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

dammit seward don't you DARE make me wanna reread the trilogy!!!

caek requested comments on these:
Nebula nominees, incl. lotta links to complete stories
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/free-samples-of-the-nebula-award-nominees_b65704

―

So here's what's at that linked page (tempted to try the KSR, but gotta at least finish the equally massive Ascent of Wonder first)

The nominees for this year’s Nebula Awards have been revealed, and we’ve collected free samples of all the nominees below–the best science fiction books of 2012.

Many of these stories are available to read for free online. These are marked “COMPLETE” among the links. Here’s more about the awards:

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. Founded as the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1965 by Damon Knight, the organization began with a charter membership of 78 writers; it now has over 1,500 members, among them many of the leading writers of science fiction and fantasy.

Nebula Award Nominees for 2012 (to be awarded in 2013)

Novel

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (DAW; Gollancz ’13)
Ironskin by Tina Connolly (Tor)
The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Roc)
Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Novella

On a Red Station, Drifting by Aliette de Bodard (Immersion Press)
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
“The Stars Do Not Lie” by Jay Lake (Asimov’s 10-11/12)
“All the Flavors” by Ken Liu (GigaNotoSaurus 2/1/12) COMPLETE
“Katabasis” by Robert Reed (F&SF 11-12/12)
“Barry’s Tale” by Lawrence M. Schoen (Buffalito Buffet) COMPLETE

Novelette

“The Pyre of New Day” by Catherine Asaro (The Mammoth Books of SF Wars)
“Close Encounters” by Andy Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant & Other Stories)
“The Waves” by Ken Liu (Asimov’s 12/12)
“The Finite Canvas” by Brit Mandelo (Tor.com 12/5/12) COMPLETE
“Swift, Brutal Retaliation” by Meghan McCarron (Tor.com 1/4/12) COMPLETE
“Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia” by Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com 8/22/12) COMPLETE
“Fade to White” by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld 8/12) COMPLETE

Short Story

“Robot” by Helena Bell (Clarkesworld 9/12) COMPLETE
“Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard (Clarkesworld 6/12) COMPLETE
“Fragmentation, or Ten Thousand Goodbyes” by Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 4/12) COMPLETE
“Nanny’s Day” by Leah Cypess (Asimov’s 3/12) COMPLETE
“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” by Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed 7/12) COMPLETE
“The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species” by Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/12) COMPLETE
“Five Ways to Fall in Love on Planet Porcelain” by Cat Rambo (Near + Far) COMPLETE

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy

Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
Black Heart by Holly Black (S&S/McElderry; Gollancz)
Above by Leah Bobet (Levine)
The Diviners by Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry)
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman (Random House; Doubleday UK)
Enchanted by Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
Every Day by David Levithan (Alice A. Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)
Railsea by China Mieville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Fair Coin by E.C. Myers (Pyr)
Above World by Jenn Reese (Candlewick)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

The Avengers, Joss Whedon (director) and Joss Whedon and Zak Penn (writers), (Marvel/Disney)
Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin (director), Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Abilar (writers), (Journeyman/Cinereach/Court 13/Fox Searchlight )
The Cabin in the Woods, Drew Goddard (director), Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (writers) (Mutant Enemy/Lionsgate)
The Hunger Games, Gary Ross (director), Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and Billy Ray writers), (Lionsgate)
John Carter, Andrew Stanton (director), Michael Chabon, Mark Andrews, and Andrew Stanton (writers), (Disney)
Looper, Rian Johnson (director), Rian Johnson (writer), (FilmDistrict/TriStar)

