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

"rills *and* stills the chills," I meant.

finished Canticle for Liebowitz. It was okay, I doubt it was the best sci-fi book that year but whatever. Got really tired of all the Catholic doctrinal handwringing (omg does the two-headed lady have TWO souls? who gives a fuck), and wasn't really surprised that it went for the super-bleak apocalypse ending (this is a Xtian book, after all). It is well written and constructed, for what that's worth, but I can't imagine reading it again, none of the ideas are particularly novel or inventive.

and now on to The Age of the Pussyfoot and the Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol 1.

I only have #3 of James Gunn's "Road to Science Fiction" anthology series, but it's so good I'd like to find the others.

― what made my hamburger disappear (WmC), Wednesday, June 1, 2011 9:34 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah that looks like a decent selection, albeit with a few old perennials on the anthology circuit. Will look out for Gardner Dozois, and for Scott's, if he remembers the name :)

― England's banh mi army (ledge), Thursday, June 2, 2011 4:43 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

Just came across Road To Science FIction in a search, Volume 4, I think. Looks like the introductions are really informative. Maybe a bunch of stories are anthology warhorses, but there is plenty of other underseen stuff.

OK, looking at the contents here on Wikipedia plenty of the earlier volumes are kind of stuffed with the obvious choices. Still like to read the interstitial material though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Science_Fiction

Wonder what Gunn's own stuff is like. Never read any.

Just read that Michael Shea passed away recently.

Now reading Tales Before Tolkien, edited by Douglas A. Anderson, who did the same for The Annotated Hobbit. Here,he doesn't deal primarily with Tolkien's own studies and translations of Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic etc. folk sources, although he does comment briefly on some of that in relation to these literary fairy tales (so far: adventure/quest-times-enchanment stories), as first written for children, then for an adult/young adult audience, or all of the above:
Some of the stories...can be seen specifically to have inspired Tolkien, and these connections are detailed(concisely) in the headnotes to the appropriate stories. I have also selected some stories whose content seems especially Tolkienian, evnen though there is little or no evidence that Tolkien knew the writers. And I have also chosen other stories that Tolkien almost certainly did not know in order to show some of the diversity of fantasy as it existed before The Hobbit.
Right off, Ludwig Tieck brings the distillation of suspense, tiny erotic sparks, joy, sadness, even implicit social (class, ethnic, gender) issues, fatefully so. (Frank R. Stockton takes social etc. less poignantly but with deadpan, felt frustration, Richard Garnett goes for dark, somewhat Twainian farce, but fodder for religious bias too).
Can imagine Borges providing insights re Andrew Lang's version of "The Story of Sigurd" (would dig to read a Borges-Di Giovanni remix of this; will have to check Tolkien's "The Story of Sigmund and Gudrun," adding co-billing for one of S.'s love interests).
George MacDonald and William Morris's tales start great, but are ultimately disappointing, the latter much more so, compared to their stuff in the xpost Hartwell anth. But their over-emphasis on creamy Wonder is balanced by the knock-about humor casually cropping up, without taking away from the atmosphere and suspense, in a ripping quest-yarn by the excellently named E. H. Knatchbull-Huggeson, and even more so in the eerie, rough-knuckled drive of (mostly non-fantasy) "Black Heart and White Heart: A Zulu Idyll," by H. Ridder Haggard. As diagnosed by the witch-doctress, the bad white man has the black heart, the good black man has the white heart. As diagnosed by Haggard directly, without stopping to editorialize, this has some pretty telling elements of white male racism, minus any skimping re the Zulu patriarchy's cruelty. Gotta read some more HRH.

John Buchan's "The Far Islands" starts reminding me of "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" pretty soon (gee, thanks John, I hadn't been creeped out all morning). Less sophisticated, but does suggest how Some People fit into society, in their own way, at least for a while, and what that says about some society (re A Confederacy of Dunces too)

"The Drawn Arrow" is a tale of gifts too great. Poetry, psychology, implicit authority and explicit power meet in the bulls-eye. It's by Clemence Housman, sister of Lawrence and John. Editor says she only published three novels, each of which is a Christian fantasy.(Didn't pick up on that in "The Drawn Arrow.")The Were Wolf (1895) is a minor classic of werewolf literature,(What would a major classic of werewolf lit be?)while her final novel,The Life of Sir Aglovale de Galia (1905)remains her supreme achievement. It is a remarkable psychological construction of the life of ...a minor rogue knight in...Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.(Finally reprinted in 2000; I'll have to check it out).

