Thread of Wonder, the next 5000 posts: science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction 2021 and beyond

Really dreadful story

Thread time. Well, the cat's out of the bag and I've been getting questions about this, so I guess it's time to break cover. As many of you know, for 3+ years I've been the all-consuming obsession of a small but dedicated cyberstalking group. 1/

— Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) January 24, 2022

Christ

Not sure if I should click or not.

https://intermultiversal.net/athena-andreadis-desert-island-space-operas

'space operas' in the link piqued my interest but i guess i'm just not in the mood for this combination of chandler style world building and desperate eco worthiness:

The youngster, eyes as smoky as her mother’s, felt unrepentant. She already knew starfire – they spent many nights on the foam. She knew of the landers, too. They had not been here long, said the Elders. They could not understand the People’s singing – yet they trod as lightly as the whisper of a calm sea. Many came to rest in her people’s domain, bearing the gifts of their kin. She longed to catch more glimpses of them. She wanted to encompass the whole world, sea and land, for her lays.

I don't know what Chandler style worldbuilding is but I think I get what you mean otherwise. Haven't read Athena's fiction yet but I've found her blogging interesting at times. I think I'd have some major disagreements but that's the usual. I happened to buy Kingsbury's Courtship Rite a bit before I read that interview.

I've been casually following the "squeecore" eruptions, which are amusing; essentially arguments about parochialism while firmly embedded in it. Anglophone SFF in all media has always leaned heavily towards YA/hero's journey w/ its associated attributes. #fantasy #sciencefiction

— Dr. Athena Andreadis (@AthenaHelivoy) January 15, 2022

Another writer, critique of techno-optimism
https://bloodknife.com/inadequacy-of-inspirational-scifi/

I don't know what Chandler style worldbuilding

https://chrisroutledge.co.uk/2006/06/28/raymond-chandler/

it's an old chestnut and an easy target but, well, it's funny because it's true.

(maybe you already know about that letter, i wasn't exactly transparent in my description)

I kind of like that stuff sometimes when it has a kind of jargon poetry, because really technical stuff is going to fly over my head. I did recently read a story about a submarine that was a bit like that and just pretty dull

had a quick look at the squeecore podcast, definitely think they've picked up on an aesthetic that we've noticed here before, more problematic when they talk about the politics and the intentions behind it.

holy shit on that Chandler thing being from 1953

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/s5mtre/whats_up_with_squeecore_and_superversive/hsyoqgn/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
This person does a pretty good job of summing up the major points. I think the podcast is doing a sequel because there's been a lot of response. There's a writer called Simon McNeil who had a lot of interesting points but I think his hopepunk piece suffered from a lack of fiction examples, he just focuses on manifestos
https://simonmcneil.com/2022/01/15/notes-on-squeecore/
https://simonmcneil.com/2021/12/30/hopepunk-a-genealogical-sketch/

Something I find really strange is how people (including Athena several years ago) talk about this trend and much of YA fiction having an aversion to a lot of deeper emotions. Aren't fans of this stuff all about "all the feels"?

I've never read Wendig but when people complain about him it sounds like a similar but different set of problems. I can't think of another SFF writer who gets dunked on for their style so much.

I listened to that podcast ep too, do wish they'd paid a bit more attention to the ahem craft of podcasting, yeah lag happens s but that's why you edit!

Initially thought there was a bit of a disconnect between the argument that SFF has become professionalised and that economics have made it so only financially secure ppl can write it but depressingly the more I think about the idea that well off ppl would nonetheless gravitate towards the kind of writing that makes them billionaires the more plausible it seems.

Whatever the faults of the argument tho the backlash certainly seems to have validated their critiques, a lot of "I guess you hate diversity" strawmanning at an argument put froth by a woman of colour and "I'm not gonna dignify that with a response" dissimulating.

A tweet thread

I have no idea if there is such a thing as squeecore as an overriding genre, but I do know most of the books that get pushed at me (I write for the Washington Post) tend to come with PR letters that emphasize fanfic terminology (shippable, etc), often position books in comparison

— Silvia Moreno-Garcia (@silviamg) January 18, 2022

Although this stuff might not always be the most successful in the wider world, it is in some of the online short fiction markets. I kept on thinking "there's more than 50 short fiction magazines and lots of variety between them", I keep discovering new ones, amazing how many have been going for years, but most of them probably have a very small audience. And it seems people who like fanfiction and YA most have become influential in the organized core of the genre. So Benedict got put on an industry predators list by the SFF Codex group for making fun of fan fiction and I think that's the most damning things about all this. Apparently there were even therapy sessions for people upset by what she said but she never got any apologies after she suffered a week of death threats and hacking attempts.

holy shit on that Chandler thing being from 1953

Just happened to pick up Jeff Vandermeer's nonfiction collection Monstrous Creatures today (I read it a decade ago and surprised by how much I've forgotten) and found this article in a slightly different version
https://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2007/10/16/the-triumph-of-competence/
Yet another piece about recently discussed complaints from years ago. There's links and many comments that are going to take me down rabbit holes.

xpost it's what ledge posted above: https://chrisroutledge.co.uk/2006/06/28/raymond-chandler/

Thanks. I saw it later. It’s the same thing, but it’s missing the punchline!