The novellas took some getting used to: they're the only linked stories aimed at the Young Adult market, and they're novellas, so lots of room for American frontier kids getting together with American frontier Chinamen (in "All The Flavors") and Earth kids (readers) getting together with frontier planet kids and adults, incl other species, for frontier planet buffalo barbecue (in "Barry's Tale"), But "All The Flavors" does develop into tempo shifts, especially when the Little House stuff gets interspersed with chapters about a Chinese boy who becomes the God of War (oops, spoiler). But that's not the end anyway.
Speaking of ends, we get several shading into various implications, w varying degrees of effectiveness. Also a few which faintly remind me of the era(s) when every science fiction story had to at least end on a note of hope, if not a huge turnaround into last second happiness. But here (thinking of one strong example at least) the note gets squeezed out, not with the strain of obligation, but something fought for and earned, by the character, writer and reader dammit. Also, the symbolism is never cryptic or ponderous--well, the alt-history framing in "Fade To White" is tiresome, but even there, pretty good character development, considering. Faves are "The Finite Canvas", where a hitwoman on the lam meets a female doctor exiled to Earth; "Swift, Brutal Retaliation" (a new ghost is the least and most of this family's problems, at the moment); and "Robot" (instructions given by an astronaut with and of dementia, also of residual rocket juice and hairline sharpness). But several others are almost as good, maybe *as* good, except for a few stumbles right at the end, which I usually allow for, but this is a contest after all (not that I can vote of course). Also they're poated on sites worth checking out otherwise, for readers and writers (yo Strongo, with some stories you mentioned you're looking to place)

They're all worth reading!

outside of the YA and the movie nominations, only one person i've heard of. oy

lol at The Mammoth Books of SF Wars

Starting in on Dhalgren, see you guys in a while.

i don't need to read this book by david weber do i? BY SCHISM RENT ASUNDER! about futuristic space christians. okay just typing that makes me not want to read it. i'll put it out in the store. from the bestselling author of the HONOR HARRINGTON series!

still loving Green Mars!

Back to xp The Ascent of Wonder Rucky Rucker's "Message Found In A Copy of Flatland" is a good stoner comic strip mezzanine, oddly preceding Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations", once controversial for its ending, first of all among genre formalists, and I heard about about it as techonerd male chauvinism, but it repeatedly spells out tragic necessity (trying so hard not to spoil it), and is actually some kind of principled tearjerker--a softhearted, downscale "Billy Budd", kind of--sniffle. Garsh, kinda startling/ Aye, but then we're with our correspondent in the field, contemplating and watching out for "The Land Ironclads", courtesy H.G. Wells (damn, what a voice he has, in sev short stories I've come across lately). A bunch of dated doo-doo, then "The Very Slow Time Machine", which goes for baroque far more successfully than several in here, and might be best summarized by Swamp Dogg: "Pucker up while I back up." What other Watson should I read?

Ian, that is.

Another from The Ascent of Wonder: Bruce Sterling's "The Beautiful and Sublime", narrated by a crafty romantic set designer Kevin Spacey was born to play, with ambitions of the heart further stressing out the crazy tech heads whose inventions made possible the Golden Age of Foo Foo, in which manly Golden Age SF Problem Solvers are increasingly marginalized/quaint. Wicked satire, but got me caring about the characters, to a degree totally unexpected. Which makes two Sterling stories I've ever gotten into, counting the one I was bugging on upthread, "Black Swan." Not "Dori Bangs," def not The Difference Engine. but maybe I'll re-read the relatively recent one involving 3-D printing's effect on society etc. Others?

There was a Sterling short in an old volume of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (iirc) (maybe around 90 or 91?) which blew me away at the time. It was a really fractured, interesting take on fantasy though the details have become verdigris in my mind at this point... always meant to follow up on his short work but never did.

Mozart in Mirrorshades, obv.

don't remember his other joint from that collection at all, will check it out when i get home.

Red Star, Winter Orbit - Sterling/Gibson. Discontent aboard space station in Soviet dominated future, seems happily irrelevant, also 0% cyber and .05% punk so what it's doing in the quintessential cyberpunk anthology idk, oh except maybe because Sterling was the editor... Mozart in Mirrorshades is jolly, slight, also hilariously offtm in its futurology: pop music more valuable than oil? LOL.

thanks dow. i'm on holiday this week so i'm finally getting round to checking them out properly.

Thanks guys. I googled Best Fantasy And Horror, which, if sfsite.com is right, incl Sterling's "Dori Bangs" in 1989, "Denial" in 2005. Don't remember the former being as you describe, although Greil Marcus and some other rock writers excitedly commented at the time, so maybe I should re-read. Just seemed predictably entrophic, like a lot of stories involving rock figures.

