I did:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clute#Personal_life
Raised in Canada, Clute lived in the United States from 1956 until 1964. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at New York University in 1962 while living with writer and artist Pamela Zoline.
Clute married artist Judith Clute in 1964.[7] He has been the partner of Elizabeth Hand since 1996
― the pinefox, Monday, 10 September 2018 22:20 (five years ago) link
(Maybe the Clutes never divorced?)
Excited to see that Elizabeth Hand wrote 4 Boba Fett novels in 2 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hand#Star_Wars_Expanded_Universe
― the pinefox, Monday, 10 September 2018 22:21 (five years ago) link
Heh, haven’t gotten around to those yet myself.
― St Etienne Is Real (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 10 September 2018 23:07 (five years ago) link
iirc i read her first novel (winterlong) back in the day and thought it was decent? i don't remember a single thing about it tho
― mookieproof, Monday, 10 September 2018 23:38 (five years ago) link
Xpost Don’t knock it, blade runner kept KW Jeter afloat for awhile there. Elizabeth Hand used to be married to Richard Grant who wrote a few cool magic realist kind of fantasies for bantam spectra before sort of dropping out.
― cheese is the teacher, ham is the preacher (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 11 September 2018 00:10 (five years ago) link
Thanks for the tip, Jon! I've only ever come across one Grant story, but it was a doozy---see how he stands out in this summation from the previous Rolling SF etc.:I've already posted about most of the ones I really liked, and some of the duds; other categories: kinda-sorta, may need re-reading; Wolfe stories are things that make me go h'mmm (oh so tricky). Will try to answer any questions. Years of original publication are also listed.The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Sf, David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, eds., 1994
Ursula K. Le Guin "Nine Lives" 1969 goodBob Shaw "Light of Other Days" 1966 goodNathaniel Hawthorne "Rappaccini's Daughter" 1844 goodArthur C. Clarke "The Star" 1955 nahHal Clement "Proof" 1942 goodRobert A. Heinlein "It's Great to Be Back" 1947 nahGene Wolfe "Procreation" 1984 Eh?Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” 1943 goodRaymond Z. Gallun “Davy Jones' Ambassador” 1935 goodIsaac Asimov “The Life and Times of Multivac” 1975 mmm-mehRobert L. Forward “The Singing Diamond” 1979 pretty goodDean Ing “Down & Out on Ellfive Prime” 1979 goodHilbert Schenck “Send Me a Kiss by Wire” 1984 kindaPhilip Latham “The Xi Effect” 1950 nahEdgar Allan Poe “A Descent into the Maelström” 1841 kinda-sortaGregory Benford “Exposures” 1982 meh-ish stiffly imposingKate Wilhelm “The Planners” 1968 stiffly imposing/contrived (lol 60s?)James Blish “Beep” 1954 nahRichard Grant “Drode's Equations” 1981 good! BorgesianTheodore L. Thomas “The Weather Man” 1962 nahPart II Arthur C. Clarke “Transit of Earth” 1971 nahJ.G. Ballard “Prima Belladonna” 1971 goodDonald M. Kingsbury “To Bring in the Steel” 1978 goodC.M. Kornbluth “Gomez” 1954 kindaIsaac Asimov “Waterclap” 1970 goodAnne McCaffrey “Weyr Search” 1967 goodRudy Rucker “Message Found in a Copy of Flatland” 1983 good-ishTom Godwin “The Cold Equations” 1954 good H.G. Wells “The Land Ironclads” 1903 goodLarry Niven “The Hole Man” 1973 nahJohn W. Campbell “Atomic Power” 1934 nahJohn T. Sladek “Stop Evolution in Its Tracks!” shit 1988Miles J. Breuer, M.D. “The Hungry Guinea Pig” 1930 good in an early pulp silly wayIan Watson “The Very Slow Time Machine” 1978 goodBruce Sterling “The Beautiful and the Sublime” 1986 good (actually doesn't suck)Ursula K. Le Guin “The Author of the Acacia Seeds” 1974 goodJohn M. Ford “Heat of Fusion” 1984 nahGordon R. Dickson “Dolphin's Way” 1964 kindaGene Wolfe “All the Hues of Hell” 1987 maybe?Theodore Sturgeon “Occam's Scalpel” 1971 h'mmm, the endingEdward Bryant “giANTS” 1979 kinda, above average ending (very last sentence), for sureRandall Garrett “Time Fuse” 1954 nahClifford D. Simak “Desertion” 1944 goodPart III Poul Anderson "Kyrie” 1969, mostly good? some bits of ickRaymond F. Jones “The Person from Porlock” 1947 seems like pre-Gick for a while, but nahFrederik Pohl “Day Million” 1966 nahJ.G. Ballard “Cage of Sand” 1963 goodJames Tiptree, Jr. “The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats” 1976 goodJules Verne “In the Year 2889” (year of orig. pub not listed) goodJames Blish “Surface Tension” 1952 good, although lol-ish endingCordwainer Smith “No, No, Not Rogov!” 