Thread of Wonder, the next 5000 posts: science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction 2021 and beyond

Ha, sorry, I had forgotten that meme, and had read some other things he wrote about Ballard which seemed more on target, had to Google that one.

I know Amis is out of fashion these days no doubt for good reason but still feel that some things he wrote will hold up, MONEY mostly, and I’d rather consider rereading him than, say, Philip Roth.

oh god i too had somehow forgotten that MA line. jesus.

It’s not a meme is why, it’s just me trying to make fetch happen

Martin Amis: fire away!

Wonder what people will think about this sentence of his: "Further paradoxes include the fact that despite his acuity and wit, his deep ironies, Ballard remains an essentially humourless writer. Humour is available to the man, but it is denied access to the page."

I get what he is saying and used to agree but now I think that there is some kind of poker-faced Adam West-styled humor going on there.

Great descriptions by Fizzles and the man JG himself---though also, the protagonists of Chronopolis want the ashtray to be an ashtray again/still; their own obsessions include reacting to change, planting a flag of WHAT'S RIGHT on/in the roiling sands and waves ov Time, and of course the resistance to change is part of change (often sucks for them, strange fun for us, strenuous for all, incl. author, seems like).

Came back to say that Ballard is funny in the way the last scene of PSYCHO where Simon Oakland explains what just happened is funny

xpost And come to think of it, thiis (resistance to/more creative friction of Time etc) is the basic situation of yhe xxxxxpost Across Realtime sequence, especially in the volume I just read, Marooned In Realtime: time travel, voluntary or otherwise, is via spheres of stasis, which can be very large, and you come out in what feels like no time, with 21st Century baggage arriving in Century 200 or whatever--and there are are accruals from other stops: which, as the process gets improved, can last a few seconds, hours, days, as well as years. However long or short it is, you can't go back .
The characters we travel with, a well-drawn 30 out of 300,the last known/assembled of humanity,thought they were coming to a new improved Future, but find only ruins: what some call the Singularity has evidently happened also of course a guy says that Jesus has come and gone, but will come one more time; another detects evidence that mankind was murdered by Aliens, and guards against that kind of return, also has his eye on some admittedly strange humans back from Space).
Electric social dynamics here, but could get too claustrophobic without the novel-within-the-novel, actually the reassembled diary of a co-founder of the last stand/rebirth project, who was left behind on a wilderness Earth of the new-distant past, a lone woman, sometimes with critter companions,trying to get across reconfigured continents to sites where her colleagues will one day re-emerge---she does that for forty years---and it gets to be almost a thing in itself, an adventurous set piece, if a set piece can be maybe 100 pages total (the investigator of her marooning, himself a cop bumped into stasis travel by a perp, goes back into reading the diary compulsively, periodically, when the current realtime gets to be too much and too little)
(the penultimate and ending not so hot, but momentum of all that has gone before not cancelled)
Across Realtie is like RIYL
The Wild Shore, the first of Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias.

Sorry for all the typos: meant "the now-distant past" etc.

https://dragondaze6.webnode.co.uk/galleries/
guy who did some of the best McCaffrey covers also did Olias Of Sunhillow

speaking of covers, michael whelan is pretty active on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/michaelwhelan.bsky.social

some things i read recently:

too many 'books are magic' novels, the latest of which was gareth brown's 'the book of doors'. see also olivie blake, emma törzs, robin sload, peng shui etc. etc. (tbf the latter was the one that truly and deeply sucked)

micaiah johnson: those beyond the wall -- grebt. you probably need to read the first one ('the space between worlds') to really get it tho

john barnes: a million open doors -- weird story of two cultures that are advanced/regressive about opposite things meeting head-on. revels in the economic possibilities (which i don't mind); kinda naive about everything else

martin macinness: in ascension -- thought this was pretty great. even just on a sentence level

nina allan: conquest! -- really like her but wasn't too hot on this one. many useful opinions on certain recordings of bach, however

max barry: lexicon -- books aren't magic, but words are. decent thriller but don't really need another School for Mages-type thing

ann leckie: the raven tower -- . . . fine i guess? short, repetitive, awkward switches between first- and second-person, trans identity of the (sort-of) protagonist seems completely tacked-on

Hadn't heard about The Space Between Worlds follow-up, thanks!

