well it's definitely not literary
― Number None, Wednesday, 29 August 2018 21:32 (six years ago) link
tbf I don't think Yu's a great prose stylist or anything, but I feel he does mix realism and its potential for emotional impact well with weird sf ideas.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 29 August 2018 21:33 (six years ago) link
Kevin Barry's City of Bohane might qualify. It's set in a semi-fictional Irish city in 2053 and has some fantastical elements (although there's essentially zero sci in its fi)
He's definitely an original stylist though
― Number None, Wednesday, 29 August 2018 21:38 (six years ago) link
parts of Lanark def reminded me of Mitchell's Black Swan Green
that book is super-weird and unique tho
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 29 August 2018 21:47 (six years ago) link
I second the rec of Karen Russell, also suggest Kelly Link, both of whom I've carried on about upthread---ditto those two volumes of Houghton Mifflin/Mariner's The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, series edited by John Joseph Adams. I prefer the 2016 collection, guest edited by Karen Joy Fowler (check her novels too, starting with We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, tracking the aftermath of raising a furry primate with/in a human family---there actually were and maybe are daddy scientists doing this, so it's a different kind of science fiction, also a Pen/Faulkner winner). But 2015, guest ed. by Joe Hill, also has some remarkable stories overall--most by authors new to me---it's just that having Russell and Link in the same collection provides a couple of acts that are hard to follow.Haven't yet gotten to guest ed. Charles Yu's 2017 selection (haven't read any of his own stories either). 2018, guested by NK Jemisin, comes out Oct. 2.Oh yeah, and Colson Whitehead's zombie-clean-up slab, Zone One, sported a jacket promising literary satisfactions and tasty pulp, delivered both.
― dow, Thursday, 30 August 2018 00:30 (six years ago) link
Saw a potentially interesting recent book about Ballard at the library today but didn’t check it out
― Spirits Having Pwned (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 30 August 2018 00:50 (six years ago) link
Ooh yeah Kelly Link, she’s great
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 30 August 2018 02:10 (six years ago) link
I'd love something that hits that old Lethem/David Mitchell sweet spot.
I feel wary about 'recommending' a book I haven't read myself, but this recentish novel by Michel Faber (who also wrote Under the Skin) got pretty good reviews, including a rave from M John Harrison, who knows a thing or two;
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/23/the-book-of-strange-new-things-michel-faber-review
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 30 August 2018 08:29 (six years ago) link
omg the book of strange new things is the worst. ludicrous characters, ludicrous situation. m john harrison said "it has such a lot of religious, linguistic, philosophical and political freight to deliver" but i unpacked those boxes and they were all empty. haven't read any lethem *gasps* (though ilx is doing its best to persuade me), but it has absolutely none of the invention or zest of cloud atlas.
― Winner of the 2018 Great British Bae *cough* (ledge), Thursday, 30 August 2018 09:14 (six years ago) link
Thanks all! I haven't read an anthology in years so I will check out the Best Americans.
I love Under the Skin but reading about the backstory behind Book of Strange New Things, idk, seemed heavy in a way that made me say "mmmm, maybe not now". Although the space priest setup brings to mind those weird Ender's Game sequels that I read as a kid.
I do remember enjoying Zone One, I think it was the first e-book I read. Weirdly Colson Whitehead has been coming up a lot lately and I had completely forgotton about the existence of that book until now.
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 30 August 2018 15:07 (six years ago) link
Reading The Apex Book Of World SF. Very impressed by the first story by S.P. Somtow, though it's more horror than sci-fi - a series of killings, viewed from the perspective of an American kid who fled China w/ his mother when the communists took over and ended up in Thailand. Lots of historical weight (Nanking Massacre and so on), and prejudices - Thai vs Chinese, Chinese vs Japanese. I'm a few more stories in but nothing has really impressed me in the same way.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 31 August 2018 13:52 (six years ago) link
Somtow probably best known for Vampire Junction in the 80s.
