i tried to adapt them into a movie
i want to hear more?
― Summer Slam! (Ste), Monday, 12 September 2011 22:40 (twelve years ago) link
Intrigued now by Fragment.
You know what I've realised I hate? The way second-rate SF writers have their characters use really clunky similes and metaphors that try (and fail) to inject "alien" colour into their speech: things like..."He struck as fast as an Arcturan lightning fox!""She moved like a Xanek lava snake."
That sort of thing
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Tuesday, 13 September 2011 02:17 (twelve years ago) link
has anyone else been to the science fiction at the british library? it was fun, i thought
― thomp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 11:24 (twelve years ago) link
I was there. I liked it. And I bought the book of the exhibition too as a guide to future reading.
My single favourite bit, though, was probably the short clip from the 1950s TV version of 1984, with Peter Cushing as Winston Smith and Donald Pleasance as Syme.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:34 (twelve years ago) link
i just went around writing a bunch of stuff in a notebook. based on the evidence of the two things i've been to see -- the other one was brothers grimm iirc? -- a lot of the populist exhibitions at the british library seem to exist as excuses to let their design/art staff let rip a little. that tripod could have stood to be a little more menancing, i thought.
― thomp, Tuesday, 13 September 2011 12:43 (twelve years ago) link
i just went around writing a bunch of stuff in a notebook.
when I was there, there were a lot of people writing stuff in notebooks.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 16:06 (twelve years ago) link
NERDS!
― Number None, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 16:10 (twelve years ago) link
I read Blindsight, I was not too impressed I'm afraid. His treatment of The Chinese Room was worse than cursory and betrayed a typical scientist's disdain for philosophical problems. The lead character was pretty awful, a hard-boiled functioning autist devoid of charm and apt to say things like:
I brought her flowers one dusky Tuesday evening when the light was perfect. I pointed out the irony of that romantic old tradition— the severed genitalia of another species, offered as a precopulatory bribe—and then I recited my story just as we were about to fuck.
To this day, I still don't know what went wrong.
smdh, rmde.
also, vampires. wtf.
― ledge, Friday, 16 September 2011 09:37 (twelve years ago) link
well, yes, but impressively rationalised vampires. ah well, can't win them all...
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Saturday, 17 September 2011 08:53 (twelve years ago) link
3/4ths of the way through THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN. CLAW seemed to alternate between damn good and lugubrious, but the third book in the series was quite nice - I liked the ultra-clever sentence where Wolfe kinda aped Nabokov, obv. ALSO: the oblique invocation of FRANKENSTEIN and the implication that the aliens encountered in the castle are journeying backwards in time or something.
Swell.
― Work Hard, Flunky! (R Baez), Sunday, 2 October 2011 20:17 (twelve years ago) link
Argh! Have been looking at the free 'beta version' of the SF encyclopedia (http://sf-encyclopedia.com/), and it's full of cool-looking books, and they have links to by ebooks of some of them, and I don't have enough money and time and argh
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Tuesday, 11 October 2011 23:33 (twelve years ago) link
I was reading Neuromancer by William Gibson for SF book club. Then I stopped reading it because it is rubbish. I am amazed that such a badly written book ever found a publisher, let alone acquired a reputation as some kind of SF classic.
― The New Dirty Vicar, Wednesday, 12 October 2011 12:09 (twelve years ago) link
i'm amazed that such a badly formed opinion ever found an outlet, let alone acquired a suggest ban
― Roberto Spiralli, Wednesday, 12 October 2011 12:21 (twelve years ago) link
Eh I thought it was pretty overrated, main character a corneliusan hangover from the nwosf, second half riven with incomprehensible situations, locations, motivations. too much punk, not enough cyber.
― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Wednesday, 12 October 2011 13:21 (twelve years ago) link
i liked it. and re-read it every couple of years.
― koogs, Wednesday, 12 October 2011 13:43 (twelve years ago) link
Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth - Wolfbane. This book is batshit crazy, must investigate The Space Merchants next.
I'm really itching to start a collection of Penguin Science Fiction editions, thus catapulting myself into years of hurt, expense and frustration as I try to complete it. Someone talk me out of it, please.