Ye who have been to WorldCon,any Con, and/or who are going, please tell us Earthbounds about it!

Doris Piserchia - A Billion Days Of Earth

I've become quite worried at how often I find books kind of anonymous in style and subject matter, as if they're ignoring all the freedom you can have with words on paper in the hopes they'll get a hollywood screen adaptation. I want to go swimming, deep diving in the brains of writers with highly developed inner lives. I had heard Piserchia was a real oddball writer and this novel confirms it.

It's about an earth where humans have evolved into gods and rats have taken their place, now the rats live much like 20th century humans with similar bodies, all the same clothes, buildings, vehicles, etc and even have hair in all the places humans do (not like the cover art, which looks cooler). There's a shiny silver shapeshifting creature that is seducing people and animals into an ambiguous fate and it multiplies itself after it absorbs them. There's a dysfunctional rich family, dangerous creatures and gods in the background living a seemingly carefree existence.

Not a lot of other reviews I've seen have mentioned this but this is a really cartoony book, comedic but not to the extent that I'd call it SF comedy. Much of the dialogue is characters bickering with each other in a confused way and it's highly distinctive. The imagery is lightly sketched and the grotesque violence is the only thing that keeps it feeling like it was aimed at a younger audience.

I enjoyed this but didn't love it and I'm curious how much this style carries into her other work. I can't decide if some of the plot threads are underdeveloped or if it was fine to have several characters only briefly used. I liked the strangeness but I just wanted it to feel more real and immersive, but I think it was probably trying to be a cartoon in prose.

Just bought my ticket for Glasgow Worldcon 2024. Got a discount on my ticket because I’m resident in Scotland (a slightly better discount than the one for people who have never been to a Worldcon before, which I was also eligible for). Glad I don’t have to try and book accommodation, which seemed a convoluted process (the whole ticket buying process was fairly complex). Have been to loads of comic conventions but never an SF one before - not having a clue what it will be like is part of the appeal - plus it being on my doorstep, it really was now or never. Hope to run into other ilxors there.

Starting tomorrow, this! Ward wanna arrange a meeting?

Hi Daniel, it would be great to meet. Are you attending all five days? I'm going to register tomorrow, and then in the evening I'm going to see The Sons of the Desert showing some Laurel and Hardy films in the Glasgow Panopticon, where Stan performed back in the day (nothing to do with Worldcon, but these evenings are always a nice time if you're in the city).

Then I shall be going to Worldcon on Thursday-Monday. I have a bit of a 'free day' on Thursday as my friend Fiona, who is attending with me, doesn't arrive until the evening (when we plan to go for something to eat in the city). Got to say, I am seriously gobsmacked by the amount of programming there is at Worldcon, almost overwhelmingly so. So at the moment I don't know where or when I'm going to be most of the time - just like Billy Pilgrim - but once things get going I'm sure I'll have a better idea and can firm up a time/place for a meet.

The only other ILX adjacent person I know who is attending is my Facebook friend The Dirty Vicar/Ian M00r3, who used to post on this board many years ago, and seems to be quite involved with the programming side of things.

read kelly link's 'the book of love'

enjoyed it; she writes good sentences. but also it was much longer than it needed to be, and the length exposed how certain weird things might initially be cool, but not so much when they mean nothing particular. great characters tho

ilxmailed you, Ward

xpost agree w most of that---collection Get In Trouble and several stories since, prob in latest round-up---were masterful, but she really comes off like a novelistic noob here, length also incl. mostly who-cares older people and their backstories/cont. subplots (incl. fantasy figures from Ancient Tymes)---although the two teens from 16th (or 17th?) Century are pretty cool and do not engage in the ridic meme-speak (just as much like cheesy supernatural teen cable speak) of contemporary teens, though these are good when they're not talking,and omniscient narrator tells what they're thinking.
(Author thanks her kids for helping her with today's teen lingo, but seems like they pranked her, unless maybe they've been living on their phones since kindergarten, which could be too.)
Could have been an effective novella, though.

