― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 2 May 2005 22:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 2 May 2005 22:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― shieldforyoureyes, Monday, 2 May 2005 22:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― Slumpman (Slump Man), Monday, 2 May 2005 22:51 (nineteen years ago) link
Heheh.
Ned, do you recommend the Book of the New Sun? What would you compare it to?
I would compare it to a thesaurus gone berzerk. (This is a recommendation.) It's...abstruse.
Are there any modern fantasy writers on the same level as Lem or theStrugatsky brothers? (I'm assuming not.)
Was there ever an English language Lem, I wonder. What a dream.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 2 May 2005 22:58 (nineteen years ago) link
That said, I have read an enjoyed some fantasy. Here's another vote for The Book of the New Sun. And my favorite blurring of the SF/fantasy line is The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick.
Has anyone else here read Larry Niven's "The Fourth Profession"? That may be my favorite short story in the genre, even more than "The Cold Equations."
― Curious George (Bat Chain Puller) (Rock Hardy), Monday, 2 May 2005 22:59 (nineteen years ago) link
But if I had to name anyone off the top of my head as absolutely motherfucking essential, Avram Davidson. Read either The Phoenix and the Mirror or "Now Let Us Sleep" and you'll see what I mean (there's much more I could choose from). Ray Bradbury a close second for The Martian Chronicles and "The Veldt."
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 2 May 2005 23:06 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 2 May 2005 23:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 2 May 2005 23:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: But when the monkey die, people gonna cry. (latebloomer), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 00:03 (nineteen years ago) link
INTRIGUED!
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 00:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 00:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 00:47 (nineteen years ago) link
i will always associate it with transient random-noise bursts with announcements, which i guess i was listening to an awful lot when i read it...
― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 03:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 04:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 04:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 04:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 04:49 (nineteen years ago) link
Sci-fi doesn't really mean anything to me, though I've read my share I suppose.
― Gravel Puzzleworth (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 08:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 12:57 (nineteen years ago) link
The Phoenix and the Mirror remains for many his high point w/r/t longer fiction, a reimagining of the character of Virgil Magus, a medieval vision of the Latin poet as a sorceror, in an alternate Roman Empire. But I might also recommend another one of his 'play with history' scenarios, cowritten with Davis, Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 13:04 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.avramdavidson.org/
...and for one of his prime efforts as a critic and essayist (Elvis T. turned me onto this in particular), his take on Lovecraft:
http://www.avramdavidson.org/ephemera.htm#HPL
"...Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Heaven knows, had a talent for writing which was of no mean proportion; only what he did with this talent was a shame and a caution and an eldritch horror. if he had only gotten the Hell down out of his auntie's attic and obtained a job with the Federal Writers Project of the WPA, he could have turned out guidebooks that would be classics and joys to read, forever. Only he stayed up there, muffled up to the tip of his long, gaunt New England chin against the cold which lay more in his heart than in his thermometer, living on 19 cents worth of beans a day, rewriting (for pennies) the crappy MSS of writers whose complete illiteracy would have been a boon to all mankind; and producing ghastly, grisly, ghoulish and horrifying works of his own as well--of man-eating Things which foraged in graveyards, of human/beastie crosses which grew beastier and beastlier as they grew older, of gibbering shoggoths, and Elder Beings which smelt real bad and were always trying to break through Thresholds and Take Over--rugose, squamous, amorphous nasties, abetted by thin, gaunt New England eccentrics who dwelt in attics and who eventually Never Seen Or Heard From Again. Serve them damn well right, I say. In short, Howard was a twitch, boys and girls, and that's all there is to it."
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 13:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― moonglum, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 13:30 (nineteen years ago) link
Since you've said you've not read Davidson, do what I've been saying and read the Treasury. I have that and I have my Lovecraft volumes and I'd rather not part with either.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 13:36 (nineteen years ago) link
Curious G, yes. I grew up on Niven and John Varley, pretty hard SF chaps who nevertheless leant towards fantasy at times. The Fourth Profession is the one where the bartender dude takes an alien pill that gives him mad mystic-prophet skeelz, yes? Always a laugh, is Larry. However, I think my favourite Niven bits are the Beowulf thingummy stories where he's gallivanting around the universe getting pummelled by neutron stars and the like.
To answer the actual question: both, although my tolerance for crap SF is slightly higher than that for rubbish fantasy, the pseudoscientific language and hilarious sexual fetishes of the former outweighing the terrible 'here be dragons' maps and fluffy mysticism of the latter heavily for amusement value.
