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

Phew, not just me then. Thoroughly baffled by the M John Harrison review upthread where he says "it has such a lot of religious, linguistic, philosophical and political freight to deliver".

I have a bad habit of looking for reviews the minute I finish a book and the couple I looked at were similar! I feel I know nothing about this alien race or planet. I liked the 'on earth' bits I guess, they managed to pack a punch in about 1/10 of the amount of text that the rest of it took up.

Folk Horror: Field Studies: new trade-size paperback, covering films, music, literature and oh yeah, folklore, in articles and interviews with Ligotti, Pullman, Kim Newman, etc.; Robin Hardy,director of The Wicker Man, is in here too:

http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2016/03/folk-horror-revival-field-studies.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Wormwoodiana+%28Wormwoodiana%29

i read Lightless by C.A. Higgins, which i thought was good if not quite "great." I never really like the trope of an enigmatic villain who's most dangerous when trapped, and without spoiling it I figured out the manner in which certain messages were being communicated as soon as i noticed how much attention was called to the particular action. but it has quite the ending and an excellent hero.

there's a sequel novel called Supernova coming out in July, i'll be reading it.

I've been interested in that Folk Horror book. The editor used to run a great art blog called Beautiful Grotesque and I discovered so many great artists there.

In the home stretch with previously mentioned Emma Bull's Falcon, which has generated enough momentum that, even if there's one of those last second, manifestly fake happy endings in the SF tradition, especially for paperback originals with this kind of space opera intrigue framework, the candy figleaf won't matter. There are just enough twists and leaps, but it's mostly the early digital tick-tock of the characters' lives, and even ones who just show up for a graf or two leave their mark, as marks get left in them. The author's absorbed her Dune, Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, her Bester, Tiptree, Cordwainer, cyberpunk, cyborgpunk for that matter, and prob the Heinlein story about a daring, patriotic young starpilot left a senile husk, as scheduled, also EE Smith's Skylark of Valerion or something like it, but this isn't any of those---isn't as distinctive either, or not in the same way, but doesn't need to be.
I told her on Ywitter that I was enjoying it, and she seemed surprised that anybody was reading it at this late date (published in 1990). Check your nearest yard sale or thrift store.

Not that you'd have to have read any of that other stuff to enjoy this.

I was friendly with Emma and her husband Will Shetterly in the twin cities right about when she was writing that book -- when I was a super pretentious sickly and poorly socialized 19 year old minicomics artist before I moved to Seattle and they moved to the desert SW. They were much nicer and more tolerant of me than they needed to be. Great people. Haven't touched base with them in ages as a reader or irl but I should. I remember war for the oaks and cats have no lord v fondly.

Thanks Jon! Thought she might be cool like that, considering some of her tweets. Enjoyed the rest of Falcon, tho ending was indeed a little h'mm, and in retrsopect the first part didn't quite go with latter developments, in terms of the hero's nascent powers, maybe should have been a little more foreshadowing---but I'd rather have too little than too much, like I usually get.
This prob needs updating, but will def look for books listed:
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/bull_emma

Another collector's edition from Subterranean newsletter; want this, but I'll wait for the mass-release or trade paperback:

Announcing THE BEST OF IAN McDONALD
The Best of Ian McDonald
Our good friends at PS Publishing have the huge (over 550 pages) The Best of Ian McDonald on their upcoming schedule, and we've been lucky enough to lock in copies.

About the Book:

Ian McDonald, the author of such landmark novels as Desolation Road, Chaga, River of Gods, and The Dervish House, has long been regarded as one of Britain's finest SF writers. Just like those full-length works, his shorter fiction has commanded much admiration, and now, in this massive retrospective volume, the best McDonald tales are assembled in glittering array.

Represented here are all the phases of McDonald's career: the poetic early retro-visions that in the late Eighties signalled the arrival of a marvellously fluent new stylistic voice; the virtuoso Nineties riffs on themes such as the Irish Troubles, nanotechnology, alternate history, and alien sexuality; the bold post-millennial ventures into the futuristic politics of Third World countries such as Kenya, India, and Brazil, as well as far afield to alien solar systems; and recent, dazzlingly conceived variations on the Arab Spring, the nature of superheroes, and Mars as pulp SF writers once fondly imagined it to be. The treasures are abundant, each presented in McDonald's addictive, immersive prose-language at once elegantly timeless and edgily contemporary.

Limited: 100 signed numbered hardcovers, with bonus chapbook, and illustrated slipcase: $75

Trade: Hardcover in dust jacket, unsigned: $40

never bothered with this guy, would this be a good starting point?

Chaga is a good start--strange alien _stuff_ infests Kenya (from meory), starts spreading out slowly across Africa; good character-driven SF, lots of nice ideas

memory, that should say

I keep having the impulse to post about books that sound cool but I don't because I might not like them or I might never read them (until last night I hadn't read any fiction in three months because of OCD and allergy problems, but my reading rate has been atrocious for years).