1959 good (I think?)George Turner “In a Petri Dish Upstairs” 1978 goodRudyard Kipling “With the Night Mail” good-ish ?Arthur C. Clarke “The Longest Science Fiction Story Ever Told” 1965 okay but could've been better?Alfred Bester “The Pi Man” 1959 just okay-ish (compared to some of his 50s)Gregory Benford “Relativistic Effects” 1982 goodJames P. Hogan “Making Light” 1981 nahIsaac Asimov “The Last Question” 1956 nahPhilip K. Dick “The Indefatigable Frog” 1953 okay-ish (compared to some of his 50s) John M. Ford “Chromatic Aberration” 1994 kindaKatherine Maclean “The Snowball Effect” 1952 nahHilbert Schenck “The Morphology of the Kirkham Wreck” 1978 goodGreg Bear “Tangents” 1986 kinda, but predictableWilliam Gibson “Johnny Mnemonic” 1981 nahDavid Brin “What Continues, What Fails...” 1991 kinda (def some good science ideas and promising setting. but more like notes)Michael F. Flynn "Mammy Morgan Played the Organ; Her Daddy Beat the Drum" 1990 goodVernor Vinge "Bookworm, Run!" 1966 some good details, but as with Bester and Dick, although much, much more so: why *this* Vinge?
― dow, Thursday, 11 April 2013 20:55 (five years ago) Permalink
Not that I don't get into some other short Wolfe, like "The Death of Doctor Island", and will re-re-read these some more.
― dow, Thursday, 11 April 2013 20:59 (five years ago) Permalink
Raymond F. Jones “The Person from Porlock” 1947 seems like pre-Gick for a while, but nah pre-Dick!
― dow, Thursday, 11 April 2013 21:01 (five years ago) Permalink
― dow, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 23:44 (five years ago) link
Yes, Grant's story was the only good' un to get an exclamation mark out of me---Maybe that's unfair, but it was spontaneous. Surer about "Borgesian."Clute's SFEncyclopedia posts are often very astute, and can be so in a complicated lucidity---I especially dig his fail-safe: hyperlinks to other entries, the worlds behind and in his repurposed words, like "ponder" as noun.
― dow, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 23:54 (five years ago) link
Wells and James talked about collaborating on a novel once, about Mars. It's in their correspondence.— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) September 12, 2018
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 September 2018 15:50 (five years ago) link
(that's HG Wells and Henry James)
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 September 2018 15:51 (five years ago) link
I knew your thread would come good in the end!
Henry James in Space
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 12 September 2018 15:52 (five years ago) link
lol wtf -- i have no memory of that (or any idea even which office i'm referring to)
― mark s, Wednesday, 12 September 2018 16:02 (five years ago) link
Re: Clute and Adam Roberts
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/john-clutes-the-darkening-garden-a-short-lexicon-of-horror/
I remember hearing about this book when it came out and I distrusted what I considered to be very narrow rules being set out. The reviewer likes the idea of the false world but again, I'm not so sure it works and I'm deeply suspicious of trying to define genres in this way.
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/lifelines-and-deadlines-selected-nonfiction-by-james-lovegrove-and-rave-and-let-die-the-sf-fantasy-of-2014-by-adam-roberts/
Rave And Let Die is the greatest title for a book of reviews.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 22 September 2018 21:42 (five years ago) link
It's a very entertaining book, too
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 22 September 2018 23:13 (five years ago) link
Anybody got any opinions on peter watts
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 22 September 2018 23:38 (five years ago) link
from prev. Rolling Science Fiction etc.: just downloaded a bunch of free epub books, jumped into one already and wish I were reading it right now:
Blindsight by Peter Watts, which I'm about 2/3 through and there's quite a lot about neurology and math and topics that I don't even know enough about to know what to call them, but I feel like I'm learning shit? Also it's exciting and mysterious. I'm a sucker for plot.
Mars Girl by Jeff Garrity
My Own Kind of Freedom, Steven Brust
Star Dragon, Mike Brotherton
― it's not that print journalists don't have a sense of humour, it's just (Laurel), Monday, August 22, 2011 8:59 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Wikipedia says Blindsight is about "the nature of identity and consciousness." Also it involves explanations of the Chinese Room scenario and other smarty-pants turing/AI stuff.
― it's not that print journalists don't have a sense of humour, it's just (Laurel), Monday, August 22, 2011 9:03 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
That could either be right up my street, or the kind of thing I would end up throwing across the room in disgust.
― ledge, Monday, August 22, 2011 9:05 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Where did you get it from? Going on 3 week hol soon, need to gather reading material.