Hm then where was that story? It must've been in one of the monthly anthologies...

Decided to go through the rest of Mirrorshades. Too many stories riding on the coat tails of tiresome new wave language games or featuring some male protagonist with emotional issues we are supposed to find fascinating but who is basically a borderline sociopathic asshole. But Mozart... is good enough, The Gernsback Continuum is all-time, if tragically short, and Petra by Greg Bear is delightful but hardly SF let alone cyberpunk. Which is fine, I just wonder what it's doing in there.

Oh and Tales of Houdini by Rudy Rucker is intriguing enough for me to consider checking out the collection of his it came from (The 57th Franz Kafka, c'mon how tempting is that title?)

lol wait he was mentioned upthread and i found all his stories online (http://www.rudyrucker.com/transrealbooks/completestories/) - wasn't so impressed with the flatland tale.

I used this story’s name for my first story anthology because I had the fantasy that people would like my stories so much that I would be considered a “new Franz Kafka”— certainly not the first “new Franz Kafka,” but maybe the fifty-seventh.

poignant

Okay, DJP/others, I'm about 10% of the way through the first Black Company book. It's... good? But I'm not hooked yet. It seems a little schizo so far, a little werepanther this, forlorn wizard that. Does it settle into some kind of normalcy, or does it just continue lurching from (admittedly cool) dark conceit to dark conceit? Everything seems a little underbuilt at the moment.

ledge I was annoyed by the Rucker "Message Found In A Copy of Flatland" at first, but then decided I liked all the stuff about food and drink, esp. the "taste like salmon" bit (trying not to spoil this non-brilliance for those who haven't read it). What I said about stoner (mucnchies). I haven't come across that many of his short stories, but really enjoyed some of his novels, esp The Hollow Earth, which is kind homage to Poe's proto/pre-science fiction, but better than any of the actual such I've read so far (haven't gotten to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym yet). Does remind me that Poe may have invented the detective story, of ratiocination and all: Rucker's more the inventive rationalist than the stoner here, though weird enough too.

"munchies", that is (jeez).

He does have a certain stylistic something. "The 57th Franz Kafka" turns out to be a creepy tale that relies on its central idea for atmospherics, the idea itself remains a germ, a skeleton, tantalisingly unexplained. It's an ok trick but one yearns for more flesh on the bones - and "Schrodinger's Cat" provides it, as it works up to a climax both hilarious and unsettling. Will work my way through the rest of the stories during idle moments.

More from The Ascent of Wonder: Tiptree's "The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things To Rats" goes beyond/far far into its head-on Animal Liberation (or at least SPCA) themes, for some even more cage-rattling cosmic/visceral savage/wit/threnody/slash/slash/slash---different than Ballard's "Cage of Sand", yet not, in some ways. Could see the latter as as hour-long Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, if they ever got this bold (maybe the 80s retoolings of either/both). The Tiptree would prob still be too upsetting, even for cable goreheads. Not that it's got much onstage gore, but.

Computer guardians, coming to yourcells!
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_22898974/biological-computer-created-at-stanford

half price sale at the used book store in town.

kampus - james e. gunn

mutiny in space - avram davidson

the road to nightfall - collected stories volume 4 - robert silverberg

childhood's end - arthur c. clarke

they walked like men - clifford d. simak

through the eye of a needle - hal clement

gender genocide - edmund cooper

the wind from the sun - arthur c. clarke

three hainish novels - ursula k. le guin

starwater strains - new science fiction stories - gene wolfe

a knight of ghosts and shadows - poul anderson

chronopolis and other stories - j.g. ballard

a canticle for leibowitz - walter m. miller, jr

beyond this horizon - robert a. heinlein

the sheep look up - john brunner

the squares of the city - john brunner

the avengers of carrig - john brunner

son of man - robert silverberg

world's fair 1992 - robert silverberg

the dream master - roger zelazny

a short, sharp shock - kim stanley robinson

the way the future was - a memoir - frederik pohl

master of time and space - rudy rucker

city - clifford d. simak

deux x - norman spinrad

Terribly, terribly sad news about Iain Banks. Fucking cancer.

http://www.iain-banks.net/2013/04/03/a-personal-statement-from-iain-banks/

:(

Oh noooo goddammit!!!