But I feel fairly confident that Chomu and Snuggly books probably are worthwhile. Quentin S Crisp (note the "S") and Justin Isis are two of my favourite people on forums, they and authors like Brendan Connell are common to both publishers and the three have even collaborated on a book.

There is weird fiction and what some of the writers call Irreal and New Decadence but I think they'll publish any type of book that interests them. They even do reprint/translations like Jean Lorrain.
A lot of the synopsises (synopsi?) and reviews sound really interesting. Like this review of Anna Tambour's Crandolin by Jayaprakash Satyamurthy..
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/590151832?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

http://chomupress.com/our-books/

http://www.snugglybooks.co.uk/

Also interested in Paul Hazel. He written a bunch of books in 80s and early 90s. Reviews make it sound as if Robert Aickman had written fantasy based on Celtic mythology.

Just got hold a of a cheap Faber collection of Aickman's, looking forward to that

Anyone read The Three Body Problem? It's cheap today as a Kindle daily deal and I see it in my recommendations quite a bit

Oh, ledge has. Said it was decent but got bogged down in the second half

Today I finished "Forty Signs of Rain," now Part I, the former Volume I, of Kim Stanley Robinson's Science In The Capital trilogy, which he's mixed down to a single 1068 page trade paperback,Green Earth. He's also updated some of the science from the original volumes, published 2005-07.
Despite bursts and even implosions of private anxiety etc, these scientists, seen as individuals and in small groups, have settled into working diligently against the slide into projected ecolypse--The Big One, that is, not yer regular disasters, coming along a bit more often now, and more creatively at first, but now the public even some of the participatory audiences, are getting jaded, looking for a new thrill, and if DC catches the "perfect" storm, too bad, but even a lot of workers and/or residents (though maybe not the poor ones, who live in the most vulnerable areas) are ready for some kind of change, and get off on the results (might be read by people of the future as allegory/prophecy of the Trumpian deluge).
He builds up to that, but other elements grow right through and around it, in a sweet, fleet-for-KSR, still deliberate pace.

That settling in etc. is a big part of the tension, more than even the most aware characters know (so far).

ready *to* get off on the results, that is, or so they think, or would like to, in some cases.

was wondering how the rejigged 1-vol version was: i loved the original trilogy, but wasn't sure of the point of doing the revisions, since the science is always going to move on

they should really revise those john carter of mars books by edgar rice burroughs. i think i remember some sloppy science in those.

Well, he says in the intro to this version that lot (not all, but maybe most? Haven't read the originals, so can't say) of the updating is actually leaving things out: "Almost fifteen years have passed since I started (the trilogy), and in that time our culture's awareness of climate change has grown by magnitudes, the issue becoming one of the great problems of the age. In that changed context, I had the feeling that quite a few of my trilogy's pages now spent time telling readers things they already knew. Some of that could surely be cut, leaving the rest of the story easier to see."
"Also, my original idea had been to write a realist novel as if it were science fiction. This approach struck me as funny, and also appropriate, because these days we live in a big science fiction novel we are all writing together. If you want to write a novel about our world now, you'd better write science fiction, or you will be doing some kind of inadvertent nostalgia piece; you will lack depth, miss the point, and remain confused.
"So I felt then and still feel that my plan was a good one, but there was a problem I didn't fully gauge while I was writing. Science fiction famously builds its worlds by slipping in lots of details that help the reader to see things that don't yet exist...Just as famously, novels set in the present don't have to do this. If I mention the National Mall in Washington D.C., you can conjure it up from your past exposure to it. I don't have to describe the shallowness of the reflecting pools or the height of the Washington Monument, or identify the quarries where that monument's stone came from. But the truth is I like those kinds of details, and describing Washington D.C. as if it were orbiting Aldebaran was part of my fun." But later he thought it might be too much for some readers. But, as he points out, "If anyone wants the longer version of this story, it will always exist in the original three books." If reality's a big ol' science fiction novel, good to have more than one version.

Oh yeah, and what he shows and tells about the spectacle, the ever-Breaking News and literal cliffhangers of all this, and what some of the characters say about said meta-ness, reminds me of the time tourists in C.L. Moore's "Vintage Season."

And seeking that kind of distancing, that monitoring of self and other, of perspective on and in the spectacle of tumult, seems like a survival mechanism, or an attempt at one (can also be moth to flame, collecting disaster porn, or even making art of disaster, like another of the "Vintage Season"-ers)

But, although I was struck by the consideration of all this during the penultimate boom-boom of Part 1, don't see it likely to take over the book, it's just part of KSR's realism-science fiction. Which mainly seems like it's gonna be in the problem-solving tradition of SF.

i still haven't read the california triolgy let alone this one. i'll get to everything eventually.

trilogy

Vol 1 of California trilogy was so damn good

The Wild Shore, yeah! As much like the title as hoped. Need to read the others in that sequence.