― Liz :x (Liz :x), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 13:40 (nineteen years ago) link
― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 13:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:00 (nineteen years ago) link
(OK, I'm kidding really)
I read a P.C.Hodgell book once, I liked the cover. IIRC it was pretty good.
Gene Wolfe's 4 books, referred to above, are excellent, really, some of my favourite books ever.
I'm getting back into reading on public transport of late, what's good & new/recent? I'm a bit out of touch (actually very out of touch) - I read Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver" last week, which was very good I thought, but not very SF/fantasy at all.
― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:07 (nineteen years ago) link
But I already like the Comsat Angels! *flees*
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― moonglum, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:13 (nineteen years ago) link
I wouldn't even go that far. They were much different writers on many levels -- thematic, stylistic, in how they used humor. But you'll have to see for yourself.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 14:16 (nineteen years ago) link
(slocki did you finish yr script?)
― jones (actual), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:51 (nineteen years ago) link
Check the end of my big list of authors, m'friend. :-)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:52 (nineteen years ago) link
The Einstein Intersection: SF or fantasy?
xpost
― Curious George (Bat Chain Puller) (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:54 (nineteen years ago) link
Children's fantasy beats children's sci-fi.
Fantasy RPGs beat sci-fi RPGs.
Post-children's sci-fi beats post-children's fantasy by a LONG way.
― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:54 (nineteen years ago) link
I am pwned! I thought there were two 'E's in Delany.
― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 15:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:04 (nineteen years ago) link
Tom raises an interesting point about age shifts. (If you want real pain, Heinlein's kid-oriented SF...on second thought, don't.)
(Actually kinda glad to see Heinlein NOT mentioned so far, I think.)
Meanwhile, though I think his ideas outstrip his narrative abilities at points (and in other cases overwhelm them), Orson Scott Card should be mentioned, and in fact he has a *great* piece up today via the LA Times regarding the death of Star Trek:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-card3may03,0,6007802.story
Worth a read. (He notes to being a fan of Whedon; I'd say anyone who talks about Whedon's abilities re: interpersonal conflict and communication needs to read Ender's Game if they haven't.)
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:07 (nineteen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― Curious George (Bat Chain Puller) (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:12 (nineteen years ago) link
It's hard [har har] to write without getting bogged down in technical details at the expense of the story. Here's a good example -- Ringworld by Niven is a great conceit well explained and illustrated, while some of the interspecies characterization is sharp but not perfectly developed. In Consider Phlebas, Iain M. Banks borrowed Ringworld wholesale and ditched extended explanation for a really good story (doubtless taking advantage of the fact that he didn't need to reinvent or reexplain the wheel, quite literally) -- and as for interaction and characterization, it's quite amazing what he came up with (the Culture novels have in ways all the intentionally parodic zest of Adams with just enough seriousness to make it work surprisingly well; also helps that Banks is essentially an action director working in prose).
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:12 (nineteen years ago) link
To quote Arthur C. Clarke:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:13 (nineteen years ago) link
The SF I tend to prefer, to echo someone else upthread, tilts reality one or two degrees from the norm (or has fucking huge cosmic ideas explored by people whose characterisation is straight out of the modern day soaps) - more extensive worldbuilding in SF generally gives me as little emotional payback as fantasy worldbuilding and is harder work.
That said there's an atavistic part of me that much prefers SF from before it caved in on the idea of characterisation mattering. I got into it because I wanted an autistic escape from human interaction ta very much!
― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:14 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 16:24 (nineteen years ago) link
What Happened To The Corbetts is about the possible effects of a bombing campaign on England, written I think in 1938. The materials science in No Highway is nonsense,* but not too bad for the time it was written; to be honest I'm not sure what its date is. Shute, incidentally, was an important aeronautical engineer in the 20s and 30s; he designed the first plane with a retractable undercarriage.
* the plot of No Highway revolves around fatigue failure in aircraft. There are several mistakes which now seem glaring, but reflect the fact that in Shute's day materials science was relatively poorly studied - and, furthermore, was not something that the majority of engineers knew very much about.
― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 07:19 (nineteen years ago) link
As an adjunct to the question: short story vs novel(la)? Too many stories end up as lame-ass one-liners ("and it turned out he was Hitler!"), but the best are jewels of rare price, whereas novels allow writers to develop more of what they're really about, for better or worse.
― Liz :x (Liz :x), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 08:45 (nineteen years ago) link
No finer twist exists.
― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 08:51 (nineteen years ago) link