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

Syfy Channel having one of its holiday Twilight Zone marathons. Saw the one w Billy Mumy checking in w his dead grandmother on his toy telephone, and thought of "It's A Good Life," even more powerful/pungent in the original. Anybody read anything else by Jerome Bixby? It's
a goood Independence Day!

Thought that was the only thing he ever wrote. Although I could be wrong, the "Cold Equations" guy apparently wrote some other stuff

According to Science Fiction Encyclopedia's site, he wrote tons of stuff, just can't remember his by-line on anything else I've read. Encyclopedia sez he tended to write hastily, ill-serving "often excellent ideas." Yeah, happpens a lot in SF; either that, or well-crafted so-what.

I've got a collection of his short fiction, with the most awful cover, and 'The Cold Equations' is definitely the best thing in it

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/0743488490.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Yeah, tell me about it, don. That's why a certain kind of boosterism that was dissected upthread a month ago by thomp, I think, gets to be kind of wearying. "Mainstream readers who snub speculative fiction are missing out on all sorts of wonders- in fact, a new chamber of the Pharoah's treasure room was just discovered only last night, untouched by grave robbers or tomb raiders. And if you are worried about Sturgeon's Law- don't! It's been repealed!"

I'm talking to you, UKLG.

i just want to chime in that i read splinter of the mind's eye and han solo and lost legend - 4th grade iirc - and was blown away

came back in college and they were still fresh and quick

this week's one-night read turned out to be tedious

https://www.worldswithoutend.com/covers/mm_analienh.jpg

wonder if mongrove had anything to do with baldanders

And if you are worried about Sturgeon's Law- don't! It's been repealed!

heh

so i totally need to reread 'einstein intersection' apparently

l.g.: i remember rather liking the 'dancers at the end of time' trilogy when i was fifteen. you know what was always next level? finding someone had the entire set of those eternal champion omnibus volumes. i can't even imagine

I am more wearied by mainstream writers who think they can dabble in 'lesser' genres without noticing that the cloak of Sturgeon's Law has settled around their shoulders.

(Tho rather the writers than the critics, obviously)

i have on my shelf

elric (sextet)
cornelius (both quartets)
nomad of the time streams trilogy (oswald bastable)
dancers at end of time trilogy + legends of end of time quintet
road between worlds trilogy (wrecks of time aka rituals of infinity, winds of limbo and shores of death)

have not yet cracked erekose quartet, neither volume of corum, neither hawkwind nor count brass, nor the other five (!) trilogies in the eternal champion cycle

of what i've read, the first cornelius, nomads of time streams, elric and bits and pieces of end of time are search

the second cornelius set, most of end of time, definitely road between worlds are destroy

tbh not sure what connects the road between worlds trilogy except maybe he wrote them in the same drunken weekend binge?

On my to read list:

Moon is a harsh mistress -Heinlein
Death of Grass - Christopher Johns
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon - Pohl
Dark Universe - Galouye

Just finished Martian Time Slip by Philip K Dick - quite liked it.

I think Harsh Mistress and the first few Gateway books would make fantastic movies. Also Ringworld, but I've beat that drum before.

I need to reread it but Harsh Mistress has been one of my favorite books since forever

ring world in imax 3d, starring dwayne "the rock" johnson as louis wu, milla jovovich as teela, philip seymour hoffman as speaker to animals and jar jar binks as nessus

would pay to see nicholas cage as robinette broadhead

That cover for "The Cold Equations and Other Stories" is the funniest. The first people not to take SF writers seriously would be the publishers who commission this kind of cover art.

found a few i've always wanted to read at the used store: "cities in flight", "stand on zanzibar", "drowned world" and "martian time-slip"

should i be excited to start?

also

"rediscovery of man", "man plus", "emphyrio", "book of skulls", "demolished man" and "lord of light" ... any of these any good?

Rediscovery of Man! And The Demolished Man!

sweet

are either of those better than the ones i'm starting with?

my favorite stuff is pre-new wave late silver age stuff

i guess you could call it the interzone between hard sf and new wave?

you just found all of my favourite books at age fifteen or sixteen in one place. that is a little peculiar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4108/4983370077_010ef5c363_z.jpg

stolen from a stranger on flickr, maybe should have linkified it

these are the first ones i've bought, they're going back in a box cause they feel shitty and are going to curl i think

read demolished man

i used to own most of that. i have gradually replaced them with other editions, because i am That Sort Of Person. seeing those like that makes me wish i'd just embraced my inner whatever and kept them around, though.

halfway into pohl's "man plus" and it is like

daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

daniel pearl movie + hellstrom's hive + gateway + armor (steakley?)

stand on zanzibar was too flashy to get

anything in the mood of "forever war" in this set?

not really? though the mood of that book is an odd cocktail: standard-order military-sf + vietnam-veterans-for-peace cynicism + v oldschool puzzle-based short-story patch-up structure.

