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

Inspired by thread, I just this morning finished reading my first kiernan, The Red Tree. Pretty impressed.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/29/norse-myths-by-neil-gaiman-review

Le Guin writes a fairly negative review of Gaiman but I enjoyed her description of the dialogue in modern animation and comics.

Fucking hell--just discovered that a Ted Chiang novella I paid a normal price for several years ago is now selling for hundreds of dollars. Almost makes up for the hundreds of books I've sold to second-hand shops for 50c/given away free.

Just seen someone use the word "Slansplaining"

Lol

Watched a youtube video titled "Eurocon 2016 - Sala Auditori - Verne Versus Wells (ENG)" with Adam Roberts and Aliette De Bodard. It's quite fun. Quite curious about the SF history book Roberts has written, he clearly knows a lot.

There's a whole load of Eurocon panels on youtube and they have writers from a wide range of countries, mostly in English.

Speaking English that is, but their books aren't always in English.

Roberts is currently working his way through the entire output of Wells over at http://wellsattheworldsend.blogspot.com/

Woah, that's pretty in depth, as are his other blogs on other writers. Surely he intends to turn all these into books?

He's done a few Ted talks too.

Interesting. Btw wondering if anyone has read David Lodge's book about Wells.

Weird fiction author Mark Samuels is homeless now. There might be some sort of charity account set up eventually. A paperback version of Written In Darkness is coming soon, it's his fifth collection.

Subterranean editions of new Blaylock and prev. unpub.(as orig. intended, that is) Silverberg---both novellas, both expensive, duh:

http://subterraneanpress.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/r/i/rivers_edge_by_james_p_blaylock.jpg

We're pleased to announce River's Edge by James P. Blaylock, which, at over 40,000 words, is the longest Langdon St. Ives novella yet!

About the Book:

The body of a girl washes up on a mud bank along the edge of the River Medway amid a litter of poisoned fish and sea birds, casting an accusing shadow upon the deadly secrets of the Majestic Paper Mill and its wealthy owners. Simple answers to the mystery begin to suggest insidious secrets, and very quickly Langdon St. Ives and his wife Alice are drawn into a web of conspiracies involving murder, a suspicious suicide, and ritual sacrifice at a lonely and ancient cluster of standing stones. Abruptly St. Ives's life is complicated beyond the edge of human reason, and he finds himself battling to save Alice's life and the ruination of his friends, each step forward leading him further into the entanglement, a dark labyrinth from which there is no apparent exit.

Limited:1000 signed numbered hardcover copies: $40
******************************************************************************************
(no cover art provided for Silverbob)

Announcing The Emperor and the Maula by Robert Silverberg
We're thrilled to announce a new novella by Robert Silverberg. Read on for what makes this particular project unique.

About the Book:

Robert Silverberg's The Emperor and the Maula was written in 1992 for an aborted publishing project and has been printed only once, in a radically abbreviated version. This deluxe new edition restores more than 15,000 words of missing text, allowing us to see, for the first time, the author's original intent. The result is both a genuine publishing event and an unexpected gift for Silverberg's legion of readers.

The Emperor and the Maula is Silverberg's Scheherazade tale, the story of a woman telling a story in order to extend--and ultimately preserve--her life. The Scheherazade of this striking story is Laylah Walis, denizen of a far-future Earth which has been invaded and conquered by a star-faring race known as the Ansaarans. Laylah is a "maula," a barbarian forbidden, under pain of death, to set foot on the sacred home worlds of the imperial conquerors. Knowing the risks, Laylah travels to Haraar, home of the galactic emperor himself. Once there, she delays her execution by telling the emperor a story-and telling it well.

That story, the tale within a tale that dominates this book, is, in fact, Laylah's own story. It is also the story of the beleaguered planet Earth, of people struggling, often futilely, to oppose their alien masters and restore their lost independence. Colorful, seamlessly written, and always powerfully imagined, The Emperor and the Maula shows us Grandmaster Silverberg at his representative best. This is science fiction as it should be written, but all too seldom is. No one does it better than Robert Silverberg. No one ever has.

Limited: 250 signed numbered copies, bound in leather: $45
Trade: Fully clothbound hardcover edition: $25

huh, dunno that one, but I p much ignore his post-Majipoor output

i wish blaylock would write some more modern SoCal novels, i love homunculus as much as the next guy but the californian magic realism is what made him my favorite writer. I shouldn't carp, though-- at least he's writing. And he can move copies in this genre.

