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

(from cryptosicko's syllabus)

I haven't read it myself but I remember my Potter fan siblings talking about that story. Didn't know it was the Roko's Basilisk guy.

wtf this was the wrong thread xxxxp

reading The Martian - some chat about it upthread (2015, me seeing it in tescos, wondering). i realise it has turned into a big deal in the meantime. it's quite compelling. written as a journal, lots of problem solving. reminds me of a.c.clarke - rama or moondust or something, the science leading the story.

just finished The Affirmation, which is one of those SF Masterworks but reads more like iain (no-M) banks - writer writes a fictionalised account of his life. or does he?

any good? sounds intriguing but "the inverted world" wasn't quite good enough to make me rush out for more.

Not really.

If you not like inverted world, not sure i can cope

thought that might raise some hackles. i didn't think it was *bad*, it just didn't ever rise above its own high concept.

finished The Martian. all through the book he's been throwing worst case scenarios at the poor guy so i settled down this morning to read the last 25 pages fearing the worst. but 16 of those pages were 'read an excerpt from author's new book' (i do hate that) so it all got wrapped up pretty quickly in comparison. was fun in an xkcd / 'if a man needs 1400 calories a day and so much space to grow potatoes, how long until he starves?' maths problem kind of way.

next up, Ready player One.

(Cyrus' favourite book, i see.

the ebook has a generic cover with just the name on the front. does nobody check these things?)

Dear god, koogs, Andy Weir has given you Stockholm syndrome, don't go on with the Cline!

Ha! Was wondering when someone was going to make a comment along those lines and how they would word it. Full marks

40 pages in and i see what you mean. i'm hoping when the plot gets going the writing won't bother me as much as it currently does.

'Rebecca Serle of The Huffington Post described the book as "the grown-up's Harry Potter"'

maybe i'll wait for the film...

Ready Player One is a deeply satisfying hateread.

It's the 80s reference that get me, the clumsy way they are name-dropped in, often 5 at a time. And the little, unnecessary, explanatory comments after each one. Reminds me of Moby Dick in a way, half novel, half Wikipedia.

Don't know about "grown up's Harry Potter", is more like Neuromancer but, y'know, for kids.

"grown up's Harry Potter" = "i have read 5 genre novels"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ2d00D7Gzg

Temple To Ancient Roman Cult Resurrected Beneath London

groovy pictures too:

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/europe/london-temple-of-mithras/index.html

iirc there was some mithraism in mary stewart's arthur/merlin series

Fredric Jameson on Aldiss's Non-Stop, https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/2/jameson2art.htm,
in which he compares it to Heinlein's Orphan's of the Sky and Aldiss's own Hothouse.

Aarfh, Orphans not *Orphan’s*

Aargh, aargh not aarfh

LOVE YOU FOREVER, URSULA! one of a kind. so great. so wise.

https://s.hdnux.com/photos/70/75/13/14930636/3/1024x1024.jpg

Oh no! RIP. The best. (Almost wrote 'in her field' but nah, no need.)

From Rolling Reissues 2018:

http://igetrvng.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/FTS009_DIGITAL_COVER_500px.jpg

Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton – Music and Poetry Of The Kesh

Music and Poetry of the Kesh is the documentation of an invented Pacific Coast peoples from a far distant time, and the soundtrack of famed science fiction author, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home. In the novel, the story of Stone Telling, a young woman of the Kesh, is woven within a larger anthropological folklore and fantasy.

The ways of the Kesh were originally presented in 1985 as a five hundred plus page book accompanied with illustrations of instruments and tools, maps, a glossary of terms, recipes, poems, an alphabet (Le Guin’s conlang, so she could write non-English lyrics), and with early editions, a cassette of “field recordings” and indigenous song. Le Guin wanted to hear the people she’d imagined; she embarked on an elaborate process with her friend Todd Barton to invoke their spirit and tradition.

For Music and Poetry of the Kesh, the words and lyrics are attributed to Le Guin as composed by Barton, an Oregon-based musician, composer and Buchla synthesist (the two worked together previously on public radio projects). But the cassette notes credit the sounds and voices to the world of the Kesh, making origins ambiguous. For instance, “The River Song” description reads, “The prominent rhythm instrument is the doubure binga, a set of nine brass bowls struck with cloth-covered wooden mallets, here played by Ready.”

