ThReads Must Roll: the new, improved rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

Tooth and claw. Is it representative?

I've just read about her work here (my local library has Farthing):
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/walton_jo

For a second I thought you guys were talking about a Gene Wolfe book.

Tried to read the recent Hugo Winner, afraid I did not make much headway.

the second part of the bbc left hand of darkness should be up now. it's part of a a bigger le guin season, including something similar done for earthsea.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pkmyg

(bloody bbc pages that insist on loading a large swf player where a jpg would do)

Cool, thanks for keeping us current.

Jeff VanderMeer ‏@jeffvandermeer 2m2 minutes ago

While I've been writing Southern Reach science fiction, my dad's been fighting fire ants using poison frogs: http://entomologytoday.org/2014/12/02/compounds-from-poison-frogs-may-be-used-to-control-fire-ants/
https://entomologytoday.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/fire-ants2.jpg?w=618&h=396

Just read Algernon Blackwood's "Anicent Sorceries" last night. It starts off great with the beautifully evoked town and impressive description of ancient memories. But I felt he spolied it with constant reminders of how timid the main character was, how catlike the other characters are and being generally too long winded and repetitive. The big climax was unexpectedly cliched too but there is an interesting aspect added at the very end that complicates the whole thing.
Blackwood sure can write, when his bad habits aren't getting the better of him.

me and the boys did sci-fi creature paintings today.

mine

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xat1/v/t1.0-9/10915258_10153868984772137_7032079947527538038_n.jpg?oh=b372008d10ee2457b196c0c32572d71e&oe=55A130A0&__gda__=1436278370_1ceb361f9622d7649d280d4c7f01b7cb

rufus's

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/11150832_10153868656372137_1472511509627354177_n.jpg?oh=f7d01a7a090634a92eb3b0b2a8ce1b85&oe=559D1633&__gda__=1440352086_5d7975d2380d7fd234ea1973e329ea47

cyrus's

https://scontent-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/11159500_10153868433017137_3157729600342907999_n.jpg?oh=5336c96df7da660b8b2e1bda7154ddcc&oe=55A449E8

Nice, that first guy looks like he's got an owl tattoo with a really long beak.

Those are amazing. Y/all should do 50s paperback covers.

Especially since Rufus has invented his own language.

what is rufus' saying

Rufus's painting is great!

the only Jo Walton book I've read (many xposts) is Among Others, which is a sort of nostalgic companion piece to her tor.com essays: it's a semi-autobiographical diary of a 15-year-old book nerd, containing lots of capsule reviews/impressions of '70s sf novels + some fantasy elements. It's not bad, but as I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of old-school sf, most of the references went over my head. the 'novels mentioned' list is enormous, and I'm not even sure if it's complete.

Jeff Vandermeer thinking out loud about challenges of writing (and reading) fiction, def. incl SF, in the present and coming up (heating up) era. Really want to read this book he's reading, The Geological Imagination
http://electricliterature.com/the-slow-apocalypse-and-fiction/#.VTm2ejO284s.twitter
Re what he says about the wheel of life and what we may now understand better about other critters' understanding, got me thinking again about human x chimpanzee characters in Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, mentioned upthread.

The Geologic Imagination, that is.

John Crowley's 'Beasts' did a very good job at looking at the world from some non-human (esp. canine) viewpoints

gene wolfe invented pringles? i did not know that.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/sci-fis-difficult-genius

Whoa Wolfe profile in the nyer?

Godwhale by TJ Bass is a sequel but does it stand alone too?

His books contain all of the nasty genre tropes—space travel, robots, even dragons

oh fuck you

"On the other hand—suspended in this slow apocalypse as we are, neither raw nor fully cooked—we may soon not accept these things in novels set in the present-day, either. We may begin to see novels of the mundane and modern that seem like they could be written thirty years ago, give or take a smart phone or two, as symptomatic of a failure. The only form of nostalgia not seen as grotesque may be a yearning for that moment in time before we had set upon a course that would ultimately require radical change to ensure human survival or the survival of the planetary biosphere. Who, sane, ethical, would wish for a time like ours of unrelenting animal carnage, for example? For the dead wreckage of our systems being sold to us as the height of technological evolution?"

from the vandermeer thing. which is filled with things i have been obsessing about. like, at what point does our entertainment become beside the point. or just perverse. probably have to have actual hellfire raining down on people before that happens, i guess. resilient little buggers that we are.

Dang Scott THANKING U for that piece which is enormously impressive and has me converted to wanting to read some fucking van der meer asap. He has articulated some twistings and horrors which, in me unarticulated, have been pushing me in certain directions without my even realizing it

don posted that piece! i am thanking don. so much to think about reading that thing.

i wish people would here would read area x/southern reach cuz i would still like to have a discussion thread. maybe i'll just start a thread/

gonna post his reddit thing here so i remember to read it:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2o2jsx/i_am_jeff_vandermeer_nytimes_best_selling_author/

wherein i learn that alex garland is gonna direct the first southern reach movie...

read these recently on skot's enthusiasm -- liked them a lot. not a fully satisfying ending, but not bad given the expectations raised

i'm having a hard time picturing a movie? i dunno

it was cuet how all three books were dedicated to his wife

i started a thread.

xpost You're welcome, Scott, and thanks for the reddit. I wanna read Area X too, soon as I find a nicely priced copy (I'm a cheapskate).

library!

Heh, yeah, when I have the nerve to request another purchase...