People really angry with SilverBob's ill advised comments
On a private mailing list, Robert Silverberg called N.K. Jemisin's #HugoAwards win for Best Novel "identity politics" while admitting he hasn't even read her books. (Comment confirmed by John Scalzi.) pic.twitter.com/3XVh2EpGRD— Rogers Cadenhead (@rcade) August 22, 2018
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 31 August 2018 20:42 (six years ago) link
Silverbob's politics are weird
― Οὖτις, Friday, 31 August 2018 20:45 (six years ago) link
My daughter went to DragonCon this weekend and got me Larry Niven's autograph -- I got perverse pleasure in getting it buried on page 186 of a ratty copy of the 1971 collection Quark/4. "The Fourth Profession" is my favorite of his stories and that was where I first read it. My daughter reports that Niven isn't tracking very well at all, not too compos mentis.
― WmC, Monday, 3 September 2018 23:12 (six years ago) link
I've been working my way through the early Nebula Award Stories collections, each one edited by a different big name SF writer. Volume 4, edited by Poul Anderson, only confirms my dislike for this author. This is from his introduction (published in 1969) - his subject is the contemporary inter-relationship between modern literary fiction and science fiction:
"Most science fiction has also preserved its own traditional virtues. It still tells stories, wherein things happen. It remains more interested in the glamour and mystery of existence, the survival and triumph and tragedy of heroes and thinkers, than in the neuroses of some snivelling fagot (sic)."
So give me Delany, for all his gaucheries, over this fucking guy always.
Volume 4 is all told a bit of a dud, anyway - over 100 pages of Anne Mcaffrey's interminable dragon fantasia was the SF story I've most struggled to finish since - Poul Anderson's 'No Truce With Kings'...
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 6 September 2018 19:07 (six years ago) link
never bothered to read a word of Anderson, he sounds terrible
also signed his name to that pro-Vietnam War thing iirc
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 6 September 2018 19:12 (six years ago) link
Not fiction, but I just bought:
Frederik Pohl: THE WAY THE FUTURE WAS - a memoir.
Seems a really rich piece of personal cultural history about SF from c.1920s on - the formation of clubs, societies, Golden Age.
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 September 2018 14:26 (six years ago) link
Ooh I’ll read that
― cheese is the teacher, ham is the preacher (Jon not Jon), Friday, 7 September 2018 14:28 (six years ago) link
I got a copy of that when it first came out from the SF Book Club when I was in high school. Got his autograph too at a convention.
― The Great Atomic Power Ballad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 7 September 2018 14:38 (six years ago) link
Wow!
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 September 2018 14:43 (six years ago) link
Pohl also blogged for the last ~5 years of his life, with many juicy biographical reminiscences. Probably a great supplement to that book, which I'd like to read.
― mick signals, Friday, 7 September 2018 14:44 (six years ago) link
Gosh!
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/avjdpa/frederick-pohl-424-v15n12
I don't understand why that article is so virulently anti-Ray Bradbury. Goodness knows there is room for both of them and more.
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 September 2018 14:51 (six years ago) link
Yeah, that blog is full of good stuff. Seems like he was a real mensch, based on that book, that blog, seeing him speak at the convention and the 30 seconds I talked to him.xp
― Cruel Summerisle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 7 September 2018 14:53 (six years ago) link
btw it's the interviewer, not Pohl, who is hostile to Bradbury.
I found that link via the blog.
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 September 2018 14:54 (six years ago) link
Yeah, that’s a bizarre angle, like Bob Dylan talking up Buck Owens and trashing Merle Haggard.
― Cruel Summerisle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 7 September 2018 14:58 (six years ago) link
would read Pohl memoir. he always seemed like a standup guy with p good taste to me
― Οὖτις, Friday, 7 September 2018 15:17 (six years ago) link
I don't understand why that article is so virulently anti-Ray Bradbury.
because Vice hires shitty writers
― Οὖτις, Friday, 7 September 2018 15:18 (six years ago) link
that interview is absolutely bizarre
― Number None, Friday, 7 September 2018 20:15 (six years ago) link
I'm enjoying the Karen Tidbeck books so far, thanks for the tip ILB.