According to writer and long-time friend of LeGuin, Moe Bowstern (who pens the liners for the Freedom To Spend edition of Kesh), Barton built and then taught himself to play several instruments of Le Guin’s design, among them “the seven-foot horn known to the Kesh as the Houmbúta and the Wéosai Medoud Teyahi bone flute.” Barton’s crafting of original instruments lends an other-worldly texture to the recordings of the Kesh, not unlike fellow builders Bobby Brown and Lonnie Holley. Bowstern notes, “Other musician / makers have crafted their own Kesh instruments after encountering the earlier cassette recordings that accompanied some editions of the book.”

Both Barton and Le Guin are sensitive to the sovereignty of indigenous Californians and were careful not to trample the traditions of the Tolowa people who lived in the valley long before the Kesh. “You research deeply, and then you bring your own voice to the table,” said Barton. Within the Kesh culture, the numbers four and five shape the lives, society and rituals. Barton composed loosely around these numbers, patiently listening to the land of Napa Valley for signs and audio signals from the natural elements. Todd incorporated ambient sounds of the creek by Le Guin’s house and a campfire they built together.

The songs of Kesh are joyful, soothing and meditative, while the instrumental works drift far past the imaginary lands. “Heron Dance” is an uplifting first track, featuring a Wéosai Medoud Teyahi (made from a deer or lamb thigh bone with a cattail reed) and the great Houmbúta (used for theatre and ceremony). “A Music of the Eighth House” sends gossamer waves of the faintest sounds to “float on the wind.” Like the languages invented in the vocal work of Anna Homler, Meredith Monk, and Elizabeth Fraser, the Kesh songs and poems play with the shape of voice.

The Music and Poetry of the Kesh cassette was meant to accompany and enhance the experience of reading Always Coming Home. Presented in this edition as a long-playing album, where only traces of the book linger (the jacket offers some of Le Guin’s illustration, and a letterpressed bookmark featuring the the narrative modes of western civilization and the Kesh valley is included), the music alone breaking the silence of what might be. It can transport—offering a landscape for imagining a future homecoming. One in which we are balanced, peaceful, and tend to the earth and its creatures.

A line from “Sun Dance Poem” reminds us, “We are nothing much without one another.” Freedom To Spend gives new life to the recordings of the Kesh people in the first ever vinyl edition of Music and Poetry of the Kesh also availably on digital formats on March 23, 2018. The LP will include a spot printed jacket with Ursula’s illustrations from Always Coming Home, a facsimile of the original lyric sheet, liner notes by Moe Bowstern, a multi-format digital download code and a bookmark letter pressed by Stumptown Printers in Portland, OR.

First edition limited to 1,000 copies.

https://igetrvng.com/shop/fts009/

― by the light of the burning Citroën, Friday, February 2, 2018 8:42 AM

Why didn't I ever buy the orig. book + cassette??
(Norman Spinrad, otherwise a fairly acerbic reviewer for Asimov's, just went off and off and off on this, the hippie-dippie test and "amateurish" tape---maybe he was right to some extent, dunno, but hard to believe that there weren't some redeeming qualities.)

New Bujold, keep meaning to check her out, mainly the Miles Whatisname stories are what she's known for, it seems---is she good? Didn't know she did fantasy too.

From Subterranean Press newsletter:

https://subterraneanpress.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/p/e/penrics_fox_by_lois_mcmaster_bujold.jpg

We're due to start shipping Lois McMaster Bujold's latest novella, Penric's Fox, early next week. Given the trade reviews it's received, we expect to be overrun with orders, so why not beat the rush and get yours in?
Limited: 450 signed numbered leatherbound copies: $45
Trade: Fully cloth-bound hardcover edition: $25
From Publishers Weekly:
"Bujold adds mystery to the wry humor that runs through her Penric and Desdemona fantasy series with this entertaining novella... Their unique relationship is full of good-natured banter, all within one physical body. Intriguing secondary characters round out the cast and enliven this unusual fantasy whodunit."
From Booklist:
"Penric and Desdemona are back with friends last encountered in Penric's Mission... Bujold's fans will be delighted with this latest adventure featuring Penric and his resident demon".
From Library Journal:
"With each novella adventure, Bujold continues to expand her 'Five Gods' world, reviving familiar faces along the way. The fascinating relationship between Penric and Desdemona is especially fun."
While we have you, don't forget that we're also accepting orders for Lois' next novella, Mira's Last Dance.

