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

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.

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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.

When you have a lot of books and you know some are going to be really good and you don't know about the others, read the questionable ones first. If you read the good ones first, the others will seem intolerable.

/deletes whole ebookshelf, starts over with library search function

RB Russell put his Robert Aickman documentary on his youtube channel. A good overview of his writing, his canal restoration work and his personal flaws. Includes a few people that knew him.

From Subterranean Press (as usual, good for info, though I always wait for the mass market editions---SP's are reaaal nice, but oh the prices)

T read Hyperion and its sequel, didn't know there were more. Retain ancient impressions of slick fun, lively imagination.

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The Rise of Endymion is the fourth and final installment in the brilliant, massively ambitious series that began with the Hugo Award-winning Hyperion. Seamlessly continuing the narrative arc that began in Endymion, it brings one of the most significant accomplishments in modern science fiction to a resonant conclusion.

Once again, we are immersed in the complex future that emerged in the aftermath of the Hegemony of Man, a future dominated both by the Catholic Church and by the artificially intelligent entities of the TechnoCore. Once again, we are caught up in the intertwined stories of Raul Endymion and Aenea, a young woman born from the union of a human mother-Hyperion's Brawne Lamia-and the cybrid-based reincarnation of John Keats. Aenea is something new in the universe, a point of contact between disparate forms of existence. She has been charged with a unique-and uniquely difficult-destiny: to redirect the evolution of the human species. The Rise of Endymion concludes the account of Aenea's attempts to achieve that destiny.

The result is both an interstellar adventure on the grandest scale and a work of intellectual and philosophical richness. With great eloquence, Simmons offers us the vision of a universe that is itself a "minded thing," a vitally sentient arena defined at its most fundamental level by the qualities of Empathy and Love. The novel-and the series as a whole-offers a humane, deeply considered view of human existence and argues powerfully for the value-the absolute necessity-of endless diversity and constant change. In this luminous meditation on a world filled with "chaos, clutter, and wonderful unseen options," Simmons has created an epic work of enduring-and undeniable-importance.

In the same newsletter---never heard of this guy, but quite a description:

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Earthling Publications has just announced a new Glen Hirshberg novel. Good Girls is limited to only 250 signed copies. Get your order in early!

About the Book:

Three-time International Horror Guild and Shirley Jackson Award Winner Glen Hirshberg brings his flair for the grim, grisly, and emotionally harrowing to this standalone sequel to Motherless Child.

Reeling from the violent death of her daughter and a confrontation with the Whistler--the monster who wrecked her life-Jess has fled the South for a tiny college town in New Hampshire. There she huddles in a fire-blackened house with her crippled lover, her infant grandson, and the creature that was once her daughter's best friend, and may or may not be a threat.

Rebecca, an orphan undergrad caring for Jess's grandson, finds in Jess' house the promise of a family she has never known, but also a terrifying secret.

Meanwhile, unhinged and unmoored, the Whistler watches from the rooftops and awaits his moment.

And deep in the Mississippi Delta, the evil that spawned him stirs...

T read Hyperion and its sequel, didn't know there were more. Retain ancient impressions of slick fun, lively imagination.

Love the Endymion books although they're a bit more popcorny space opera than the first two but still have some amazing sequences in them.

Be interesting to see what SyFy do with their forthcoming adaptation as imagine these two books would be easier to film than the Hyperion ones.

^^^

store around the corner from my house had a dollar sale this weekend. bought these:

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i already had the delany but not a hardcover.

it's a big space that mostly sells on amazon. the have tons of stuff for sale in front that is not on amazon. that's all a dollar all weekend. i feel like i was the only person who bought their sci-fi. gonna go there tomorrow to check out the paperbacks. though they have a lot of dragon-y stuff that i don't want. one of my boyhood idols was there today shopping. #elfquest4ever

Have you read hammer of the gods (which anvil of the stars is the sequel to)?

oops, no i haven't. i try not to buy sequels to things i haven't read too...

Get it if you see it (I'm sure you would anyway), it's a pretty good first contact story with a difference. Haven't read anvil.

first one is the forge of god (hammer of the gods is different)

those mcmullen books look cool. though there is "steam power" involved which are kind of trigger words for me...

xp ah yes, oops. Forge is what I read.

You saw a pini at the bookstore?

yes. mister. he's around sometimes. he's very nice.

Forge of god is very good

that book The Narrows is about the Ford Motor Company building golems in the bowels of its factory in Detroit to defeat Hitler...

More from Subterranean Press newsletter

Centipede Press has kicked off a new series, Masters of Science Fiction, with a hefty tome by Fritz Leiber. We can only assume that, like the other Centipede books, the prouction values will be just so. The contents, well, are beyond compare. This one will go fast.

About the Book:

Poet, actor, playwright, chess expert, master of fantastic fiction. Fritz Leiber was a true Renaissance Man. His writing crossed all boundaries, from horror to sword and sorcery. This book goes deep into Leiber's underrated science fiction oeuvre. It's a comprehensive, page-turning cache that captures Leiber's thoroughly original style - altogether mystical, beautiful, and sometimes disturbing.

"The Foxholes of Mars" is a literary assault: a frightening, nitro-fueled tale of war on Mars, with one soldier questioning the futility and purpose of the battle against bug-eyed aliens - a distant mirror-image of our own times. "Space-Time for Springers" is told through the glaring eyes of Gummitch, a cat who happens to possess a genius IQ and a voracious appetite for scientific knowledge. "Night Passage" takes us on a dark journey into a Las Vegas where Earthlings and extra-terrestrials mingle and gamble - and where one man takes a moonlit ride with a mystery woman from Mercury, tailed by some very scary pursuers. "The Mutant's Brother" is a malevolent mix of horror and SF, a tale of identical twins who each carry a frightful chromosome. One of them is also a monstrous serial killer. The literally chilling "A Pail of Air" takes place in an underground nest, where a family fights to survive in a sunless, moonless, post-apocalyptic world where even helium and carbon dioxide become crawling, shapeless threats.

Fritz Leiber was a storyteller and prophet for the ages. His work will never be dated or irrelevant. Treat this book like a crystal ball. These pages chronicle the world to come. You've been warned.

Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is regarded as one of the fathers of sword and sorcery fantasy. He excelled in all fields of speculative fiction, writing award-winning work in fantasy, horror, and science fiction.

Edition Information:
Over 700 pages of Fritz Leiber's best science fiction.
Afterword by John Pelan.
Limited to 500 signed and numbered copies.
Signed by John Pelan and cover artists Jim & Ruth Keegan.
Fully cloth bound, gorgeous dustjacket, ribbon marker, head and tail bands.