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 7 September 2018 20:17 (six years ago) link
which one are you reading? also sorry for mispelling it (it's Karin)
was surprised to find out she translates her own stuff
― Οὖτις, Friday, 7 September 2018 20:25 (six years ago) link
Oops my bad. I'm actually reading both at the same time, I'll read a story from Jagannath before bed (um, aloud to my partner) and then some of Amatka.
Wow, that's fascinating, and seems very rare even for multi-lingual authors? Like mastering your own record. I was thinking that the translation was very good.
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 7 September 2018 20:39 (six years ago) link
Tidbeck said she knew that the chances of getting translated into English were very slim. You'd have to be a real phenomenon in Sweden for that to happen so she wisely translated herself and ended up writing a lot of her work in English first.
There's a lot of writers from all over the world who just go straight to the English market because it's probably your best shot at getting the biggest audience and the general community aspect is inevitably bigger too.
Moorcock is a big Poul Anderson fan (I'm sure he said Broken Sword is better than Lord Of The Rings, but he never really liked the latter) and I've heard enough stanning that I'm going to have to at least read Broken Sword, Three Hearts & Three Lions, Hrolf Kraki's Saga, War Of The Gods and Tau Zero.
I don't know why I never taken bigger advantage of Fopp's 2 for £5 deal before, because I'll never find all these books for cheaper (when you factor postage+packaging). So I bought 14 books and will probably get more.
Why do publishers allow Fopp to sell them so cheap. How do certain books get stocked so well in there? PKDick and LeGuin make sense and I can imagine the Strugatsky's somehow doing well in Fopp but there's also a pile of Bernard Taylor, Holdstock's Mythago Wood and McKillip's Forgotten Beasts Of Eld. I'm happy to see them but why are they there? Most of the SFF is Gollancz Masterworks (I really wish America had this line in all their stores because Gollancz really knows how to curate).
I got 4 LeGuins, 3 Strugatskys, some McKillip, HGWells, Christopher Priest, Wolfe's Fifth Head Of Cerebus and some I cant remember.
On Oxfam in Byres Road I passed on a 90s Orbit copy of Michael Scott Rohan's Anvil Of Ice because I wanted the Gollancz Masterworks one (would have been excited if it was in Fopp) because I figured it might be an omnibus but it's not.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 8 September 2018 11:18 (six years ago) link
Tricia Sullivan got in SF Masterworks this year so that's a pretty good recommendation for a relatively recent writer.
I'm craving some no bullshit SFF criticism so I might get such books by Adam Roberts and Christopher Priest. I really appreciate Ian Sales' very difficult to please reviews on goodreads, I think his taste is completely different to mine but when he says something is amazing, I take note.
Strangely most of these guys are british. Joshi is honest but his judgement is quite iffy and he seems to be easily swayed by feuds and fannish stuff.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 8 September 2018 11:43 (six years ago) link
re critics: John Clute's collections of reviews?
― the pinefox, Saturday, 8 September 2018 17:50 (six years ago) link
I'll take note.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 8 September 2018 17:56 (six years ago) link
Which collection is that?
― Cruel Summerisle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 8 September 2018 18:19 (six years ago) link
Ian Sales is a very interesting reviewer, but he has a weird insistence that books be morally correct that seems old-fashioned and not in keeping with the fiction he actually writes.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Sunday, 9 September 2018 06:38 (six years ago) link
I noticed something like that but it was his insistence that a book was too politically ambiguous that made me cautious. But I hadn't read the books so I cant really argue.
I know in these times there's a feeling that messages need to be clearer and it's understandable but I wonder if the writing might suffer for it. I recently listened to a podcast with two SF editors saying that a lot of writers work suffers when they realize a large part of their audience doesn't understand and then make it too clear.
Trying to reach everyone is a fools errand. There's always going to be people who think a fragile pathetic macho gangster is awesome because he doesn't take shit and there's people who think American History X is an undercover pro-Nazi film.