also from SP--mainly incl. cos I like the cover art better than the Bujold's:

https://subterraneanpress.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/b/l/bloods_a_rover_by_harlan_ellison.jp

Harlan Ellison and his editor, Jason Davis, have painstakingly assembled the whole story of Vic and Blood and Spike from the author’s files, using revised-and-expanded versions of the novella and short stories, interstitial material developed for Richard Corben’s graphic adaptation, and—for the first time—never-before-published material from the aborted 1977 NBC television series Blood’s a Rover to tell the complete story of A Boy and His Dog, and a Girl who is tougher than the other two combined.

(preorder—to be published in June)

Dust jacket illustration by Richard Corben

Edited by Jason Davis

Important Note: There is a limit of one lettered edition per person/household.

Harlan Ellison introduced you to Vic and Blood in 1969’s Nebula Award-winning novella, “A Boy and His Dog.” You thrilled to their on-screen adventures in the 1975 Hugo Award-winning feature film adaptation billed as “a kinky tale of survival.” 1977 and 1980 brought brief reunions in “Eggsucker” and “Run, Spot, Run,” and the promise of another story—and a third solo, Spike, to make the Dystopian Duo a Tribulation Trio—but only audiobooks and comics followed, revisiting the same tales.

Now, nearly fifty years after they first set off across the blasted wasteland, Vic and Blood are back.

Trade: 1500 cloth bound hardcover copies, unsigned

Lettered: 26 signed specially bound copies, housed in a custom traycase*

*Please note that the signature pages for the lettered edition have been repurposed from another project.

Table of Contents:

Editor's Note
Eggsucker
A Boy and His Dog
Run, Spot, Run
Blood's a Rover (teleplay)
more info--brace yerself for the price: https://subterraneanpress.com/bloods-a-rover

Well you'll just have to go there to see Corben's cover, turns out---maybe you can see this one here:

https://subterraneanpress.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/e/n/endymion_by_dan_simmons_1.jpg

Somehow, the product page for Dan Simmons' Endymion disappeared from our site for the better part of a year. It's been restored now, and to welcome it back, today only we're offering copies of this sf epic for only $100, a full $50 off the regular price.
About the Book:
Set hundreds of years after the events recounted in The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion inaugurates a grand new narrative arc, one that explores the themes of The Hyperion Cantos in even greater depth and carries the story forward into a surprising-and thoroughly developed-future.
Endymion takes its title from John Keats's poem about the love of a mortal man for an immortal goddess. By the time the novel begins, the Hegemony of Man has come to a spectacular end, the still dominant TechnoCore has disappeared from public view, and the once moribund Catholic Church has become the principle political power in the now scattered web of inhabited worlds. Against this backdrop, Simmons introduces two vitally important characters: Raul Endymion, convicted murderer and native of the planet Hyperion, and a twelve-year-old girl named Aenea, who is about to step through the Time Tombs and embark on a messianic destiny. Raul's role is to protect her from the forces massed against her and to shepherd her toward her ultimate moment of apotheosis.
Endymion, together with its sequel, The Rise of Endymion, is a colorful, hugely ambitious narrative that also offers a revisionist view of earlier events-events we only thought we understood. Familiar characters-Father Lenar Hoyt, the poet Martin Silenus, the enigmatic and terrifying Shrike-appear in new and unexpected roles. Together with a host of vivid supporting characters and a vast array of brilliantly realized settings, they help set the stage for a memorable and visionary conclusion, while casting a new and sometimes startling light on all that has gone before.
Our edition of Endymion will be an oversize volume, printed on 80# Finch, with a dust jacket and full-color endsheets by John Picacio.
Limited: 474 signed numbered copies: $100

New Bujold, keep meaning to check her out, mainly the Miles Whatisname stories are what she's known for, it seems---is she good? Didn't know she did fantasy too.

