hmmm, checking amazon there's a translation by josceyln godwin from the nineties which suits my budget better... no pretty pictures though.
http://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Christian-Rosenkreutz-Hermetic-Sourceworks/dp/0933999356
― no lime tangier, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 01:17 (eight years ago) link
I see there was some chat abt Ursula K LeGuin upthread - have just finished A Wizard of Earthsea for the first time. My initial reaction - this stuff is for kids??? The writing seems so slow and serious and sombre (LeGuin doesn't really do humour, does she?) But there's often a great, almost biblical beauty to the prose (the main character is in some ways a Christ-like figure), and always an incredibly powerful imagination at work - she creates a whole world and mythology in less than 200 pages, and throughout there are hints of a bigger narrative, a greater world still to be explored. She may not be the flashiest, the most pyrotechnic of SF/Fantasy authors, but there's something admirable about her high seriousness - if I'd read this as a child, I would've appreciated the way that doesn't ever talk down to the reader. And this isn't an especially didactic work, though it has humanist things to say about the corrosive desire for power and mastery.
― Chicamaw (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 09:23 (eight years ago) link
http://greydogtales.com/blog/?p=1891
An enjoyable list of fantasy books from 70s-80s.
THIS LIST IS MY LIFE. The Susan Cooper cover art is amazing and at least 300% better than any other version I've ever seen.
Skip Cherryh skip Nargun skip skip...skip...
McKillip is the bomb, y'all. Skot, you should really hide out from the sun this summer with the Riddlemaster Trilogy. McKillip is subtle in a way that fantasy often isn't, kind of LeGuin-ish, now that I think of it. Beautifully haunting, so sensible, everything about them is just RIGHT. Her Forgotten Beasts of Eld is not to be missed, either. Although classed as YA (for a number of reasons, most of them not very good ones), it went waaaaay over my head until I was probably in my 30s. Also my given name was inspired by this book, so naturally I adore it.
Barbara Hambly--funny she's on here because I just re-read The Ladies of Mandrigyn, The Witches of Wenshar, and whatever the third one is. Very disappointing and misogynistic. The Ladies of Mandrigyn might be right there in the title, but they come second to the main hero character and are constantly described by their sexy or unsexy physical characteristics. Every old woman is also fat, pretty ones are thin (and only thin ones are pretty), women who aren't going to fall into bed with the hero are "disagreeable", and so on. And the poor witches of Wenshar are not only already dead and gone already at the time of the second book, they're EVIL, a sign of what women unchecked will become (naturally). It takes the hero figure AGAIN (who lacks any formal training in magic btw, he's just naturally more gifted than anyone else) to come along and expel them and put everything right again, saving the life of an attractive young woman from the spirits of her female ancestors who would have "twisted" and "corrupted" her if the man hadn't killed them all over again.
I got shit to do, I don't have time for misogyny in my recreational reading.
― If authoritarianism is Romania's ironing board, then (in orbit), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 12:41 (eight years ago) link
I definitely plan to read Cherryh someday, lots of people really rate her. She won some sort of lifetime achievement award at Nebulas recently.
When I was looking at old fantasy reader polls from the 80s and 90s, it seemed like McKillip was at God-tier with Tolkien, Peake, LeGuin and Wolfe.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 17:36 (eight years ago) link
as a teenager I was really into those Thieves' World books Cherryh had a hand in, but I've never gone back to them and sort of doubt they're actually good. I was very into the structure of interconnected stories written by different authors though (in retrospect something I would enjoy much later and in a different way with Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stuff)
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 17:44 (eight years ago) link
Oh yeah, George RR Martin used to organize interconnected stories by various authors the Wild Cards and so on, but I haven't read any of that kind (by Cherryh etc either). I do like the Martin/Dozois themey anthologies of new stories I've mentioned on this and the previous Rolling SF etc, so maybe I'll get around to the interconnected someday.
Five Earthsea novels so far (1968-'01), right? I need to catch up on the shorter stories, incl the one pub. 2014. Wiki:As of mid-2015, Le Guin has published eight short stories of Earthsea. Seven appear in two collections of her work (and some have been reissued elsewhere). Two early stories were originally published in 1964 and were collected in The Wind's Twelve Quarters (Harper & Row, 1975). These helped to define the setting of Earthsea. Five much later stories were collected in Tales from Earthsea (Harcourt, 2001), where three were original.[4] In October 2014 a new novella set in Earthsea was published as a stand-alone, "The Daughter of Odren".[5][6]
Tales from Earthsea also includes about thirty pages of fictional reference material titled "A Description of Earthsea" (2001) and cataloged as short fiction by ISFDB.[4]
― dow, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 19:17 (eight years ago) link
Listened to an interview with Martin a while ago and he named a whole load of shared universe book series from the 80s and 90s. Personally I don't like the sound of it because I've never enjoyed that approach in comics.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 19:27 (eight years ago) link
i don't even really like duo collabs in sci-fi novels. they make me nervous for some reason. who wrote what????
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:00 (eight years ago) link
wait, what's the famous one now with a bunch of writers writing stories about one place/world? uhhhhh, i'll think of it...