I've been toying with making a thread about showing values through storytelling and how it has changed over time. Maybe soon.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 9 September 2018 10:16 (six years ago) link
A list of Clute books here:
http://www.johnclute.co.uk/bibliography/?p=3
I'm aware of LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE, SCORES, STROKES.
Other work could be good too. He has been heavily involved in the ENCYCLOPEDIAS which are now online and useful.
― the pinefox, Monday, 10 September 2018 15:12 (six years ago) link
What about his significant other, Elizabeth Hand? I have enjoyed several of her books but have seen very little interest in her work on this borad.
― St Etienne Is Real (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 10 September 2018 17:03 (six years ago) link
Clute's?
I assumed that was still Judith Clute.http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/clute_judith
Perhaps I assumed wrong.
― the pinefox, Monday, 10 September 2018 22:19 (six years ago) link
I did:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clute#Personal_life
Raised in Canada, Clute lived in the United States from 1956 until 1964. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at New York University in 1962 while living with writer and artist Pamela Zoline.
Clute married artist Judith Clute in 1964.[7] He has been the partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996
― the pinefox, Monday, 10 September 2018 22:20 (six years ago) link
(Maybe the Clutes never divorced?)
Excited to see that Elizabeth Hand wrote 4 Boba Fett novels in 2 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hand#Star_Wars_Expanded_Universe
― the pinefox, Monday, 10 September 2018 22:21 (six years ago) link
Heh, haven’t gotten around to those yet myself.
― St Etienne Is Real (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 10 September 2018 23:07 (six years ago) link
iirc i read her first novel (winterlong) back in the day and thought it was decent? i don't remember a single thing about it tho
― mookieproof, Monday, 10 September 2018 23:38 (six years ago) link
Xpost Don’t knock it, blade runner kept KW Jeter afloat for awhile there. Elizabeth Hand used to be married to Richard Grant who wrote a few cool magic realist kind of fantasies for bantam spectra before sort of dropping out.
― cheese is the teacher, ham is the preacher (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 11 September 2018 00:10 (six years ago) link
Thanks for the tip, Jon! I've only ever come across one Grant story, but it was a doozy---see how he stands out in this summation from the previous Rolling SF etc.:I've already posted about most of the ones I really liked, and some of the duds; other categories: kinda-sorta, may need re-reading; Wolfe stories are things that make me go h'mmm (oh so tricky). Will try to answer any questions. Years of original publication are also listed.The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Sf, David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, eds., 1994
Ursula K. Le Guin "Nine Lives" 1969 goodBob Shaw "Light of Other Days" 1966 goodNathaniel Hawthorne "Rappaccini's Daughter" 1844 goodArthur C. Clarke "The Star" 1955 nahHal Clement "Proof" 1942 goodRobert A. Heinlein "It's Great to Be Back" 1947 nahGene Wolfe "Procreation" 1984 Eh?Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” 1943 goodRaymond Z. Gallun “Davy Jones' Ambassador” 1935 goodIsaac Asimov “The Life and Times of Multivac” 1975 mmm-mehRobert L. Forward “The Singing Diamond” 1979 pretty goodDean Ing “Down & Out on Ellfive Prime” 1979 goodHilbert Schenck “Send Me a Kiss by Wire” 1984 kindaPhilip Latham “The Xi Effect” 1950 nahEdgar Allan Poe “A Descent into the Maelström” 1841 kinda-sortaGregory Benford “Exposures” 1982 meh-ish stiffly imposingKate Wilhelm “The Planners” 1968 stiffly imposing/contrived (lol 60s?)James Blish “Beep” 1954 nahRichard Grant “Drode's Equations” 1981 