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

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

Interview with an explorer of Octavia Butler's voluminous archives (just one aspect: she copied everything, incl printing out email--- sure wished I'd kept doing that, when the floppy drive stopped working)(yeah, could maybe still find an external, but I've read that they don't work so well with Windows 7 and above)https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/tracing-octavia-butlers-footsteps-interview-rochell-d-thomas/#!

picked up at the library:

Silverberg's "Stochastic Man" - one of the last novels he wrote before his "retirement" and one of the last few I haven't read. (Recently realized that his retirement + unretirement overlaps with Miles Davis')
LeGuin "The Word for World is Forest" - finally getting around to this. I like LeGuin but have to take her in small doses.
RA Lafferty "Arrive at Easterwine" - this guy. I don't know if I like him or not really but he is so idiosyncratic and strange that I keep trying.

Blish's criticism of Lafferty's "Fourth Mansions" would seem to apply to a fair amount of his work:

"inventive" and "fascinating straight through-and as a dividend, it is often funny", but faulted it for "a whole lot of over-writing" and "speeches that could never come out of a human mouth".

the ridiculous names and speech patterns are def distracting

I don't mean to be disrespectful but I find LeGuin really boring to read. Gonna make myself finish one someday, though.

there's a certain coldness and restraint in her writing. I really liked the last few I read though - three Hainish Cycle novels, the last of which (City of Illusions) was by far the best

Is there a good one to start with outside of Earthsea and Left Hand of Darkness - Dispossessed is the hard one, right?

I read "Disposessed" and yeah it was hard going at first, perfectly fine once I got invested in the plot and concept though. I don't know if LeGuin's problems in that regard are distinct from those of a lot of (most?) other science fiction.

Earthsea cycle is an easy read iirc, for obvious target audience reasons.

I found a book of Inuit speculative fiction, Ajjiit: Dark Dreams of the Ancient Arctic. It's not bad, basically taking creatures from Inuit storytelling and rendering them in a fantasy-horror style.

Sounds great, I was recently wondering if there was any writers doing that. It's a collaboration between two writers, Sean A. Tinsley and Rachel A. Qitsualik (she has the Inuit background)

Is there a good one to start with outside of Earthsea and Left Hand of Darkness - Dispossessed is the hard one, right?

this is a tough call. The Earthsea stuff didn't really grab me as a YA, and then I read Left Hand of Darkness in high school and liked it and the Dispossessed in college (and *really* liked that one), and then from there I've just kinda dipped in to various short story collections and random novellas. I don't think she's particularly difficult to get into.

I don't mean to be disrespectful but I find LeGuin really boring to read. Gonna make myself finish one someday, though.

― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, December 6, 2016 12:04 AM (fifteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Only read The Dispossessed, and while it seems to be p much canon on ILX, I found it monolithic and a real slog. Having a plot where all the characters operate in a deliberately detached, emotionally cold way didn't help much. I felt like the characters were more just vessels for concepts, moved from set-to-set like pawns so they could discuss the arguments set out in the book. I liked the premise, but the execution just didn't work that well for me.