I'm reading Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. It's good if a little slow moving and I'm not really that fond of the main character because he's just 'there' a lot of the time.

Oh and I started "Dark Eden" by Chris Beckett - but got a bit fed up with it. I'm thinking maybe modern sci-fi/speculative fiction isn't my thing.

The book, at 1088 pages, is the maximum printable size of a book for its publisher, Tor Books, making it the biggest book ever printed by the company.[31][32]

1,088 pages, known as a Jordan in the trade.

What book of 1088 pages is that?
Tales Before Tolkien turned out to be very reliable, despite those few xpost relative let-downs. Machen's "The Coming of the Terror," set during WWI, incl. fairy tales in the sense of legends spreading around heavily censored news and non-coverage of events increasingly beyond rational response. The author, a member of Order of the Golden Dawn, not a big fan of rationalism in any form, although his narrator, a responsible citizen/correspondent, practices it like a pro, with several speculations re the Terror which all pertain, and though I don't care for his own fave, it doesn't obliterate the others. Everybody's got a piece of the truth--well, not everybody, but even the whack visions are pretty entertaining. Life during wartime, hey.
Also: James Branch Cabell's sexy, hollowed out "The Thin Queen of Elfhame," which is more about human male needy wishful loopholes (I relate; American pulp prose poet/editor A. Merritt's poignantly picturesque chop-chop, "The Woman of the Wood" (kinda, solve this,,progressive reader, a la Matheson); E. A, Wyke-Smith's annoyingly repentant "Golithos The Ogre." taken in hand by a knock-about snerg, a pre-hobbit, sired by one of Tolkien and his kids' fave authors.

The collection ends with a previously unpublished "Christmas Play," by David Lindsay, no less: all of the characters, human and fairy (plus whatever the Witch is), are also female, but there's no freaked out Voyage To Arcturus gynophobia, unless I'm not sensitive enough to smell it. There is even one character's own quiet path through sadness, maybe depression, to faith, hope, charity, or at least going for it more tastefully than her sisters. A fairy confesses that despite her bright bounty of wishes etc, she doesn't know what the hell humans really want or how their minds work. Her Queen isn't worried.

The author, a member of Order of the Golden Dawn, not a big fan of rationalism in any form,

And huge influence on Alan Moore

OK, after all these years of giving him the cold shoulder finally warming up to Poul Anderson after reading "Call Me Joe" and "The Man Who Came Early." Maybe will try something longer next, possibly Brain Wave or Tau Zero. Who knows, maybe I should give Hal Clement another try as well.

If not The High Crusade

Oh yeah, that looks good. I remember liking the anthology novelette (?) version of Brain Wave, and a friend recs Tau Zero (although think somebody was against it way upthread). My local library ahs this new, proudly retro Old Mars, yet another Dozois-RR Martin collection of new stories. Think I know which writers are promising (most, I think) and which to skip, based on prev. D-M anths:
http://www.randomhouse.com/book/220499/old-mars-

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130905102720/expanse/images/b/b8/Old_Mars.jpg

Think the one who was against Tau Zero upthread was me, don, based on reading it thirty years ago, but others liked it so I am willing to give it another try. Just consulted our new favorite reference work, the sf-encyclopedia, which seems to say that the story suffers a little in service to the concept, but what a concept.

Dang was hoping there would be a Blaylock in that.

Xpost

Title threw off on that, figured there might be some Leigh Brackett and such. I guess it is a modern day tribute to that sort of thing

started acclarke's A Fall Of Moondust. it's another sci-fi disaster story (aren't they all? was rama?)

anyway, it was written in 1961 and is about moon tourism.

in one sentence he says 'in zero gravity you only need two hours sleep out of 24'. citation needed. why would this be?

Rama wasn't a disaster story. It's about a large alien-made object visiting the solar system. I think there's some initial stuff about fear of it, as well as an importan plotpoint about one planet really, really not wanting that thing around, but primarily it's an exploration of a big dumb object.

I'm reading that SF Hall of Fame vol 1 thing and find I've read surprisingly few of these stories. Someone could probably do a lot of good thinking about what "bad writing" means by spending some time with the early stories in here. Lolled at Heinlein's evil union boss.

