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

I've been intrigued by Swan Song, as an apocalypse addict, but mu suspicions that it's going to be all supernatural nonsense have put me off. But then, i never read The Stand for similar reasons (plus the fact that King can't end a book properly for shit), so what do I know?

Swan Song will absolutely disappoint you. The Stand is far better and the only King book I've ever gone back to read again.

well, that's a relief - thanks!

non-kindle owners in uk might like to know that ancillary justice (as recommended by tracer hand) is currently £2

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/ancillary-justice
http://www.sainsburysebooks.co.uk/book/Ancillary-Justice-Ann-Leckie/7654176

as is alastair reynolds' revelation space
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/revelation-space

(the adobe drm works on kobos and nooks and androids and ipads and various other bits, but NOT kindles)

ha, actually, both are also on offer for same price for kindles at amazon.

Finally read A Wrinkle In Time: taut plot, lucid speculation (matter and energy the same thing, so time [numbers/kairos, over wristwatch/chronos]is material; pinch a wrinkle in it and step over, having squared this space-time to the 5th dimension: a tesseract, and ho-hum for your rambly old faster-than-light drives). Not that everybody is sold on the desirability of this, not that everybody who is, knows exactly how to do it. Which is one more source of anxiety for the child and early teen travelers, already too smart and otherly-gifted for their own good (in some ways). Also, the limitations of even the most awesome adults, angels and demons all increasingly come to light and dark, in strategic emotional spillage and more wrinkles than originally mentioned.
Can see, as SF Encyclopedia says, how L'Engle won immeidiate acclaim, the Newbery Medal and credit for helping to shape what's now called Young Adult lit. But I don't currently feel the urge to read anymore in this series, although apparently SFE indicates the characters continue to become more "emotionally complex," because I'm a bit put off by the very upfront religious element, which, here, seems more reductive/hyping than heightening, justifying some awfully author-convenient devices. Of course, I'm not the target audience now, and suppose I might've been smitten when I was 12 (but if I were 12 now, this book would have a lot of strong YA competition). Does at times remind me of some of the best this-century eps of Dr. Who (though I still prefer the older ones).
Her SFE entry is kind of intriguing: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lengle_madeleine

(a maths pedant writes: tesseracts are specifically 4d, hypercube is the generic name for > 3 dimensions)

iirc i liked the second & third ones better as a kid

Bought the CL Moore, Kuttner and Sturgeon omnibus books, more expensive than I though they were. Also Moorcock's Travelling To Utopia collection.
The new Moorcock reissues are 28 books in total. I don't don't think it is his complete output though, the short story collections are "best of"s.

I questioned the Gollancz website and they said they are working on the Masterworks lists and might add a Gateway Omnibus list.

Moorcock didnt really do a ton of short fiction afaik. P sure he has more than 28 books tho (some of which are terrible). P confident I have all the good stuff already.

Black Corridor def the most interesting of the novellas in TTU

I think I remember reading that Moorcock had written over 100 novels...?

I notice a few things missing, most notably the Oswald Bastable books (which are some of my favorites). Site is kinda weird to navigate though, maybe I'm just not seeing it. Dont see the Mars books either.

or is his book about Hawkwind (lol) or the Pyat books (which are probably my favorite)

they did include a bunch of his crappier early novels for some reason (no one needs to read the Chinese Agent)

I don't mean he's only ever did 28 books, but there are are that many in his newest reissue series, most of which contain 3 or 4 of his old books.

right, I was just confirming that it's not his complete output, there are definitely chunks missing

Bastable books are contained in Nomad Of Time and mars books are in Kane Of Old Mars.

No sight of Mother London or the Pyat books but I think that's because they aren't SF or fantasy (or are they?) This reissue series only covers SF and fantasy stuff.

huh ok I didn't see those listed

Pyat is sort of uncategorizable - he is a character from the Cornelius Quartet, but it's basically a historical novel by a v unreliable narrator. there aren't any explicitly SF elements, beyond various characters from other sci-fi novels showing up

Seems the new edition of Von Ben taken out Brothel In Rosenstrasse.

Breakfast In Ruins, Chinese Agent, Russian Intelligence, the Second Ether books, the Sexton Blake/Zenith books and a bunch from the last two decades aren't included either.

Von Bek not Von Ben!

Actually the Second Ether series is collected in War Amongst The Angels.
Brothel In Rosenstrasse isn't included because it's a realistic romance book.

So apart from Doctor Who, Sexton Blake/Zenith and a collaboration with Storm Constantine, this is a very comprehensive collection of his SF/fantasy.

koogs: well that's what she said; dog nose where she got it (book published in '63, h'mm). mookieproof, did you prefer the second and third dimensions, or second and third books? All of the above? I prefer those dimensions, may check out the books; SFE also indicates further developments.
Unearthed an ancient paperback, Moorcock's Warlord of the Air---good? (And what Dr. Who did he write??)

