guess not! so much to read...
― scott seward, Wednesday, 11 July 2012 20:05 (eleven years ago) link
A LOT of the stories are about conception, and who gets to control it and the mechanics of it. They knew that would be the next battle--pitching it in the key of "science fiction" was substantially over-shooting the mark.
― how did I get here? why am I in the whiskey aisle? this is all so (Laurel), Wednesday, 11 July 2012 20:11 (eleven years ago) link
Either I've read The Screwfly Solution or I'm confusing it with a Sheri Tepper plot about...widespread infertility?
― how did I get here? why am I in the whiskey aisle? this is all so (Laurel), Wednesday, 11 July 2012 20:13 (eleven years ago) link
Just read Liz jenkins's new one, 'The Uninvited': rather good [looming apocalypse/contagious lethal violence in children/causality being fucked up]yarn
― an inevitable disappointment (James Morrison), Wednesday, 11 July 2012 23:15 (eleven years ago) link
And by Liz Jenkins I actually mean Liz Jensen
― computers are the new "cool tool" (James Morrison), Thursday, 12 July 2012 04:29 (eleven years ago) link
i started the "demolished man" but it was late at night and i had a hard time w/ the cyberpunk language and multiple story lines
― the late great, Thursday, 12 July 2012 04:31 (eleven years ago) link
What? Start over. It's a pretty straightforward procedural. My mom read it and liked it. You'll like it too.
― bamcquern, Thursday, 12 July 2012 06:57 (eleven years ago) link
Surely you must be joking, mister the late great.
― My Elusive Memes (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 12 July 2012 10:09 (eleven years ago) link
I have had a weird notion to read a few of those AD Foster late 70s-early 80s movie novelizations lately. Partly because they are in among a huge trove of dodgily OCRd SF I DLd while ago. Splinter, Krull, mebbe Black Hole.
Right now I am finally following through on long standing desire to read a few random Simak novels. First up, Shakespeare's Planet. A dude, a wolfman, a robot and Shakespeare walk into a bar uninhabited planet... loving it.
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 12 July 2012 17:09 (eleven years ago) link
simak is the best. this is what i have discovered.
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 July 2012 17:11 (eleven years ago) link
Also, the PKD poll inspired me to read some Dick for the first time in almost 20 years (having realized some of the best-regarded ones are among those I've never read). Ubik-- awesome and unexpectedly poignant. A Scanner Darkly-- as good as it says on the label. Even if you cut everything but the tweaker back-and-forth routines you'd have pure gold.
Scott tell me about you and Simak. He's kind of comforting! And gets to the fucking point!
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 12 July 2012 17:12 (eleven years ago) link
oh i've just been reading him this year and really enjoying him a bunch. i like his ideas and i do like the comfort factor. he's one of those people who could have just as easily been a well regarded realist short fiction writer if he'd wanted to be. but i'm glad he decided to be one of the revered masters of sci-fi instead.
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 July 2012 17:31 (eleven years ago) link
i haven't read anything that i haven't enjoyed yet. i keep buying more too. they are stacking up. but as noted above i am briefly off the SF.
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 July 2012 17:32 (eleven years ago) link
I'm saving Way Station and City for later, ramping up to them as it were. I think after Shakespeare's Planet I might read A Choice of Gods. Or the Werewolf whatsamacallit.
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 12 July 2012 17:34 (eleven years ago) link
wait! i lied! i'm actually reading this right now:
http://www.lwcurrey.com/pictures/129708.jpg
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 July 2012 17:35 (eleven years ago) link
albert einstein?
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 12 July 2012 19:35 (eleven years ago) link
They don't make covers like that anymore.
― alimosina, Thursday, 12 July 2012 19:59 (eleven years ago) link
i couldn't really find a better cover for that book online. that was the most interesting one.