Ursula Le Guin's Threshold (aka The Beginning Place), definitely one of her lesser novels. Beaten down american youngsters find solace in a fantasy land where time moves at a different pace, so far so Narnia, but the book spends as much time in the real world as in the fantasy realm, which is really a very thinly sketched and transparent proxy for their real life struggles. She's not interested in building up a detailed fantasy world (despite a lot of laborious and hard to follow geographical description) - ok no dwarves or elves or fucking mannered fauns is fine, but there's nothing else to keep you engaged, let alone enchanted.

Camp Concentration, a masterpiece - relatively speaking - of writing and ideas, but don't think it's entirely successful. Louis is a great character but it feels like the story is just a thin frame to hang him on. Most of the other characters are barely there, the main plot is hardly taken seriously. And a reverse Flowers for Algernon is a near impossible conceit to pull off but Louis starts off so clever there's virtually no sense of progression. Still it's very smart (but no heart) and amusing.

Got Riddley Walker on the shelves but might get Area X too...

Disch is so frustrating to me - an obviously really sharp guy, often with compelling ideas etc. but p much everything I've read of his is flawed in some basic, fundamental way (with the possible exception of 334, easily his best). I agree that Camp Concentration feels like some extended Twilight Zone episode that all hinges on the twist/reveal at the end, and without that there's not a whole lot. The entire novel is all perfunctory artifice hung around that central conceit. 334 succeeds because of the disconnected and episodic nature, I think. When it comes to novels, he tends to let whatever the central premise is become this oppressive thing that squeezes out all the other stuff that makes novels interesting - Echo Round His Bones and the Genocides are prime examples.

Riddley Walker otoh is incredible, that's a real masterpiece.

Saki "The Open Window". Funny little story.

Both Saki repressive read have been "all in their head" type affairs (something I normally don't like but it's good in these ones) but I'm curious if his horror stories would ever be as monstery as a title like Beasts And Superbeasts suggests.

http://blackcoatpress.com/murdererworld.htm

Mervyn Peake's centennial: new illustrated edition of Gormenghast Trilogy, with intro by Moorcock, plus sep publication of long-lost final volume; Guardian has essays by Moorcock and Mieville, plus other commentary I think, haven't had time to read yet--Cory Doctorow comments and links here, with excerpt of Mieville:

http://boingboing.net/2011/07/02/mervyn-peakes-centen.html

Oh well, Volume 4---based on a fragment and his outline, otherwise written by his wife---was already published in 2011:
http://www.amazon.com/Titus-Awakes-Novel-Mervyn-Peake/dp/159020428X/ref=pd_sim_b_4/184-9175235-8027269?ie=UTF8&refRID=02CEMYZ539SK0Z2H1NHV

intriguing overview from SF Encyclopedia's sister Encyclopedia of Fantasy, which stopped publishing in '97, so nothing about the fourth book:
http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.php?nm=peake_mervyn

I bought the ebook of that edition of Gormenghast back in December, but now it says it is unavailable.

I haven't heard anything good about the fourth book sadly.

Oops---that was all via Doctorow's (or somebody's?) new Tweet, but I finally just now noticed that the linked boingboing post is from 2011! Sorree! Anyway, still news to me, duh.

eBook unavailable. Print version is still available, I think.

finished Robert Reed's "The Cuckoo's Boys" - thx for whoever recommended that, I will keep my eye on this guy. Nothing totally blew me away but stories are all very well crafted and he's fueled by good ideas.

have moved on to Zelazny's "Lord of Light" (which is ridiculous and remarkably cynical but in a fun way) and Harrison's "The Centauri Device" which, despite being written 25+ years prior to Light/Nova Swing, is incredibly similar in style and tone.

Read a couple of SF plays (Pioneer by Curious Directive, Another Place by DC Moore), both of which were good but flawed. Doesn't seem to be much stage SF around, sadly.

Re Black Coat Press, a lot of their French stuff looks interesting, but the speed with which it's translated by Stableford (and always described as "adapted by") makes me wonder how abridged/bowdlerised it is.

Harrison seems to have pretty much disowned "The Centauri Device"

Yes, but is he over going to own it again, is it kind of an I'm Not Spock thing?

I've heard that Stableford's translations a very good from a few sources. Even that his Baudelaire is particularly good.

http://www.diseasedgardens.com/MyNewBlog/strange-fiction-in-translation-2/

Stableford is given to describing his translations as ‘adaptations’; it isn’t clear how much license this gives him. There is discussion of this point, particularly regarding his Paul Féval translations – here:http://www.gothic.stir.ac.uk/blog/paul-fevals-la-ville-vampire/. The conclusion seems to be that Stableford has on the whole provided reliable translations. But the sheer industrial quantity of his translating activity over a relatively short period of time inevitably raises suspicions, perhaps unfounded ones. For a full list see his Wiki page. He’s certainly to be congratulated for exploring some of the most obscure byways of 19th/early 20-century French ‘strange’ and feuilletonesque literature.

http://www.broadstreetreview.com/books-movies/two_french_symbolists_in_new_translation

There isn't an overwhelming number of opinions on his translation but the praise I can find is very encouraging.

Harrison seems to have pretty much disowned "The Centauri Device"

why?

I don't think it's a classic and it is *very* of it's time but it's hardly terrible

you guys ever just chill out with a youtube audiobook? cuz lord knows there's no end to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqXFChGO1o8

finding vids with good audio is a feat though.