ooh man thanks for that interview!
Ha he did the awesome Scanner Darkly cover, I didn't realize that.
I bet the cool Avram Davidson People Under the Earth paperback i've got is him too. I'll check.
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 4 October 2018 15:14 (five years ago) link
colour me intrigued
https://www.tramppress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/A-Brilliant-Void-Cover.png
― Number None, Friday, 5 October 2018 08:38 (five years ago) link
That's timely, what with WorldCon being in Dublin next year and all.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 5 October 2018 08:41 (five years ago) link
Science Fiction the 101 Best Novels 1985-2010 by Damien Broderick and Paul Di Filippo
This is the sequel to David Pringle's brilliant Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels. Don't know why I delayed so much in getting this because I loved all the other similar genre guides. Main differences with Pringle's earlier guide is that it adds an extra book more, Pringle always used 2 pages per entry and this uses 2-3 pages (Gene Wolfe was the only one to get 4 pages if I remember correctly). No author gets more than one book (or book series), while Pringle was quite happy to choose multiple books by the same author. It could be said that Broderick and Di Filippo cheat by cramming in lots of other recommendations as tangents (Attanasio's Radix is given a strong recommendation in the entry for Zindell's Neverness, they lament that he was overlooked for the previous book) and career run-throughs for lesser known authors (Liz Jensen gets a bundle of her books profiled). Some reviewers disliked all this extra cramming but I really appreciated it.
Like other reviewers I sometimes suspected some books were included for being important and representative (perhaps to discuss developments in the genre) rather than the best, a surprising number of bestsellers are chosen and I wondered if this was a crowdpleasing move. Some later successes by the SF elders are chosen (including Poul Anderson, Vance, Vonnegut, Ballard, Moorcock, Le Guin, Aldiss) and many other reviewers felt these entries were just out of respect to the legends of the genre. Possibly some writers were chosen out of respect for their short fiction? Since I haven't read a single one of these books and cant read the minds of Broderick & Di Filippo, I cant say how honest the choices were.
I normally welcome dense writing but when I read reviews, I rarely have the patience for it and sometimes feel like a traitor for this. But a lot of the descriptions are really confusing. They insist that science fiction rarely has much actual science in it but I was frequently lost with the mentions of singularity, quantum sciences and other such things. In a guide like this, which will probably attract newbies as much as huge SF fans, I felt they should have been more accessible like Pringle was. But I enjoyed the writing more than most people seemed to, I thought there was a glee to it. My biggest complaint is that the type size is too small, making the book much more difficult. Even if you're not fond of ebooks you might want to consider the ebook version to save your eyes.
There was quite a lot of epic Hard SF and that's a hard sell for me despite my admiration for the scale of such stories, but Broderick and Filippo did quite a good job getting me to consider getting some of them. Half way through I was wondering how many women wrote this sort of thing and the entry on Linda Nagata answers that.
I never thought I'd be interested in Michael Chabon or Orson Scott Card's Ender series but they also sold me on those. I recently passed by Cherryh's Cyteen in a charity shop and assumed it must be one of her lesser works but according to this guide it's one of her best!
The book entries I was most excited by were...
James Morrow - This Is The Way The World EndsPamela Sargent - Shore Of WomenJoan Slonczewski - A Door Into OceanPaul Park - Sugar FestivalDavid Zindell - NevernessGwyneth Jones - Aleutian trilogyRichard Calder - Dead Girls trilogyWalter Jon Williams - AristoiMichael Moorcock - Second Ether trilogyChristopher Priest - The SeparationJohn C Wright - The Golden Age (Strange to see him featured here considering what he done to his reputation since. 2012 was such a different time in the genre!)Ian McDonald - River Of GodsIan R MacLeod - House Of StormsDavid Marusek - Counting Heads Geoff Ryman - AirLiz Jensen - My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (along with a bunch of her other works discussed)Carol Emshwiller - Secret City (the crazy sounding The Mount even moreso)Ekaterina Sedia - Alchemy Of StoneHannu Rajaniemi - Quantum Thief series (seemed to do interesting things with the references)
Please don't be put off by some of the drawbacks of this guide. I cant verify how good the choices are but I haven't found many better ways to aquaint myself with what has been going on in science fiction during the period covered. Speculative fiction (and maybe other genres) are perhaps getting too big for anyone to cover comprehensively and perhaps people wont be able to do this kind of thing convincingly anymore. But I pray there will be more guides like this. Fantasy really needs more top 100 guides like this because the last really good ones were in the 80s.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 14 October 2018 20:38 (five years ago) link
Can heartily recommend A Door into Ocean. Are those emshwiller choices novels or short stories?
