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

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

Yeah. Any short story collection that includes moon moth and green magic.

Then, a stand-alone, perhaps languages of pao or big planet

And the dragon masters and last castle novellas.

Then, either the Dying Earth series or the Demon Princes series.

thanks!

Ps big planet has a sequel so it’s not really a stand-alone but w/e

Mostly what I've read by Vance, the ones that stuck in memory anyway, are some of the Cugel The Clever yarns: he's kind of anti-Conan, or a hipster in a 50s-early 60s sense, clever like a fox. Whatta guy.

A cruel cad.

I've heard that Adam Roberts' Bete is particularly good.

I'm trying to rotate my reading a bit more (mostly short stories) because when fatigue with one writer sets in I can change and get a bit more experience with writers I know less. I really wish my favorite old writers used more paragraph breaks because I'm finding so many massive paragraphs quite challenging.

Yes, Bete is good and somehow I forgot it!

I was blown away by the new maclaverty (endorsed by mantel!) one of the most humane and skilfully written books I've read in a long while

Is that MacLaverty the one with the incredible Boris Vallejo cover painting of the retired couple?

more details pleasr. the only maclaverty i can find on google doesn't belong in this thread.

I really like THE REAL TOWN MURDERS ! It seems distinctive and innovative in various ways.

Wow at that Wells blog of his.

Again, the video of him and Aliette De Bodard talking about Welles and Verne is quite fun. One of those times a panel benefits from most of the panelists not making it there.

Yeah, I was making a joke about MacLaverty (whom I do like but he is very un-fantastic) being in the wrong thread.

i get it! lol! not entirely implausible that mantel might endorse some sf/f though.

reading SPIN by robert charles wilson. if i dig it i'll read the sequels i guess. pretty entertaining so far. HUGO award winner. don't think i've ever read anything by RCW.

I believe James M has recommended him on multiple occasions

I was really impressed with/got involved in RCW's "This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe," when I read it in Hartwell & Cramer's Year's Best SF 15 (v. worthwhile anth; I didn't like every single story, but I never do). Involved in part because of the characters and their plight, in part because their plight is an alt-u where the Civil War as we "know" it never took place, but plenty ongoing bursts of boondock miseries dot the peace--extensions of our history's Bleeding Kansas and all that. I've always thought that's the way it might have gone, might still be going, even if there had been a new improved version of The Missouri Compromise or some such shit. maybe that would have been better in some ways, but not for everybody/

Also read a novel of his, blanking on the title, involving self-righteous, galloping boondocks assholes---thought at first it was more alt-history, but it's actually post-Apocalypse--at least the man-made kind, although there is of course some dispute/doctrine etc re that---most of the cultural continuity didn't survive, especially print got burnt and/or rained on, they def aint got the technology for digital archives, so they're making do with fragments of text, memory, etc.

Oh yeah, Bujold's xpostMemory has quickly moved beyond the comic dread, at least for now: starting to see a several women making niches in the Imperial Galactic patriarchy, could imagine some of it fitting Sargent's xpost Women of Wonder collections.

believe James M has recommended him on multiple occasions

and I will do so again. Mysterium, Bios, Spin, The Affinities, The Chronoliths are all good starting places.

Roberts also did a blog working through all of Anthony Burgess, which was very entertaining, and which now I cannot find.

this seems to be it, but it's invite only now

http://anthonyburgessblog.blogspot.com

no trolldroogs allowed

Been researching Chinese fantasy genres like Wuxia (real historical settings with unreal skills and sometimes supernatural elements), Xianxia (unbelievably huge scale fantasy with immortals in heavenly realms with powers that makes Dragonball look like Ken Loach), Xuanhuan (western influenced fantasy).

There's a few causes for concern.
There's incredibly few translation in print (especially considering these are some of the bestselling books in the world), most of this is read on regular webpages across hundreds of chapters. These books used to be serialized in newspapers but now it seems mostly online. Finding good books and translations will probably be tough. Doesn't help that a lot of the art and fan community has an unpleasantly slick videogame/anime look.

There was a few Oxford books of Jin Yong/Louis Cha but they're mostly too expensive now. Luckily this year just seen the release of Jin Yong's Legend Of Condor Heroes (which has caused controversy with the character name translations but I can deal) and Gu Long's Eleventh Son.

The Big Book of Science Fiction has two very different Chinese stories: Han Song's“Two Small Birds” 1988 in its first English translation by John Chu, is a brave, pained, 1988 allegory; Cixin Liu's “The Poetry Cloud” (translation by Chi-yin Ip and Cheuk Wong) is a majestic confection, from 1997. The only Chinese SF I've read (should check The Three Body Problem, come to think of it).

http://www.sfintranslation.com usefully and regularly posts links to translated SF from all over the web, and a lot of it is Chinese: some good stuff.