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

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?89573
This lineup is crazy

http://scripsit.com/website/about-mapping-winter/

Marta Randall on her necessary remake of an older novel.

I think Phyllis Ann Karr and some other writers of this generation had done recent novel remakes too.

has anyone read ada palmer's too like the lightning, and does it become less insufferable than the first 20 pages is?

― The Pingularity (ledge), Wednesday, June 19, 2019 2:41 PM (five months ago)

objections: a grating 18th century prose style with frequent asides to the reader; copious chandleresque unexplained in-universe words and concepts; ridiculous names (martin guildbreaker, saneer-weeksbooth); frequent references to theology and theological concepts.

― The Pingularity (ledge), Wednesday, June 19, 2019 2:51 PM (five months ago)

She had donned her boots too, tall, taut Humanist boots patterned with a flowing brush-pen landscape, the kind with winding banks and misty mountains that the eye gets lost in. Any Humanist transforms, grows stronger, prouder, when they don the Hive boots which stamp each Member’s signature into the dust of history, but if others change from house cat to regal tiger, Thisbe becomes something more extreme...

kill me now

― The Pingularity (ledge), Wednesday, June 19, 2019 2:58 PM (five months ago)

It's funny, I was totally uninterested in this when it came out years ago, everyone was talking about it; but after seeing an enthusiastic review by Paul Di Filippo and seeing her buzz about her many interests (refreshing, since too many authors talk about the same shit everyone else does), I'd really like to read it sometime.

Tor announced recently that they are reprinting John M Ford's novels. This is after years and years of people complaining about a lack of reprints. It was widely believed that Ford's remaining family was hostile to his work and was preventing it from going back into print, but Will Shetterly was very eager to say this was a baseless myth.

Quite amused that the term "Killer Bs" (always referring to Benford, Bova, Brin, Baxter and Greg Bear) actually got used on a book cover at least once.

Another was "McMacs" for Ken Macleod, Ian McDonald, Ian Macleod, Paul McAuley and probably more.

McMacs >>> Killer Bs in overall quality terms, though Bova will drop any group's average quality

Lol. Feel like Bova did something good once, can’t remember. Maybe editing one of those SF Hall of Fame volumes.

AAAggghhh, Ligotti forum has been under maintenance for over a week.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/john-ford-science-fiction-fantasy-books.html

Cool

This Stan Lee-with-an-eyepatch Fantasy Masterworks edition of Dragon Waiting isn't too hard to source in the UK:

https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1173289687l/268437.jpg

It's a great book, too.

Thought this interview with Ada Palmer was a lot of fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMg92oT8lk4
Don't know why Crilly thought censorship was so new though.

It's news to me that the Laemmles showed interested in making a Clark Ashton Smith adaptation before they were booted from Universal. One of the stories Smith submitted to them for consideration has a giant made of melted corpses.

I wonder if there's any books which resemble the aesthetic of Voivod's Dimension Hatross or Skinny Puppy at their most scifi.

K.W. Jeter

Specifically Dr. Adder, Noir, Glass Hammer, Death Arms

this http://www.voivodfan.com/morgoth_bio_neutronboy2000.htm mentions a few books in passing (but is probably not what you want):

lord of the rings
dracula
neuromancer
dune
various French philosophers
don juan(?)

I have Doctor Adder somewhere in my room (for years I've been getting them mixed up with William Kotzwinkle's Doctor Rat). I might bump it up the pile a little but I feel I should read a bit more PK Dick before I do.

Quite interested to see how this plays out. Some people are worried.
https://www.blackgate.com/2019/11/30/the-chinese-worldcon-bid-for-2023-and-the-chengdu-conference-of-2019/

good piece about my local scene
https://thebolditalic.com/san-franciscos-sci-fi-renaissance-95713a91171c

Hard for my brain to see M. Luke McDonnell and not immediately think K.M. O'Donnell

only natural

I briefly wondered if it was a deliberate tribute/nom de plume but doesn't seem likely

Are you thinking of when Malzberg did that very thing?

well yes, I'm aware of the homage in Malzberg's nom de plume, was wondering if McDonnell's name was some elaborate meta-tribute

(evidently not, carry on...)