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Sunday, 14 October 2018 22:51 (five years ago) link
Would definitely recommend Liz Jensen
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Sunday, 14 October 2018 23:47 (five years ago) link
Jon- all the main entries are novels, although it occasionally mentioned short stories worth checking out. That's the main drawback of the top 100 books by Pringle, Cawthorn and this one, they only do novels or story collections that are completely unified (Bradbury's Martian Chronicles). The top 100 horror books by Jones/Newman feature lots of collections but horror is far more short story orientated.
Might be difficult to write about lots of short stories and it's hard to come by a truly stonking good collection or anthology.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 19 October 2018 17:48 (five years ago) link
https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41MGCK4rwyL._SL500_SX325_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
I have this by Pringle, which I find very useful (I think there's a second edition I don't have). Hundreds of capsule reviews of every significant SF novel up to that point; also major short story collections and anthologies, tho no short story reviews as such. Alongside his own fairly pithy comments and a standard star rating system, Pringle also finds space from quotes by other reviewers like Ballard, Clute, all the usual suspects.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 19 October 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link
I might get that, I absolutely loved his 100 SF Novels and 100 Modern Fantasy Novels guides. I got a new-ish (90s or early 00s) fantasy guide by him and was just profiles of authors and it didn't seem to have anything like reviews. But there's lots of books by him with similar titles, not sure which ones are updates.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 19 October 2018 19:12 (five years ago) link
That Pringle book Ward mentioned is Internet Archive-borrowable here: https://archive.org/details/ultimateguidetos00prin
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 20 October 2018 07:21 (five years ago) link
Had a look through Ultimate Encyclopedia Of Fantasy this morning. As a critical guide it isn't very helpful, Pringle is joined by Brian Stableford, David Langford and someone else I cant remember, but you never know who is writing what and evaluating what might be worthwhile is difficult because it isn't very review focused although it does occasionally offer judgements.
But it's got way too much film and tv stuff and useless profiles of the most famous fantasy lands. Films cover everything you'd expect to things like Big (Tom Hanks), Peggy Sue Got Married, Groundhog Day, Michael (Travolta), The Mask (Jim Carrey) and Splash. How many readers are going to find these selections helpful? There's also favorable reviews of Pirates Of The Caribbean and Shrek (I doubt Stableford written those). Who knows how many duds and not relevant enough things you could end up searching for? But it's also got curiosities like Artemis 81, which really does look worthwhile.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 20 October 2018 14:35 (five years ago) link
Lafferty's Reefs Of Earth recently came out on paperback.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 20 October 2018 15:28 (five years ago) link
That’s good news - my favorite longer lafferty work
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 20 October 2018 15:33 (five years ago) link
Never read a longer Lafferty; describe, please!
Encyclopedia of Fantasty, fraternal online twin of Science Fiction Encyclopedia, is pretty handy:http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.phpAlthough it's done, Sun:This digital version of the Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) edited by John Clute and John Grant, was prepared by David Langford in 1999 and placed online in October 2012. Please note the disclaimer at the foot of (almost) every entry.
― dow, Sunday, 21 October 2018 00:30 (five years ago) link
It's the new 'Dynasts'!
― alimosina, Monday, 22 October 2018 16:19 (five years ago) link
There's a new edition of Erckmann & Chatrian in the shops from HarperCollins. First in quite some time.