(individual stories existing in the same world don't bother me as much as the duo thing. they make me less nervous...)
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:03 (eight years ago) link
the Thieves' World books are restricted to a single city. It was the first time I can remember reading a convincing urban setting in a fantasy book. Different writers (there were usually about a dozen) would each write distinct stories set in the city, so there wasn't collaboration per se, although events in one story could impact events in another etc.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:03 (eight years ago) link
oh right this. that didn't take me long to remember.
https://www.amazon.com/Metatropolis-John-Scalzi/dp/0765335107?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:04 (eight years ago) link
i remember the thieves world paperbacks VERY well.
that's how i knew the name robert asprin.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:05 (eight years ago) link
even though i never read any of them.
happy chap...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fd/Bob_asprin_laughing.jpg/800px-Bob_asprin_laughing.jpg
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:06 (eight years ago) link
dude who's figured out how to live etc
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:08 (eight years ago) link
and i remember the myth adventures comics based on his books that Warp put out in the 80's but i never bought those cuz the covers always looked really dumb but i would totally read them now.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:10 (eight years ago) link
I never read anything of his besides those Thieves' World books tbh, Myth Adventures always looked so dopy
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:11 (eight years ago) link
dopey
the comic covers looked like low-rent role-playing game art from the 80's. but i read the HELL out of my Elfquests.
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:12 (eight years ago) link
did you guys know that frank thorne of red sonja fame and wendy pini of elfquest fame used to do a red sonja and the wizard stage show in the 70's?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDj5wRbgf8A
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:27 (eight years ago) link
WELL NOW YOU KNOW!
― scott seward, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:28 (eight years ago) link
omg
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:29 (eight years ago) link
that's gotta be the source material for Dave Sim's early Cerebus issues w Red Sofia and her dad
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:32 (eight years ago) link
Wowww
― scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 21:51 (eight years ago) link
Wendy also turns up in the Red Sonja costume right at the end of this interview with Phil Seuling, the guy who pretty much established the direct sales market for comics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9wRii6aiUk
― Foster Twelvetrees (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 21:54 (eight years ago) link
Haha, for some reason I figured the Wendy & Frank show was something every modern comics fan knew about.
― pleas to Nietzsche (WilliamC), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 22:10 (eight years ago) link
From that list, didn't much enjoy the one Diana Wynne Jones fantasy I read, but her 'The Tough Guide to Fantasyland', a thorough encyclopedic demolition of fantasy cliches, is a lot of fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tough_Guide_To_Fantasyland
― 🐸a hairy howling toad torments a man whose wife is deathly ill (James Morrison), Thursday, 2 June 2016 02:08 (eight years ago) link
Recent horror collections, but I want to start with an older one mentioned, the Peter Straub-edited Poe’s Children: The New Horror, w Kelly Link, M. John Harrison etc. (which reminds me, I still need to the VanderMeers’ monster anth, The New Weird).
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/05/books/review/horror-joyce-carol-oatess-the-doll-master-and-other-tales-of-terror-and-more.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_bk_20160603&nl=bookreview&nlid=65074007&_r=0
― dow, Saturday, 4 June 2016 21:26 (eight years ago) link
Good tour, lots of descriptions and linkshttp://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/sympathetic-sci-fi
And (check link in here to Mieville’s essay also: utopia and rage need each other; hope he's taking it to the fiction)https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/salvaging-the-future/
― dow, Monday, 6 June 2016 15:23 (eight years ago) link
Speaking of the xpost Vandermeers, didn't know they had this *other* monster anth. With several more books relevant to this thread, among others: http://io9.gizmodo.com/all-the-books-you-desperately-need-to-add-to-your-to-re-1780575415Just started Naomi Novik's Uprooted: seems like no-nonsense fantasy, w plenty relevant funky detail x momentum, so far
― dow, Friday, 10 June 2016 23:11 (eight years ago) link
Still digging xpost Uprooted. Maybe less enclosed than Winter Rose, but though they do go beyond the village and nearby, do spend a lot of time in the tower, and while it seems more "political," re dealing w encroachment of those in and from the Royal City, also using some people and phenomena as bait/distractions/otherness, still, lots of shifting moves and "identities" in WR too, just keeping it all in and too near thee family. So yeah, McKillip fans should check this out. Lots of sensual-to-sensuous imagery in both as well (though maybe layered in WR, riding dragon ov plot.
― dow, Thursday, 16 June 2016 20:04 (eight years ago) link
"though they": principal/most characters of Uprooted (so far).
― dow, Thursday, 16 June 2016 20:06 (eight years ago) link
Left out modifier and right paren, should be "in both as well (though maybe *more* layered in WR), riding dragon ov plot," cos both imagery of both tales riding it!
― dow, Thursday, 16 June 2016 20:10 (eight years ago) link
Left out right paren again, gotta give up and go back to virtual keyboard.
― dow, Thursday, 16 June 2016 20:11 (eight years ago) link
There's no way to re-set/sensitize a key once it goes consistently less and less responsive, right?
― dow, Thursday, 16 June 2016 20:15 (eight years ago) link
It's the whole key, the right paren and zero as well. Can use virtual for the former, but it's more distracting than number lock for the latter, and now that one's 0 is feeling squishy too.