Had a good time with Silverberg's _Dying Inside_ recently, so I picked up _The Book of Skulls_ at the library. Haven't started it yet though. Doesn't look very SF/F-ish, but presumably it's a factor since it's in that ugly Gollancz "Masterworks" series.

things do go wrong in Rama though, iirc. there is 'mild jeopardy'. something about ice...

I'm reading Rama right now for the first time and yeah the thermal jeopardy just kicked in

Al Reynolds' "Pushing Ice" has a similar feel.

"SF Newcomers Invade Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist":
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/18/sf-shortlist-arthur-c-clarke-award-newcomers-science-fiction Anybody read these?

This fanzine website has some potentially interesting interviews, here' one with Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett for starters: http://www.tangentonline.com/index.php/interviews-columnsmenu-166/1270-classic-leigh-brackett-a-edmond-hamilton-interview.

I have two words for you: I, Asimov

Thanks for the interview; I've really gotta track down several of their own stories and others they mention. "Saurian Valedictory"! Turns out it's by Norman L. Knight, published in the January 1939 issue of Astounding Stories. That's all I've found about it online, though Google Books shows it in the index of Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia. Science Fiction Encyclopedia's site says he was a Dept of Agriculture scientist who only published 11 stories, and is mainly noteworthy to them for collaborating with Blish on A Torrent of Faces.

That's about all I could find out about him, too. "Saurian Valedictory" indeed.

Think Edmond Hamilton wrote a lot of old school space opera that can read a bit dated,such as http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/1401403190/1401403190.htm. Leigh Brackett was more versatile and adept at different registers, she could write her poetic planetary romance as well as hard-boiled, interested to read No Good From a Corpse

Not sure if this was linked yet. Interesting stuff about her working with Bogart, Hawks and Faulkner on The Big Sleep. http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue250/brackett1.html

Would also like to say that the anthology Sense of Wonder edited by Leigh Grossman, contains many of the same authors and stories as a subset of its vast contents. Perhaps more importantly, it contains genuinely interesting and informative accompanying articles from scholars and fans, a welcome change from the kind of jokesy, folksy "Defensive -Who Me?" intros that plague the genre.

I neglected to put BOOKS! in the 50s part of my terse timeline.

For instance, this guy has an article about the Baroque in sf: http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0601/monstrous.htm

Really enjoying this---although bugs me a little, after so much about Moore, that he refers to Kuttner as the (sole) author of "Vintage Season." My local library's ancient copy of Stories For Late At Night,the Hitchcock anthology where I found it,credits her---though a later edition lists both as authors, and it seems to have been originally published as by Lawrence O'Donnell, their collaborative pseudonym. Must find Lucretius' True History!

To Kuttner? Alone? That seems like a major mistake. Haven't actually read beyond the beginning of that yet. At least he knows that she wrote "Shambleau" in his other article.

Oystein I'd be interested to hear what you think of The Book of Skulls, I found it unbearably misogynistic

Sorry though I was posting on this thread yesterday Best Story in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 (Unabridged Version)

But since don is already on this thread

12. Some dispute exists over whether Kuttner is the sole author of this story; the anthology, The Best of C. L. Moore (1975), edited by Lester del Rey, attributes "The Vintage Season" to her. It originally appeared, however, under Kuttner's by-line. (back)

Which is what you said. Never mind.

Why is it misleading? In Moore's foreword she basically says the novel was almost all his?!?!?

Attributing "The Vintage Season" to him solely seems very weird to me. O'Donnell generally meant it was written by both, but %s might be a fools game here.

I don't know why about Fury, that's all it says. I don't have a copy with that intro. Maybe they mean "not 100%."

Yeah most of their stuff was collaboratively rewritten or at least edited, but she makes it clear that at most she contributed an 1/8 of the work on Fury.

Figure whoever's name is on there is the majority writer and don't worry about the % like you said. Too bad about the misattribution because otherwise that guy's reading of the story is right on. I guess when he wrote it he didn't figure on three "Vintage Season" fans from the future coming back in time to factcheck.

Oh, I see. Maybe he couldn't get ahold of the original issue of Astounding from 1946 and so looked at the toc of Spectrum II edited by Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest from 1962.

dudes!

ANCILLARY JUSTICE

anybody else on board with this shizz??? i just ate this up, didn't want it to end

saw that listed here and thought it sounded the most interesting...

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/18/sf-shortlist-arthur-c-clarke-award-newcomers-science-fiction