Reading all the standards of science fiction is quite a feat but I think the required reading lists are probably going to change a lot.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 28 July 2018 18:16 (five years ago) link
i literally do not have a favourite author from the 30s-40s. and as they were all male and, we've agreed, largely garbage, i'm not sure it's worth trying to get one now. from the 50s, with caveats, it would be john wyndham.
― home, home and deranged (ledge), Saturday, 28 July 2018 20:09 (five years ago) link
I reread Jonathan Lethem's GIRL IN LANDSCAPE (1998). If anything I admired it this time. The drifting quality of the narrative, while still excessive, has some point in relation to the centrality of landscape. And the ending is more climactic and structured than I'd recalled.― the pinefox, Tuesday, July 24, 2018 1:34 PM (four days ago)
Curious about Lethem - I really loved his comic book, Omega the Unknown, and have struggled with everything else. And She Climbed Across The Table is the only novel I've really regretted reading in the past ten years.
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 28 July 2018 20:27 (five years ago) link
Simak, Sturgeon, Kuttner, C.L. Moore were all getting early stuff published in late 30s/early 40s (and of course Heinlein, Asimov, van Vogt, though I'm guess that's what yall are thinking of as Golden Age poop); Bradbury mid-to-late 40s I think. Otherwise, "A Martian Odyssey" was pretty refreshing and could see how it was a whole ceiling fixture of good-idea lightbulbs in the Golden Dark Age (I posted about it while reading The Big Book of Science Fiction upthread). But Stanley Weinbaum died young, before writing a whole lot else.
― dow, Monday, 30 July 2018 03:30 (five years ago) link
Not quite "all male," def not incl C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett for inst.
― dow, Monday, 30 July 2018 03:34 (five years ago) link
Just the other day I picked up a nice cheap hardcover of this anthology, which has to be a key text for the "50s were the real Golden Age/To hell with the New Wave" critical position:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Age_of_Science_Fiction_(anthology)
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 30 July 2018 08:22 (five years ago) link
These days I definitely have more time for golden age comics.
I'll take a random Golden Age comic over a random Silver Age one these days - the Silver Age obviously attained greater heights but its rank and file stuff is repetitive and formulaic as fuck while with a golden age comic you never know what's gonna happen.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 30 July 2018 09:05 (five years ago) link
Chuck Tatum, why did you regret reading that novel? As it's only 192pp long, it's a curious one to regret.
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 11:32 (five years ago) link
Seems like Golden Age (or even Silver) is an uncertain term. I just read an article about Robert Sheckley, who I had thought was Golden Age, saying something like 'Sheckley was one of those writers of that undefined and under-researched period in SF, the 1950s ...'
I can't remember what Golden and Silver mean with comics either.
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 11:33 (five years ago) link
Ward Fowler, that wiki link does not work -- which book did you have in mind? I have read one edited by K. Amis.
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 11:35 (five years ago) link
Apologies, yes, it's the Amis anthology. Includes quite a long introduction where Amis is highly critical of Ballard and Aldiss' flirtations with the New Wave - but he still includes stories by them both! He also draws a comparison with modern jazz and the New Wave.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 30 July 2018 11:42 (five years ago) link
Grr I can't work out why that bloody link isn't working here
Yes that is a very readable book - I learned a lot from it, although the intro is so partisan.
Ballard reviewed it and dedicated the review to a riposte to Amis! That's in his book of essays:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_User%27s_Guide_to_the_Millennium
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 11:45 (five years ago) link
(ilx eats the last ) and breaks the link. happily, the wikipedia error page you end up on has a link to the correct page on it - "Did you mean: The Golden Age of Science Fiction (anthology)?")
― koogs, Monday, 30 July 2018 13:21 (five years ago) link
Yep, this is the anthology in question:
https://pictures.abebooks.com/ORLAN_DO/3967325261.jpg
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 30 July 2018 13:44 (five years ago) link
The version I read:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61AhjH6ZYfL.SX316.SY316.jpg
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 14:30 (five years ago) link
What about New Maps of Hell, what was in that?
― 3-Way Tie (For James Last) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 30 July 2018 14:57 (five years ago) link
New Maps of Hell is a series of lectures that Amis gave on SF at the end of the 1950s, gathered together in a book - no fiction.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 30 July 2018 15:02 (five years ago) link
There are also the Spectrum series of anthologies that Amis co-edited w/ Robert Conquest, five in total. To be honest, I first thought that this Golden Age anthology was just a boil down of the Spectrums, but - credit to Amis - there are only a couple of stories in common (Tunnel Under the World by Frederik Pohl being one of them - Amis REALLY liked Pohl!)
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 30 July 2018 15:05 (five years ago) link
Great story.
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 15:19 (five years ago) link
still haven't been able to hunt that one down, kinda annoyed tbh
― Οὖτις, Monday, 30 July 2018 15:59 (five years ago) link
The book?
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 16:02 (five years ago) link
no, just "Tunnel Under the World". I actually have several Pohl short fiction collections and it's in none of them.
