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

ENGINEER TO THE GODS

BY HITLER I.E. BONNER

Jeremiah Lashard had a string of letters behind his name as long as his arm, which was itself exceptionally long. Since his days as boxing champion of M.I.T., this misanthrope hadn't particularly felt the need of asking favours of anyone. No one had helped him become a chess Grand Master, a world-renowned oenologist, an Olympic medal winner, frisbee expert and astronaut. No one had given him a hand with his hit plays and best-selling novels. No one helped discover 'light water', name a new family of spider, invent the Lashard bearing or create 'Lashard's Law' of capital gains.
Lashard lived in seclusion in Thunder Crag, though by no means alone. Today he sat on the veranda at his specially-built typewriter, pounding out a pulp science-fiction story, while simultaneously dictating a botanical paper to his butler.

But perhaps you will prefer his Ray Bradbury pastiche

JOY RIDE

BY BARRY DUBRAY

It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
It was the waiting time, before the ride to come. The airport was furiously busy. Two butterflies had just come in for a landing, and one dragonfly was taking off, while overhead a swarm of brown, honey-heavy bees flew lazy holding patterns. And right smack in the middle of it sat three humans, warming their human skins at the Indian summer sun.
The old man took a flask of rhubarb wine from one of his forty-seven pockets, tipped it and drank solemnly to the health of all his companions- not omitting a distant gopher on Runway Three. The girl wandered off to investigate this great open place, while the boy hunkered down in the sand to hear a story from his grandfather.
'The old days were good days, boy. They were people days. No one had to be afraid of anyone, ever, and folks used to even leave leave their doors unlocked. There was good people everywhere, and they were all neighbours.

But I suspect that what would really float your boat is the Philip K. Dick sendup

SOLAR SHOE-SALESMAN

BY CHIPDIP K. KILL

I
Stan Houseman, shoe-salesman, punched a cupee of Kaff from the kitchen and scanned the footlines of his morning newsper:
OLYMPIC FINALS AT CARMODY STADIUM
POLICE BREAK UP HATTONITE RIOT

The stock market report listed only two corporations- the two which had between them divided the world- North American Boot & Shoe (Nabs) and Eurasian Footwear. Nabs was up two points, Eurafoot down the same, inevitably. In this two-person, zero-sum game, one side could only profit at the expense of another.

I leave it up to you to get a copy of The Steam-Driven Boy to read the rest of those parodies, of which I have provided only the beginning, and discover the parodies of Arthur C. Clarke, J.G. Ballard, H. G. Wells, Cordwainer Smith and the rest.

See somebody upthread posted the Ballantine/Del Rey edition of Gateway with the cover scheme I was describing.

Asimov parody is, un-surprisingly, painful to read.

Although I lolled at the "nullitronic brain."

It gets better.

Anyway, as threads converge I am thinking you know what sf author was a giant Lou Reed fan, aside from the usual suspects in the cyberpunk anthologies? Elizabeth Hand. Think it may be time to read her book set in some kind of faux-Factory setting called- guess what- Black Light.

Although maybe you didn't have them in your neck of the woods.

sadly, no! I've only seen them online

w/r/t the thread opener, I stood next to Brian Aldiss in a bar last weekend, heard him talk about ye olden days of SF, and he was v v charming and still seems totally with-it despite looking p frail. Wish I'd had a book on me for him to sign.

Should have printed out this thread and had him sign that.

I don't think I've read any Sladek beyond some random stories in New Worlds anthologies but I would totally read those parodies

Speaking of used paperbacks, I grew up on those old Ballantine/del Rey Best Of paperbacks with the spiral logo in the corner, the upward slanted printing and the fun cover art paintings of intrusive robots, star mice and Underpeople. Any one else remember these?

Best gateway drugs for a 14 year old ever! I had this one.

http://www.thephildickian.com/images/philipkdick/philip_k_dick_besof_pb1.jpg

Would have bought Aldiss a drink for Helliconia Spring alone

Su-weet! Will check it out. Thank you, Ward (from the books to fall asleep to thread)
I like to fall asleep to the Uncle books by J.P. Martin - childhood comforts, dreams of food and friendship.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Uncle-J-P-Martin/dp/1783062835/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384259349&sr=1-1&keywords=j+p+martin

― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 12 November 2013 12:29 (10 hours ago) Permalink

yuck
http://www.hngn.com/articles/16485/20131103/peta-protests-against-cyborg-cockroaches-roboroach.htm

helping Great North Woods to adapt (might be dangerous)
http://www.startribune.com/local/228250501.html

Now cut that out!

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/11/black-hole-caught-blasting-heavy-metal-in-jets/

http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/black_hole_accretion-640x453.jpg
credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weiss

I am reading - Titans of Siren by Vonegut, and I started Foundation by Asimov but couldn't get into it.

I recently finished Mockingbird by Walter Tevis and thought it was really good!

Mockingbird? Describe please.

Mockingbird: elegaic decaying future of drugged-up docility and illiteracy as everything grinds to a halt, with AIs and robots basically in mostly benevolent dictatorship. Good stuff.

Titans of Siren
You switched these as joek?

