Tau zero is all-time fuiud
― brekekekexit collapse collapse (ledge), Friday, 24 February 2017 10:28 (seven years ago) link
Fuiud? Is that good or bad?
I read that and, I think, Forever War, back to back and they were very similar.
― koogs, Friday, 24 February 2017 11:09 (seven years ago) link
Ted Chiang anthology currently 1.29 of your English pounds on Amazon UK btw
― koogs, Friday, 24 February 2017 11:10 (seven years ago) link
Have always avoided Poul Anderson because of his rightwingness
― Bernie Lugg (Ward Fowler), Friday, 24 February 2017 11:12 (seven years ago) link
Wish there were more fans of him here so I could create a thread called Poll Anderson: the Poul Anderson Poll.
Heard he was pretty homophobic but he seems interesting because Moorcock was insistent that Broken Sword was like Lord Of The Rings but better and Anderson was said to have brought in some aspects of realism into fantasy (he complained that other writers treat horses as if they were motorbikes) and a lot of his fantasy books do sound cool.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 24 February 2017 13:07 (seven years ago) link
Another right wing arsehole eh, oh well. I wasn't planning on reading anything else by him but tau zero is a great piece of bonkers hard sf *turned up to eleven*, when by the end (spoiler alert) they're just tooling around in null space at infinity kph waiting for the next universe to be born i wanted to smoke what he was smoking. Wondered if there was a slight nod to it at the end of ksr's aurora.
― brekekekexit collapse collapse (ledge), Friday, 24 February 2017 14:47 (seven years ago) link
In other news, John Crowley's Little, Big: holy shit so outta here.
― brekekekexit collapse collapse (ledge), Friday, 24 February 2017 14:49 (seven years ago) link
lol what does that mean?
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 24 February 2017 15:24 (seven years ago) link
I bumped the John Crowley thread with a less opaque post.
― brekekekexit collapse collapse (ledge), Friday, 24 February 2017 15:31 (seven years ago) link
i didn't even know we had one. it's a wonderful book.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 24 February 2017 15:37 (seven years ago) link
tau zero's plot is cool and i can only imagine it was better in the original short story but dear god the writing and the barely one-dimensional characters and the rugged protagonist taking charge and fucking all the ladies sequentially . . . it verges on parody
i was thinking about rereading little, big. i remember liking it but all i remember is barbarossa and magical unibrowed ppl
― mookieproof, Friday, 24 February 2017 17:16 (seven years ago) link
really dig *Up The Walls Of The World* by James Tiptree. it's a swirling crystal ship of a book. she leaves so much up to the imagination as far as the non-earth stuff goes and everyone who reads the book is going to have a completely different interpretation of what things might look like.
― scott seward Yeah she's one of the best. Some think better at short stories, but I'll take it all. Still need to get the collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.
― dow, Friday, 24 February 2017 18:47 (seven years ago) link
huh never heard of tau zero before. glad you liked Downward to the Earth mookie! Yeah I didn't think the ending revelation was particularly surprising either, but I liked how it was handled. Silverbob was good with those transformative psychedelic experiences sequences (which also pop up in Son of Man and, my personal favorite, the World Inside)
― Οὖτις, Friday, 24 February 2017 18:49 (seven years ago) link
I would bet money that ledge bought tau zero in fopp, because it's a staple there.
― koogs, Friday, 24 February 2017 23:09 (seven years ago) link
(Not much money)
huh never heard of tau zero before
― Nesta Leaps In (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 24 February 2017 23:17 (seven years ago) link
I have fond memories of tau zero and his fantasy books. No memories of fucking in tau zero, so it may have improved in memory
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Saturday, 25 February 2017 00:13 (seven years ago) link
You know what i mean
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Saturday, 25 February 2017 00:14 (seven years ago) link
say no more
― mookieproof, Saturday, 25 February 2017 00:44 (seven years ago) link
In the Pringle book, the entry for Tau Zero includes this quote from Barry Malzberg: "Tau Zero has long struck me as the only work published after 1955 or so that can elicit from me some of the same responses I had toward Science Fiction in my adolescence - a sense of timelessness, human eternity, and the order of the cosmos as reflected in the individual fate of every person who would try to measure himself against these qualities... The novel builds to an overpowering climax, yet has a decent sense of humility... Tau Zero suggested to me that it was not my own sense of wonder but that of the Science Fiction field itself that had flagged within the last twenty years." Makes me want to read it now!