I don't know if the two Oxfams in Glasgow have been better recently or I just know about more writers because I've been finding interesting stuff lately. Including the above mentioned River Of Gods by Ian McDonald. I think I'm going to make a habit of visiting both stores, I hadn't really bothered in years.
Making my way through a Dunsany collection now and there's some really nice stuff in there.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 26 October 2018 18:02 (five years ago) link
The charity shops near me have been absolutely great for books recently. A friend posited it was perhaps due to the influence of the Kindles and people decluttering their lives, shrug.
― You (bleeping) need me. You can't Finn without me (fionnland), Friday, 26 October 2018 21:35 (five years ago) link
Gollancz just put out a Lafferty omnibushttps://www.gollancz.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/hbg-title-9781473213418.jpgAnd have a collection of his short stories due next year
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Friday, 26 October 2018 23:55 (five years ago) link
Ooh
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 27 October 2018 01:26 (five years ago) link
With introduction by Neil Gaiman.
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 October 2018 01:29 (five years ago) link
Boo
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 27 October 2018 02:05 (five years ago) link
Story collection will fill a huge huge gap
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 27 October 2018 02:13 (five years ago) link
B-b-but will it fill the Narrow Valley?
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 October 2018 02:43 (five years ago) link
March 2019 for the stories, also with Gaiman intro:https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41v16UW6LVL.jpg
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 27 October 2018 06:43 (five years ago) link
A friend posited it was perhaps due to the influence of the Kindles and people decluttering their lives, shrug.
― You (bleeping) need me. You can't Finn without me (fionnland), Friday, October 26, 2018 10:35 PM
Interesting. I hope I haven't missed a ton of good stuff over the past few years. Even as I anticipate the possibility of getting some great finds, I'm a little sad that people are parting with them.
One of my finds this week was the third book in Rohan's Spiral series. I wondered what he was doing now and found he died two months ago. Didn't know he was part of an Edinburgh scene.
https://michaelscottrohan.org.uk/remembering-msr/
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 27 October 2018 11:47 (five years ago) link
Wonder if Waterstones are stocking Three Great Novels because I had a thorough look in there this week and didn't see it (I didn't know it existed but I'm sure I would have spotted it as I was scanning shelves).
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 27 October 2018 11:50 (five years ago) link
aw i love Lafferty, no need to Gaiman him up :(
― the Warnock of Clodhop Mountain (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 27 October 2018 11:53 (five years ago) link
was unaware of novels tho, really should pay more attention to things other than what falls in my lap :D
― the Warnock of Clodhop Mountain (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 27 October 2018 11:54 (five years ago) link
tbf to Gaiman, he's championed Lafferty for years, and I'm sure he's been a big help in getting these books back into print. Intros are easy enough to skip.
Do we know a tracklisting for the short story collection yet?
Annoyingly I have two of the three novels in that Three Great Novels set (which, btw RAG, I saw in the Waterstones at Braehead just the other day); £14.99 is a lot to pay for Space Chantey, especially as I haven't got round to reading Past Master or the totally out-there sounding Fourth Mansions yet. I suppose I have a suspicion that Lafferty, like a great many of the more unique SF writers, might be best in the shorter forms - but we shall see.
― Ward Fowler, Saturday, 27 October 2018 13:25 (five years ago) link
On the one hand some of the stories even outrun their ideas, but on the other hand his best prose, especially dialogue, has this shaggy dog charm that I can happily imagine meandering along at novel length.
― the Warnock of Clodhop Mountain (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 27 October 2018 13:31 (five years ago) link
Kim Stanley Robinson has a new one out: RED MOON.
― ArchCarrier, Saturday, 27 October 2018 13:32 (five years ago) link
Damn already?!