<3 U JPB

Wait are we discussing the cut-off date for Silverbob again? Is it time for a new thread?

nah

If This Goes On —

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecovers.cgi?1878722

Bought this book. Why did it have to have the most boring cover of the lot? (second last)

Interested to know what it's like. I've read some of her stories set in an alternate future of Vietnamese star-trabellers, and they were very good.

I liked House of Shattered Wings and, going on the half I've read so far, the sequel (House of Binding Thorns) is better still

Got a really bad habit of buying 50 books for every book I've actually read, but I'm trying to just buy what will become too expensive or disappear soon. Here's some recent ones.

Aliette De Bodard - House Of Shattered Wings
Alan Garner - Weirdstone trilogy
NK Jemisin - The Fifth Season
Zen Cho - Sorceror To The Crown
Ramsey Campbell - Far Away And Never (his sword & sorcery stuff)
Brendan Connell - Metanatural Adventures Of Dr Black
Alistair Rennie - BleakWarrior
Murder Ballads
Angela Slatter - Sourdough
Jessica Amanda Salmonson - Disfavored Hero
Sarah Orne Jewett - Lady Ferry And Other Uncanny People
Tanith Lee - Wars Of Vis
DF Lewis - Weirdmonger
George Berguno - The Tainted Earth
Marcel Bealu - Experience Of The Night
Alfred Kubin - The Other Side (already had this but the new translation is supposed to be better)
A Midwinter Entertainment
Mario Mercier - Jeanne's Journal
Colin Insole - Elegies & Requiems
David H Keller - Keller Memento
Richard Gavin - Sylvan Dread
Karin Tidbeck - Jagannath
Darrell Schweitzer - Awaiting Strange Gods
Daniel Mills - Lord Came At Twilight
Best New Horror 26
Rebecca Lloyd - Ragman And Other Family Curses

If you ever get round to it, let us know how the new Kubin is. I have the old Penguin Modern Classics version.

And had no idea Sarah Orne Jewett had written ghost stories! I love her stuff--will have to seek these out ASAP.

OK, found out what was in that Jewett collection and have made my own ebook of it (leaving out the 2 stories which are extracts from Country of the Pointed Firs). if anyone is interested, it's at http://www104.zippyshare.com/v/RG1HCa7Y/file.html

Ha, I've cut back a little on my own bad book buying habit and only own one of those that RAG just bought

Actually, fuck Zippyshare, try https://www.dropbox.com/s/kw8hvccsbd9aypc/Sarah%20Orne%20Jewett%20%20-%20Supernatural%20Stories.epub?dl=0

Really hated that Kubin book. Just seems to wallow in misery and cruelty in this very distanced, dry tone. You could make a case for it as prophetic of WWI I guess. Reminded me of that Robert Mitchum quote - "movies that shit on mankind".

Great photo of Robert Bloch
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=Ny:True,Ro:0,N:4294963828-4294955414&dsNavOnly=Ntk:All%7cRobert+Bloch%7c3%7c,Ny:True,Ro:0&dsRecordDetails=R:IM64463&dsDimensionSearch=D:Robert+Bloch,Dxm:All,Dxp:3&dsCompoundDimensionSearch=D:Robert+Bloch,Dxm:All,Dxp:3

Intriguing take on VanderMeer's new Borne, ditto on Southern Reach Trilogy, incl. how they differ:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/24/jeff-vandermeer-amends-the-apocalypse

half price sale at the musty dusty around the corner. bought:

alastair reynolds - the prefect, chasm city

pamela sargent - the shore of women

james white - the watch below

john c. wright - count to a trillion

charles stross - singularity sky

greg bear - quantico

diann thornley - ganwold's child

jacob transue - twilight of the basilisks

charles sheffield - aftermath

robert charles wilson - spin, axis

jack mcdevitt - chindi, omega, odyssey, seeker, deepsix, the devil's eye, polaris, cauldron

stephen baxter - moonseed

i guess i'm hoping i'm a jack mcdevitt fan. they just had so many and they all looked kinda fun.

you don't have to worry about order with alastair reynolds books do you? they are all in the same future, right?

one of the reasons i still haven't read the banks culture books is because i feel like i should own them all before i read them. but maybe i really don't.

also have another big bag at home that i got on Thursday from the musty dusty.

also got 4-disc blade runner, children of men, and cabin boy for $1.75 each. strangely, i've been thinking lately about how i wanted to see children of men AND cabin boy again.

john c. wright - count to a trillion

― scott seward, Thursday, 4 May 2017 16:26

I'm kind of fascinated by Wright. Haven't read his work but I like his influences and some of the approach he seems to be going for and some of his work is supposed to be good. But he's one of the maddest people in fantasy, he has some really bigoty opinions, he has the most pompous online persona I've ever seen, he's one of the main figures of the puppy movement (the speculative fiction version of gamergate) and his main editor/publisher is one of the main alt-right guys. Last time I read his blog he was complaining about witches casting spells on Trump.