― |III|||II|||I|I||| (Matt #2), Wednesday, 12 October 2011 22:03 (twelve years ago) link
collecting things gives life real meaning
― koyannisquatsi hop (Lamp), Wednesday, 12 October 2011 22:04 (twelve years ago) link
The Space Merchants is better than Wolfsbane. Very funny, still pretty relevant. The bit where the hero is living inside a giant headless GM chicken is pretty memorable.
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Wednesday, 12 October 2011 23:59 (twelve years ago) link
icky, too.
penguin SF editions = mainly terrible hippy line drawings right? then bad color-tint photo jobs? i'm not sure i see the appeal -- there were a few in orange covers in the general line, i guess - ?
i forgot i pre-ordered the richard morgan novel six months ago and now it is arriving and i just do not have time. also that colson whitehead zombie novel. bahhh
― thomp, Thursday, 13 October 2011 17:59 (twelve years ago) link
There was some really good stuff in Penguin SF: see gallery here --> http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Thursday, 13 October 2011 23:34 (twelve years ago) link
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/19/2022242/flowchart-guides-readers-through-the-100-best-sf-books
― koogs, Thursday, 20 October 2011 10:42 (twelve years ago) link
Slashdot! Who goes there anymore? Good link though. Read a lot on the SF side already, might add some Niven & Pournelle to my to-do list.
― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Thursday, 20 October 2011 10:59 (twelve years ago) link
i went through the flowchart a couple of times. was fun.
also, of the list of 100 books the top 3 that i a) hadn't read and b) weren't fantasy wank were all robert heinlein, who i've read nothing by. oh, and the handmaiden's tale.
― koogs, Thursday, 20 October 2011 11:33 (twelve years ago) link
(and where do people go that's not slashdot?)
I'm just finishing up Sunshine because it was one of the few books in that flow chart that I wanted to read but hadn't yet.
― pullapartsquirrel (Jenny), Thursday, 20 October 2011 13:31 (twelve years ago) link
I'm very fond of Sunshine. I love the author and I'd like to bro down with all the main characters.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Thursday, 20 October 2011 13:35 (twelve years ago) link
What else do you recommend by her? Sunshine was super fun to read.
― pullapartsquirrel (Jenny), Thursday, 20 October 2011 13:38 (twelve years ago) link
What whaaaahhhh huh? HER CANONICAL BOOKS The Hero and the Crown, which is the 1985 Newbery winner, and The Blue Sword, of course. In that order. ASAP.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Thursday, 20 October 2011 13:54 (twelve years ago) link
A Knot in the Grain has lovely short stories but of her full-length more recent books I think I pick Deerskin. It has some major trigger situations though so ymmv. But it's mystical in exactly the open-ended liminal way that I like.
― WE DO NOT HAVE "SECRET" "MEETINGS." I DO NOT HAVE A SECOND (Laurel), Thursday, 20 October 2011 13:57 (twelve years ago) link
okay, re: penguin sf then -- the full list of 'penguin science fiction' covers is here: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/app.html --
i'd thought they only started keeping a seperate 'science fiction' list when they switched to these covers in 1966
http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/images/2452_FREDERIK_POHL_Alternating_Currents_1966.jpg
which quickly turned to these covers, in 1967
http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/images/2620_ALFRED_BESTER_Tiger_Tiger_1967.jpg
which are the ones i meant earlier. and the 70s are full of similarly terrible stuff, like the series whence comes the reissue of the aldiss omnibus pictured at the top of the thread
http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/images/3416_JAMES_BLISH_Black_Easter_or_Faust_Aleph_Null_1972.jpg
i'd forgotten that '63-'66 they had a bunch of covers in the then-current variations on the Marber grid with a 'Penguin Science Fiction' tag added. which is kind of lax, considering i own like a third of them.
http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/images/1875_OLAF_STAPLEDON_Last_and_First_Men_1963.jpg
apparently this was a separate line edited by Brian Aldiss. I don't know, though; the numbering is consistent with the main Penguin series -- it seems a fairly quixotic thing to collect, given that they never really set up a consistent (visual or otherwise) identity for their SF
― thomp, Thursday, 20 October 2011 15:14 (twelve years ago) link
I like the '58-'60 versions - don't know how they fit into the normal penguin scheme of things:
http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/images/1449_NIGEL_KNEALE_Quatermass_and_the_Pit_1960.jpg
my versions of the aldiss anthology are somewhat inconsistent - vol 1 from '65, but 2 and 3 from '63 and '64.
― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Thursday, 20 October 2011 15:24 (twelve years ago) link
I own a copy of that edition of Last And First Men.
― the result of limited imagination (treefell), Thursday, 20 October 2011 15:26 (twelve years ago) link
so do i. here's another one to file under 'really 70s sf book covers'
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4047/4348523304_40da3e448c.jpg
― thomp, Thursday, 20 October 2011 20:53 (twelve years ago) link
which is the same design as this james blish, which is probably my favourite good bad cover design on anything i own, maybe
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XsVALQtGIZM/SCnqfHdKvRI/AAAAAAAAEv0/36YUWU77yTU/s320/Blish+Case+of+Conscience.jpg
― thomp, Thursday, 20 October 2011 20:54 (twelve years ago) link
Wow, that Blish cover
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Thursday, 20 October 2011 22:11 (twelve years ago) link
what's great about it is that you think it's cod-surrealism on the model of solaris but, no, every one of those elements is present in the book
― thomp, Thursday, 20 October 2011 22:36 (twelve years ago) link
That's true! And it's weirdly like the original version of the current Gollancz cover, which I can't find online but I have in a book, which had dog-collared priest (in space suit), weird plants and reptile man in roughly the same spots
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Friday, 21 October 2011 03:22 (twelve years ago) link
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/1857989244.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpgIt was like this, but it had a reptilian alien on the left hand side
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Friday, 21 October 2011 03:23 (twelve years ago) link
new jg ballard reissues(?) look nice. someone care to recommend me one? short stories vol 1?
― koogs, Thursday, 27 October 2011 12:10 (twelve years ago) link
Link? I've got the complete short stories - the 4 page high concept pre new-wave pieces are all excellent. The long form headfuck ones are opaque but haunting. The Vermillion Sands ones are uniformly awful.
― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Thursday, 27 October 2011 13:09 (twelve years ago) link
amazon.co.uk. it says 2006 so 'new' may not be correct (that said, they are done by the same people who did my Martin Beck series and they were done pretty recently and are similarly nice).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/J.-G.-Ballard/e/B000APOY8E/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
it's saying that short stories is 2 volumes of 780 pages each...
― koogs, Thursday, 27 October 2011 13:23 (twelve years ago) link
Great value! Would go for vol 1, given the choice, there's definitely plenty of gems in there. Track 12 probably my favourite short story of all time.
― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Thursday, 27 October 2011 13:33 (twelve years ago) link
ahah, i really don't like those designs. or that story! i'm a hater
the ballard complete stories in hardback was a pretty nice artifact. amazon has a dreadful scan of it, though.
― thomp, Thursday, 27 October 2011 13:50 (twelve years ago) link
What don't you like about Track 12? It's only a little revenge fantasy, but (*spoiler*) imo it's lifted above the ordinary by the synchronicity between the setting and the method of death, which is *perfectly* executed, just a lovely piece of writing.
― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Thursday, 27 October 2011 14:02 (twelve years ago) link
spoilers (is this the one you compared to that reynolds story?)
― koogs, Thursday, 27 October 2011 16:00 (twelve years ago) link
hmmmmmmm i do not recall that comparison.
― antiautodefenestrationism (ledge), Thursday, 27 October 2011 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
you were probably drunk.
― koogs, Thursday, 27 October 2011 16:59 (twelve years ago) link
finished the latest shadows of the apt novel, thought it was really enjoyable. hes been writing (or at least releasing) these a p good clip and the one previous (book 6) was p weak/bizarre but i thought this one really played to his strengths.
― and a butt (Lamp), Thursday, 10 November 2011 22:05 (twelve years ago) link
aha there was another one already?
the new richard morgan is kind of a disappointment, so far.
― thomp, Thursday, 10 November 2011 22:07 (twelve years ago) link
hmmm ive been putting off the morgan cuz i have 1q84 and christ stopped at eboli to get through. i spotted a forgotten realms trilogy @ goodwill a few weeks ago (all in hardcover!) but they were gone when i went to get them a few days later and have subsequently been craving the most videogameish fantasy books and also rpg video games p badly so this really 'hit the spot'
― and a butt (Lamp), Thursday, 10 November 2011 22:12 (twelve years ago) link