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

I'm reading an earlier KSR right now, and have been contemplating reading the climate trilogy for awhile. Will totally get the new omnibus edition.

Will probably get as well, don't know when will have time to read tho.

Condensation, updating via ditching stuff that's now duh, not just cramming all three oldies into one vol.: v. appealing.

posted elsewhere first by mistake:
As brief takes go, promising (maybe esp. the Dibbell and Mieville, but prob pred by prior knowledge of, unlike w other authors here). I'll give 'em all the random read test asap:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-best-science-fiction-and-fantasy-books-of-2015/2015/11/18/4d65d9e8-7902-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html?postshare=3451447900927579&tid=ss_tw

KSR is on my list, the Claire North looks good and I am tempted by the Melville, I didn't love Perdido Street Station, the only thing I've read of his so far, but happy to give him another chance.

I did the most comprehensive count of Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft tribute anthologies I could and there was roughly 90 books, just under 10 different magazine titles and probably many more I'm missing.
That's astonishing, so much more than I anticipated. Some similar authors have 3 tribute anthologies at most.

ilxor nate is in a new one:

http://www.amazon.com/Cthulhu-Fhtagn-Laird-Barron-ebook/dp/B0127TCT8C

Didn't know he wrote fiction.

Here's the full lists I made, with some talk of tribute anthologies to other similar authors.
http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=10262

WSL columnist Tom Shippey on new series of collected Simak:

Nov. 25, 2015 3:55 p.m. ET

Clifford D. Simak is one of sci-fi’s 50-year men. Born in 1904, he sold his first story in 1931 and continued publishing till he died in 1988, all the way from the fiction era to “Star Wars.” Open Road Media is now marking his achievement by bringing out his collected short stories in 14 e-books, of which three are now available.

Their titles alone hint at Simak’s characteristic themes and strengths. The title story of “The Big Front Yard” ($7.99) is set in Simak’s homeland of rural Wisconsin. Its hero makes a living by “dickering”—trading in antiques. Then his home is turned into a portal by a team of alien robots. You go in the back door and you come out the front on an alien world, which has further portals. Their purpose is trade, and what’s traded is not goods but ideas. It’s fortunate for Earth that we have a dickerer as go-between. He works with Beasly, the village’s disregarded handyman, who happens to be telepathic. So it’s the meek, and the rural Midwest, who have the keys to the whole galaxy, made homely by being just “a big front yard.”

At the other extreme, “The Ghost of a Model T Ford” ($7.99) picks out Simak’s other recurrent theme, which is not outreach to the future, but memory of the past. His most famous novel, “City” (1952)—actually eight linked shorts—is held together by a robot who remembers humanity long after humanity has left earth for the stars.

“I Am Crying All Inside” ($14.99; also in paperback, $15.99) features another family-retainer robot, on the run because the human authorities mean to wipe his memories now that his human family has died. The title story has a robot organizing a funeral, and others have humans leading robot teams, as they try to cope with vegetable civilizations and alien tricksters.

Simak was never a “blaster and blast-offs” writer. His was a unique blend of humor and humanity, shown even by his robots, with the occasional and shocking flash of Gothic horror. His style is slow-paced, ruminative, reliant on emotional depth—all the things sci-fi isn’t supposed to have. But what he always had was ideas. Enough to last him 50 years. He has to be part of everyone’s sci-fi library.
(Dude in Comments stans for Way Station too)

WSJ, that is!

FAO UK SF rollers - Fopp in Glasgow (and presumably their other shops) are currently selling off some of these SF gateway omnibuses for £3 each, or two for £5 (full retail normally £18.99.) For your pennies you three different, out of print novels by individual authors. Yesterday I got the John Brunner and Pat Cadigan collections, today I think I'm going to go for Clifford Simak and James Blish. The price is right!

http://blog.sfgateway.com/index.php/sf-gateway-omnibus-schedule-2013/

Thanks. I'll see if I can get the PJ Farmer and Blaylock ones.

those seem depressing, who is this publisher, god forbid easy-to-find not-great novels by john sladek and jack vance should go out of print

oh gateway as in orion

the bob shaw one looks ok, everyone get the bob shaw one, he could probably do with the money, if hes still alive

This is a spin-off from the digital SF gateway project, where they're bringing back lots and lots of titles from the vast Gollancz back catalogue that have gone out of print (some of them many years ago). I don't like the clunky big size of these paperbacks all that much, but they still seem like a good thing, overall.

RAG, these books are tucked away a bit, on a table near the back of the Union St shop, ground floor. They don't have all the titles - I didn't see the Farmer (or the Blish), did see the Blaylock.