Just got in Aniara by Harry Martinson and will be digging in soon. Anybody here read that one?

I cannot get Sirens of Titan the right way round! Just finished it, the ending was very sad but lovely.

Mockingbird would make a great film.

Think I might start some old Lester Del Rey book about time travel...

Not The Infinite Worlds of Maybe? Wait, that's probably not about time travel.

Maybe you getting confused with the Sirenes in Jack Vance's "The Moon Moth."

"It really is a most beautiful thing is a peardrum"---so I finally came across Lucy Clifford's very famous and most beautifully horrendous "The New Mother." One of her Victorian fairy tales: nothing archaic, she just tucks me in, takes my little hand and glides me beyondo scared straight. Did the Victorians really expose their children to these, and/or just read 'em for kicks? Different strokes for different folks.
http://www.sffaudio.com/images12/TheNewMotherAPeardrum5651.jpg

Which I just read, along with "Rogue Moon" and "The Big Front Yard" in the most excellent Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume Two B. Now thinking I need to read some more Jack Vance and more Clifford Simak. More Algis Budrys too, if I can find any.
(xp to self)

Budrys stories have been anthspotted upthread a couple times or so---yeah, I def need to track down more of his; as I prev. mentioned, skipped over his fiction in magazines, cos his voice as a reviewer seemed so pissy (might should give his *judgement* another shot, though). Was really struck by the difference (quietly intense, no-b.s. layering) in the few I've come across more recently.Rogue Moon is commonly considered his masterpiece.

I didn't know it was a short story too; damn. I feel more self-deprived than ever.

It's a novella, actually, that was also later lengthened to a novel.

there are 5 budrys short stories, of varying quality, on gutenberg

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25613

(stoker being the choice there, i think)

and an epub of "blood and burning", a 500pp short story collection, wildly available, along with "furious future" and "the unexpected dimension". everything else i've just bought for peanuts on amazon.co.uk, usually worth it for the covers. "Who?" probably my favourite although i need to reread "Rogue Moon"

oh, apparently there's an omnibus out in the new year:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Algis-Budrys-Gateway-Omnibus-Michaelmas/dp/0575108339/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1385929952&sr=8-2&keywords=algis+budrys

Thanks. Might try to track down a copy of Who? Meantime dipped back into the novella Hall of Fame to read "Earthman, Come Home" by James Blish.

Check it out: http://www.loa.org/sciencefiction/biographies/budrys_who.jsp

my copy's 159 pages...

Yeah, that's just the original short story.

Thanks, scouts! I'll check those out. Also, this seems good, esp. re tension of genre requirements of 50s editors and/or publishers vs. incitements to/of non-cliche thought: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/budrys_algis

Looks like they have the novel at that Library if America site for sale as part of a nine volume box set along with some other good stuff.

Put Michaelmas on hold at the library. Read it when I was a nipper but I remember nothing about it, except maybe that it wasn't futuristic enough- too near-future, I guess- for my teenaged tastes at the time.

"Earthman, Come Home" was fun, wonder if I should go for the whole Cities in Flight.

Man, this Volume Two B is really great, everything I've read so far is ace (if not Ace). Although I might have go through the prose airlock in order to read the Asimov.

I really like Clifford's "New Mother", somebody written a new version of it but I dont know why.

Almost finished with Volume II B of the Hall Of Fame Novellas, which I highly recommend, now dipping into Volume II A, starting with "Vintage Season" by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, of which I have a few pages left but have thoroughly enjoyed it so far, much more alive than the somewhat similarly plotted but ultimately slickly snoozeworthy Silverberg award-winner "Sailing To Byzantium." Thanks to ilxor dow for putting the idea of reading these guys into my head. Just got a library copy of The Last Mimzy which is a movie tie-in retitle of The Best of Henry Kuttner which apparently is being repackaged as part of a Kuttner omnibus in the UK at least, by SF Gateway. C. L. Moore also has two ebooks recently revived by the savethescifi people in Dumbo. Anyway feel like this team at their best is right up there with Robert Sheckley in using the devices and tropes of sf as a medium for their own witty, intelligent and sophisticated creations. Also thinking that the novella is a good length for the field, with a little more room to flesh things out but without the padding of a full-length.

I see that Kuttner was one of Sheckley's favorites which should be no surprise I guess.

I pretty much tend to like sf that is
1) funny
2) pulpy
3) written in the 40s-50s

The Three Laws of Reddbotics

I mean I like other stuff too but that is one particular sweet spot

Looks like Silverberg actually wrote if not a sequel than a "complementary story" based on "Vintage Season" called "In Another Country."

Just read The Cradle, an AC Clarke offering, not great. Lots and lots of mundane side story and back history of the characters and little, and I mean almost nothing, of a main story.

I'm enjoying the cheap kindle SF series short story collections from Amazon though.

Just came across M. John Harrison story "Tourism" which seems to be an early version of the beginning of Nova Swing here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/536970/002-2458924-6179268

"When I kissed her, she tasted like Mars." These look really appealing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/books/stories-by-howard-waldrop-and-catherynne-m-valente.html

Howard Waldrop's "The Ugly Chicken" is in every other anthology. Still haven't read it yet though.