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

Totally

Jeff VanderMeer - Hummingbird Salamander

I had only read his Area X books before. Does he write all of his books like this? It spends page after page saying how significant the hummingbird and the salamander are, but it takes ages to explain why. (Supposedly because of events in the narrator's life, but this turns out to be untrue, despite her supposedly writing the book down after she has learned that it's untrue.) Most of the novel has the form of a Dan Brown quest but the clues are obviously nonsense, and lead to another clue anyway, despite it all ending up to be irrelevant in the final pages. My least favorite piece of fiction that I've read in quite a while.

frederik pohl - 'the world at the end of time'

conventional human ark-ship colonization story + 'tau zero'-ish time dilation interspersed with the ramblings of a plasma-based superbeing roughly as old as the universe.

unfortunately the main human character is an annoying prick, and it's unclear why anyone else cares about him. at one point he's reunited with someone he thought long dead, which should have been monumental but is passed over quickly because him having truly missed them isn't believable and the returning character has no depth whatsoever.

there's some awkward sex stuff, although tbf it's not as bad as that of most of his old-school sci-fi colleagues. the superbeing, despite having every other chapter devoted to it, has no role to play other than inadvertently causing the time dilation. not only does it not actually encounter our humans, it only becomes dimly aware of them in the final pages.

not v. good. only other thing i've read by him is the first heechee book; iirc that was better

Wolfbane is a ride for sure, he was at his best in collaboration with CM Kornbluth imo

I know this is very much scraping the bottom of the barrel, but: I have a lot of affection for the Warhammer and (to a lesser degree) Warhammer 40k universes. Anyone know of any novelizations or audio dramas set in those worlds that are good?

I think Pohl was a good guy, a nice person, based on what I've read and meeting him once, as well as being a good editor but yeah, his best work was Gateway and his stuff with CM Kornbluth. Shakey had some ability to slog through some of other things I didn't have the patience for.

Pohl is a strange one - when he's on his game - Gateway, Man Plus, some of the short stories like 'Tunnel under the world' and 'The Midas plague' - he's definitely top tier, and certainly a more pleasing stylist than someone like Asimov. But there are long stretches in his career where he writes almost nothing of note, ie most of the sixties and pretty much everything after Jem in 1979 (he wrote close to twenty novels from 1980 until his death, but none of them seem to be very highly regarded). I guess like so many SF authors he wrote too much, too carelessly.

Was going to mention "The Tunnel Under the World," which is indeed classic. Shakey stanned for Man Plus iirc.

Daniel - I haven't read any of them but I've heard good things about Guy Haley, Kim Newman, Dan Abnett and Stableford (as Brian Craig) in the Warhammer universe.

Still making my way through Clark Ashton Smith. After a few science fiction stories that seemed half-hearted he really indulges in Maze Of The Enchanter and a sequel to Vathek. It wasn't unusual for him to get rejections like "too sophisticated for our readers". Admittedly you do need a very good dictionary handy. The ending to Maze was a letdown for me but I liked it otherwise. Might read Vathek before this sequel.

Some people romanticize the pulps but it seems like a really crap time to have been writing, but until internet times it seems like there was only room for a few things unless you were content with the small press magazines that started in the 70s.

Room for a few things = a narrow selection genres and approaches.

Oh cool, didn't know Kim Newman wrote for them!

Some people romanticize the pulps but it seems like a really crap time to have been writing

This is surely part of the romance, as with comics, classic Hollywood studio system, 60's Pop, etc.? Artists maudits cranking out work at an insane pace, viewing it as a job not a calling (but deep down they know it's a calling!), ignored by the world at large. Sucks to have actually lived through it but for fans it gives the era extra pathos.

I think part of it is that very few people actually go back and read Weird Tales issue by issue. Nevins and Joshi give the impression it was actually a really low quality magazine, but its best writers changed the world.

Newman's Warhammer omnibus
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?828433

Reading about their individual story rejections tells you a lot about the magazines.

Newman's Warhammer novels were originally published under his pseudonym, Jack Yeovil, btw

I'm quite annoyed they resold them individually after the first omnibus came out. I bought Silver Bullets assuming it was the omnibus but somehow I didn't consider how slim it is.

micaiah johnson, the space between worlds

the multiverse is real, and certain people can travel between realities -- but only to those in which their local counterparts are dead.

this was pretty grebt imo

It didn't work for me, I couldn't really warm to the protagonist or get a decent handle on her life situation - I file that on the 'it's not you it's me' shelf of criticism though. It's certainly not as bad as the violent teenage revenge fantasy of Nophek Gloss that I suffered through recently.

Hmm. I usually trust the two of you so... I hope some tiebreaker will weigh in.

Try it, you have nothing to lose but your precious minutes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhSbcIlvcEA

Read the sample. Found the world/worlds/worldbuilding really intriguing. There is something about the writing style that is interesting but a little cryptic to me, can’t tell how I will feel if I pony up. The road to the New Maps of Hell is littered with unread ebook purchases. James Morrison to thread!