teen cable speak of 90s and 00s, that is.
But came here to report on reading another xpost Vinge:
The Witling(1979) A witling is a human (lately born some 30,000 years after humans left Old Earth for est. thousands of planets, with only hundreds in touch) with no inherent ability to teleport:considered a rare kind of cripple on the planet Giri, although some slaves are bred that way---but one such, notoriously so, is the Crown Prince of The Summer Kingdom, which iscomprised of regions north and south of the Equator, just as the Shadow Kingdom comes from the Poles, with civilization being teleportation-based
To keep from landing in pieces, this is done via transit pools, but the areas between have to be memorized, mostly by underlings who escort the quality. Blasts of air, even giant rocks from the moons can be teleported as weapons, the latter by the Guild (don't mess with them).
Two witlings from science outpost planet Novamerika come to visit, are shot down and captured. The witling Prince thinks the female Novamerikan is beeyoutiful, in an elvish way, though she's well aware that she was considered at best "cute" when she was six, and not even that since (or so she thinks). The old male Novamerikan, not attracted to her at all, urges her to make nice to the Prince, but she don't wanna, only in part because he is short, flat-featured, and gray, Pottery Barn reject (like all his fellow Giri-ans, evidently)
Anyway, there's lots of factions, intrigue, suspense, implications (a very "Faustian" member of the Guild, not a moontosser, wants to aid escape to Novamerika, where he can learn tech "magic" [and teach, as lab subject I'd say, the genetic key to faster-than-light teleportation)
Good character development to and rec to Bujold fans.

Alastair Reynolds, Aurora Rising (not the Aurora Rising sf novel that takes up the entire first page of google results if you search for the title). Detective fiction set in the revelation space universe. It's a pretty good blending of the two genres, has the usual strengths and weakness of reynolds (the weaknesses being occasionally clunky writing, the same old names popping up, characters motivated entirely by bitterness). It's set in the glitter band, supposedly a pinnacle of human civilisation, a jewel in the galaxy, a fully democratic utopia. This is where the book really rings false for me since it just seems like an awful place populated by egoists and massive weirdos (fully 0.1% of the population *choose* to 'live' in a persistent vegetative state (!), an even larger number voluntarily submit to tyranny), as a society where the exercise of one's democratic rights is of the ultimate importance it's nevertheless happy to allow non voluntary torture and execution. Technologically it's also inconsistent, everyone's plugged in to VR but they still mess around with physical installation of software upgrades - using disks! Obviously this is purely in service of the plot but seems like it could have been done better.

Still, after I'd finished I kind of missed the place, so as the sequel was on offer for <£1 I bought it.

is that the Prefect series? i kinda lost track when he renamed the first book.

Oh that IS the renamed first book of the series i'm thinking of. was originally 'The Prefect'.

there's a third now, Machine Vendetta, which is in my TODO list

I read all 3 Prefect books earlier this year! fun enough series if a bit daft at points. 2nd one feels plotted like a Iain M Banks book, who I'm a big stan of so got extra marks from me.
I'd read some Reynolds books over a decade ago and thought they were a bit ho hum, so kind of stopped looking for his books. what got me interested again was randomly coming across his book Eversion last year and giving it a go and absolutely loving it, just a really fun piece of speculative fiction.

finished the 3rd Hellonica book the other day, bit of a let down after the first two - the much less interesting scifi part became more of a focus, and there was some pretty gross rapey sex stuff throughout. still, the desciptive writing occasionally shone and the world building was still interesting, just not as much as before.

I didn't enjoy Eversion - I didn't appreciate reading the same story three or four times over - but I'm weirdly glad it worked for someone else!

I was thinking about starting Helliconia. I initially wanted to try Barefoot in the Head but it's not available as an ebook in the uk (why???)