― dow, Thursday, 16 June 2016 20:18 (eight years ago) link
Have you tried, um, turning the keyboard upside down and shaking it, to perhaps dislodge a crumb that may be causing the key to stick?
― Cry for a Shadow Blaster (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 June 2016 00:16 (eight years ago) link
thx, but canned air might be safer? Would hate to dislodge anything that should be lodged
― dow, Friday, 17 June 2016 00:48 (eight years ago) link
Perhaps some curved air and canned heat might do the trick.
― Cry for a Shadow Blaster (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 17 June 2016 01:32 (eight years ago) link
Anyone read any REALLY GOOD horror fiction? Other than a few Victorian classics and some Stephen King, I've never really thought to read a horror novel. I get the impression a lot of it is pedestrian or a bit cheesy (like horror movies), but there must be some mitigating stuff too?
― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Friday, 17 June 2016 13:31 (eight years ago) link
Thomas Ligotti - any of his short stories basicallyStraub when he is on (Ghost Story, Koko, short stories)
― scarcity festival (Jon not Jon), Friday, 17 June 2016 13:37 (eight years ago) link
Here's my favourites so far, I've got hundreds of horror books but I'm so far behind.
The first two are novels
William Hope Hodgson - House On The Borderland William Hope Hodgson - The Night Land (Warning! This is an incredibly flawed book)Edgar Allan Poe - The Black CatHP Lovecraft - Rats In The WallsHP Lovecraft - Dreams In The Witch HouseRalph Adams Cram - The Dead ValleyMR James - Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You My LadMR James - Count MagnusArthur Machen - The White PeopleArthur Machen - Great God PanRobert W Chambers - The Yellow SignNathaniel Hawthorne - Rappaccini's DaughterAlgernon Blackwood - The WillowsClive Barker - In The Hills, The CitiesHugh B Cave - MurgunstrummHugh B Cave - Stragella R Chetwynd-Hayes - The Jumpity JimRamsey Campbell - The BroodJ Sheridan Le Fanu - Schalken The PainterLucy Clifford - The New Mother
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 17 June 2016 13:49 (eight years ago) link
i read a lovecraft collection for the first time pretty young and the rats in the walls was the one that stayed with me, by which i mean totally scarred me. genuinely chilling.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 17 June 2016 14:52 (eight years ago) link
cheers guys
― TARANTINO! (dog latin), Friday, 17 June 2016 14:56 (eight years ago) link
Seconding Straub's Ghost StoryClive Barker - The Books of BloodDracula
― pleas to Nietzsche (WilliamC), Friday, 17 June 2016 15:52 (eight years ago) link
Also Richard Matheson, who wrote a lot of the best Twilight Zones, Speilberg's Duel, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which Chris Carter credited with inspiring him to create The X-Files, also novels like The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend, which could be an ancestor of Breaking Bad, with the one Normal terrorizing a world of vampires, although in his mind, of course, he's Making Good. Also lots of short stories---Ward Fowler scared the crap out of me by posting this 'un on the old Rolling sf etc. thread:
http://magicmonkeyboy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/drink-my-red-blood-by-richard-matheson.html
^my fave matheson short story, which deeply affected horror-obsessed-young-me when i read it as a boy. the whole treatment of vampirism seems very similar to the vibe that george a romero was going for w/ his movie martin, and i know romero admitted that matheson was the primary inspiration behind NOTLD. you can see why stephen king is such a big matheson fan, too - that 'naturalistic'/everyday treatment of the supernatural. again, this story reminds me v much of parts of the tobe hooper tv movie of salem's lot - vampirism as teenage yearning/disaffection
― Ward Fowler, Sunday, September 9, 2012 4:17 PM (3 years ago)
― dow, Friday, 17 June 2016 15:54 (eight years ago) link
I'd second Ligotti, and add Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but perhaps that's more unsettling than horrific; among recent books, I particularly like Caitlin Kiernan's lesbian gothic novels The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl; you might also read some of Brian Evenson's short fiction.
― one way street, Friday, 17 June 2016 15:56 (eight years ago) link
You might also try Ramsey Campbell, and several I still need to try (got 'em), like Thomas Tryon's The Other, the screen version of which is awesome: a perfect example of what Stephen King (in my fave of his books, the nonfiction, much-cooler-taste-in-other-people's-writing-than-his-own Danse Macabre) calls "sunlit horror": looks like it's gonna be The Waltons or Little House On The Prairie, but so sick, and no need for lots of gore, just the right wrong glimpse, uggghhh. Directed by Robert Mulligan of To Kill A Mockingbird fame, and still so good with children, plus, this one's in color...Also, I need to read Ira Levin, who wrote Rosemary's Baby and others later filmed.Def second to xpost Lucy Clifford's "The New Mother," and anything else you can find by her, most probably.
― dow, Friday, 17 June 2016 16:06 (eight years ago) link
The fantasy novels I just mentioned upthread, Mckillip's Winter Rose and especially Novik's Uprooted, certainly have horrific elements.
― dow, Friday, 17 June 2016 16:09 (eight years ago) link