good! BorgesianTheodore L. Thomas “The Weather Man” 1962 nahPart II Arthur C. Clarke “Transit of Earth” 1971 nahJ.G. Ballard “Prima Belladonna” 1971 goodDonald M. Kingsbury “To Bring in the Steel” 1978 goodC.M. Kornbluth “Gomez” 1954 kindaIsaac Asimov “Waterclap” 1970 goodAnne McCaffrey “Weyr Search” 1967 goodRudy Rucker “Message Found in a Copy of Flatland” 1983 good-ishTom Godwin “The Cold Equations” 1954 good H.G. Wells “The Land Ironclads” 1903 goodLarry Niven “The Hole Man” 1973 nahJohn W. Campbell “Atomic Power” 1934 nahJohn T. Sladek “Stop Evolution in Its Tracks!” shit 1988Miles J. Breuer, M.D. “The Hungry Guinea Pig” 1930 good in an early pulp silly wayIan Watson “The Very Slow Time Machine” 1978 goodBruce Sterling “The Beautiful and the Sublime” 1986 good (actually doesn't suck)Ursula K. Le Guin “The Author of the Acacia Seeds” 1974 goodJohn M. Ford “Heat of Fusion” 1984 nahGordon R. Dickson “Dolphin's Way” 1964 kindaGene Wolfe “All the Hues of Hell” 1987 maybe?Theodore Sturgeon “Occam's Scalpel” 1971 h'mmm, the endingEdward Bryant “giANTS” 1979 kinda, above average ending (very last sentence), for sureRandall Garrett “Time Fuse” 1954 nahClifford D. Simak “Desertion” 1944 goodPart III Poul Anderson "Kyrie” 1969, mostly good? some bits of ickRaymond F. Jones “The Person from Porlock” 1947 seems like pre-Gick for a while, but nahFrederik Pohl “Day Million” 1966 nahJ.G. Ballard “Cage of Sand” 1963 goodJames Tiptree, Jr. “The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats” 1976 goodJules Verne “In the Year 2889” (year of orig. pub not listed) goodJames Blish “Surface Tension” 1952 good, although lol-ish endingCordwainer Smith “No, No, Not Rogov!” 1959 good (I think?)George Turner “In a Petri Dish Upstairs” 1978 goodRudyard Kipling “With the Night Mail” good-ish ?Arthur C. Clarke “The Longest Science Fiction Story Ever Told” 1965 okay but could've been better?Alfred Bester “The Pi Man” 1959 just okay-ish (compared to some of his 50s)Gregory Benford “Relativistic Effects” 1982 goodJames P. Hogan “Making Light” 1981 nahIsaac Asimov “The Last Question” 1956 nahPhilip K. Dick “The Indefatigable Frog” 1953 okay-ish (compared to some of his 50s) John M. Ford “Chromatic Aberration” 1994 kindaKatherine Maclean “The Snowball Effect” 1952 nahHilbert Schenck “The Morphology of the Kirkham Wreck” 1978 goodGreg Bear “Tangents” 1986 kinda, but predictableWilliam Gibson “Johnny Mnemonic” 1981 nahDavid Brin “What Continues, What Fails...” 1991 kinda (def some good science ideas and promising setting. but more like notes)Michael F. Flynn "Mammy Morgan Played the Organ; Her Daddy Beat the Drum" 1990 goodVernor Vinge "Bookworm, Run!" 1966 some good details, but as with Bester and Dick, although much, much more so: why *this* Vinge?
― dow, Thursday, 11 April 2013 20:55 (five years ago) Permalink
Not that I don't get into some other short Wolfe, like "The Death of Doctor Island", and will re-re-read these some more.
― dow, Thursday, 11 April 2013 20:59 (five years ago) Permalink
Raymond F. Jones “The Person from Porlock” 1947 seems like pre-Gick for a while, but nah pre-Dick!
― dow, Thursday, 11 April 2013 21:01 (five years ago) Permalink
― dow, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 23:44 (six years ago) link
Yes, Grant's story was the only good' un to get an exclamation mark out of me---Maybe that's unfair, but it was spontaneous. Surer about "Borgesian."Clute's SFEncyclopedia posts are often very astute, and can be so in a complicated lucidity---I especially dig his fail-safe: hyperlinks to other entries, the worlds behind and in his repurposed words, like "ponder" as noun.
― dow, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 23:54 (six years ago) link
Wells and James talked about collaborating on a novel once, about Mars. It's in their correspondence.— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) September 12, 2018
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 September 2018 15:50 (six years ago) link