God he's only 59, fuck this.

Into the home stretch w The Ascent of Wonder: Hilbert Schenck is the Walrus, or at least a walrus, big meaty through big salty waves of concepts and details--mind the wiring--in "The Morphology of The Kirkam Wreck", and everything else I've come across (though he handles the humans better here than in "Send Me A Kiss By Wire", also and unnecessarily included in this volominous volume). It's all gotta be awesome seascapes, testing the laws of probability and New England expertise. Here, we also get aliens (or somebody) observing/tweaking Earthly mutability, and kidding/celebrating Problem-Solving SF, in a more tobacco-bearded way than usual. Arrrggh, mates!

Arrghh, "Kirkham" and "voluminous", that be.

One more (maybe the last; several duds since this) from Ascent of Wonder. Gregory Benford is another big old name (late-70s-80s-90s; haven't heard about him lately) I never quite got into, and "Relativistic Effects" ends abruptly, but it's a fairly well-aimed slingshot ending, to use Science Fiction Encyclopedia Online's increasingly useful term. A runaway spaceship has been traveling for five million years in ourtime, about five generations in crewtime, with the crew doing their best to internalize, and, you know, work with both those measurements. They're on a supply ship, so plenty of educational and entertainment materials to keep the roots thing going, and they've got plenty of cool, optimistic sci-tech projects going, within what's kind of a caste system, but it's not absolute yet, cause you do need to motivate some fresh blood (easy now). A fella who wants to go above his raising is mighty suspect to some on his own level, and everybody knows it's a delicate balance, and (cue L.Cohen's "Everybody Knows"). So you get this groovy Clarkean starscape, possibly deluded, though mellow, mentally fleet elites, and def some grubby, robust beef brewing below becks.

Every time you mention that book I think you are talking about this gigantic anthology called Sense of Wonder.

I'll check that one too, thanks. We haven't had any pix for a while, so here's what I'm reading:

http://jacketupload.macmillanusa.com/jackets/high_res/jpgs/9780312855093.jpg

xp brewing below decks

that collection looks like catnip to me, sad but otoh not surprised to hear it's full of duds.

It's not full of duds, sorry if I've made it seem that way. Almost all are at least worthy of discussion. I'll come up with some kind of rating thing when I get to the event horizon--almost there!

I finished, and here they are, cutnpasted from wiki (which also quotes mixed reviews). I've already posted about most of the ones I really liked, and some of the duds; other categories: kinda-sorta, may need re-reading; Wolfe stories are things that make me go h'mmm (oh so tricky). Will try to answer any questions. Years of original publication are also listed.
The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Sf, David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, eds., 1994