Baen has reached new lows of cover art, Poor Wen Spencer.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51D9jhfifmL.jpg

Maybe the nicest Baen cover I've seen for this new omnibus.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/519fuLiGM7L.jpg

it's wen's own fault for writing a book called "project elfhome"

ya think?

Not really. I like this funky cover to the first book.
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/c/c6/TNKR2003.jpg

And this awesome Dune cover.
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/6/6f/DNMWSDGMHP2015.jpg

For what it's worth, I've been hearing a lot of good about Nina Allan recently.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, May 21, 2017 8:57 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I got The Rift in a charity shop but haven't started it yet. And some credible seeming people are claiming her recent work as masterpieces.

My outline for next year is:

- Finish all my WH Hodgson, Clark Ashton Smith, Lovecraft, Dunsany, Poe and RE Howard collections.
- As much SP Somtow and Tanith Lee as I can manage.
- A bit more of Fritz Leiber, Gene Wolfe, Sheridan Le Fanu, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Moorcock, Lucy Clifford, Justin Isis, Quentin S Crisp, Avalon Brantley, James Champagne, Jessica Amanda Salmonson and Arthur Machen.
- Finally read Dracula.
- Some foundational science fiction anthologies.
- Start Mervyn Peake, Alan Garner, ETA Hoffmann, Leigh Brackett, CL Moore, Patricia Mckillip, John Crowley, Attanasio, Piers Anthony, Jack L Chalker, David Zindell, Jack Williamson, Robert Silverberg, Roger Zelazny, Jean Ray, Jean Lorrain and Stefan Grabinski.
- Maybe Zachary Jernigan, PC Hodgell, Ricardo Pinto, Raphael Ordonez, Jeffrey E Barlough, Janrae Frank, Martha Wells, Adrian Cole, and Brian McNaughton.

If I manage even a quarter of that, it will be a personal breakthrough, but I have enough free time to do it.

wow, quite an ambitious program.

I've never passed 20 books in a year, so it's optimistic. A bit of Brian Stableford, Phyllis Ann Karr, Lucius Shepard, Avram Davidson and Greer Gilman would be nice too. I'm dying to read all of it, so the obligatory stuff I must finish can get frustrating.

speaking of Christopher Priest, has “The Discharge” (re)appeared in any readily accessible form?

Rift is very accept the mystery..., Picnic at Hanging Rock being an acknowledged influence.

https://lithub.com/the-encyclopedia-of-science-fiction-is-the-best-place-on-the-internet/

Also wanted to ask: okay The Rift but what about The Race?

I feel a little bit misled by this one. It was perfectly well written and interesting, but the blurb promised SF and greyhounds, two of my absolute favourite things. The book is structured almost as four novellas, and two of the novellas are not SF at all. In fact, most of the book was not SF and it only featured holistic amounts of greyhounds, hence the low rating.

If someone wants to write a near-future SF that actually focuses on enhanced greyhounds, then I would buy that like a shot. But this is not that book.

holistic amounts of greyhounds

are they referring to the racing dog or the cocktail?

or the buses?

S. P. Somtow - The Throne Of Madness

Very different from the previous book. Much less linear journeys, characters are going all over the place here.

I'll start with some reservations...

I think the most glaring problem is the same problem from the first book: the heretic's plan is incredibly flimsy, why is the old heretic surprised when the plan doesn't go as specifically as he intended? Although the magical item is incredibly difficult to locate on such an enormous planet, it seemed too easy to find and it's hardly hidden (was there something stopping it from being hidden?) and why isn't there more concern over other people using it? Because other people know where it is. I hope we find out why it exists.

There's a tad too much recapping of the previous book. Perhaps this was standard practice to make this sequel accessible to new readers (?) but it's definitely not a "start at any book" series and if we really had to recap, surely doing it at the beginning, outside the actual text of the story would be best?
There is some new backstory (not in the previous book) that is told a bit inelegantly through the dialogue near the beginning, but it's a small issue.

