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

and have nothing on deck to read after that

― Οὖτις, Monday, 10 November 2014 19:20

I can't ever imagine a time when I don't have a huge to-read pile, but I'd love if that happened someday. It would make buying new books more exciting.
I think it was maybe 10 years ago the last time I had a clear deck.

The uploader of that forgotten books panel (RB Russell, a writer, musician and publisher of Tartarus books) has quite a few interviews with writers featuring guided tours of their personal book collections. It's quite fun. Reggie Oliver comes from a literary family and has a lot of interesting things to say.

I don't have any money to buy books anymore so I am a) at the mercy of what's available at the library or b) at the mercy of what I can find online for like a dollar

Also interested in this, apparently big in china, unusually so for science fiction:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/books/liu-cixins-the-three-body-problem-is-published-in-us.html?_r=0
excerpts here, haven't read 'em yet:
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/10/read-the-three-body-problem

Οὖτις- do you do public domain ebooks?

I am against ereaders

I might have some books I can snail mail you, but media mail across country takes what, a month?

There's a pretty fair amount of free sf online, like those archived PKD stories I linked upthread. Also in new issues of some online mags, like clarkesworld.

The Locus site can lead to a lotta freebies.

i became a convert to ereading specifically because I couldn't find a copy of Lafferty's Nine Hundred Grandmothers anywhere. Found a big bundled download of several thousand classic sff PDFs and epubs which included the complete lafferty stories, needed something to comfortably read them on, got the cheapest available reader at the time and found I really really liked it.

BTW, that UK SFF Gateway series has published a 3fer omnibus of my man Blaylock which brings you the 3 finest examples of his inimitable, unparalleled take on antic suburban US magic realism (The Last Coin, The Paper Grail, and All the Bells on Earth). The victorian vein of his career is being pushed so hard now with the "godfather of steampunk" designation that this stuff, his real high watermark, is in danger of being overshadowed. And he is finally writing prolifically again these past few years but only in the victorian mode. Which I totally understand. But I'm glad this non-steam omnibus is out there.

guys thx for the concern but I will be ok really, I will find something to read don't worry!

can we start a new thread btw this one is impossible to load

Keep it in the book thread still? There was an agreement on that.

Done. ThReads Must Roll: the new, improved rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

I'm probably going to get ripped to shreds for this but... did anyone else find The Dispossessed a bit of a slog? I've been forcing myself to finish it (it's not even a very long book) and it just feels endless. Love the premise and the overall idea, but there's something about the deployment of language that isn't working out for me. I'd have thought that by now I'd have a clearer idea of the various characters, but the majority of them feel like empty vessels fulfilling roles. Even Shevek - I mean, I get that maybe the Anarresti are supposed to be a stoic, no-nonsense bunch - but he seems to have very little personality. The only characters who I seem to have any sort of interesting faculties are secondary roles like Sabul and Vea. The distinct lack of action would be fine. I don't need space battles in my sci-fi, but the Dispossessed reads to me like a very thinly-veiled allegory and not much more.

damn, didn't realise this was an old thread. oh well

reposted in the other thread.

many years follow up to the Marion Zimmer Bradley revelations from 2015, posted way way up thread, this kind of started circulating again recently as her sister-in-law, fantasy writer Diane Paston, who lives at a house called Greyhaven in Berkeley, was attacked by a family member last week in an attempted murder. Given that I've lived in this town for over 30 years I was surprised that I'd never known about the MZB revelations (missed it in 2015) nor did I even know she'd lived here, but she lived not far from where I live now (not at this house Greyhaven, a different one). Because I'm unemployed and bored this week, I did a huge deepdive into this over the past few days.

1) the situation with her husband, Walter Breen, was well known in fan communities dating back to the early 60's and his exclusion from a fan convention was a massive point of contention in that community. Biggest revelation to me was how organized these sci fi fan communities were all the way back to 1960 or so; they had newsletters, distributed zines, etc. I'm not a fandom person at all, so I'd really thought these types of conventions started with Star Trek in the 70's.

2) reading through some of the documentation of the time (aforementioned zines) there was absolutely an attitude in the community that would be rather shocking today; that adult male / child/teen sexual activity were not necessarily cause for concern. One would think that most people's attitudes on this shifted by the 90's when this started to come to light again (when Breen was arrested for the third time for molesting a child) but it's clear from MZB's testimony, and the testimony of her secretary/lover Elisabeth Waters (who is still alive and who, based on her response to this coming up again in 2015, is a fucking monster), that 'people's sexuality was their business' and they didn't bring up or question a lot of things in the lead up to that final arrest.

3) MZB's daughter seems like a highly traumatized person (no surprise) but has also gravitated to the far right, condemning all homosexuals as child molesters and has also accused her mother of 'satanic ritual abuse' which I'm sure we all cock an eyebrow at.

4) MZB's grandchild, Paston and Greyhaven were on Last Chance U (in the season I didn't watch, obviously) and apparently this came up there.

My final takeaway: hippy SCA sword and sorcery-based alternative family groups in the 60's and 70's did not have a very firm grasp on morality and there is still likely a lot of fallout from that. One wonders what happened to the rest of Breen's victims, most of whom sounded like street kids and kids going in and out of the foster system.