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

I don't think it's a classic and it is *very* of it's time but it's hardly terrible

you guys ever just chill out with a youtube audiobook? cuz lord knows there's no end to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqXFChGO1o8

finding vids with good audio is a feat though.

Shakey, MJH seems to be annoyed that that one was chosen to be an "SF Masterwork" and describes it as "the crappiest thing I ever wrote."

haha well yeah it isn't his best

MJH also on why he doesn't like Centauri Device: "It was like stealing the milk float then complaining it won’t corner like a Ducati. More important, if you argue in the other guy’s arena you are already accepting his definitions: 1973/4 was my time to walk away for a bit & do something else, but I didn’t see that until a couple of years later. Now I can offer space opera as essential MJH: offensive trash fun. & try to put the Saturday night back into it too."

He must not have totally hated it, he reused the Chambers Reaction Pistol in the Light trilogy. Or maybe that was just salvage from the wreckage.

Finished Riddley Walker, kinda of a bummer huh? Thought the language was a great device for obscuring the fact that the profundities within are the words of a 12 year old kid considered by his society to be a man. I was most troubled not by the warning that we might be in for a lot of trubba if we continue our lust for Power (that much is old news), more by the idea that it's Riddley's intellectually stunted and learning impaired society that might be meant to be a reflection of ours, rather than the one that came before and blew it all up.

maybe both?

Just finished Children of Dune, which got to be a slog toward the end, though the end saw & raised my sense of a necessarily torturous course--=as it is for the lead Child, so it must be for the reader, descending into thee hive of penultimate crises---leading to the verge of a great leap forward, which is also a great loop, as far as possible---or so it is said by the One within it.
So, while bullshit x casuistry presented as just that (characters running games on each other) seemed, for a while, to be overbalanced by cosmic twaddle we're supposed to take seriously, the balance of the first two volumes is restored and reinforced by the end (incl, in terms of implications and clues, via the *tone* of final speechifying: nice). Also, what one fictional commentator on and within these chronicles calls the "mystique" of power extends "even to nature," and we also get one character explicitly described as staggering "from paradox to paradox," paradox being as least as much the coin of the realm at the psychotropic and.or addictive melange (AKA spice). Somebody even comes up with "a purpose for evolution, " whoopee.
We'll see how this goes in the second trilogy, but I still have some misgivings, because some of the realpolitik in this volume still seems shakier than in the first two (female plotters seem dumber, and they do a lot of plotting).

Just hope the deadpan irony gets back more into the author's tensile plot-twists and less into the characters' now murkier scheming and woolgathering.

So what I look for is the creative tension between the author's own more idealistic/grandiose urges and his critical overview/insights, in the tension of his ambitious story arcs and character development.

just read gene wolfe's the sorcerer's house, twice of course. very good i thought, more pulpy than other stuff i have read by him but in a fun way. as usual i am overflowing with theories to mysteries that will never be solved. strongest urge since peace to write to him and ask him what the fuck actually happened.

Peace is def my fave Wolfe; not quite like anything else I've read, even by him, although there are familiar elements, sort of. In recent years, I've gotten put off by some of his short stories, old and newer, but he usually needs more room to develop. Anyway, will check The Sorcerer's House at some point.

Found a discarded twofer from the Looking Glass Library, a trade-size equivalent to the ancient Ace Double drugstore paperbacks: on one side, you get George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin; flip it over upside down, and read The Book of Dragons, by E. Nesbit. Advance Reader's Copy, so dunno if these were actually sold in one volume. Include drawings from the original editions, published in 1872 and 1901 respectively. I've read a few stories from each collection elsewhere: good, distinctive stuff---MacDonald's a weirdo beyond Hadrian's Wall and Nesbit's up to something in her English garden, with quite a view.

https://o.twimg.com/2/proxy.jpg?t=HBhIaHR0cHM6Ly9taWFtaXRucy5maWxlcy53b3JkcHJlc3MuY29tLzIwMTUvMDUvc29ic2YtY29uLXByb21vLTIuanBnP3c9NjQwFMAHFIwIABYAEgA&s=CHiI0UsTGNQPPmYI6qPS20cGeD0IUbb2P0umkHLDELc

more info here:
http://linkis.com/wordpress.com/t6OjY

Steamfunk!