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 27 October 2018 14:01 (five years ago) link
He’s also got BLUE MOON coming out in Jan 2019
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 October 2018 14:08 (five years ago) link
This is probably not about to come back into print but for novel length lafferty, his historical Native American piece Okla Hannali was a great marriage of tone and subject I liked annals of klepsis better than past master or fourth mansions. Have space chantey but never got around to it. As mentioned, Reefs of Earth was my favorite ral novel but it’s been decades since I read these. There was also a great long-novella length Sindbad story published during his indie label years - I hope i still have that in a box somewhere.
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 27 October 2018 17:32 (five years ago) link
There was a time around 1990 when you could get all these zine format lafferty obscurities from Chris Drumm books
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 27 October 2018 17:34 (five years ago) link
Talkin' bout Laffertys, i just read Mur Lafferty's Six Wakes. A murder mystery on a spaceship full of clones. Perhaps some people are sick of "rules of cloning" stories, but I thought it was a lot of fun.
― adam the (abanana), Monday, 29 October 2018 00:00 (five years ago) link
B-b-but wazzabout R.A. Lafferty's Six Fingers of Time?
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 29 October 2018 01:09 (five years ago) link
I want someone to publish The Devil Is Dead with the missing chapters restored, More Than Melchisedech, the unpublished Coscuin novels if there are any... there's a huge job to be done.
― alimosina, Wednesday, 31 October 2018 14:35 (five years ago) link
Hey, what about this brand new bio of John W. Campbell?
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 31 October 2018 21:31 (five years ago) link
Do not read if you hate Golden Age Mansplaining
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 31 October 2018 22:55 (five years ago) link
Here: https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/about-astounding/
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 31 October 2018 23:27 (five years ago) link
I got the Lafferty omnibus. Odd how the type size increases with each novel.
Also Mike Ashley's Glimpses Of The Unknown: Lost Ghost Stories, a collection of stories which have never been reprinted, including an EF Benson story that nobody knew about until now. This should be interesting.
Some of the amazon reviews for Broderick & Di Filippo's 101 Best SF Novels are totally wacko. Someone is positively outraged that these books are being considered science fiction, some reviewers expected an anthology (I guess the word Novel means nothing to them) and some people who seemed to expect 101 novels in one book, who must have ignored that there is a paperback version.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 3 November 2018 09:34 (five years ago) link
Anyone read 'Gnomon' by Nick Harkaway? It was recommended by a friend, but I'm not going to get into a nearly 700 pager lightly.
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 5 November 2018 19:00 (five years ago) link
i enjoyed his first one (the gone-away world). but having read another one of his, which was fine, i began to suspect that they're all more or less the same.
he's john le carre's son, fwiw
― mookieproof, Monday, 5 November 2018 19:33 (five years ago) link
i thought it was good. solid 8/10. recommended by former ilxor max iirc
― Roberto Spiralli, Monday, 5 November 2018 20:55 (five years ago) link
Oh funny, I was thinking of switching from Little Drummer Girl to this (because Mark S said it was bad on the other thread).
― change display name (Jordan), Monday, 5 November 2018 21:07 (five years ago) link
came across a copy of Lafferty's "Annals of Klepsis" in the wild yesterday but idk didn't really appeal to me. opted instead for Malzberg's "The Day of the Burning" which is exactly what I expected it to be lol
― Οὖτις, Monday, 5 November 2018 21:47 (five years ago) link
found a cheap copy of jeff vandermeer's weird anthology and i'm excited to try a few stories at random. i've heard it's a mixed bag, but it's *huge*, so even if 1 in 10 stories is good, that's still a lot to read
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weird
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 7 November 2018 18:24 (five years ago) link
Hannu Rajaniemi, Summerland, anyone?
It's cheap on Amazon today and looks interesting. Like Century Rain by the sounds...
― koogs, Wednesday, 7 November 2018 19:12 (five years ago) link
The new and excellent Dave Hutchinson, EUROPE AT DAWN
That Weird anthology is worth it for the stuff in translation that's impossible or near-impossible to get anywhere else, let alone all the other good stuff in it.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 7 November 2018 23:18 (five years ago) link