George RR Martin arguing with him.
http://grrm.livejournal.com/485124.html

I'm not reading anything by this guy
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/John_C_Wright.jpg/160px-John_C_Wright.jpg

One of his fellow puppies seems to believe left wing people are literally possessed by demons.

Some more recent buys

Rhys Hughes - The Percolated Stars
Rhys Hughes - Bone Idle In The Charnel House
Anna Tambour - Crandolin
Sofia Samatar - A Stranger In Olondria
Caledonia Dreamin (anthology based on Scottish words and slang)

Some I'm still waiting for in the mail

AE Van Vogt - Transfinite: Essential
Avalon Brantley - House Of Silence (she died weeks after this book was announced, it's based on Hodgson's stories)

i read john c wright's hugo-nominated story "The Parliament of Beasts and Birds" and it was awful. not linking it because it's posted on a fascist blog.

i don't know anything about Wright. i just went by cover/blurbs.

feel bad that half the paperbacks i read are blurbed by spider robinson and i don't think i've ever bought a spider robinson book. he is blurb king.

> alastair reynolds - the prefect, chasm city

> you don't have to worry about order with alastair reynolds books do you? they are all in the same future, right?

not those two, no. there is a trilogy and chasm city is set in the same universe (and was released just before/after/during it) but isn't part of the trilogy so...

the prefect is a bit of a romp, reminds me of rendezvous with rama. outside of revelation space it might be the one i'd recommend to curious people.

Robert Charles Wilson's Spin is pretty good

still making my way through Ramsey Campbell - The Darkest Part of the Woods. Really great, my first thing by him, I'm taking my time and savoring it.

At his best he's great, I love "The Brood" and "The Fit". There's a fairly clear consensus that his short stories are better but I haven't read any of his novels yet.

Never read a bad Ramsey Campbell story but there's quite a lot that didn't do much for me.

okay, the other bag of books i got from the sale. i actually got myself nice barely-read U.K. Mandarin paperbacks of the Gormenghast trilogy which i've never read. they are nice. will read!

robert j. sawyer - rollback, calculating god

leigh brackett - alpha centauri or die!, the nemesis from terra, the coming of the terrans

neal asher - gridlinked

zenna anderson - the anything box, holding wonder, the people: no different flesh, pilgrimage

roger zelazny - the last defender of camelot, isle of the dead

ace double: john rackham - treasure of tau ceti/k.m. o'donnell - final war and other fantasies

neal stephenson - snow crash

robert silverberg - the alien years

allen steele - lunar descent

jack williamson - seetee ship/seetee shock

ace double - lan wright - the pictures of pavanne/ellen wobig - the youth monopoly

nancy kress - yesterday's kin

Re Scott's haul pt 1:

greg bear - quantico : this is superior snear-future scf-gi crime/technothriller stuff: not winning any awards for prose (not that it's bad, just functional), but it does its thing with inventiveness and is pretty clever

robert charles wilson - spin, axis : these are excellent

jack mcdevitt - chindi, omega : these have some nice ideas, but dodgy prose, and dangers of space/intriguing alien life repeatedly undermined by inadvertent bathos

stephen baxter - moonseed : probably one of his better non-series books

have you ever heard of those zenna henderson books? i VERY MISTAKENLY wrote "Anderson" above. they look so cool. very much of their time. they've probably been in that store for years and i just never noticed them.

https://www.blackgate.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-People-No-Different-Flesh-Zenna-Henderson.jpg

http://ofearna.us/books/henderson/anything.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ODVReKSiL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

http://www.adherents.com/lit/images/aut_Hendeson_AboutAuthors.jpg

i haven't even read them and i already want to find the hardcovers...

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51q1tQlCJpL.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51zQUsn-e0L.jpg