Ledge, your description of the demonacracy in Aurora Rising looks plausible these days, and I'd like to read it, keeping in mind it's by Reynolds---not that I've read a lot by him, but seems to get mixed-at-best reviews on ilx. I'll keep an eye out at library, thanks.

Speaking of Aldiss, almost the only thing I've read by him is this:

The Long Afternoon of Earth (February-December 1961 F&SF; fixup 1962; exp vt Hothouse 1962) won him a 1962 Hugo award for its original appearance as a series of novelettes. It is one of his finest works. Set in the Far Future, when the Earth has ceased rotating, it portrays the last remnants (see Devolution) of humanity, who live in the branches of a giant, continent-spanning tree. Criticized for scientific implausibility (see Space Elevator) by James Blish and others, Hothouse (Aldiss's preferred title) demonstrates the ultimate inutility of such criticisms of a work like this title, which displays all of Aldiss's linguistic, comic and inventive talents, and dramatizes effectively a wide range of concerns: the conflict between fecundity and Entropy, between engorgement and chaos, between the rich variety of life and the silence of death.

Would rep v strongly for Aldiss’s Greybeard too, structurally similar to Le Gunn’s The Dispossessed and equally well written novel about a sterile, aging society, veers into folk horror at times.

I had a huge WTF moment at Worldcon today when Robert Silverberg nearly ran into me in his mobility scooter.

lool

i hope you blurted out 'silverbob!'

Ledge, your description of the demonacracy in Aurora Rising looks plausible these days

yes but most people don't consider that we're living in a golden age!

Now reading Ann Leckie's Translation State, which has her distinct "social mores in space!" style but also toys with body horror in parts.

body horror in parts.

picked up Elysium Fire, the book ledge mentioned, as it was cheap (replacing my paperback copy), and noticed the third part, Machine Vendetta, is also currently cheap

xp Which reminds me of my take on this anthologized treat:

George RR Martin's "Nightflyers' is a novella, the longest yard by far, and earns it. An intriguing, quest-worthy scientific expedition sets off on a strange ship, with a strange captain, and it's mystery-horror in space, gore and zombies floating through more than Special EFX, as the story develops via the dynamics of a group whose members I can actually keep straight, they have that much personality, even when dead/"dead."

God, I hated Nightflyers, just the worst writing and characterisation.

Tbf I think I’m just allergic to Martin’s writing, none of his stuff ever worked for me.

noticed the third part, Machine Vendetta, is also currently cheap

sorted! expect I'll be done with grungy sf for a while once I'm through with those.

xpost At least I got you to post--welcome back, James!

Where did he go?

Not here! Or any WAYR? that I've seen in quite a while.

ok, read xpost "True Names," cyberspace-before "cyberspace" (here it's called "The Other Plane") novella., and can see how it sets tropes, standards, but wouldn't work for me w/o that crucial Vingean conceptual x emotional resonance, here in use of fantasy imagery as analogues for tech, because of the way it suits cultural conditioning etc. and the motivations, sensibilities of all those who come to the Plane--also key is detecting difference between active realness behind avatars, vs. simulations left in place,. no matter how expert. and got Vinge momentum etc. too

Pour one out tonight for Thieves World and Heroes in Hell scribe Janet Morris, sword-and-sorcery faithful - according to her family, she has passed away. pic.twitter.com/uw7OmHyhgm

— BattlebornMag (@BattlebornMag) August 10, 2024

Ann Leckie's Translation State was something else. Her scrupulous and sensitive stories of social mores and political manoeuvering are so much more than just 'tea and gloves' (though there are tea and gloves in this one too, and I'm finally fully on board) - I mean I hope it's evidence of her intelligence, and not of my dullness, that I had to reread some parts several times in order to work out the full implications. But this one adds body horror (as mentioned above) and truly weird alien biology and behaviour. It's also very strongly concerned with gender identity - this review nails part of it: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/your-genes-arent-your-destiny-on-ann-leckies-translation-state/

In Ancillary Justice and its sequels, Leckie thoughtfully explores an agender society (the Imperial Radch) where reproductive biology has no bearing on categories of social identity. As I have argued elsewhere, however, the Radchaai agender norm is often imposed on other cultures with staggering imperial arrogance: Leckie uses “she” as the default Radchaai agender pronoun for everyone (rather than a neutral pronoun like “they”) (...) Translation State, by contrast, clarifies Leckie’s argument that misgendering others—refusing to honor their pronouns and gender identities—is always an act of violence.

