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

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.

Gross as in yucky things most people wouldn't do, or gross as in ethically gross? Are they supposed to be screwed up in this way? Even a lot of talk of the Heinlein stuff makes it sound like he was going for the crazy shit.

There's some bizarre necro-pedophilic stuff in Somtow's book I reviewed above but it's very definitely supposed to be the acts of corrupt and desperately sad people.

Gross as in grossly sexist, male-centric, heteronormative, free loving seventies sf stuff that has dated v badly.

think this book I just bought yesterday has some of that too but still might be pretty good. Malzberg likes it as well so, oh wait, yeah.

Malzberg and Silverbob - both of whom did extensive hackwork writing softcore porn under aliases - handle sex very differently in their SF work imo. Silverbob is often, as noted, just basically sexist/heteronormative/prurient (not always, but mostly). He's clearly just writing sexy crap he enjoys reading. Malzberg, however, approaches the subject with a great deal more self-loathing, irony, and black humor. He's by no means heteronormative either, a handful of his novels go deep into their male protagonist's homoeroticism; Tactics of Conquest for example hinges on the past sexual dalliance and suppressed attraction between its chess playing protagonist and antagonist.

Malzberg writes about his characters' sex lives as if they are some laughably pathetic burden, the psychological and emotional costs of which are quite high and always foregrounded.

Do I read 'Children of Time', or 'Three-Body Problem'?

i read both in the same month earlier this year and there's an odd plot link between the two...

I enjoyed just about every story in xpost The Future is Female---a few of the Messages didn't quite make it over the finish line w undiminished momentum, but all takes remained v readable, with editor's mostly astute and always expert delving into wide span of eras and approaches. My fave discoveries are sonya Dorman (described by ed. as New Wave vanguard, got into the first Dangerous Visions). Here we get the affecting poetic compression of "When I Was Miss Dow," as oops upside the head to me as the relatively slo-mo, yet perfectly timed "Birth of a Gardner," by Doris Pitkin Buck (...her short story "Cacophony in Pink and Ochre" is...slated to appear in...The Last Dangerous Visions.") Dorman has several stories posted here and there, haven't had (even) as much luck with Buck yet, no collections of either, which makes me sad. Could always buy up quite a few back issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science, make my own bootleg anths, but I'm not that sad.

"Birth of a *Gardener*" sheesh

Geez all the young typos for Xmas, sorreee!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-KeGRokMPE
http://www.breakingtheglassslipper.com/2019/07/04/women-write-science-fiction-with-lisa-yaszek/

heteronormative

― Οὖτις, Monday, December 23, 2019 5:14 PM

How does this reveal itself?

As explicit and dark as the Inquestor series is, Somtow still had limits placed on him (he said he's now adding some stuff in that he wouldn't have been allowed in the early 80s).
Some publishers in the 60s/70s still didn't allow curse words and I think Del Rey discouraged sex. I'm guessing even mention of gay stuff was still off-limits for a long time for some. I bet many publishers would have considered themselves publishers of childrens books.

Beyond Apollo to thread!

xxpost, yep that's The Future Is Female! cover girl Jean Shrimpton (Jumpsuit by Loomtags, DIMAR Construction Co., Route 84, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, January 11, 1965. Photography by Richard Avedon. © The Richard Avedon Foundation) and diligent editor Lisa Yaszek.
The stories in here are pretty upfront about issues of sex and gender, pretty often---most startling in this regard is "Another Rib," by John Jay Wells (Juanita Coulson)& Marion Zimmer Bradley: gay and trans emergence while stranded on another astral body---published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1963. Frank exchanges among the characters, (incl. an alien), although the stressed-out cap'n is a bit comical (seems deliberate)(maybe also for some in readership to relate to, re their own feelings or those of uptight males they know too well)(as is mentioned re reception of several selections)

No need for dirty words in any of these, that I recall (published between 1928 and 1969).

read children of time and liked it but it does feature something of a virus ex machina

read the stochastic man and the politics part is indeed very well done; the free will vs determinism rather less so

Maybe a year or two ago upthread I said Sapkowski was super grumpy, but after watching a few videos it seems it's actually humor most of the time. Still quite abrasively honest, he doesn't care for videogames and thought the Polish Witcher film was a "piece of shit".
He wrote a guide to fantasy, curated this series
https://www.biblionetka.pl/bookSerie.aspx?id=171
and wrote intros for Fritz Leiber and John Crowley.

read nina allen’s the rift as kindly mentioned above; thought it was outstanding

I just read the rift, too, and I agree - it was fantastic, and also extremely unsettling.

lol I got "A Time of Changes" out of the library over the holiday (one of the peak period Silverbob's I hadn't read before) and within the first 10 pages the narrator is "confessing" about his problems with premature ejaculation.

Seems like a lot of translated anthologies are produced specifically for conventions, as Hugos, Eurocon etc move all over the world; so really difficult to find some of them.

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/category/culture/international
Reading some of these entries has been fun. So many soviet countries had a serious problem with straightforward fantasy (sometimes banning speculative fiction in general) for fear of being socially irresponsible unless you were telling a beloved national fairy tale, which is treated as an appropriate way to kiss the ass of your country's history (I think China is still like that sometimes). There are remnants of this concern in most places but some countries seem to struggle more with fantasy for it's own sake. I hate that.