― Οὖτις, Monday, 30 July 2018 16:14 (five years ago) link
isfdb is good for this stuff
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?45822
in fact that points out that it's here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31979
― koogs, Monday, 30 July 2018 16:57 (five years ago) link
oh I know it's been reprinted a bunch of places it's just one of those things where I'm like "am I really going to buy this collection for one story" (also I hate reading long-form stuff online)
― Οὖτις, Monday, 30 July 2018 17:09 (five years ago) link
I got the Platinum Pohl collection awhile ago and was surprised it was not included
― Οὖτις, Monday, 30 July 2018 17:11 (five years ago) link
I know Tunnel Under The World from the Aldiss' Penguin Science Fiction anthology, which I'm guessing is not quite so common in the US either.
The first Spectrum anthology leads off with another great Pohl story, The Midas Plague - just the kind of social satire that Amis was especially keen on.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 30 July 2018 17:36 (five years ago) link
I printed 'Tunnel under the World' out and read it on paper! I think it (link above) was a facsimile of the original magazine pages, which were interesting with illustrations.
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 20:19 (five years ago) link
better facsimile, actual scans of the pages of this and the rest of the Jan 1955 edition of Galaxy, here: https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1955-01
― koogs, Monday, 30 July 2018 20:26 (five years ago) link
(and hundreds more here: https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine download the pdf or djvu, read on your tablet...)
― koogs, Monday, 30 July 2018 20:29 (five years ago) link
some of this looks pretty interesting: http://www.sfintranslation.com/?p=4937
I wish ppl would stop appending "punk" to sf lit subgenres though
― Οὖτις, Monday, 30 July 2018 22:49 (five years ago) link
― the pinefox, Monday, 30 July 2018 11:32 (eleven hours ago) Permalink
Ha, I just hated it for reasons I couldn't grasp, but I felt duty-bound to finish it as it was a friend's recommendation. Then it just took me FOREVER to slog through to the end, and the low page count kept taunting me: "Why haven't you finished me yet, I'm only 192pp, you fucking loser". Anyway eventually it ended and I was happy.
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 30 July 2018 23:19 (five years ago) link
I think he's probably a good writer and I just resent my inability to read him.
― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 30 July 2018 23:20 (five years ago) link
Chuck, I had an experience that was very strangely analogous to yours.
I first read the book years ago, and it took me ages - and I couldn't understand why, as it was so short (the shortest Lethem novel?). Maybe it was a kind of intellectual density, ie: on a given page someone would say something riddling that would take me time to think about, and I would get stuck. But mostly it was just my own inertia and slowness as a reader.
But I have reread it twice since, and on those occasions essentially just taken a day.
I guess there must be things in it that could irritate, but on balance I really like this novel. I think it's light, yet also deep (ie: intellectually suggestive). The brevity and crispness (notwithstanding my earlier difficulties) seem the best way to handle such potentially weighty materials (as physics, the nature of Nothing, etc).
I think it must be one of the best 5 or so JL novels, along with, say: FORTRESS, BROOKLYN, GUN, GIRL.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 08:50 (five years ago) link
Amnesia Moon is v good too
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 14:48 (five years ago) link
and This Shape We're In
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 17:35 (five years ago) link
Yes, I like them. AMNESIA MOON does have the sense of being a very early work - certain images like the McDonalds staff who carry on serving in a desert are very 2000AD, sort of teenage satire.
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 18:55 (five years ago) link
that's true, it feels like a "first novel" in a way that "Gun, With Occasional Music" does not. I still like it though.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 19:02 (five years ago) link
I think it was mostly written earlier!
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 19:40 (five years ago) link
huh well that would explain it. news to me! Lethem's disappearance into his own navel is one of the bigger disappointments to me, as an sf genre partisan. he coulda been a contendah...
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 19:51 (five years ago) link
I will similarly be bummed if Charles Yu abandons the genre for shitty TV writing gigs
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 19:52 (five years ago) link
There was some article we talked about a few years ago where JL got po-faced about the genre’s defensiveness. Not sure how to look for it right now though.
― 3-Way Tie (For James Last) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 July 2018 19:59 (five years ago) link
Perhaps this links to it: Maybe this links : http://therumpus.net/2009/08/29007/
― 3-Way Tie (For James Last) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 July 2018 20:02 (five years ago) link
some interesting quotes there
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 21:39 (five years ago) link
dunno if he's correct about the jackets being the big issue, that seems like a bit of a tangent
There was a much more recent article he wrote in The New Yorker about how it was too depressing for him to Gather in the Hall of the Planetsattend sf conventions anymore because of the depressing grandiose neediness of the unloved writers. Afraid I don’t have the mad ILX0r phone search skillz to find right now
― 3-Way Tie (For James Last) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 July 2018 23:00 (five years ago) link
Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama, which commentator Carter Scholz rightly deemed “less a novel than a schematic diagram in prose.”
lol otm
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 23:04 (five years ago) link
the depressing grandiose neediness of the unloved writers
I have a hard time believing this is anything specific to sf
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 23:10 (five years ago) link
No, lots of genre fiction and probably non-genre too
― 3-Way Tie (For James Last) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 July 2018 23:32 (five years ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/this-week-in-fiction-jonathan-lethem-4
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 1 August 2018 00:08 (five years ago) link