#haldeman's 'mindbridge' is pretty good, read that.

whatevs thomp i try to get certain moorcock and delany covers

random stuff i will take any yellowed paperback w/ john berkey art

grew up with this one

http://media.photobucket.com/image/our%20universe%20berkey/frakkingoff/our_universe_cover.jpg

http://www.bergoiata.org/fe/SciFi3/jw%20Year%20V%20Sci-Fi%20Art%20Wall%20129%20-%20John%20Berkey.jpg

http://payload50.cargocollective.com/1/0/128/3305513/JOHN-CONRAD-BERKEY-spaceships_2_905.jpg

http://rreynoso.com/blog/design/in-remembrance-of-john-berkey-raises-glass/

standard-order military-sf + vietnam-veterans-for-peace cynicism + v oldschool puzzle-based short-story patch-up structure.

you mean armor?

http://sirnickscastle.50webs.com/fungeon/img/books/armor1.png

also considering another "known space" binge

i forgot that summer vacation is like a three month weekend

o i can't stand niven. GADGETS and EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY and enhh. i am probably going to read the two omnibus vols. of the black company books i didn't get round to last time soon, i think. online reviews say they are pointless revisions of the earlier stuff and a bad fantasy version of vietnam. sounds great.

niven is what someone (wolfe?) was talking about when he said science fiction is no good literature when all the exposition and world-building is strictly linear (i.e. like a star trek episode)

Re Niven, it's GADGETS and EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY and ALARMING RIGHT-WING LIBERTARIAN BULLSHIT

i don't know, the early known space stuff isn't as bad

man plus was amazing!

Finally got round to A Fire upon the Deep. Pretty good hard opera, not as techy as Reynolds or as joyful as Banks but some damn fine ideas and he certainly does a good job of thinking them through (e.g. the Tines and all the implications of their pack behaviour and enforced separation). Probably too much focus on the mediaeval for my liking, I won't be rushing to read the direct sequel, but will give A Deepness in the Sky a go sooner or later, since I have it in a double volume with Fire.

i need to get going on some more sci-fi but i'm afraid i might be starting a whirlwind wodehouse and simenon binge. it is summer after all. they seem summery to me right now. and i also ended up with two lee child jack reacher books and all the tom cruise movie talk has me tempted....plus an elmore leonard i've never read (city primeval - high noon in detroit)...

talk about putting your high concept movie idea right on the cover of your book. it's like high noon...in detroit!

(oh and then someone brought in two faulkner books and the faulkner thread got me thinking about him...but i'll be back SF, i swear!)

(though first things first i'm gonna dig in to the Beano summer special someone brought me back from england! what a nice gift! its all you really ever have to bring me from england if you go. filled with vintage Beano!)

My favourite of Delaneys, based on only reading a few, is Babel-17. Fizzing with cool ideas, really vibrant, exciting, clever use of sexual "perversity", and not 900 pages long.

The first Delaney I ever read and still my favorite. Completely by accident too, it's just that when you're 13 and it's 1979....

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5224/5637067180_466ef49547_z.jpg

does that cover have ANYTHING to do w babel-17 ?!?

i prefer "trouble on triton" but i love babel-17 and ballad of beta 2

here's the copy i have

http://spire.ee/shop/images/Samuel%20R.%20Delany%20-%20Babel%2017.jpg

Just started The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod. Never read any of his books before, but it was an old wish-list leftover. Hyperbolic Doctorow review here.

does that cover have ANYTHING to do w babel-17 ?!?

The funny thing is that my local library had filmstrips that you could check out and watch (this was 1978) and one of the filmstrip series was a (probably very good in retrospect) history of science fiction that covered the new wave in some detail. That Babel-17 cover with the Farrah-haired Modesty Blaise & alien in space was featured in the Delany discussion and I rightly concluded that the book must be brilliant.

what is a pak protector doing on that cover