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 July 2012 20:26 (eleven years ago) link
its about a secret world of romans living underneath england.
from an amazon review:
Land Under England was first published in 1935, whentotalitarian governments were on the rise, and is anallegory of the first order.This is the tale of a son who goes underground insearch of his missing father, who is obsessed withthe Roman Wall and the glory that was Rome. The fatherhas found a way to get under the ancient wall to lookfor a lost Roman civilization. What the son finds whenhe searches for his father is a nightmare world filledwith horrible beasts and even more horrible humans, whohave had their minds and souls murdered in the serviceof the State.
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 July 2012 20:30 (eleven years ago) link
more here:
http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/reviews_pages/r41.htm#a41
A.E. was George W. Russell
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 July 2012 20:34 (eleven years ago) link
it gets reissued from time to time so its not totally forgotten. james on here might have mentioned that he read it? i thought someone did when i mentioned a while back that i bought it?
― scott seward, Thursday, 12 July 2012 20:36 (eleven years ago) link
That looks amazing!!!
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Thursday, 12 July 2012 20:54 (eleven years ago) link
has anybody read kingsley amis' "green man"?
opinions?
― the late great, Thursday, 12 July 2012 20:56 (eleven years ago) link
Friend of mine loves that one. Haven't got round to it myself yet.
― My Elusive Memes (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 12 July 2012 21:00 (eleven years ago) link
green man isn't top rank amis k but it has its moments - obv the main character is something of an author substitute, and the stuff abt drinking and so on rings p true, unsurprisingly (the alteration, his alt history nov, is up there w/ man in the high castle tho')
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 12 July 2012 21:51 (eleven years ago) link
There was a BBC TV apadation, seemed like a well done uncomplicated ghost story iirc but probably i do not rc. Albert Finney as the protagonist.
― ledge, Thursday, 12 July 2012 22:56 (eleven years ago) link
yeah that's what got me on to it was the michael caine vs albert finney etc etc thread
― the late great, Thursday, 12 July 2012 23:05 (eleven years ago) link
Green Man is very good black comedy/rural horror: fairly misogynistic, but then it is lateish Amis. But The Alteration is def better, as Ward says
― computers are the new "cool tool" (James Morrison), Thursday, 12 July 2012 23:23 (eleven years ago) link
just pimpin ma new breakaway threadDripping death astride a bacchanale of bats from nigh-black ruins of buried temples of Belial? Don't mind if I do (a weird fiction thread)
― ledge, Friday, 13 July 2012 14:17 (eleven years ago) link
Green Man had been sitting on my shelf for an age, then I had a dream a couple of months ago that told me to read it, so I read it. I liked it, but didn't like it a lot - generically a bit underpowered, not much in the way of fright or rural chills, but I think that would have been fine if there hadn't been quite so much opinionating kingsley in there, felt like I was getting some man-of-the-world bs – the thing about women/how sex is/how to drink – thrown at me about every few pages (which is def the narrator speaking, and the book is about the narrator's fucked-upness, partic in those aspects, but all the same feels like KA can never resist dropping an opinion. A challenging opinion)
BUT all sorts of sharp sex/death things going on, and a nice theological turn.
I'm not sure it is that misogynistic really (homophobic though, yes) - it treats the female characters the main guy doesn't want to go to bed with fairly decently iirc, and elsewhere the confusion and sex is p crucial. It's on the same old KA men/women traintracks, but he's a sharp observer.
(I'd put it as middle Amis (69), rather than lateish fwiw.)
― woof, Friday, 13 July 2012 15:11 (eleven years ago) link
Haha serendipity-- simak represent!
http://io9.com/5924671/the-surprising-novel-that-got-kim-stanley-robinson-interested-in-science-fiction?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Friday, 13 July 2012 23:14 (eleven years ago) link
Haven't read The Green Man, but reminds me, I should give The Green Child another, less caffeinated shot--it seemed a little subtle at the time-time. The only novel of Herbert Read, highly regarded art crit:http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--zNbo1jPFOg/T1kojWWtflI/AAAAAAAADm4/VG6PYcoslaw/s1600/greenchild.jpg
― dow, Sunday, 15 July 2012 20:23 (eleven years ago) link
His more typical subject
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2010/7/1/1277982254325/herbert-read-ICA-006.jpg
― dow, Sunday, 15 July 2012 20:26 (eleven years ago) link
that's an amazing cover
― the late great, Sunday, 15 July 2012 20:29 (eleven years ago) link
The Green Child has great spooky dank cold English countryside atmosphere.