Jan Potocki (of Saragossa Manuscript fame) produced an early anti-Semitic dystopia about (you guessed it) jews running the world.

despite really disliking the one iain (non-m) banks novel i read 20 years ago, i tried 'consider phlebas' and it was solid! he *really* stretched out the buildup to the climax but that's okay

also read 'this is how you lose the time war', which was short, excellent and lovely, although i'm not sure its title does it any favors

I think "Consider Phlebas" might be the best title for a SF novel, but I don't know why. Maybe the word "consider" suggests a cool detached speculation and "Phlebas" sounds like a weird ass name (even though it's just a sailor's name).
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-meaning-of-the-title-of-the-Iain-M-Banks-novel-Consider-Phlebas

Once again I scooped up a load of stuff at charity shops. Why do all the books I'm most excited about have to be over 400 pages?

the Eaters chapter of Phlebus always feels wrong to me, like it doesn't belong. also, ick!

Player of Games is great if you want more, might be my favourite (currently re-reading them all at the rate of about one a year)

yeah it's very ick, and treated as an abberration -- would have been better more explicitly tied into the culture's abandonment of them

Been thinking a while about a difficult to pinpoint aesthetic change in sff and I wonder if its crucial in its gaining wider cultural acceptance. Did there used to be more ugly, dorky and twee stuff? Dorky is hard to define. Plenty of sff today looks ugly in a bland way and I'd argue amateurish cgi and photoshopped covers are worse than anything in the past, but most of that is from small presses.
I was watching some episodes of Prisoners Of Gravity (an 80s-90s Canadian interview show) and it was just so dorky in a way I cant imagine such a thing being today (but if there was such a thing today, I think more authors would be embarrassed to show their cover art).

If Game Of Thrones was on tv in the 90s, Jon Snow would have had a furry wisecracking sidekick called Queequar and there would have been more scenes of people laughing (especially men with beards) and dancing around a fire to quaintly merry music (all 80s-90s films set in medieval Europe have these scenes, I'm sure you could make a long compilation of them).

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/2019-in-review-part-one/
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/2019-in-review-part-two/
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/2019-in-review-part-three/

Thanks

Sad that Haikasoru has shut down, I wasn't aware.

I can't find the sci-fi cover art thread, so will just put this here. This guy does good work

https://adamrowe.substack.com/p/im-writing-a-book?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo2MjI1ODMyLCJwb3N0X2lkIjoyMjUzOTksIl8iOiI5cTA5SCIsImlhdCI6MTU3OTExMDg2NywiZXhwIjoxNTc5MTE0NDY3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjY2MjciLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.iEFgxhk-Mh83qevQHN-0rtzdcXdDAtLAAg_EMtYi_B8

There was a book with Adam Roberts commentary a while ago, don't know if it was funded but I don't think there was anything about interviews.

Clifford Simak - City

Important Note: the ninth story "Epilog" doesn't appear in every edition, it was written 20 years after the other stories, Simak has mixed feelings about it and so do his fans. I had to check isfdb to see which editions contained it and I bought one of them. According to that database, the Gollancz Masterworks edition doesn't have it, but I checked a copy in a bookstore last week and it actually does include it (maybe earlier printings didn't?)

My Methuen edition contains a 1976 Simak foreward included in even fewer versions of the book. He makes it pretty clear that he thinks cities should have been phased out as transportation improves. He admits that the stories are a kind of fanciful refuge and he doesn't think City is his best work. I wish he would have addressed what homes our growing population would allow for, because that's the first thing that seemed like a major obstacle preventing every family from living in their own luxurious acres.

City is a kind of mixture of wishful thinking and thinking more seriously about the potential problems of the speculated changes. Definitely not hard science fiction, so much of it is completely unconvincing (especially Joe's way of catalyzing the ants). I tend to dislike stories that go on about how awful we are as a species, they tend to be simplistic, intellectually lazy, naively idealizing other species (often ones that don't exist), but there's a lot more going on here.
Even when there's so much logic to quibble with (why does advanced underwater intelligence seem so unlikely to Jenkins? Does Geneva have to be so hopeless? What is essential to Simak's idea of human purpose?) there's so many interesting situations to ponder; it has a lot of charm and it's quite sad to see so many eras ending, one after another.
I'd strongly advise you to seek out an edition with "Epilog", I sort of understand why some people don't like it but I thought it contained perhaps the most powerful scene in the story and the thing that is staying with me most. I got a feeling that however much things change, some of those places and Jenkins will always be out there somewhere. I love Jenkins.

When I started reading the book, I was wondering whether to skip the introductions because I generally tend to read introductions and forewards after I finish the story, but most of them are part of the actual story! They're a framing a device. I wish Simak had cut out some recapping, it makes some sense for magazine serialization but it drags down the story in book form a bit.

3/4 of the way through a book that was recommended by both James Morrison and ledge and it is not disappointing. Can’t wait to see what will happen after the dust storm ends.

So far seems to be shaping up to be an instant ILB sf classic, a worthy successor to Inverted World.

Which?