Just picked up a cheap paperback of Hyperion. Dear lord the sex writing.

I picked up on the recommendation of a trusted friend. Thoughts? My impression is that it’s pretty good, sex excepted, even if the author is a peak SF shithead.

Haven't listened to this one yet but I always enjoy the legacy episodes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkbPnhnWzJU

https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/chaz-brenchley/three-twins-at-the-crater-school/

This looks pretty cool

documentary on afro futurism on bbc4 tomorrow

Cool. The book mookie recently mentioned is relevant to that.

Reminding me: did yall see this on the Samuel Delany thread:

Delany posted yesterday (FB) about choosing clothes for a New Yorker photo shoot. Fingers crossed for a full profile.

― In my house are many Manchins (WmC), Tuesday, May 18, 2021 1:08 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hope so! They published an astute take on the work of Octavia Butler in March, guess the rest is behind paywall (I happened to see the print edition), but here's the opening: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/15/how-octavia-e-butler-reimagines-sex-and-survival

― dow, Wednesday, May 19, 2021 7:03 PM (three days ago)
The link hots it up, no prob but be it known the print is more precise:
Stranger Communities
Octavia E. Butler's vision of struggle and symbiosis
By Julian Lucas
Will have to find some more by Lucas.

Zelazny podcast was nice, (as always with the legacy episodes) it's promoting a study of the writer, this one contesting the idea that Zelazny became a hack rather than live up to his promise, although it seems the Amber series was prolonged a bit for money.

Really wish there were less novels or at least less pressure to write them but recently I've found myself reading them more often and hoping the payoff will be worth it.

on the Rolling Speculative slipstream or other trans-subgene side of things, Wormwoodia's Mark Valentine says:

Hy Brasil is an island in the Atlantic, somewhere over the horizon from Ireland, Iceland and the Azores, that has been sighted several times since the Middle Ages and has given rise to many legends. Said to have towns with towers of gold, thought to be often shrouded in mist, it has been identified with the Fortunate Isles that the Celts believed lay in the sunset regions to the West, and with the fierce, fair and free lands that Viking voyagers discovered.

It continued on nautical maps and atlases into the late 19th century, but was eventually removed, along with other islands that had once been seen and plotted but now cannot be found. This is a very beguiling subject and there are a small number of books on the theme, including Raymond Ramsay's No Longer On the Map (1972), Henry Stommel's Lost Islands: The Story of Islands That Have Vanished from Nautical Charts (1984) and Donald S Johnson's Phantom Islands of the Atlantic (1994). Who could resist such alluring titles?

Scottish author Margaret Elphinstone published one of the best modern novels with an island setting in her splendidly-imagined novel set on Hy Brasil and its smaller sister islands. In her Hy Brasil (2002), she creates a many-dimensioned version of the realm, with its mixed heritage from all the lands of the North Atlantic littoral, its obscure, half-mythic origins, its colonial pride yet independent spirit, and its modern dilemmas as a new nation.
A skillful story-teller, she brings in many relishable themes; spying, smuggling, conspiracy, a volcano, rebellion, exile, roads taken and not taken. Through the travel notes of a self-aware, but still learning, young woman, the charmingly-named Sidony Redruth, we discover the eminently convincing history, legends and culture of the island: but we are also drawn to understand the human qualities and foibles of the island characters.
More here, incl. a Hy Brasil postage stamp, and link to interview w Margaret E.:
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2021/05/hy-brasil-margaret-elphinstone.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29

also re: missing islands is Sarah Tolmie’s The Fourth Island

(i haven't read it tho)

Starting on Le Guin's The Telling, the last of the Hainish cycle. Excellent so far. After that I'll be getting into completist territory - a couple of early novels and collections, Lavinia, the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy - anyone read that?

Lavinia is fantastic.

Good to hear, how much Aeneid knowledge is required though?

I have zero...

tau zero?

Finished The Telling, Classic Le Guin, it slipped down like a '78 amontillado. Not overly sophisticated politically perhaps, but anthropologically rich, and with the usual lasting top note of compassion.

https://ansible.uk/sfx/sfx073.html

I couldn't get into Lavinia for some reason; I tried but something about the voice/style didn't work for me. I can't remember why, though, so maybe I'll try again.

RFI: what’s the sf term for the bodily equivalent of terraforming, sort of, when some being is genetically or surgically altered to better survive in a different environment?

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bioforming

Thanks!

From the Wormwoodiana blog:
Saturday, May 29, 2021
Northern Earth

Northern Earth, edited by John Billingsley, is one of the longest-running independent journals devoted to ancient mysteries (or 'earth mysteries' as they were called in the 1970s and 80s). It is interested in 'megalthic sites, alignments, sacred landscapes, psychogeography and deep topography, folklore and tradition, esoteric traditions, strange phenomena . . .' and more.