Speaking of which, Nalo Hopkinson just sent this along ( brief intro is a bit stilted, but the books---science fiction etc---are worth reading about)
http://theculture.forharriet.com/2015/05/5-lesser-known-black-women-authors.html#axzz3aSOES7Hz

And courtesy of The Nitrate Diva, a pre-Code science fiction musical I'd never heard of, Just Imagine---great description:

https://nitratediva.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/just-imagine-1930/

https://nitratediva.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/justimagineposter.jpg?w=584

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2015/03/16/affection-for-writers-and-their-stories-drives-easthampton-small-beer-press/9CYwm0MV73oJxpNuFXTJfP/story.html

Found that whilst wondering what Liz Hand was up to and looking at her twitter feed.

Yeah, I need to check out some Small Beer Press books, thanks. Also maybe some of these:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-best-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books-for-may/2015/05/19/24ba47d6-fa63-11e4-9ef4-1bb7ce3b3fb7_story.html

Good links recently. I've got a few unread Small Beer books.

finished Centauri Device, find Harrison's dissatisfaction with it understandable, it's both less fully realized and narratively clumsier than Light/Nova Swing/Empty Space even though it seems to take place in a very similar universe. in retrospect it reads like a dry run for the trilogy. what it does have going for it is that 70s drug hangover thread of exhaustion and resignation, it oozes the ennui of the era.

still working through Zelazny's "Lord of Light" which, apart from the fight scenes, is very enjoyable. (For some reason I find narrative descriptions of physical combat - sword fights, wrestling matches, etc. - interminably boring, always feels like padding to me when these scenes pop up in novels)

and then on deck I have a couple Lafferty books a coworker loaned me (turns out he is a big fan) - Past Master and Iron Tears.

At Waterstones today I saw a big display for Kirsty Logan's Gracekeepers, making a lot of her being Scottish. Enthusiastic quote from Le Guin. Something about a circus on water. Anyone read her?

Saw Vance's Night Lamp as a new SF Masterwork.

Amazon seems to be the best way to keep track of the Masterworks series. Here's the newest additions (some may be reissues with new designs).

(Fantasy)
Patricia A. McKillip - Ombria In Shadow
Sheri S. Tepper - Beauty
Tim Powers - Expiration Date
Patricia A. McKillip - The Forgotten Beasts Of Eld
Robert Holdstock - Lavondyss (11 Jun 2015)
Ellen Kushner - Thomas The Rhymer (9 Jul 2015)
John Gardner - Grendel (9 Jul 2015)
Michael Scott Rohan - The Anvil Of Ice (10 Sep 2015)
Ursula K. Le Guin - Orsinia: Malafrena, Orsinian Tales (15 Oct 2015)
Tim Powers - Earthquake Weather (12 Nov 2015)
Jerry Yulsman - Elleander Morning (10 Dec 2015)
Charles G. Finney -The Circus of Dr Lao (7 Jan 2016)

(Science Fiction)
Hal Clement - Mission Of Gravity
Robert Silverberg - Downward To The Earth
Arkady Strugatsky/Boris Strugatsky - Hard To Be A God
Jack Vance - Night Lamp
Lucius Shepard - Life During Wartime (11 Jun 2015)
Walter M. Miller - Dark Benediction (13 Aug 2015)
Ursula K. Le Guin - The Wind's Twelve Quarters & The Compass Rose (13 Aug 2015)
George R.R. Martin - Dying Of The Light (10 Sep 2015)
Arkady Strugatsky/Boris Strugatsky - Monday Starts On Saturday (10 Sep 2015)
Ursula K. Le Guin - Always Coming Home (8 Oct 2015)
Vernor Vinge - A Fire Upon The Deep (7 Jan 2016)
Cordwainer Smith - Norstrilia (11 Feb 2016)

Yay circus of dr lao!!!

Love that fucking book

Shakey idk if you already know laffertys stuff but if this is your first dip I strongly recommend starting with one of the story collections not the novels

I miraculously came across a collection of his awhile ago ("Strange Doings") so I have some inkling of what I'm in for. But yeah I do not have high hopes for his first novel.

The novels of his that I thought really worked were reefs of earth and annals of klepsis

man the masterworks stuff is just the weirdest selection these days

Fantasy selections always far more unfamiliar. Never heard of Ellen Kushner, Michael Scott Rohan or Jerry Yulsman.