Thanks, Ward. Dunno how it's doing, maybe I'm wrong but Fopp has been seeming a little grim lately, but hopefully the upside to shops doing badly is amazing sales. I really should have bought so much more in those sales 2 years ago.

I haven't read the Vance omnibus yet but those are fan favourite books. Same with the Silverberg. Most of them seem like strong selections, it really is the "not quite masterworks" line.

I think shops are more eager to get rid of them because they take up so much space, not just weak sales. I think they'd probably sell better if Gollancz weren't so geekily insistent about the ugly yellow.
Although the original price is kind of reasonable, I think you can only really move this stuff at very low prices.

Sorry, but Bob Shaw has been at the wrong end of the light of other days for almost twenty years now:
http://ansible.uk/writing/bobshaw.html
http://www.christopher-priest.co.uk/essays-reviews/contemporaries-portrayed/bob-shaw/

Thanks for posting, very vivid. I'll have to read some more of his stuff.

yeah i thought that might be the case

Just read Crooked (Austin Grossman's alternate occult history novel about Nixon) and I really enjoyed it!

hmm also endorsed by J0hn D I see...

Appealing descriptions: The Dictionary of Literary Failure and several ripping fantastical yarns of yore:
http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2015/12/robert-eldridge-wormwood-contributor.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29

The Dictionary of Literary Failure is quite fun, but the joke somewhat outstays its welcome. It's a bit like Bolano's 'Nazi Literature of the Americas', only not as thoroughly and philosophically imagined

I was thinking it sounds like Lem's "A Perfect Vacuum". I admit I am fond of these kind of shenanigans

I went to Fopp and got all this for £15

James P Blaylock Omnibus
Robert Holdstock Omnibus
L Sprague De Camp Omnibus
Clifford D Simak Omnibus
Olaf Stapledon - Sirius
Alfred Bester - Demolished Man

Pretty good. There was some Wilhelm and CL Moore omnibuses stacked next to the cash registers for some reason. I don't know why Fopp never keeps movies and books in the one place. I found Demolished Man by looking under DVD stands, in a space obviously not for browsing.
There was loads of PK Dick books but they're always everywhere so I didn't bother.

I've already got the Omnibuses for Vance, Sturgeon, CL Moore, Kuttner, Blish and Silverberg.

There were so many authors I didn't know enough about (like Wilhelm). I'm sure most of them are good but what I've heard about Doc Smith and Jack L Chalker isn't that positive.

current reading list stacking up at the moment - Robert Silverberg's "Musings and Meditations" arrived from the library, collection of post-1996 columns (primarily for Asimov's Science Fiction), forewards, introductions, critical pieces etc. Some good stuff in here among the more unexceptional, predictable opinions about the state of the industry and whatnot. Was interesting to see him enthusiastically promote Saramago's "Blindness" as being in the Asimov's "social science fiction" category (which I think is accurate). As someone who burned out/got burned in the New Wave I'm most curious about his reflections on that period, how much bitterness does he harbor at the commercial failure of stuff he seemed to pour a lot of his heart and soul into. Also surprised to see him identify as a conservative/libertarian in the foreward, something I've never really detected in his work, but maybe he will expand on that in other pieces.

http://weirdfictionreview.com/2015/11/end-of-year-book-list-2015-edition/

Thanks, Robert! Glad to see Charles Beaumont, whom I carried on about upthread, also Angela Carter and a lot if authors and/or works I'm not familiar with, intriguingly described.
Yeah, Silverberg approved of the tourist kid getting caned in Singapore, and that's the last column I read. Wasn't into the later stories either, but maybe just a dry patch, and I still want to check Dying Inside.

Think Silverbob buried his New Wave bitterness and holed up in Lord Valentine's Castle, whereas Malzberg never got over it.

Believe the Kuttner and Moore omnibuses both contain best ofs. Wonder what is in that Sprague de Camp Omnibus.

I think I've said this elsewhere, but post-1970s Silverberg seems like the ultimate professional writer. Thorough, prolific, turns his hand to anything, all done with a certain minimal elegance, and absolutely without passion or any real spark.

It has been said many times before, by you and by others, but it bears repeating, especially on this newest version of the thread.

Let me take this opportunity to recommend a latter day work by another Robert, Robert Sheckley's Soma Blues. Really great descriptions and atmosphere regarding Ibiza and the demimonde thereof, you can almost see Nico and Le Kid riding bicycles in the background.

L Sprague De Camp omnibus has Lest Darkness Fall, Rogue Queen and Tritonian Ring.