― Bernie Lugg (Ward Fowler), Saturday, 25 February 2017 09:30 (seven years ago) link
Haha ok yeah i'm sold
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 25 February 2017 15:43 (seven years ago) link
You should keep in mind that it does indeed have all the aforementioned problems.
― Nesta Leaps In (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 25 February 2017 15:45 (seven years ago) link
Really enjoyed The Dry Salvages, by Caitlín R. Kiernan, pessimistic hard sf along with some weird elements, which reminded me of Gateway and Carter Scholz's Gypsy.
― Nesta Leaps In (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 25 February 2017 16:58 (seven years ago) link
Here is blog post she wrote about it: http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/739057.html
― Nesta Leaps In (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 25 February 2017 17:01 (seven years ago) link
That sounds good. Never read her, somehow assumed she was a fantasy writer, think i am confusing her with cathrynn m valente.
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Sunday, 26 February 2017 00:13 (seven years ago) link
..who i HAVE read, and liked on the sentence level, but whose stories overall did not come together fir me
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Sunday, 26 February 2017 00:14 (seven years ago) link
Ok, i cannot type proper on ipad
I think she writes more dark fantasy than anything.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 26 February 2017 04:08 (seven years ago) link
Enjoyed "Planet Lion", the Valente story in the anthology I recently mentioned upthread (The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016): hers is basically hard antiwar dystopian military SF, with poetic touches depending on/appropriate to POV, but all of her titles in my village library's online card catalog do look like they might be fantasy.
― dow, Sunday, 26 February 2017 05:20 (seven years ago) link
― Nesta Leaps In (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 26 February 2017 19:19 (seven years ago) link
I want to read it! It looks hard to find, sadly--printed only in an OOP expensive Subterranean Press hardback. All her easily available stuff looks significantly less promising.
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Monday, 27 February 2017 00:11 (seven years ago) link
I think it is actually printed in two OOP expensive Subterranean Press hardbacks, one a standalone and one an anthology.
― Nesta Leaps In (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 27 February 2017 00:25 (seven years ago) link
Is there any other genre than SF that has so much of its stuff published in really expensive/hard-to-get books from small presses? It's a bit self-defeating.
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Monday, 27 February 2017 02:00 (seven years ago) link
I mean, there are plenty of lit-fic small presses, but you can usually buy them easily and they don't try to gouge you. Sylph Editions possibly excepted.
― I hear from this arsehole again, he's going in the river (James Morrison), Monday, 27 February 2017 02:01 (seven years ago) link
Weird Fiction for sure. It's 85% on small presses and a lot of them are book as object fetishist publishers like Zagava/Ex Occidente, Egaeus Press, Centipede and Tartarus. Even most mainstream (by sensibility) horror and extreme horror is very expensive and in small print runs. But I could imagine collecting surrealist writing is even tougher.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 27 February 2017 02:13 (seven years ago) link
MacMillan's got Kiernan and a bunch of others "starting at $2.99"---all ebooks in this ad, though prob have at lease some of 'em in other formats as well; seems to be the thing for a lot of F&SF publishers, judging by Amazon: http://view.mail.macmillan.com/?j=fe5c17767c650c797510&m=feee1c737d6c02&ls=fdc71576716401747712747567&l=fe5f15777d63047c7413&s=fe1d1674746c0d74721579&jb=ffcf14&ju=fe2711707267007a721370&r=0
― dow, Monday, 27 February 2017 19:56 (seven years ago) link
I've downloaded a few cheapo ebooks via MyKindle to read on my laptop, but one reason for reading books is to get away from screens, so...