― bamcquern, Sunday, 15 July 2012 20:40 (eleven years ago) link
do any nyc posters have a suggestion for a bookstore with a good selection of female authored sci-fi? the strand sucks in this regard...they only had 1 le guin book and 2 butler that i had already read (cool entire row of stephanie meyer's "the host" and half a shelf of pride and prejudice and zombies crap tho).
i did however pick up thishttp://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/a9/81/062e90b809a080a1b18a6110.L.jpg
― john zorn has ruined klezmer for an entire generation (bene_gesserit), Sunday, 15 July 2012 23:57 (eleven years ago) link
OK, this Simak talk has got me to read 'City'
― computers are the new "cool tool" (James Morrison), Sunday, 15 July 2012 23:57 (eleven years ago) link
Maybe you should try McNally Jackson on Prince, bg. They have a small section that is somewhat curated and may have what you are looking for.
― My Elusive Memes (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 July 2012 01:31 (eleven years ago) link
xpost cool report back!
Shakespeare's Planet made me v happy, have now proceeded on to The Werewolf Principle. Was gonna do Mastodonia but my dodgy epub download of it is full of glitches :(
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Monday, 16 July 2012 17:17 (eleven years ago) link
Really liked City. Wasn't sure after chapter 1--seemed a bit folksy and daft--but I'm a sucker for intelligent dogs and the slow vanishing of humankind, so this was right up my street.
― computers are the new "cool tool" (James Morrison), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 01:32 (eleven years ago) link
Sounds quite like my cup of tea too!
― ledge, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 08:12 (eleven years ago) link
Crappy old used bookstores, bell. Around. There's just not much of it compared to sf written by men, so it's thinner pickings.
― how did I get here? why am I in the whiskey aisle? this is all so (Laurel), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 13:46 (eleven years ago) link
Simak is the best! "Waystation" is my favourite of his, followed by "Ring Around the Sun", and I have a fondness for Catface or Mastadonia. Going to order "Time is the Simplest Thing" and "Goblin Reservation". Yeah, he doesn't faff about.
Also, Cyril M. Kornbluth is pretty good, shame he died so young. Would recommend "the Syndic" and quite enjoyed "Not This August".
― jel --, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 18:57 (eleven years ago) link
i'm excited to read "city" too, been on my list for a long time
thinking about whether i've ever seen a "female sci-fi" section in a sci-fi bookstore, pretty sure i haven't
on the subject though, i think this woman is underappreciated
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255685095l/1967582.jpg
this book is great
― the late great, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 19:58 (eleven years ago) link
simak love does my heart good.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 19:58 (eleven years ago) link
good discussions of some female SF authors earlier on this thread. So what's the Pamela Sargent book like?
― dow, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 21:02 (eleven years ago) link
also, is Tanith Lee any good?
― Lewis Apparition (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 18 July 2012 22:08 (eleven years ago) link
oddly i bought Women Of Wonder at the weekend from the Amnesty Bookshop, female-centric SF by female writers, edited by Pamela Sargent. not read it yet though. Ursula KLG is the only author i recognise.
― koogs, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 22:08 (eleven years ago) link
it's early 80s posthuman sci fi. you catch echoes of things like engine summer, xenogenesis, oryx and crake and the crystal world in it.
let's see.
cloning, cure for cancer, stasis, cure for death, invention of asexual offspring by year 2100 (elementary particles style)
and so the story is set in the future of that, maybe like year 2300 or something?
some people are getting back from a space voyage iirc and some of the characters are really old/young people from our time. everyone is just kinda spaced out and half conscious because everything has become so placid. a bunch of people form death cults and then i think there might be a plague or something?
i don't know, it's not clear if its dystopian or utopian or anybody gives much of a shit but it's a good one if you've been enjoying the fear of death thread
― the late great, Wednesday, 18 July 2012 22:29 (eleven years ago) link