Think Silverbob buried his New Wave bitterness and holed up in Lord Valentine's Castle, whereas Malzberg never got over it.

yes, this seems to be the case. Malzberg was v committed to sf as "serious" fiction, explicitly calling out people like Philip Roth as his models etc. and seems to look back on the failures of the writers and the industry to encourage and meet these high lit standards with disappointment and regret (although there is also some pride in some of its successes too). Silverberg looks back on a lot of it as foolish, excessive, sloppy, indulgent - like a necessary but awkward and occasionally dazzling period of growing pains for the genre and the industry. He readily acknowledges that many later blockbuster "masterpieces" like KSR's Mars trilogy or Neuromancer or Wolfe's Book of the New Sun would never have been written much less published without the New Wave paving the way, but he has a paternalistic nostalgia for the era and that's about it.

it's interesting that Silverbob and Malzberg are apparently such tight bros - their sensibilities seem p different to me, although obviously there's a lot of shared history there.

"Also surprised to see him identify as a conservative/libertarian in the foreward"

don't read The Masks Of Time...

that's actually one of the few I haven't gotten around to!

i guess you could look at it as a swingin' 60's answer novel to stranger in a strange land - maybe he was hoping the producers of the In Like Flint movies would option it - and if you can get past the frightening levels of sexism you get to the reactionary worldview that has not improved with age. although, who knows, the way we are going, maybe its a more accurate vision of the future than i want to admit.

sexism/mysogyny v prevalent in both Silverbob and Malzberg's works (altho I think in the latter's ouevre it's more openly acknowledged and intentionally deployed)

Fairly sure Malzberg got into trouble in recent years over sexist remarks in an interview.

yeah we covered that

I was talkin about their actual fiction

when Malzberg's male narrators lash out at their female counterparts, often in cruel, vindictive ways, it's not like this is portrayed positively - more often than not it's depicted as being rooted in the narrator's own neurosis, inadequacies, failures, or self-loathing. There's sexism and misogyny there, but it's not unexamined or portrayed positively as some harmless fun (a la Heinlein or countless other examples of the time)

Malzberg's aging opinions about gender relations are something else imo

It's a guilty pleasure but these days I regularly check file770.com to see the latest sff community clusterfucks and which writers are being bigots.

https://www.blackgate.com/2015/12/10/david-w-wixon-on-editing-the-complete-short-fiction-of-clifford-d-simak/

More info about the Simak series.

Thx. Volume 3 and Way Station ebooks on discount right now

Anybody read Rhys Hughes? For a niche author he's incredibly prolific. His recent book had a male and female version that have slightly different contents.

lol is that some homage to the Dictionary of the Khazars

It is. Here's Rhys writing about The Million Word Storybook

The longest single author short-story collection in publishing history is now available as an ebook!

In fact it is available as two ebooks, because it comes in two different editions, male and female, that differ in 10% of their contents. This is a trick that I picked up from Milorad Pavić, whose Dictionary of the Khazars also comes in male and female editions.

People keep asking me how I selected the variant stories for the two editions. The fact of the matter is that there is no rhyme or reason to the selection. I am not trying to make a point about differing male and female tastes in fiction. Quite the contrary! The differences are surely there but also insignificant.

As incredible as it sounds, there may actually be a print version next year. A publisher who has already issued a couple of my books is interested in bringing out a strictly limited multi-volume edition. It remains to be seen how practical this venture will turn out to be...

In the meantime here is the collection for the Kindle. THE MILLION WORD STORYBOOK features exactly 365 stories, one every day for an entire year. If you follow the link and click on 'Look Inside' you can read a sample for free. The book is so long that the sample, which is a certain percentage of the digital book, already contains 54 stories.

This collection contains approximately one third of my total fiction output over the past 25 years. The stories are presented in chronological order of their composition. The earliest dates from 1990 and the latest dates from this year 2015 and in fact is one of my most recently completed tales. As I plan to write 1000 stories in my working life, this collection will contain one quarter of my entire output ever!

I believe that this is a major literary event. Well, at the very least, it is a major personal event for myself and for the writer that I am and have been all my life...

"Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet's literature... As well as being drunk on language and wild imagery, he is also sober on the essentials of thought. He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef's sardonic confections..." - MICHAEL MOORCOCK

This is a trick that I picked up from Milorad Pavić, whose Dictionary of the Khazars also comes in male and female editions.

People keep asking me how I selected the variant stories for the two editions. The fact of the matter is that there is no rhyme or reason to the selection. I am not trying to make a point about differing male and female tastes in fiction. Quite the contrary! The differences are surely there but also insignificant.

this sounds... really stupid? The difference(s) in the male and female editions of the Pavic novel are *super* significant to the text and inform how the book(s) is/are read. Taking the same tactic but then making the differences insignificant, what is the point of that?

Everyone's very opinionated today.