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

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/296318/484521573
I've read a couple of stories and found them very mixed but still haven't tackled his Kane books. The omnibuses annoyingly never got cheap paperback versions.

I like that neglected dark 1970s fantasy author looks EXACTLY how you'd expect

It is sad seeing that clip of Etchison talking about writing all those scripts that will never be read (do studios own them?). There's probably a treasure trove, mountains of unproduced film scripts and all studios want is franchises, adaptations and biopics of famous people.

Some notes about Wagner for anyone unfamiliar:
It seems like Kane was fairly successful, a lot of sword & sorcery fans put it up there with the big names (I just saw that the philosophy youtuber Gregory B Sadler did a video about Kane, he is an old metalhead so it isn't too surprising).
Wagner edited Year's Best Horror for DAW for over a decade and that might be what he is best known for. Perhaps America's most famous horror anthology editor before Ellen Datlow had done so much of the same?
"Sticks" is widely guessed to be the inspiration for Blair Witch Project. It was based on an experience artist Lee Brown Coye told to Wagner (but Coye made up some stories he told people). It starts off well but I think Wagner seriously drops the ball in the second half and it becomes cthulhu mythos fluff.

I read 'Sticks' last year and immediately thought of The Blair Witch Project, without knowing that others had made the same connection. It's pretty inescapable. Wikipedia also mentions the first season of True Detective:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks_(short_story)

Forgot to mention the some of the Kane books had the advantage of Frank Frazetta.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61w%2Biz9yoUL.jpg
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/d/d7/DTHNGLSSHD1978.jpg
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/8/86/BLDSTNPJQG1975.jpg
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/2/2d/DRKCRSDGZS1976.jpg
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/4/40/NGHTWNDSC31978.jpg

Frazetta said the Dark Crusade painting was what Clint Eastwood pointed to when he was getting him to paint a film poster.

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/2020-in-review-part-one/
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/2020-in-review-part-two/
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/2020-in-review-part-three/

Love the original cover to Dragonflight
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/1/16/DRGNFLGHT1968.jpg

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/storm-constantine-1956-2021/

Oh wow I'd never seen that Dragonflight art.

Just finally got around to the Marlon James book, got about 40-50 pages left. I loved Seven Killings and I don't think this is quite on that level, but I really love the worldbuilding and the way he played with time, memory and narrative through Tracker's retelling of his adventures. The "African Game of Thrones" thing was kind of ridiculous, even James himself said it was "a joke", but if it helped steer even a few new readers his way maybe it isn't the worst marketing decision ever. I'd say the only thing the two have in common is an overload of graphic sex and violence that might not all be strictly necessary to advance the plot.

guessing "x game of thrones" in mainstream literary circles right now just means "this is about a made up world with swords and stuff".

yeah i found that james book laughably grimdark

Paul McAuley's War of the Maps: rubbish, unless you like fantasy masquerading as SF (genetically transformed monsters, a far far future that is largely pre-industrial), picaresques/fetch quests, evil geniuses and lawmen honour bound to take them down no matter the cost. Also way overwritten, e.g. "He extracted his spyglass from the flap pocket of his coat and shot it to its full length and applied it to his right eye', jfc gimme a break. and everyone wears loose white cotton tops and trousers.

I definitely prefer science fantasy to regular science fiction.

love to extract my spyglass

Lol

I definitely prefer science fantasy to regular science fiction

an entirely legitimate preference, though it wasn't that it lacked scientific credibility, more that it could have been rewritten as classic fantasy - mediaeval period, monsters, a dash of magic - with very little effort. which again is fine, just not my cup of tea!

I think his Confluence trilogy was in a similar mode.

I really miss the blog and forum world of speculative fiction before twitter and facebook.

his Confluence trilogy

this better have been set in pittsburgh

i don my wizard's hat

i extract my spyglass

i liked Wool, i liked the fact that the situation they found themselves in thousands of people living in a silo underground wasn't really explained, it just was.

now reading the sequel, Shift, and it's doing ALL the explaining. oh, well.