― dow, Monday, 27 February 2017 19:58 (seven years ago) link
Ticked Madeleine l'engle's A Wrinkle in Time off the list. I'm not 12 any more but if I were I think I'd still be disappointed, it's very childish and pandering. Wasn't expecting the auld god fella to get dragged in either.
― brekekekexit collapse collapse (ledge), Wednesday, 1 March 2017 20:17 (seven years ago) link
I see if I'd scrolled upthread I could have forewarned myself about the g man.
― brekekekexit collapse collapse (ledge), Wednesday, 1 March 2017 20:19 (seven years ago) link
Now I'm debating whether to binge on the rest of John Crowley or savour it at a much slower pace.
― brekekekexit collapse collapse (ledge), Wednesday, 1 March 2017 20:52 (seven years ago) link
Is L'Engle any worse than CS Lewis in that respect? I read A Wrinkle in Time in fifth grade and didn't feel beaten over the head by the Jesusisms, but maybe I'd feel differently if I revisited it today. I have this idea of L'Engle as a tolerant liberal Christian, mostly due to her association with the Trees Community (a '70s hippie cult / musical collective)
one of my favorite sff novels is The Book of the Dun Cow (and its follow-up, The Book of Sorrows) by the Lutheran pastor Walter Wangerin. he uses a standard 'talking farm animals band together to slay the cockatrice' narrative to work through his issues of crippling self-doubt as a minister. it's funny but kinda disturbing with all its metaphorical handwringing about cutting off your hand or poking out your eyes if they offend Christ. I can imagine being awed/traumatized by it if I read it as a kid. a religious sff thread might be interesting but I don't know if I should be the one to start it.
― ridiculously dope soul (unregistered), Wednesday, 1 March 2017 22:15 (seven years ago) link
I like CS Lewis' space trilogy a lot (with some quibbles over theology here and there), never been able to make it through a L'Engle book. Maybe Lewis is just a better/weirder writer.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 1 March 2017 22:22 (seven years ago) link
i loved both lewis and l'engle as a kid (although 'wrinkle in time' was maybe my least favorite of her books -- preferred the first two sequels/the austin series/others tangentially related)
while i *realized* aslan = jesus etc i don't recall it being overbearing. maybe it's more so as an adult, although i suspect modern readers are more put-off by things like the dismissal of susan than the religion. if anything, i'd say l'engle was less obviously christian.
read the space trilogy when i was older and yeah the allegories are there but i'm okay with that
― mookieproof, Thursday, 2 March 2017 00:07 (seven years ago) link
the Lewis as sinister Christian indoctrinator thing is way overplayed these days
yeah that stuff is there, and The Last Battle is pretty loopy, but I didn't notice or GAF about that stuff as a kid
― Number None, Thursday, 2 March 2017 00:11 (seven years ago) link
yeah I didn't get aslan=jesus as a kid - unsurprising perhaps as I wasn't brought up a believer. I was just a bit bewildered by the ending (of wardrobe). why did he let them kill them? how did he come back to life? wtf?
― brekekekexit collapse collapse (ledge), Thursday, 2 March 2017 09:39 (seven years ago) link
I read Book of the Dun Cow maybe 20 years ago. I don't think I had the toolkit to enjoy it at the time.
― Cognition (Remix) (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 2 March 2017 14:39 (seven years ago) link
Contents for the new Swords Against Darkness anthology. There was five volumes in the 70s.http://paulaguran.com/swords-against-darkness-toc-cover-reveal/
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 3 March 2017 03:15 (seven years ago) link
i remember going to see empire strikes back with my friend pat and his dad when it came out and on the ride home his dad started talking about christian holy trinity parallels and it kinda blew my mind. but i was 12.
― scott seward, Friday, 3 March 2017 03:25 (seven years ago) link
reading Tower Of Glass by Robert Silverberg and enjoying it. great android theology.
― scott seward, Friday, 3 March 2017 03:26 (seven years ago) link
That's a p good one. Doesn't end v satisfactorily iirc but whatever.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 3 March 2017 03:28 (seven years ago) link