Really like the Vorkosigan books - all space opera but varied in that some are mysteries, some military, some political. Some people suggest they can be read as standalone novels but I would recommend reading the series in order as the characters have long story arcs.

Not read any of her fantasy ones but keep meaning to.

People I always get mixed up: Dan Simmons, Peter F Hamilton. Is the former as bad as the latter?

Not usually.

The Hyperion/Endymion books are some of my favourite sci-fi and I've enjoyed lots of his other books (Flashback was absolutely horrible though).

hyperion/endymion is great imo

I heard that Ellison actually finished Blood's A Rover recently. Unless it's just this teleplay thing?

I have an earlier Vic And Blood collection. As much as I love Corben, I didn't think his art added anything to the story.

A paid advertisement in the June 1968 issue of GALAXY lists the science fiction authors who support or oppose the Vietnam War. They line up about as you'd expect. pic.twitter.com/mxyvR7NIqP

— Grant Wythoff (@gwijthoff) February 8, 2018

Had no idea Marion Zimmer Bradley was pro-war! Of course now this hardly rates amongst her worst crimes...

Only two of my favorites in the pro list and quite a few more in the anti list. But my favorite of all is in the pro list. Idk man.

And that favorite has gotta be ... Jack Vance.

Aye

That'd make a great quiz. You can maybe see some of Vance's leanings in portrayals like the risibly rapacious progressives in the Cadwal books.

I think I only like 3 people from the pro list, and lots from the anti list, fwiw

Has anyone read Adam Roberts' THE REAL TOWN MURDERS ?

Vance was nowhere near the proto-neocon some of his legacy-keepers want him to be, of course. But conservative, yeah

it's linked upthread but worth a reminder, as adam roberts has now completed his reading and blogging of hgwells's entire oeuvre: http://wellsattheworldsend.blogspot.co.uk

i haven't read it all by a long way, but some of the crit here is superb

The Real Town Murders is fun, especially if you like Hitchcock movies, but far from peak Roberts. He himself said somewhere he basically wrote it in despair after his much more ambitious books getting nowhere recognition/sales-wise.

Which other books of his do you recommend?

The Thing Itself is probably the best. Then the story collection Adam Robots. Yellow Blue Tibia is also excellent. The only one I'd avoid is The Snow.

Yes I know the Wells blog and admire it - I read the WAR OF THE WORLDS entry some time ago.

I like THE REAL TOWN MURDERS and find it inventive and interesting but I have not finished it. I like the use of Reading as setting but so far the book has not made so much of this.

Due to recent favorable mentions on here x a bag o] books I'd totally forgotten about (from the library shop of yore), I've just started my first xpost Bujold, Memory. Getting blown up does a body good, if it's Miles V.'s body, because he was born with very fragile bones, because his mother was almost assassinated in space opera--but every time he gets maimed or killed (kind of a Teddy Roosevelt, once-more-unto-the-breech overcompensation for childhood frailty, is my diagnosis, having known him for 10 pages), the doc rewards his pluck with bonus work, like replacing weak bones with synthetics.
However, at the beginning of this book, he wakes up in the ship's med bay unexpectedly; the last thing he recalls is liberating the hostage and leading him back through emptied corridors of the kidnapper's ship, with plenty of back-up---yadda yadda, his girlfriend shows up and tells him he had a seizure and blasted the freed hostage's legs off.(He then sees the hostage carried out of the bay, with the legs in their own box, or he can hope it's the legs.)
Girlfriend gets him to confess that he's had several (doesn't tell her quite the right number) seizures since his last medical resurrection---but he couldn't tell and still can't because it will endanger the identity he's assumed, of the mercenary "Admiral Naismith." Is it still assuming when you've been living it for a decade? Anyway it's important to him to live it and to think of it that way.
Girlfriend, who is also his second-in-command, is so pissed.
It's kind of Worlds of Wodehouse so far, but don't think she's going to turn into Jeeves or Uncle Fred, also there's more boom-boom and maybe even more cold sweat so far.

so if i were to read a jack vance, where should i begin?

I'm no expert, but I started with The Moon Mothhttp://www.unexploredworlds.com/RealPulp/htm/rpulp145.htm