Just wrote reviews of six new books that fit with this thread:
The Redwood Revenger, Book One, by Johannes JohnsNoir by Christopher MooreBandwidth (An Analog Novel, Book 1) by Eliot PeperThe Hazel Wood, by Melissa AlbertBone Music (The Burning Girl Series, Book 1), by Christopher RiceChildren of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha #1), by Tomi Adeyemi
http://fastnbulbous.com/first-quarter-book-review-roundup-2018/
― Fastnbulbous, Wednesday, 2 May 2018 12:29 (six years ago) link
I think I’ve been to the eight-foot-wide, four-stories-tall jook house described in Noir, though I hope my dish did not include snake venom. Your real-life impressions of this place, please!
― dow, Wednesday, 2 May 2018 15:46 (six years ago) link
It was quite a while ago, 1996. I sat at a counter on a stool with a bunch of old Chinese men and had a bowl for lunch, and was unceremoniously hurried along when finished. I inhaled it because I was hungry from walking all over San Francisco that day up and down hills, but can't remember details about the food other than it was delicious.
― Fastnbulbous, Thursday, 3 May 2018 05:23 (six years ago) link
Was trying to imagine being in a space of those dimensions, also w other people and food, but mainly being there at all---guess you got used to it?
― dow, Thursday, 3 May 2018 16:09 (six years ago) link
The Circlet Press Steampunk Erotica Bundle isn't an appealing title but a reviewer says one story contains "an ivory dildo with a detailed engraving of the Battle of Trafalgar".
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 7 May 2018 12:33 (five years ago) link
So there's a new Tim Powers coming out, but it's being published by Baen so it looks like this:https://edel-images.azureedge.net/ea/SS/images/jacket_covers/original/9781481483407_d8283.jpg?width=1000
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 01:24 (five years ago) link
fuck me. i did enjoy last call. what’s the rest of his stuff like?
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 09:44 (five years ago) link
A mate raved about Anubis Gates but I just thought it was badly written, cliche-ridden shit.
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 09:50 (five years ago) link
I loved Anubis Gates, On Stranger Tides and Last Call. Would check out anything Powers did. Bad covers should be no impediment to the seasoned prospector.
― when worlds collide I'll see you again (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 12:18 (five years ago) link
Yeah, if I didn’t read sci-fi with bad covers, I may never actually read a book.
― Jeff, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 13:21 (five years ago) link
more put off by Orson Scott Card endorsement
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 15:23 (five years ago) link
Bad covers should be no impediment are an enticement to the seasoned prospector.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 15:25 (five years ago) link
I couldn't get into Anubis Gates
It would have made a cracking role-playing game manual though
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 16:06 (five years ago) link
i mean it's that kind of book, a system fantasy, he excels at that stuff
blaylock will always be my one true love but powers has kept more productive than him
― cheese is the teacher, ham is the preacher (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 16:41 (five years ago) link
i couldn't get into anubis gates either
that cover looks like it's for a jasper fforde book
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 22:57 (five years ago) link
Three Body Problem is 99p in the Kindle deal of the day in the UK today...
― koogs, Thursday, 10 May 2018 05:28 (five years ago) link
Mixed reviews above. Worth reading all three books? I kind of don't want to start it unless the whole lot is worth the effort.
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 11 May 2018 09:45 (five years ago) link
about 3BP? yeah, one of the search results i found was me asking last time it was cheap whether it was worth reading and being put off by the results. i did click the button yesterday though because 99p
― koogs, Friday, 11 May 2018 10:14 (five years ago) link
Oh, I mean, worth the time, not the cost - I've bought it already! I'm just dubious about starting a trilogy unless it's worth reading the whole thing.
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 11 May 2018 11:19 (five years ago) link
I liked it, overall. Full of ideas, sense of long-range time, but also generations of characters handing over the baton over that period of time (later achieved by cryogenics). One of those things where the strengths are strong enough to make it a recommendation despite the weaknesses.
― Fizzles, Friday, 11 May 2018 12:14 (five years ago) link
(last time i looked i had 40+ things in my todo shelf anyway (and that's just the ebooks). everything i read prompts me to want to read at least one more thing.)
have just started We. which seems to have inspired pretty much every book in the world ever if you read wikipedia (brave new world, 1984, anthem, player piano, logan's run, the dispossed, invitation to a beheading. and reminds me of thx1138)
(and that prompted me to add two jack london books to the list, iron heel, scarlet plague...)
― koogs, Friday, 11 May 2018 12:32 (five years ago) link
We is great. V strange.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 11 May 2018 13:44 (five years ago) link
Loved We.
― Fizzles, Friday, 11 May 2018 14:33 (five years ago) link
Read an Elizabeth Jane Howard ghost story and it's pretty good. She only wrote 4 stories but she has a fair number of fans considering that. She was buddies with Robert Aickman, they did a split collection and that's probably a big part of why she is still known.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 11 May 2018 20:47 (five years ago) link
wasn’t he her first husband? we are for the dark (if i’m remembering rightly) was a collection of their collaborations (again, i’m hazy on this). but from what i’ve read she wrote stuff that added to the english ghost story.
― Fizzles, Friday, 11 May 2018 21:22 (five years ago) link
Before Kingsley?
― The Great Atomic Cat Power (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 11 May 2018 21:36 (five years ago) link
She wrote more than 4! I have a collection of her stories here.or do you mean pure supernatural stories?