Barry N. Malzberg wrote a story called “Playback” with the whole letter at the front and then repeating the narrative part as the beginning of his own story.

You know, that IS a great punchline ...

There is also this.

What a line up for the two day @CityLightsBooks symposium, DANGEROUS VISIONS & NEW WORLDS: RADICAL SCIENCE FICTION, 1950-1985. Online & free to attend. Full agenda (which may be subject to change) & registration details here: https://t.co/JIxpseJGwF pic.twitter.com/G7KanCeTN9

— Andrew Nette (@Pulpcurry) January 29, 2022

Cool. I liked what I've read from Nick Mamatas. Assuming it's the same Mike Stax as Ugly Things MIke Stax.

read Tevis' Mockingbird. can't think what it reminded me of but was a pleasant (and shortish) read. maybe Asimov's robot stories. felt kind of 50s even though it was 1980.

same bloke more famous for writing The Hustler, The Colour Of Money, The Man Who Fell To Earth and, lately, Queen's Gambit, but I'd not heard of him before this.

Machen’s great friend A E Waite, scholar of the esoteric, was to present his theory in The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal (1909). Machen’s own idea, however, was that the Grail represented a tradition of a lost ritual in the independent Celtic church, suppressed but still remembered when the Roman church became dominant. He was influenced in this by the traditions of healing cups (and other relics) associated with Celtic saints in Wales, Cornwall and Cumbria (the latter was originally the Welsh-speaking Old North).
From Mark Valentine's "Centenary--'The Secret Glory' by Arthur Machen":
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2022/02/centenary-secret-glory-by-arthur-machen.html

https://themagnet.substack.com/p/the-mystery-of-the-jet-propelled

Yeah---it was a PlayHouse 90 adaptation too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jet_Propelled_Couch_(Playhouse_90)
This has links to Disney+ and Paramount+ for streaming the ep, supposedly---might be elsewhere for free: https://simkl.com/tv/2629/playhouse-90/season-2/episode-10/

Also an unfinished Sondheim project.

if we're gonna be mentioning television on this ILB thread then Talking Pictures TV in the UK is showing old Outer Limits episodes on fridays at 8.

(Donald Pleasance last week, David McCallum this week, Martin Landau next week)

Sorry,I just glanced at the Magnet piece, didn't notice mention of the Playhouse 90 adaptation or the abandoned Sondheim project (also now see that movies have been proposed). Had never read the article linked in there, with some plausible arguments for Kirk Allen being based, at least in part, on CS/PL, although if Lindner ever did out his patient, would be unethical, wouldn't it? But the author goes past the shilly-shallying Stovall's claims and denials about what Lindner told him that he remembers/doesn't remember/is sure he was told etc.
Anyway, I've had that same paperback eidtion on the shelf for many many years, finally just now read "The Jet-Propelled Couch" (will have to read the rest of the collection), and it's a hell of a story--- a bit neat, as noted by referenced skeptics, and so much on the nose dialogue too, though I suppose his defense for that would be that his records and recollection of the sessions are reworked as part of the balancing act, of revelation and identity protection---so it's creative nonfiction, proto-new journalism, meta-science fiction too. Not the best writing, but like a scenario or "treatment" for a film or other adaptation indeed. Hope somebody else takes a shot at it.

Shilly-shallying Stover not Stovall. The Fifty-Minute Hour is available as a “1 Hour Borrow” at The Internet Archive’s Open Library. That’s enough to read the “Jet-Propelled Couch” chapter. I guess it took me about an hour, yeah. Also worth a shot.

RIP Angelica Gorodischer and Richard L Tierney

I've started Adrian Tchaikovsky's Elder Race, a novella with a fairly neat trick. It has a highly advanced society (represented by a single character) and a primitive one who see the former character as a wizard and his technology as magic. Not an original idea, this story even borrows the outpost/watcher set up from a TNG episode; what makes it neat is that (so far) the chapters are narrated in turn by the 'wizard' and one of the primitives, so it alternates between SF and fantasy. I started his Children of Time a couple of years ago but abandoned it, can't really remember why; if this one turns out well I might go back to it or try something else of his.