So this overwhelmingly hefty anthology is out in July, only about 10% of which I've read (if that):

http://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-the-table-of-contents-for-ann-and-jeff-vandermeer-1766754207

Beyond Lies the Wub wld not be my choice for a PKD story

they stop at 2002? i've been teaching with the Wesleyan anthology and it goes up to 2008 i believe.

also no Heinlein (no "All You Zombies"!!!) is a killer.

bought some paperbacks this morning. the copy of planet of exile is an ace double with thomas disch's mankind under the leash. had to get it just for those guys tied together like that.

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/12936565_1584299591883687_7821742505665528111_n.jpg?oh=87137a2b8aa1b0c7af8424fd8afa35a6&oe=5773E47C

don't know if i can go back to mars with KSR anytime soon but i feel like i should have that book to be complete.

also got Ship Of Fools by Richard Paul Russo. never read him.

planet of exile is an ace double with thomas disch's mankind under the leash. had to get it just for those guys tied together like that.

this is kinda hilarious given how petulantly bitchy Disch could be re: LeGuin. I've never read Mankind Under the Leash (aka "Puppies of Terra" lol), def curious about that.

I've never bothered with Jose Farmer, even though he's of that era that I really love, idk something just doesn't appeal from descriptions I've read. I should probably give him a try.

i buy Farmer books because i know other writers love him and i always want to read those guys. in the intro to the Farmer book A Private Cosmos, Zelazny names his holy trinity as Farmer, Bradbury, and Sturgeon.

only solo Zelazny I've read is "Lord of Light", which was p fun but reminded me a bit of Gene Wolfe's "DO U SEE WHAT I DID THERE"-style references in his Soldier books, only without Wolfe's writing chops. I get the impression that Zelazny was really into these kinds of pomo-mashups of historical figures/classical references. Dunno if I like Zelazny enough to care about his recommendations, although that is an amusing "holy trinity" he's got there.

it should be noted that other sci-fi writers love zelazny.

Ship of fools by richard paul russo is really good, and miles ahead of any of his other books

It's REALLY good

glad i got it then. it looked interesting. and i try to pick up (relatively) new-ish stuff that looks good to me so that i don't get stuck in the past too much. though i'm happy in the past.

Farmer is hit or miss, as is Spinrad. The two famous biblically titled Zelazny planetary romance stories, "A Rose For Ecclesiastes" and "The Doors Of His Face, The Lamps Of His Mouth" are both grebt, haven't really read anything else yet.

Waiting for THE THREE BODY PROBLEM to get off hold and become available from local library. So if you're the bastard that's had it checked out for weeks on end, give it up, will ya?

The first four books of Zelanzy's Amber series are all really good fun - colloquial 1970s fantasy - and a very obvious source for Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics

oh yeah Rose for Ecclesiastes, I've read that - agree it's very good

So, just finished the aforementioned Green Earth, KSR's re-edited version of his "Science In The Capital" trilogy. It's in the Problem-Solving tradition of SF, except the characters know that they don't know where "solutions" will take them and future generations, don't know how the Earth will respond to this onslaught of good intentions, or to the momentum of exploitation (profit-seeking is still very much in the mix, too). But hey, try to see eye to eye with the storm, find a new balance, a home away from home, in your head and everywhere else---that's what reading this book is like, slipping back into the haunts and habits, as they change and don't. Great quotes, too, from Emerson and Thoreau even moreso (zings me good near the end with an 1840s comment on the implications of the anti-slavery movement, even more radical than though, because if you can't own a lesser or anyway very handy breed, what's the God-given right to Free Enterprise coming to? A certain this-don't-compute loose in the land ever since).
However, if Robinson's gonna cut so much, he maybe should have cut some more: the bit about the need for wildness comes across very well without Mr Mom and his tiny tornado, who gets "fixed" for a while---for instance. And some of the thriller subplot, ehhh, maybe a little too flimsy an ending of that, athough the spacey, complex central character gets even more rocket fuel from it, not that he needs it---well, he needs something like it, to get him to re-focus better. Or even better--overall, he responds to stressors from every angle better than he thinks he does, good-reading-wise, that is (eh, that crazy ex-wife gets too New Golden Age of TV sitcom ain't-I-edgey for me---although, speaking of NGA and KSR, I do like the shared degree to which--re Mad Men and Breaking Bad---you never know when something that seems like an anecdote or set piece may come back around to bite somebody in the ass much later on) but Gotta re-read some of this, and the original trilogy. Also get tired of the colorful courageous politician, but he's basically necessary. (Post-9/11 matters not mentioned much, except as pretext for bad guys.)
Good science and tech, as far as I can follow it, but despite some apprehensions (and affirmations)of necessary risk, on every level, we don't get to see the unintended consequences---this ain't Science Goes Too Far, nor is it catastrophe porn---but consequence-wise, I would like some kind of follow-up. Such a panorama, with zoom lens. Encore!

Also, as far as I can Panoramic, with good dialogue

Sorry about that last bit (and some others) meant to be backspaced off tiny screen entirely, although usually the dialogue is in deed good.