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 12 May 2018 03:10 (five years ago) link
I guess but I didn't know she wrote anything but that and a children's book.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 03:51 (five years ago) link
ah they were lovers not married (tho yes, she was married twice before kingsley). there were six stories in “We Are For The Dark” and although all are officially collaborations i think three are credited to her. i’ll have a read again today. my general (not unproblematic) view is that the english ghost story strand of the victorian period maintained its formal, stylistic and imaginative characteristics to become a specific subgenre in the U.K., until US science fiction and horror, itself a branch of that same victorian strand, got taken up by UK writers (inc TV). iirc We Are For The Dark is an early, non-US innovation on the standard. the pastoral is uncanny and dangerous in abstract, structural ways, to do with time and space and fabric. a sort of immanence. they’re interesting and good.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 05:08 (five years ago) link
I read it in the first volume of Aickman's Fontana anthologies of Great Ghost Stories, which he ballsily puts stories by himself and EJH in. It's generally frowned upon to put your own stories into anthologies, but that he put them in anthologies of all-time greats is another level and many would say he stands up well in them.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 12:00 (five years ago) link
i just had a quick read of the first two stories – my memory of the whole set was clearly dominated by the EJH (I assume) short story The Trains, which is really excellent. The first, Perfect Love overextends its premise I think, but is sinister enough.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 13:50 (five years ago) link
The Trains is Aickman -- one of his best
― Brad C., Saturday, 12 May 2018 13:56 (five years ago) link
There you go. Had it completely wrong – thanks Brad. It really is very good as you say. I've seen Aickman is almost thought to have started his own subgenre - 'Aickmanesque'. Do you know what characterises that? I haven't read enough to spot its elements.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 14:27 (five years ago) link
As far as I've read, it's when there's not just the question of some supernatural incident but everything seems off and ambiguous.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 14:48 (five years ago) link
Yep, ok that makes sense. 'Everything just seems off' is good. It's close in one sense to that Roald Dahl/Tales of the Unexpected Stuff - uncanny rather than supernatural. But I find his stuff actively unpleasant (not always in a bad way) and its uncanniness gaudy and cruel.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 14:59 (five years ago) link
Walter De La Mare is similar but less gaudy and cruel. Oliver Onions and Henry James are not too distant. The type of horror that is going to disappoint a lot of people by being far too vague for most tastes.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 15:12 (five years ago) link
There's a guy I know online who is particularly obsessed by this mode and he often has Elizabeth Jane Howard as his forum and twitter avatars
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 15:14 (five years ago) link
i *love* WdlM short stories. i think Lispet, Lissette and Vaine is one of my all time favourite stories.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 15:15 (five years ago) link
*Lispett
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 15:16 (five years ago) link
She's quite different in style and material from Aickman, but I get a similar feeling of stylish unease from Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales
― Brad C., Saturday, 12 May 2018 16:54 (five years ago) link
The Elizabeth Jane Howard story was "Three Miles Up", about the two canal boater guys finding a mysterious young woman to join them on their trip. Something that interests me about it is how her confidence varies, and wondering why.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link
are you talking about EJH or the character? (its a feature of the trains as well. if EJH i’d say it’s because her confidence as a person varied. extraordinarily talented, beautiful and uncertain. because in a v male world where she was sought after.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 18:07 (five years ago) link
The character. She could have been powerful and mysterious the whole way and it would have lessened the effect.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 18:21 (five years ago) link
yep - i mean that’s a feature throughout that book regardless of RA or EJH accreditation. it feels like the collaboration status is meaningful. EJH and K Amis used to write bits of each other’s books to see whether anyone noticed which i always found quite fun and touching.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 18:26 (five years ago) link
Some recent purchases, despite my slowness in getting through everything I've got, I think I've made some peace with buying more just to get a little buzz and increase my options. I did actually buy and read Aliya Whiteley's (very short) The Beauty in this period so hooray for me.
New Voices Of Fantasy edited by Peter S Beagle & Jacob WeismanWeirdbook (a large pile of issues)Drowning In Beauty edited by Justin Isis & Daniel CorrickYear's Best Weird Fiction vol1 edited by Laird Barron & Michael KellyMantid Magazine 1-2 edited by Farah Rose Smith
Farah Rose Smith - The VisitorJames Champagne - Autopsy Of An Eldritch CityJames Champagne - GrimoireAdrian Cole - Oblivion HandPaul Hazel - Finnbranch (a trilogy omnibus)Nathalie Henneberg - The Green GodsPriya Sharma - All The Fabulous BeastsTanith Lee - Tanith By Choice: Best OfBrian McNaughton - Throne Of BonesSilvia Moreno Garcia - This Strange Way Of DyingMartha Wells - The Cloud Roads (book 1 of Raksura)Anne Sylvie Salzman - DarkscapesNina Antonia - The Greenwood FaunPaul StJohn Mackintosh - Echo Of The SeaNeil Williamson - Moon King George MacDonald - Complete Fairy Tales
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 22:37 (five years ago) link
Tanith By Choice rather than by coercion or just the inevitability of circumstance?
― mick signals, Saturday, 12 May 2018 23:31 (five years ago) link
Story selection choices of her friends and her husband.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 23:46 (five years ago) link
She’s a new enthusiasm of mine, reading the flat earth vol. 1 and loving the tone
― cheese is the teacher, ham is the preacher (Jon not Jon), Sunday, 13 May 2018 01:16 (five years ago) link
Huh, that's pretty much what I think of weird fiction as.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 14 May 2018 09:10 (five years ago) link
Depends whose definition really. I think Joshi might have popularized using it perhaps interchangeably with supernatural horror.
Still don't know if the last two Flat Earth books are coming out, maybe they're too unfinished.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 18 May 2018 17:30 (five years ago) link