The latest issue , no 164, celebrates the moment coming up to one hundred years ago, on June 30 1921, when the Herefordshire antiquarian Alfred Watkins had his vision of a network of ancient trackways which he called 'leys': 'a fairy chain stretched from mountain to mountain peak.'

Watkins' idea was rediscovered and revitalised in the counter-culture of the 1960s as part of an upsurge of interest in ancient sacred sites and a new curiosity about landscape and its associated folklore, in a similar spirit to that which had inspired the work of Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Mary Butts and others.

The Ley Hunter magazine was launched in April 1965 by Philip Heselton, then still a schoolboy: it was part of a Ley Hunters' Club he had launched with school-friend Jimmy Goddard. Both are still active in similar circles: Philip has researched and written widely on the origins of modern paganism, while Jimmy edits a newsletter, Touchstone.

Three former editors of The Ley Hunter have written articles for
Northern Earth 164 about their involvement – Philip Heselton and his successors, Paul Screeton and Paul Devereux. All three essays are reflective about those times but not merely nostalgic: they also discuss the development of their thinking since.

Also included is my essay 'A Landscape Detective of the 1930s'. This is a piece of literary archaeology about Donald Maxwell, a writer and artist who compiled a series of books, illustrated with his own sketches, about his wanderings looking into ancient monuments and folklore. These are highly evocative of their time, full of his engaging enthusiasm, and sometimes even redolent of John Buchan as he and his companions dash off through the countryside in search of clues to the various mysteries he is investigating.

I discovered Maxwell's work when visiting the quayside second-hand bookshop at Gloucester. There was an album-sized book in faded blue called Adventures Among Churches, perhaps an unlikely-sounding title. But I noticed it in particular because it was published by The Faith Press, who also issued Arthur Machen's Holy Grail novel The Great Return. And indeed Maxwell's book, though non-fiction, has something of the same spirit, with enticing chapter titles such as 'The Chapel of the Green Lagoons' and 'The Black Belfry of Brookland'.

Maxwell was one of the first writers outside Watkins' Herefordshire circle to take his ley theory seriously and in two of his books he introduces it and is at once off off in hot pursuit, developing his own ideas and refinements on the way. His approach is open-minded and exploratory, sharing his discoveries whether they support the theory or not, and with much fascinating incidental detail.

Northern Earth 164 (or a subscription) can be obtained direct from John Billingsley: editor[at]northernearth[dot]co[dot]uk, replacing the word in brackets with symbols.

(Mark Valentine)

I really enjoyed The Fourth Island fwiw, really nicely balanced between being genuinely heartwarming and unsettling, and structured in a way that constantly kept me a little off-balance.

Sorry to plug something here, but one of my closest friends, whom I’ve known since freshman year of high school, just had her first published novel reviewed by NYT:

Elly Bangs’s UNITY (Tachyon, 289 pp., paper, $16.95) flings us hundreds of years into a future that has weathered multiple apocalypses and is on the brink of an extinction-level war between political powers that operate from metropolises beneath the much-warmed Pacific. Danae’s been living in self-imposed underwater exile for five years — from the wrecked surface world and its dangers, but also from the vast, aggregated consciousness of which she’s a small embodied part. But as tensions between the war’s belligerents, Epak and Norpak, reach a boiling point, Danae and her lover, Naoto, decide to risk heading for the blasted, inhospitable remnants of Arizona in search of the power and absolution of her whole, multiplied self. They employ the reluctant services of a haunted ex-mercenary named Alexei to get them there — but someone is hunting Danae and the larger consciousness she represents, and will stop at nothing to get to her.

“Unity” is an astonishing debut, twisty and startling, demonstrating both the disciplined development of a long-gestated project and the raw, dynamic flashes of an author’s early work. It shows intense interest in the distance between conversation and communion, the many overlapping and opposite meanings “unity” can contain: Is unity a harmony of differences balanced together, or a pure homogeneity? How can those differences be maintained, and what happens when they’re not? The book’s core concepts aren’t so much high as deep; it takes a few pages to get oriented within the premise, world-building and points of view, but it very quickly becomes an absorbing, thrilling ride.

If anyone tells you The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell is SF, don't believe them, it's just yer standard multi generational saga (Victorian to present day) with an entirely superfluous dusting of near future tech sprinkled on towards the end.

Now reading The Fourth Island.

Agreed about The Old Drift but I still thought it was very good.

Some of the writing was lovely but I thought it was overlong and the structure was not helpful - multiple helpings of 'who the fuck are these people again' after reading a 100 page chapter about some entirely different people, and I ended up not really caring about any of them.

read UNITY by JoeStork’s friend. i enjoyed it and will totally look out for her next book but i guess i didn’t super love it

read THE KINGDOMS by natasha pulley. alternate history isn't at all my thing, but this had a little extra sauce. and while a couple plot points don't hold up to close scrutiny, i thought it was extremely well-done and -written