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

Um...

What's the story where a guy travels back in time, accidentally steps on a bug, and when he returns the ignorant right wing demagogue who was going to get crushed in the polls has won?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder

time to finally read "it can't happen here", i guess

me + al ewing + mark s talking about Sound of Thunder:

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/05/a-bite-of-stars-a-slug-of-time-and-thou-episode-6/

Almost revived sluglords thread instead

Come to think of it, did you guys not read "Track 12"?

We did!

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/09/a-bite-of-stars-a-slug-of-time-and-thou-episode-10/

I miss that podcast.

Are they all still up on Freaky Trigger?

They're linked right there ^

Ah, and they're all linked here: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/category/slugoftime-podcast/

Despite its cheesy cover, I got pulled into Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy by names with reps, starting with the editor, Ellen Datlow. She was fiction editor of Omni, and I've still got a good collection from that era (before it went all science fact, all UFO, all cattle mutilation, all meninblack, all the time). Also we get new (as of 2011) stories by John Crowley, Peter S. Beagle, Pat Cadigan, Lucius Shephard----but my fave faves are by writers I'd never heard of before. Elsewhere, the overall commitment to character development via action and vice-versa, while (usually) finding or at least seeking a way around or through cheesy tropes, yet keeping it entertaining in the moment, can get occasionally get a bit dense, though re-reading passages (usually) proves worthwhile---but vibemaster Matthew Kressel pulls me almost word by word through "The Bricks of Gelecek":

Always In fours we came to your cities. The sand blew us into flesh, and we walked like men through your iron gates and your tented marketplaces. Dust fell from our fingertips, our feet...We touched your fruits and your doorposts. We patted the heads of your children and shook the callused hands of your husbands. You smiled at us.
Within hours came the winds, the decay, the screams. Pits formed in the streets where we had stopped. Your statues rusted and blew away. Your houses fell to kindling. Your children vanished like whispers.
By dawn there was nothing left but a hole in the earth. And those who had carried thoughts of this vanquished city and its people found a blank spot in their minds, a void where once there were men. Well dang. What can follow that? But he's just getting started.

Also new to me is Nathan Ballingrud, whose "The Way Station" is about a guy who comes to a nice town in Florida, hoping to reconcile with his grown daughter. But she might not like the way New Orleans (Pre-Katrina, so hey, but then again it) is lodged in a hole in his chest.

I had heard about (even posted news about upthread) Caitlin R. Kiernan, but "The Colliers' Venus (1893)" is the first story of hers I've actually read, and it's a well-paced dazzler.

Nathan Ballingrud made some noise a few years ago with a collection called North American Lake Monsters.

An interview with Ted Chiang: https://medium.com/learning-for-life/stories-of-ted-chiangs-life-and-others-694cb3c80d13#.v3bas74m5

(which I confess I have not actually read much of and I'm mainly linking it here as a bookmark for myself, but it was these SF threads which first put me on to Chiang, so thank you)

I think that was posted earlier.

Hadn't seen it, thanks! "Story of Your Life" is in xpost The Big Book of Science Fiction and online, apparently, though don't know if it's the whole novella. Had a reservation, or a question anyway, but can't post it without getting spoilery. Looking fwd to the screen version, Arrival, a critical and commercial success.

(James I just replied, but ilx bot still taunts me for trying to do it with a re:, so if don't see a new email w subject "Chiang", check spam)

(Saw it, as you know)

kinda surprised at Arrival's success myself. skeptical of its onscreen adaptability. I tend to hate when studios make movies about media that don't lend themselves to screen treatments (comics, language, math, etc.)

Yeah, exactly. Still curious to see (for) myself and compare with the story.

It is a good, not great, effort, which is thus significantly better than i expected

reading Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood. so far it is an hilarious portrait of an implausibly austere old upper-class scottish lady, as told by a convalescing teen. brilliant stuff

whoops posted this in the wrong thread

That's a great book, but are you sure this is the thread you wanted?

Sorry, xpost

It's a great book, post wherever you like!

Um...

Adam Roberts: Bethany -- thoughtful, vivid theological time travel story about man who decides to shoot Christ AFTER his resurrection but BEFORE his ascension, accidentally changes universe from being mechanical to relativistic

Just got hold of a Ligotti horror anthology. So far I like the guy's fatalistic style, but I've only read the first story - the Frolic, and now I'm onto Les Fleurs

How is "Mutation Planet"? They featured it on WeirdFictionReview.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, October 18, 2016 4:21 PM (one month ago)

Some ilxors linked to this the other day on FB but I don't think it has been posted here yet: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2016/11/21/paradise-of-bachelors-science-fiction/

good list, inclusion of Dhalgren aside. Not the Disch book I would've picked either but whatever. Plus a handful of things I hadn't heard of, so it's all good.

I think that lafferty cover is by the forever changes artist

Wow. Fun fact for sure

haha waaaaaht

I have a bunch of his stuff apparently - Lem, Moorcock, Dick, etc. Good stuff.

Was I right? Ha.

He's great. I have a friend who works for Mayfair Games now and he told me that he had a pitch for a board game with art all done by that guy. He thought his higher ups would flip for it but they didn't get it and the project didn't happen.

I cant verify that he did that particular cover but it does look similar to other ones he did

That list was quite fun. A few I'd never heard of.

Forever Changes, several ripe PJ Farmers, Dick, etc: all by Bob Pepper, as pointed out by Jon Lewis here (with several groovy Peppers still visible too):

signet horror paperback covers of the 70s and 80s and related desiderata

think he also did a bunch of nonesuch explorer covers

Just started THE STARS MY DESTINATION.

Wow

I found a Dune popup book in my local 2ndhand bookshop!

http://i.imgur.com/n6ttY0V.jpg

Surely that should be its own thread

Whattttt

Wanttttt

hahaha i love that that is a thing that exists

Round-up of recent SF & F by N.K. Jemisin (won a 2016 Hugo Award for her novel “The Fifth Season.” Her latest book is its sequel, “The Obelisk Gate). Will have to wait for cheapo ed of the Egan, but others look okay (and as she says, e-books also cheapo). Big collections by Le Guin, also writers I hadn't heard of (some of whose stuff she pans): http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/books/review/the-latest-in-science-fiction-and-fantasy.html?smid=tw-nytb