> can't really remember why

arachnophobia?

he's another one who seems to always have something in the ebook monthly deals, Dragonfly Falling this month, but half of them are parts of series and half of them are fantasy so...

(which is book 2 of 10 and 700+ pages long!)

a short stay in hell by steven peck

novella about eternity and hell (my favorites!) based on borges's library of babel. very good! unbelievably bleak!

"Unbelievably bleak" has my attention already!

Right, sounds like a must read

It fucked me right up I’ll be honest with you. Like a sad Ted chiang.

It's got a rave review from Ken Jennings!

Really dig settings like this, lots of suggestions in the comments too
https://www.tor.com/2022/02/18/five-fantasy-worlds-that-arent-just-magical-versions-of-earth/

Zachary Jernigan offering free copies of his new novella to united states goodreads users (I don't know if he can be contacted anywhere else)
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/22248234-free-copies-of-a-history-of-the-defeated

Reissue of a rare book split into two
https://blackcoatpress.com/forthcoming-the-handbook-of-french-science-fiction-fantasy.html
https://blackcoatpress.com/forthcoming-the-handbook-of-french-horror.html

This is of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_geological_features_on_Charon

enjoying the murderbot series

brisk, short, action-packed, often funny, solid milieu

Murderbot is great. Also enjoyed her Raksura series

News from Wormwoodia blog:
Editor, author and Wormwood stalwart Jim Rockhill will be giving an illustrated Zoom talk on J Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish Master of Mystery on 28 August 2022 at 2000-2130 BST.

It is in association with The Viktor Wynd Museum and the Last Tuesday Society. Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland, will host the event.

The announcement reminds us that M R James was a great enthusiast of Le Fanu:

' In the “Prologue” to Madam Crowl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery (1925), his invaluable gathering of Le Fanu’s hitherto uncollected stories, no less a practitioner of the form than M. R. James pronounced: “Le Fanu stands absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories. That is my deliberate verdict, after reading all the supernatural tales I have been able to get hold of. Nobody sets the scene better than he, nobody touches in the effective detail more deftly.” '

Jim is a deep scholar of Le Fanu who has edited collections of his supernatural stories and of essays on the Irish visionary, and (with Brian J Showers) an anthology of stories inspired by him, among many other important editions.

Please follow the link for full details and to book.

(Mark Valentine)
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/j-sheridan-le-fanu-irish-master-of-mystery-a-zoom-talk-by-jim-rockhill-tickets-275053180467?fbclid=IwAR3enCxc5YjOyAg4vk6TIqGRp3QHCQzeI8RpjqXsyRj_Rrw17eMpz-lMHA0

a short stay in hell by steven peck

jesus you were not kidding about the bleakness

haha ikr

This is ridiculous. Literally, I KNOW editors and agents who ask for Whedonesque plots and dialogue. Apparently everybody knows what squeecore is when it's time to sell a book, but not when it's being critiqued.

— Qualia Redux (@QualiaRedux) March 4, 2022

Has anyone encountered this in your SFF reading? I've never got around to any of this stuff, but I've never been interested in Scalzi, Wendig but maybe T. Kingfisher (although she said she dislikes Whedon) someday

So is it sort of a snarky cozy? I've only read Scalzi's Lock In, having an attraction to SF prodecurals---as has been mentioned by some reviewers, this one (with at least one sequel, and a backstory novella) can be seen as an extension of Asimov's robot detective stories, except snarky, also there's some near-future political commentary, in the form of anti-Haden/Threep MAGA-type aholes on DC streets---Wiki tells it right:
plot summary
The world is exposed to a highly contagious virus. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu-like symptoms. For 1%, the virus causes the victims to be fully awake, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. This is known as "Lock In", and resembles the real condition known as locked-in syndrome. The illness comes to be known as "Haden's Syndrome" with its victims called "Hadens". Humanoid robotic personal transport units controlled by a Haden's brain (nicknamed "Threeps" after C-3PO from Star Wars) are developed as the primary way for a Haden to interact with the outside world.

Twenty five years after the initial virus exposure, FBI agents Chris Shane (who is a Haden) and Leslie Vann are assigned to a Haden-related murder, with a suspect who is an "Integrator" – someone who can let a Haden use their bodies. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden, then finding the suspect for the murder is complicated. Further Integrator-Haden related murders occur, making the case larger than expected, and as Shane and Vann dig deeper, they uncover a plot to completely shake up the Haden economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_In

Moves right along, though gets a little too TV series joeky at times, later in the story.
Liked it for light reading, but haven't felt urge to read anything else by him, although O may. Just not into that kind of light these days.