Ursula K. Le Guin "Nine Lives" 1969 good
Bob Shaw "Light of Other Days" 1966 good
Nathaniel Hawthorne "Rappaccini's Daughter" 1844 good
Arthur C. Clarke "The Star" 1955 nah
Hal Clement "Proof" 1942 good
Robert A. Heinlein "It's Great to Be Back" 1947 nah
Gene Wolfe "Procreation" 1984 Eh?
Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” 1943 good
Raymond Z. Gallun “Davy Jones' Ambassador” 1935 good
Isaac Asimov “The Life and Times of Multivac” 1975 mmm-meh
Robert L. Forward “The Singing Diamond” 1979 pretty good
Dean Ing “Down & Out on Ellfive Prime” 1979 good
Hilbert Schenck “Send Me a Kiss by Wire” 1984 kinda
Philip Latham “The Xi Effect” 1950 nah
Edgar Allan Poe “A Descent into the Maelström” 1841 kinda-sorta
Gregory Benford “Exposures” 1982 meh-ish stiffly imposing
Kate Wilhelm “The Planners” 1968 stiffly imposing/contrived (lol 60s?)
James Blish “Beep” 1954 nah
Richard Grant “Drode's Equations” 1981 good! Borgesian
Theodore L. Thomas “The Weather Man” 1962 nah
Part II
Arthur C. Clarke “Transit of Earth” 1971 nah
J.G. Ballard “Prima Belladonna” 1971 good
Donald M. Kingsbury “To Bring in the Steel” 1978 good
C.M. Kornbluth “Gomez” 1954 kinda
Isaac Asimov “Waterclap” 1970 good
Anne McCaffrey “Weyr Search” 1967 good
Rudy Rucker “Message Found in a Copy of Flatland” 1983 good-ish
Tom Godwin “The Cold Equations” 1954 good
H.G. Wells “The Land Ironclads” 1903 good
Larry Niven “The Hole Man” 1973 nah
John W. Campbell “Atomic Power” 1934 nah
John T. Sladek “Stop Evolution in Its Tracks!” shit 1988
Miles J. Breuer, M.D. “The Hungry Guinea Pig” 1930 good in an early pulp silly way
Ian Watson “The Very Slow Time Machine” 1978 good
Bruce Sterling “The Beautiful and the Sublime” 1986 good (actually doesn't suck)
Ursula K. Le Guin “The Author of the Acacia Seeds” 1974 good
John M. Ford “Heat of Fusion” 1984 nah
Gordon R. Dickson “Dolphin's Way” 1964 kinda
Gene Wolfe “All the Hues of Hell” 1987 maybe?
Theodore Sturgeon “Occam's Scalpel” 1971 h'mmm, the ending
Edward Bryant “giANTS” 1979 kinda, above average ending (very last sentence), for sure
Randall Garrett “Time Fuse” 1954 nah
Clifford D. Simak “Desertion” 1944 good
Part III
Poul Anderson "Kyrie” 1969, mostly good? some bits of ick
Raymond F. Jones “The Person from Porlock” 1947 seems like pre-Gick for a while, but nah
Frederik Pohl “Day Million” 1966 nah
J.G. Ballard “Cage of Sand” 1963 good
James Tiptree, Jr. “The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats” 1976 good
Jules Verne “In the Year 2889” (year of orig. pub not listed) good
James Blish “Surface Tension” 1952 good, although lol-ish ending
Cordwainer Smith “No, No, Not Rogov!” 1959 good (I think?)
George Turner “In a Petri Dish Upstairs” 1978 good
Rudyard Kipling “With the Night Mail” good-ish ?
Arthur C. Clarke “The Longest Science Fiction Story Ever Told” 1965 okay but could've been better?
Alfred Bester “The Pi Man” 1959 just okay-ish (compared to some of his 50s)
Gregory Benford “Relativistic Effects” 1982 good
James P. Hogan “Making Light” 1981 nah
Isaac Asimov “The Last Question” 1956 nah
Philip K. Dick “The Indefatigable Frog” 1953 okay-ish (compared to some of his 50s)
John M. Ford “Chromatic Aberration” 1994 kinda
Katherine Maclean “The Snowball Effect” 1952 nah
Hilbert Schenck “The Morphology of the Kirkham Wreck” 1978 good
Greg Bear “Tangents” 1986 kinda, but predictable
William Gibson “Johnny Mnemonic” 1981 nah
David Brin “What Continues, What Fails...” 1991 kinda (def some good science ideas and promising setting. but more like notes)
Michael F. Flynn "Mammy Morgan Played the Organ; Her Daddy Beat the Drum" 1990 good
Vernor Vinge "Bookworm, Run!" 1966 some good details, but as with Bester and Dick, although much, much more so: why *this* Vinge?

Not that I don't get into some other short Wolfe, like "The Death of Doctor Island", and will re-re-read these some more.

Raymond F. Jones “The Person from Porlock” 1947 seems like pre-Gick for a while, but nah pre-Dick!

Ready to waste some time in nostalgia? Seems that hundreds of issues of Starlog and Omni are now available for free at archive.org as epub or pdf downloads, or to read online...

http://archive.org/details/starlogmagazine

http://archive.org/details/omni-magazine

Isaac Asimov “The Last Question” 1956 nah

this one's a classic, by far his best idea for a story imo

If only don could do this kind of consumer guide for the entire corpus of sf. He would save us a lot of time and trouble.

Would get The Ascent... if I could find it in ebook form but don't want any more massive skiffy anthologies cluttering up my shelves.