Re: story blurbs. I'm curious if people see "Love and Betrayal" and think of themselves and get excited? "Derring-do" is the one that amuses me the most, how often I see it and think of some readers saying "Derring-do! I fucking love me some derring-do"

https://kittysneezes.com/im-not-here-to-make-friends-on-unlikable-female-characters/
Quite fun, I laughed a couple of times. Gretchen Felker Martin and RS Benedict

http://file770.com/kathleen-ann-goonan-1952-2021/

I was listening to the latest Geek's Guide To The Galaxy podcast about Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2020 and the Ken Liu story they were talking about sounded fascinating. I'm usually not that interested in near future topical stuff but when it seems to ask enough big questions I guess I'm enticed.
https://slate.com/technology/2019/01/thoughts-and-prayers-ken-liu-short-story.html
But I'm not fond of how it's formatted like an article on the original Slate publication, so I just hope getting it in book form will stay enough of a priority that I don't leave it forever.

Use reader mode in your browser?

Or use this https://pdf.fivefilters.org/simple-print/

Thanks, I might, but really, when a book version is available its hard for me to choose anything else.

Fair

I had totally forgotten the e-reader webpage option existed but I'm still haunted by the couple of times I've seen it fail to pick up the whole page.

I'm interested to find out that there are two DAW authors who were dropped by the publisher but were successful enough in foreign languages that they could keep writing their series: EC Tubb and Ansen Dibell. Eventually the Tubb books appeared in english years later but the Dibell ones never appeared in english despite being written in english.

How often does this kind of thing happen?

gave up on stapledon's Star Maker after almost 100 pages, it didn't seem to be getting any better.

"The crowds that streamed along these footpaths were as variegated as our own. The men wore cloth tunics, and trousers surprisingly like the trousers of Europe, save that the crease affected by the respectable was at the side of the leg."

all that way and this is what he focuses on?

there's also a lot of this:

"How can I describe in a few pages the distinctive character of a whole teeming and storied world, so different from my own, yet so similar?"

and

"It would be tedious to tell of the experiments by which we acquired and perfected the art of controlled flight through interstellar space."

basically excuses for not having to think anything up.

so i started the Wyndham short stories thing instead, Seeds of Time, the second of which could be a martian chronicles out-take. (alternating that with Aichman's Dark Entries (which is probably off-topic))

You wanted more science behind it?

I think Aickman is relevant here.

"It would be tedious to tell of the experiments by which we acquired and perfected the art of controlled flight through interstellar space."

well it probably would, also he's going for something quite different. I thought by the end it was the most convincing description of a kind of deism, the fact that the god of the book creates not just intelligent creatures but an entire sentient universe, and dismisses it as unworthy of his attention is a lol for sure and a good refutation of an interventionist god.

seeds of time was a favourite as a youth, wonder if it holds up.

I'm reading Hyperion, lol wtf.

B-b-but I thought you...

What - had read it already? Unconditionally loved all space opera?

I don’t think anyone will convince me to read Hyperion again. Yes I was only 20 at the time and might not have had the right goggles but... not happening.

I'm 1/4 of the way in, nearly gave up and read a synopsis last night. Seems very much in the 'author should really be writing fantasy' mould, as discussed above with Paul McAuley's War of the Maps. Also going to put it on the list in my head of 'CATHOLICS IN SPAAAAACE!' along with The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, A Canticle for Liebowitz (not in space but you get the idea), and Grass by Sherri S. Tepper (which at least gives them some considerable side-eye).

What - had read it already? Unconditionally loved all space opera?

That might be Peter F Hamilton.

Oh right, exactly, sorry.

This Dan Simmons is a real piece of work. In the first part of Hyperion he invents a punishment worse than crucifixion, in the second part one worse than pretty much anything, and in the third a fate for parents worse than the death of their children. Sometimes I just want a bit of escapism ya know?

lol

What did you expect?

idk, less brutal punishment? there are other ways of writing high stakes drama. seems to be a bit of a thing in space opera though, banks often toyed with it - even had a book partially set in 'hell'; can't remember any specific instances in reynolds but wouldn't be surprised if he went there. Simmons really goes all in though.

to be fair though i thought the third part was actually really good, emotionally hard hitting but not needlessly barbaric.

you used to complain about torture and revenge in reynolds all the time. most specifically the guy welded into the suit of armour in iirc Absolution Gap.