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

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.

I was drunk and got the wrong thread : /

Those Gollancz-published Gateway Omnibus books of collected works are being remaindered everywhere now. got five of them, for $6 each

Curious which ones you got

Poul Anderson, Sheri Tepper , Bob Shaw, Damon Knight, John Sladek

just downloaded ancillary mercy, a year or more after reading the previous book. the first paragraph mentions the sound of someone making tea and i thought "oh no not the fucking tea again". probably be some gloves coming up very soon.

"seivarden turned from the counter, bowl of tea in one gloved hand." page 3.

I started Ancillary 2 a while after reading book 1, and it required me to remember more of the characters/plot from the first book than I was able to do, so I didn't last long.

I’m still stuck on the first one, which I just couldn’t get into.

Haven't read it. but the movie of the first one opens tomorrow, already rates 81, Universal Acclaim on metacritic. Directed by Alex Garland, who did Ex Machina, which I enjoyed and posted about upthread---seems like he's going for something deeper now, judging by a recent interview I can't find, and of course you have to be a good talker to make it in media, but his style seems attentive, resourceful, flexible, so maybe--a also like that he's working with Ex M lead Oscar Isaac again, and of course will see anything involving Jennifer Jason Leigh. The same place I saw the interview had another thing about I think it was Amazon backing an adaptation of Consider Phlebas, oh yeah here it is:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17035618/amazon-culture-series-iain-m-banks-television-show

And so here's the Garland thing! https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17029500/annihilation-ex-machina-director-alex-garland-sci-fi
It’s super original. So many stories are retellings of other stories in a really self-conscious way, to the extent that I almost feel like it’s ritualistic. Like, you see the beats of that particular story starting, and you think, “Wow. We’re doing this again. It’s happening again.” What is the ritual? Where’s the comfort? What’s the need [this is addressing]? Particularly because so many of them are not comforting; they’re kind of disturbing. It’s just a weird thing. And Jeff’s book seems to just sit totally outside that, which I thought was really interesting. But that in itself is not a reason to adapt it, I think. It was really the atmosphere. It was just the feeling of reading it was so strange. It’s got a very strong dreamlike aspect. Reading it is like being in a dream, in a weird way. I thought, “That’s really interesting, and I’d like to have a try...There’s also a sort of metaphorical element to it, a sort of unknowable expanding existential thing. But the top-line narrative can satisfy the people who are not interested in the metaphorical side.

Haven't read it. but the movie of the first one opens tomorrow, already rates 81, Universal Acclaim on metacritic. Directed by Alex Garland

yer mixing yer ancillaries with yer annihalations.

A few more chapters in and I do like the general sense of finely graded social distinctions and scrupulously exacting proprieties, it's only the tea sets and gloves that seem rather obvious and somewhat less than exquisite.

definitely curious about the amazon banks adaptation. might work, might not. i've got enough of a distance from the books now that i won't be too bothered if it doesn't.

I guess Tang Qi's To The Sky Kingdom looks like some of the webnovel stuff.

I've been hopping around my books, just taking bites in rotation.

Finally started on early Lord Dunsany. Seem like they were written for children but I'm not sure they were. Quite odd, all these gods sometimes darting around the planet, everything is weirdly unnatural and it's sometimes uncertain if certain gods and beings have any type of human form. Night, rain and mist all have humanoid forms. Mountains can talk and disguise themselves. The equator has a mouth but there is no other description.

A bit of William Hope Hodgson, a story much like Boats Of Glen Carrig. Kind of repetitive but still enjoyable.

I think there's still a few SF Gateway omnibuses I need.

i keep picking up the new ann leckie book at the local kinda-sad bookstore and putting it back. they only have the hardcover though and i'd rather pay less somewhere for the softcover.

i enjoyed the ancillary books.

did anyone read The Stars Are Legion? looks cool. by Kameron Hurley. who i don't know. came out last year.

She was quite a popular blogger, I've heard very mixed things.

if you like your ancillaries, you should read your baru cormorant

i looked it up. i would read it. or them. i guess there are two. they call baru cormorant HARD FANTASY. i guess i would call parts of the ancillary books HARD FANTASY. i am not a traditional fantasy reader. but i do enjoy sf/fantasy in the le guin mode.

i guess i would call parts of the ancillary books HARD FANTASY

Really? I guess the Presger gun is pretty much magic masquerading as tech but otherwise it's fairly straightforward spaceships, AIs & handwavy FTL.