The constant grumbling about the ways of the Inquest gets a bit excessive, completely understandable grumbling but it starts to get tiring.

Why are some Inquestors so sure they will forget important things when the oldest Inquestors seem to remember everything? Are these younger Inquestors simply wrong?

Wouldn't the Inquestors use their powers of illusion far more often?

There is a big issue which can be seen as a positive or a negative, or a bit of both: you never know quite where the characters stand. In the previous book, I think a lot more tension was there because I thought I knew the gravity of the situation. But here everything is in doubt.
We're made to constantly change our estimation of the situation. Constantly questioning how comprehensively the Inquest is run, what are the Inquestors' priorities, how much do they care about threats to their empire?
Is the grand Inquestor just lying all the time? Why does he speak about atrocities so casually to the doubters? Is he a coherent character? It seems that the Inquest is so big an operation that expecting any real consistency is just wrong.
Are the Thinkhives really listening all the time? What is their nature, really? Why do they serve anyone? How much do they care about protecting the empire?

I was often doubting Somtow was in good control of the whole situation, but for every question I could find some plausible theories, the Inquest has an endlessly twisted logic that could be used to justify almost anything (they're obsessed with compassion but power contorts it into insane shapes) and the Thinkhives seem as flawed as people. Occasionally I was losing confidence in the story but with enough shifting of the seeming circumstances and stakes, I felt better.

I very often wonder whether to read the speculative fiction canon in a more chronological order so I have a better idea of when innovations are truly happening but the main drawback of that is I may never get around to all the writers I'm most excited to read. Like Somtow.
So I'm wondering how truly original this series is. I'm guessing that the imagination, wildness, happy open bi-sexuality (I seen one reviewer wishing it had been embraced by LGBT readers) and extremity of the content towards the end was unusual for a relatively mainstream space opera mode in 1983.
Many of the characters have sex wherever they want and in front of absolutely anyone, is this just a privilege of the Inquestors or can anyone do this? Are the people on the ocean planet only so sexually open in their dire circumstances?

I've never seen a story of such universe-shaking consequences where the opponents like each other so much for the most part.

Although the first book had more momentum, tension and the spectacle had far more emotional impact, I think this sequel still manages to be a better book. It has a good amount of the varied locations, nice sprawl, rapid travel, increased wildness, extravagance and grotesque morbidity that I was looking forward to. Although it's roughly the same length as the previous, somehow three times as much happens and it never feels hurried. Somtow's classical/opera background is even more in evidence this time.

I particularly liked the flying palaces, city of the symphony and the ridiculous banquet party that lasts for days (the confrontation at the end of the banquet is brilliant, I wanted to hug Karakael). Genius, audacious.

Please read this amazing series and tell all your friends about it, so I can walk up to strangers at a science fiction convention and say "history there is, and no history!" and have a good chance of them knowing what I'm talking about.

is Up the Line good Silverbob or bad Silverbob?

Found this review quite persuasive
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2722285957

thought that was a review of Up the Line for longer than I’d care to admit

Hahaha. Looking up goodreads for that, I'm not inclined to trust the reviews that say "too much sex" but Scott Lynch gets to the actual problems here
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/297959744

B-b-but KSR liked it!

"Scott Lynch gets to the actual problems here"

I should say that maybe he gets to them.

I think I've also mentioned the gross sex scenes in some of Silverberg's bks on this thread - prob in reference to The World Inside, another good'un marred by Silverbob's horny-handedness. Last one I read was Hawksbill Station - all-male group of political criminals exiled into the prehistoric past - which was excellent - written near the start of Silverberg's 'hot streak' and because of the setting, light on the sexy stuff, although it imagines a 'turn to socialism' within late-20th century American society that - last time I checked - never quite came to pass. In general, I like the clear, efficient way that Silverberg presents his stories/ideas - but yes, a lot has to be 'forgiven' in his style these days.