Warlord of the Air is great

Moorcock did Doctor Who: Coming Of The Terraphiles in 2010

Looks good, thanks!
http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2011/03/doctor_who_the_.shtml

I'll check out Warlord too.

Btw earlier I was looking at the orion reprints, not the gollancz ones so uh ignore all my posts. His stuff has been reprinted a lot, forgive me

Orion owns Gollancz, so it probably is the same line you were looking at, but the whole series isn't finished yet but should be by the end of the year.

I wonder why he did that Doctor Who book? I don't know him but I can't imagine him itching to do one or that it gave him lots of money he badly needed. Maybe just a fun little challenge.

Here's the complete Gollancz list, including release dates, ebook exclusives and which omnibuses include which books...
http://www.multiverse.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_Michael_Moorcock_Collection

The more I've been reading about this, the more I've found how much territorial rights difficulties there are. I assumed that Gollancz books can be easily found in USA but they have to be imported. Some books have had to be renamed, sometimes the print or ebook rights are different to different countries. I think sometimes even the artwork gets into these problems too.
People in UK are not allowed to buy from the Jack Vance ebook site.

I haven't read the Dr. Who book (not sure I want to). No idea why he did it - probably just good, easy money.

Yeah, many of those Gateways are n/a in US, unfortunately.

I probably should have noted the book titles by Vance and Tanith Lee I do like

Vance: Rhialto The Marvelous, Lurulu, Eyes Of The Overworld, Languages Of Pao; Strange People, Queer Notions; This Is Me, Jack Vance, or, More Properly, This Is I.

Tanith Lee: Drinking Sapphire Wine, Here In Cold Hell, Delirium's Mistress, Faces Under Water, Forests Of The Night, Cold Grey Stones; Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer.

This Is Me, Jack Vance, or, More Properly, This Is I.
Interesting. The reviews are so were pretty much uniformly dismissive.

No I mean the title names, as we were discussing above how dull and generic most of their titles were. I haven't read any of these yet.

I remember it being said of Vance and Robert Bloch's autobios that they weren't very revealing and many men of their generations rarely open up all their deepest thoughts and feelings.

That's certainly characteristic of Vance. He also refused to talk shop on almost all occasions.

Can't recall if I've talked about that upthread but on YouTube I listened to a radio interview with Vance in which he says alternate history books are interesting, but when someone else starts enthusing about Man In The Highcastle, Vance appears to change his mind and start saying that alternate history is totally pointless! I had to keep rewinding to make sure he really did abruptly change his opinion.

It disappointed his fans when he dispassionately claimed that he only wrote SF/fantasy for money and the only reason he'd read any new genre work was if he was selling poorly, to find out what everyone else was doing better.
On some occasions people caught him being more passionate about his writing, saying he felt his work deserved to be more popular and proudly saying "my fans are not stupid". But it seems like it taken some work to get him to enthuse about his influences.

I don't know why he was so reluctant to show enthusiasm for what he did.

The public Vance was all mannerism, veils, contrariness and faux-naivete. The writing belies it all.

Yeah, but why on earth did he do that?

Wonder

It's why some people write.
Entirely new entry (replacing old) for La Jetee:
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/jetee_la

Spoileriffic, but I knew the plot before I saw it, only added to the impact/

tl;dr but will read later for sure

It's why some people write.

I understand writing for wonder, but being so reluctant to show passion for your work among fans and professionals is strange.
If he sounded more embarrassed I would imagine he was so scarred by bullying that he couldn't be more open even to a welcoming audience, but I don't think that is the case.

"Wonder" was short for "I wonder."

I thought I might have made that mistake

He wants to have it both ways. And leave the mundane, ass-scratching, bill-paying, typewriting Jack out of the public eye all together.

He's a dr strange who wants to present as a Ben Grimm.

So, there's also what might well be not even a trend, much less a subgenre, but once in a great while I spot a vulture-like sort of Western Gothic, calmly if avidly accepting the challenge of a sun- and moon-stripped landscape, later for your swamps, castles and urban fantasy menu of kinky textures. Yet with plenty of white light atmosphere, and tempos picked up at will.
I was reminded of this when I received the latest smoke signal from Subterrranean, re yet another lavishly limited edition of Red Country
http://subterraneanpress.com/uploads/Red_Country_by_Joe_Abercrombie.jpg
dark-starring Joe Abercrombie's young female desperado, Shy South, whom I first encountered early on in Dozois & RR Martin's trans-genre anth, Dangerous Women, described upthread. At that point, she's all nerves, skills, painful hopes (like surviving another five minutes)(and, even more unreasonably, 'bout making it over the horizon line one more time). No ghouls or ghosts yet, except the ones you might have to peel off in everyday crises, depending on who, what and where you are--hey it's free ( as generously posted by Tor) http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/11/some-desperado-joe-abercrombie