Finished the final (? ...) one, they are pretty good as long as you in expecting less hi-tech derring-do and space battles and more diplomacy, politicking & social manoeuvring. Sounds pretty dull put like that - how about less Bourne and more Borgen. And you do have to read them close together (which I didn't), 2 and 3 especially.

so HARD FANTASY just means internally consistent? seems like a low bar

i think it was more the protocol and hierarchy that reminded me of fantasy in the ancillary books. rules and regulations that are like olde tyme kingdom rules. the lord of the radch and all that. and when they were on different planets it gave me a fantasy vibe. but they are mos def space opera.

hey are pretty good as long as you in expecting less hi-tech derring-do and space battles and more diplomacy, politicking & social manoeuvring. Sounds pretty dull put like that - how about less Bourne and more Borgen. And you do have to read them close together (which I didn't), 2 and 3 especially.
Same w Bujold's xpost Memory, except it's my first in the Vor series and works fine as a stand-alone: the characters' sense of history keeps the backstory evident and in check, they're determined to work its angles just right, although not all of the Vor Lords (incl. Miles V.'s father and grandfather, with status rewarded/duty required for being valiant and useful rebels in days of yore) and their capable minions would put it like that, except maybe among and/or to themselves.

Especially since Miles Vorkosigan has been busted back to his homeworld---his boss discovered that he'd tried to cover up the aforementioned seizure, of the kind he'd been having since the recent medical resurrection, and this one caused a spasm that resulted in the just-rescued hostages being sliced off by MV's plasma beam.

Forced to resign, leaving his daredevil mercenary undercover identity behind (or does he?), takes up the role of young Lord V., just turned 30 and retired, ho-hum, then discovers that his boss/mentor-since-childhood's eidetic memory chip is going haywire---real talk to the rescue:
"Our orders, my Lord, were to save the chip, or as much of the chip's data as could be retrieved."
"Why?"
"I would presume because the data is vital to ImpSec and the Imperium."
"Is it?" Miles leaned forward, staring into the brightly colored, biocybernetic nightmare chip-map hanging before his eyes above the table's central vid plate. "The chip was never installed to make Illyan into a superman. It was just a toy for Emperor Ezar, who fancied owning a vid recorder with legs. I admit, it's been handy for Illyan. Gives him a nice aura of infallibility that scares the hell out of people, but that's a corck and he knows it even if they don't. True?
"He was promoted because he was standing at my father's right hand the day Vordarian's forces murdered his predecessor, and my father liked and trusted him, and there was no time for a talent search in the midst of a raging civil war. Of all the qualities that make Illyan the best chief in ImpSec's history...the chip is surely the most trivial." His voice had fallen to a whisper. Avaldi and Ruibal were leaning forward to hear him. He cleared his throat and sat up.

Later, discussing Illyan in context with his possibly temporary replacement:
"The military, in an admirable effort to promote merit over blood, pretend that Vor is not real. The hig Vor, whose safety and good behavior are going to be your particular charge as long as you sit behind that desk, spend at least as much time pretending Vor is real."
"So which are right?"
"My mother would call it the clash of two competing fantasies. But whatever your personal opinion of the merits and defects of the Vor system---and I have a few thoughts of my own, which I wouldn't necessarily spout on the floor of the Council of Counts and Countesses---it's the system we are both oath-sworn to uphold. The Vor really are the sinews of the Imperium. If you don't like it you can emigrate, but if you stay, this is the only game in town."
"So how did Illyan get along so well with you all? He was no more Vor than I."
"Actually, I think he rather enjoyed the spectacle. I don't know what he thought when he was younger, but by the time I really came to know him...I think he'd come to feel that the Imperium was a creation that he helped to maintain. He seemed to have a vested interest in it...more of an artist to his medium than a servant to his master. Illyan played(Emperor)Gregor's servant with great panache, but I don't think I've ever met a less servile human being." "Panache" is not a word I would have thought to apply to the beige chipped one, but Miles knows him better/is also vested as hell.

just-rescued *hostage's legs*: being sliced off, I meant to say.

> i think it was more the protocol and hierarchy that reminded me of fantasy in the ancillary books.

and all the tea and gloves, obv.

Recently bought the new edition of Kavan's Ice and I've discovered that Penguin hates british people.

UK version
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41uXoTZhC6L.jpg

USA version
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/513UeD0X8hL.jpg

I was thinking that was going to be about replacing Christopher Priest with Jonathan Lethem, intro-wise.

I don't think mine has an intro. Honestly I don't know why people bother with intros most of the time. Why isn't a blurb or an afterward good enough? Are they scared you wont finish the book unless someone (particularly a more famous author) tells you how great it is?

the uk cover is better!

A bunch of people were saying that elsewhere too! I really didn't expect that. I think it's fine but I just found the American one far more striking.

i will await jm's verdict