Appealing take on Kushner's work here; haven't looked up Rohan or Yulsman yet (this Encyclopedia of Fantasy site stops in 1997):
http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.php?nm=kushner_ellen I already knew I needed to check Tepper and def more McKillip.

man the masterworks stuff is just the weirdest selection these days

yeah there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it

Just looked up these writers. Yulsman is a pretty famous photographer and this book is about Hitler being killed and WW2 never happening.

Recent SF Gateway Omnibus additions. Plenty of them are fantasy.

Robert Holdstiock - Berserker: The Shadow of the Wolf/The Bull Chief/The Horned Warrior
Damon Knight - Far Out/In Deep/Off Centre/Turning On
Charles Sheffield - Sight Of Proteus/Summertide/Cold As Ice
Richard Cowper - The Road to Corlay/A Dream of Kinship/A Tapestry of Time/The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
Michael G Coney - Mirror Image/Charisma/Brontomek
Jack L. Chalker - MIDNIGHT AT THE WELL OF SOULS/SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR/THE IDENTITY MATRIX
Patricia McKillip Volume One - In the Forests of Serre/Alphabet of Thorn/The Bell at Sealey Head
Edgar Pangborn - Davy/Mirror for Observers/Good Neighbors and Other Strangers
Patricia McKillip Volume Two - Song for the Basilisk/The Tower at Stony Wood/Od Magic
Lucius Shepard - Green Eyes/The Jaguar Hunter/Vacancy
E.E. 'Doc' Smith - The Skylark of Space/Skylark Three/Skylark of Valeron/Skylark Duquesne (31 Dec 2015)
Mack Reynolds (TBC 31 Dec 2015)
John W. Campbell (TBC 31 Dec 2015)
Fredric Brown (TBC 31 Dec 2015)

In 1924, Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Conan Doyle are among the authors responding to a query about what they consider to be their best books. Good comment from a reader, too:
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2015/05/best-books.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29

Read Red Mars. I now know too much about Martian geology and weather.

Ha. Still have not read. Did just finish Station Eleven, which I will recommend.

The post-apocalyptic stuff is done well enough, but the stuff from life before and up through the pandemic and the way it all links together- the time frame jumps around from section to section- is grebt.

In his positive review on his website, Christopher Priest recommends another novel involving a post-pandemic planet, by this fellow http://www.georgerstewart.com/

Which seems to come highly recommended by ilx0rs James Morrison, Milton Parker and kingfish.

And Øystein as well.

Anyway, her post-apocalyptic world is kinder and gentler than some, hopefully not too kind and gentle, albeit with some gruffer or grislier stuff alluded to and elided.

Barry Pain's favourite of his own books hasn't been reprinted and isn't even listed in most databases.

The blog Marooned Off Vesta has been doing monthly roundups of science fiction short stories this year.
He's trying to read every SF story that gets published online each month and posts short assessments and links to his favorites.

http://maroonedoffvesta.blogspot.no/search/label/short%20fiction%20recommendations

This is making me consider buying an e-reader.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/25/business/media/science-fiction-writer-signs-a-3-4-million-deal.html

As noted in the obituary thread, Tanith Lee passed away.

There's a writer I'm really curious about and have no clue where to start.

I haven't read them yet (only a short story that impressed the hell out of me) but Secret Books Of Paradys (easy to find in an omnibus book) and the Flat Earth series (I got the two omnibuses of that but there's ebooks of it) are what she was best known for. There's a 2 volume Select Stories collection too.

Flat Earth was going to get another two books but I don't know if she had finished them. A few years ago she said she was having trouble selling a few finished books but I think Storm Constantine might have changed that because she seemed to be publishing as much Tanith as she could. But she did have loads of books recently and she was constantly featured in horror and fantasy anthologies.

Recently updated entry, lotta links down in here too:
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lee_tanith
I read this and went straightaway to grab several that had been on my local library's shelves for years, but they had suddenly vanished. None left in catalog, in the sell-off shop, nada.

RIP

Dreams of Dark and Light seems to be the only comprehensive collection of Tanith Lee's early stories, but it's OOP and is selling for crazy money on Amazon. the only book I've read by her is The Book of the Damned, the first volume of her Secret books of Paradys — gothic novellas set in a fictionalized Paris, kind of similar to Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen in the way it uses multiple narratives set in various time periods to show how a city can impress itself on the human psyche (and vice versa). parts of it were too melodramatic and 'erotic' for my taste, but I'd recommend it. her Flat Earth stories might also be a good introduction, but idk.

uh xpost