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

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

hahaha, ^^^ exactly what I thought when I saw that

I have the one the late great posted, and also this one --
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51q2dh0PmHL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

heh

was looking at this cover the other day online and thought that it could probably be improved upon.

http://www.noinputbooks.com/3/Equinox.jpg

I love that bit in Babel-17 where 2 characters are talking about the alien race who reconstructed a vast power plant, down to the correct shade of white paint etc, after a 9 or 10 word description of the place from one of their compatriots who'd been shown round it. Not even very long words either. SF should have more linguistics in it.

I also love that Equinox cover.

it would be better if instead of samuel r DELANY it said samuel l BRONKOWITZ

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

That's true--Ringworld was lots of fun

Ok so in my search for more sf by women I came across a new aspect of the genre I hadn't heard of before - romantic sf! I guess I shouldn't be surprised, and I'm not gonna mock, but how's this for a story teaser?

As Aral Sea enters the Alcheringa -- the alien-constructed space warp that allows giant settler-ships to travel between worlds, away from all help or hope -- Jodenny comes face to face something powerful enough to dwarf even the unknown force that destroyed her last ship and left her with missing memories and bloody nightmares. Lieutenant Jodenny Scott is about to be introduced to love.

-sigh- I started subscribing to Locus to read the reviews and see what was good in new SF, and the torrent of SF romance/supernatural romance is unbelievable. Each month they list hundreds and hundreds of new SF/F books, and the number that AREN'T romance, "urban fantasy" or part 7 of a series is depressingly small.

the unknown force that destroyed her last ship and left her with missing memories and bloody nightmares

ah yes, love

oh man, if romantic SF is your bag, can I introduce you to Anne McCaffery's Crystal Singer trilogy?

if romantic sf is your bag, can i introduce you to "the pear shaped man" by george r.r. martin

http://www.pdfdocspace.com/docs/71866/george-r-r-martin---the-pear-shaped-man.html

-sigh- I started subscribing to Locus to read the reviews and see what was good in new SF, and the torrent of SF romance/supernatural romance is unbelievable. Each month they list hundreds and hundreds of new SF/F books, and the number that AREN'T romance, "urban fantasy" or part 7 of a series is depressingly small.

ha ha, fortunately not!

Just started Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith!

great book!

Somewhere I bought a copy of this and it's breaking me a little bit? The stories are weird and good and HEAVY, and each of them has to achieve its punch in so few pages, that I can barely keep up with what's happening, what world is being reconceived and hidden from me by the story right now until that key paragraph where you find out what they do with the babies or where the aliens are going, or why there are no men in this version of Earth or whatever.

I am a tireder and sadder Laurel after reading.

good lord I am so behind on this thread I give up

when i am looking for something of this variety to read i click show all messages and scroll to a random point until something catches my eye. great resource.

seeing this image brings me back to the hours spent in aisles of late 70s suburban NJ mall waldenbooks or b dalton booksellers... can't remember a damn thing about the book tho I know I read it.

apparently I was a big fan of foster's work cuz I went on to read his novelizations of alien, the black hole, clash of the titans, outland, starman, and, bizarrely enough, pale rider. hi my name is edward and I am a nerd

http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/1/1a/SOTME_Cover.jpg

"•Morality Meat - (1985) novelette by James Tiptree, Jr. [as by Raccoona Sheldon ]"

did not know this was a tiptree pseud! i've seen that name in collections i have and i always think its the coolest name.

Then you must not have read "The Screwfly Solution"

guess not! so much to read...