whenever i managed to get hold of a replacement ereader (RIP my first sony one, left on a bus probably).

I'm reading "Beyond the Blue Event Horizon" by Pohl. Keep wanting to skip the Robinette Broadhead sections. Apart from that it's good.

yeah I remember this being pretty good. years since I read it though.

I'm sad that ledge so vehemently disapproved of China Mountain Zhang, but I don't think we like any of the same things in a book at all.

I was a little harsh on it, and him, it would be fairer to say that he just didn't appeal to me as a character. I kind of feel that he went nowhere and achieved nothing, which is obviously not true, it's just that where he went and what he did never aroused my sympathy. I do think that in terms of world building it suffered from telling not showing. Constant references to "the cleansing winds campaign" were never backed up with anything and felt hollow, and the whole thing didn't seem overly distinguishable from any other less communist more plausible near future possible world.

I think about the whole drawing doors conceit a lot. Well, a lot more than I should.

If anything stuck with me it was the section where San Xiang gets raped. Not the best thing to be left with but that section at least was (horribly) convincing and affecting.

OK, I've been sold on the Apollo Quartet books

Hope I didn't oversell. So far he's only written two and is researching the next, I think.

Just finished another Hitchcock anthology,Stories For Late At Night Seems more uneven than xpost Stories For Late At Night, but even several of those what fumble their endings do provide captivating settings for this old nature boy, who likes to read creepy old books while safe in the library (only one panel of the ceiling has fallen so far), despite outbursts of this freaky-for-local, monstrously green monsoon summer.
Good examples (and def Subjects For Further Study) incl Irwin S. Cobb, whose at-least-suitable-for-middle-school-campfires plot is comes after a tour of the sometimes repulsively beautiful, "occasionally bottomless" Reelfoot Lake, one result of the Mississippi Valley's 1811 earthquake--a real thing, right? When the River ran backwards?
Another one I'll keep a lazy eye out for, whose British landscapes are catnip to a big rolling butterball of crusty presumption, is Nugent Barker. Right off, can see his why-bother-with-an-article "Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond" 's ending coming, but he doesn't care, and will soon see why he shouldn't (cos it's a good chilly build-up, anyway).
Kinda cautiously hopeful about Basil Copper too, considering his somewhat Gahan Wilsonesque imagery in "Camera Obscura", and Miriam Allan DeFord, whose sweet "A Death In The Family", about a lonely, though proactive undertaker (yeah you can see that one coming too), could be appealingly laid out on MeTV's digitally embalmed episodes of the original half-hour Hitchcock anthology series (unless the sponsors chickened out). Ditto Margaret St. Clair's "The Estuary" (unless it's too simple/subtle), and Robert Specht's "The Real Thing" (unless it's too much like the real Mayberry).
Theodore Sturgeon's novella "It" might work in the later, hour-long version of Hitch's tubeshow (on which Bruce Dern, for one, got room to be pretty disturbing). Though on the page, it would have worked better if he'd stolen the first line of whichever Ray Bradbury story, "He came out of the ground hating", or something equally plausible.
Fritz Leiber's narsty "X Marks The Pedwalk" is still a cutting-edge car-toon, not too far from Ballard, but Damon Knight's "Not With A Bang" doesn't quite match the expectations raised by his best or even best-ish, while Ellis Peters and Donald Westlake don't come close.
However, T.H. White, who I thought was just corny because of "The Sword In The Stone", which I probably never read", gets a real sparkly, sunny, livid Lapland up in "The Troll", which almost seems like an implied satire of The Magic Mountain flushed clientele (just a bit, just in passing). And I'm amazed again at the difference between Algis Budrys' perhaps unfairly-remembered voice as a reviewer (he used to lecture us on "scientifiction"--yeesh!) and as a short story writer: "Master of the Hounds" title character seems like a ruthlessly effective channeling from AB's own pissy darkside, and the plotting messed me up good, and would make an ace ep of the Hitch show!
But the real question is, Who Is William Wood? As yet Google yields no clue---is he Gene Wolfe? Ira Levin? Uh--Christopher Isherwood? This last because "One of the Dead" offers desiccated glamor and queasy vitality of the Southern Cali artificial paradise (Hollywood exurbia, a little scorched but lots of stars and bizzers tucked away in these quiet hills).
There's this producer--of horror movies? Or just a buff?--Guy Relling, whom I never met but whose pronouncements on the supernatural reached me from time to time like messages from an oracle, claims that the existence of the living dead is a particularly excruciating one as they hover between two states of being. Their memories keep the passions of life forever fresh and sharp but they are able to relieve themselves only at a monstrous expense of will and energy which leaves them helpless for months or even years afterwards...There are...exceptions...particularly the insane ones, who, ignorant of the limitations of death as they were of the impossibilities of life, transcend them with the dynamism that is exclusively the property of madness, with no kind of spoiler, just a spur to infernal inference of oh-shit hindsight.

Damn, sorry! This 'un is Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories That Scared Even Me. The one I carried on about before is ...Stories For Late At Night.

Read the first Apoolo Quartet novella--it was really good. Not 100% sold on the very ending, but still ace.

Cool. Yeah, the only part where I had a moment's hesitation was the very ending, but not enough to reflect badly on all that had gone before.Saw in an interview and in his science fact blog that he hadn't read any science for a long time but what got him back into it was reading Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth , by Andrew Smith, about the Apollo moonwalkers, and it shows. Highly recommend that book, which received glowing reviews from Arthur C. Clarke and J.G. Ballard among others.

The second AQ book involves a manned flight to Mars so afterward I dipped into a similar novel which he references, Voyage, by Stephen Baxter, but it started bugging me very quickly, various things Sales had under complete control quickly turned into Alternate History Mugging in other hands- "Hey, this is where the timeline diverges, see? see?" *Nudge, nudge, wink, wink*

From Nat Geo---mysterious circle on ocean floor

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/files/2013/08/photo2.jpg
Photograph courtesy Kimiaki Ito

The circles, scientists say, are actually nests created by male pufferfish, which spend about ten days carefully constructing and decorating the structures to woo females. What’s more, this industrious pufferfish is thought to be a new species in the Torquigener genus, according to the study, published July 1 in the journal Scientific Reports. Genus? More like Genius!
Pufferfish video: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/places/culture-places/food/japan_pufferfish/