It's not just about pronouns though, in some ways the whole book feels like an intriguingly imperfect analogy to the transgender experience (I say this with some hesitation, not being trans myself). I'm sure she intentionally chose a title with those first five letters.

If I have any reservations it's that as usual she does like to tie things up rather neatly and give everyone a happy ending, and though bad things happen I didn't get any real sense of danger or violence or of the true misanthrope's understanding of the awful things that people can do to each other and that you can find in plenty of stories e.g. by Le Guin. There's just a slight sense of that YA optimism, somewhat exacerbated by the fact that all three of the main characters, even the 56 year old woman, approach the world like wide-eyed innocents (though to different extents and for quite deliberate authorial reasons).

Tbf I think I’m just allergic to Martin’s writing, none of his stuff ever worked for me.

I love Sandkings and... that's it.

How was worldcon? Someone said there wasn't many good book dealers there?

Should say that sword and sorcery was just a part of what Janet Morris did, she wrote all sorts of SFF and historical fiction. A big promoter of non-lethal weapons in the military.

Has anyone checked out those Lavie Tidhar BEST OF WORLD SF anthologies?

I bought them all but they'll be sitting unread for the foreseeable future, I have all the ones he did for Apex too

Still Vingeing--as I mentioned about the Realtime stories and The Witling, he likes to set two groups at each others' throats along w backstabbing and conniving, preferably with shot-down hostages from space as magical-seeming (beyond medieval tech) prizes)---in A Fire Upon The Deep, each side has a hostage, a boy and a girl, siblings.The girl has a working educational computer, for toddlers up through advanced secondary students, ideal for ignorant Aliens. The boy has a working sort of interstellar text link to a far-off, damaged, yet incoming craft with a few refugee-rescuers on board.
The Aliens, each group led by its breeder (one more benevolent or mild-mannered than the other, also that one is the breeder of the other), are seen by the offworld kids as dogpeople, in packs of packs: each dogperson character is a pack, in neurological synch, so eyes can see in all directions etc., but they can't get close to each other most of the time, or any other packs almost all the time, because of true cognitive dissonance, feedback etc.
If that seems too claustrophic, we also get why the refugee/rescuers are coming, updates as well as backstories, and all of that/this in a much wider perspective, the Zones of Thought---as sf-encyclopedia puts it, mostly paraphrasing one of the humans, as she explains it to a remixed hero-of-sorts, on the way to first bedding:

The galaxy as a whole is divided into four concentric Zones of Thought, as defined and circumscribed by the varying limitations (and liberations) of Physics: the Unthinking Depths of the galaxy's core, where even Intelligence cannot exist, are surrounded by the Slow Zone (Earth's location; see Fermi Paradox) which allows only limited AI and is generally bound by the speed restrictions of Relativity; further out, in the vast circumambiating expanses of the Beyond, AIs can be superhuman and Faster Than Light travel is easy (here flourish almost innumerable civilizations); at its remotest distance from the Unthinking Depths, the High Beyond merges into the unknowable Transcend (see Transcendence) where intelligence tends towards the godlike. The information webs which convey near-infinities of information among the myriad worlds of the venue amusingly reflect the telephone-linked computer nets of the 1980s and early 1990s (see Internet).

I found something really cool in a little free library today: The Compleat Dying Earth, Science Fiction Book Club edition, in hardcover. There's a sick poster of the Gerald Brom cover painting inside. I may have to get that framed.

Picture here: https://imgur.com/rCCMZvx