― ledge, Monday, August 22, 2011 9:06 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I don't know where it's from, I use the Aldiko reader for droid phones and when I search for things it just sends me to a "store"? But I only download free books from that "store."
― it's not that print journalists don't have a sense of humour, it's just (Laurel), Monday, August 22, 2011 9:09 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
http://www.manybooks.net/titles/wattspother06Blindsight.html
― little mushroom person (abanana), Monday, August 22, 2011 9:24 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
great, thanks. think that site might be hidden in my delicious bookmarks somewhere.
― ledge, Monday, August 22, 2011 9:25 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
That could either be right up my street, or the kind of thing I would end up throwing across the room in disgust.--ledge
Planning to use the ledge as my litmus test for this kind of thing in the future― Viriconium Island Baby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, August 22, 2011 9:34 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
if i hate it, you'll buy it? ;)
― ledge, Monday, August 22, 2011 9:35 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
my ultimate reaction will probably be "meh, s'ok"
― ledge, Monday, August 22, 2011 9:36 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Um, no:)
― Viriconium Island Baby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, August 22, 2011 9:36 AM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Blindsight is great, second time round was rewarding too, His Rifters trilogy also available free online is pretty astounding too. He's my favourite modern SF writer.
― AJD, Monday, August 22, 2011 4:17 PM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yeah, BLindsight is fantastic. All his novels and almost all of his short stories are downloadable from his website: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm
If you read Blindsight, the multimedia presentation he did about the vampire science is great fun: http://www.rifters.com/real/progress.htm
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Monday, August 22, 2011 6:21 PM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― dow, Saturday, 22 September 2018 23:58 (five years ago) link
"The Island" by Peter Watts (Year's Best SF 15, Hartwell & Cramer, eds.)---The narrator, a female-identifying entity, awakens once again on outward bound ship/portal, where things long since post-human pass through. A cosmic cloaca, and Damon Knight would dig this take on how a Galactic Empire would really work, esp. with centuries of suspended animation so often an unexamined given in today's s.f. She's ready to get back into her eternal feud with the Chimp, derisive name for the ship's hard drive (they need each other, she hates him/it, even more for being so detached). This time, she soon encounters her son, a perhaps mentally challenged human grown from the Chimp's secret stash of narrator's and her long-dead lover's materials. It all gets pretty harrowing, somewhat tragic, also could be titled "Angry Candy" or "Psychocandy." Gotta check some more Watts--apparently he's set all his stories adrift on the Web.
― dow, Sunday, July 29, 2012 7:32 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
cosmic cloaca??
― the late great, Sunday, July 29, 2012 11:16 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― dow, Sunday, 23 September 2018 00:01 (five years ago) link
All Peter Watts work is free on his website: http://www.rifters.com
― computers are the new "cool tool" (James Morrison), Monday, July 30, 2012 7:44 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Someone hated Watts--Lamp, maybe?
― check the name, no caps, boom, i'm (Laurel), Monday, July 30, 2012 7:51 PM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
The Rift trilogy is pretty brutal. I think I may have bogged down and not finished the third book.
― dow, Sunday, 23 September 2018 00:02 (five years ago) link
Peter Watts! Yesssssssss. I loved the stand-alone book--the trilogy ones got kind of brutal read in a row but maybe you'll approach them difftly/better.
― grossly incorrect register (in orbit), Tuesday, December 11, 2012 12:20 PM (five years ago)
got a proof of the new Peter Watts, 'Echopraxia', and am loving it so far. If you enjoyed 'Blindsight', it's set in the same world. If the presence of scientifically rationalised neanderthal vampires in that bothered you, this one also has body/brain-hacked soldier 'zombies'.
― ornamental cabbage (James Morrison), Thursday, June 5, 2014 7:08 PM (four years ago)
― dow, Sunday, 23 September 2018 00:06 (five years ago) link
At one point, he posted all his shorter (?) fiction online for free---maybe some novels too?---but later said somebody was peddling it as counterfeit ebooks.
― dow, Sunday, 23 September 2018 00:08 (five years ago) link
Ah awesome thx
― Οὖτις, Sunday, 23 September 2018 00:21 (five years ago) link
Start with BLINDSIGHT or his new one, THE FREEZE-FRAME REVOLUTION
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Sunday, 23 September 2018 03:15 (five years ago) link
Only a third of the stories had something unreal in them by I very much enjoyed Drowning In Beauty. It has a load of current authors I've been meaning to check out for years (about half of them are people I know from forums and goodreads) and it's a relief to say they're all very strong. A few of them are very funny and the last story is super fucked up.
The one that appealed to me most in a fantasy way was Damian Murphy's story about the woman who collects incredibly obscure videogames for systems like ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. It has a similar appeal to the quiet puzzle moments in early survival horror games.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 28 September 2018 19:07 (five years ago) link
My goodreads review of it. Beware of slight repetition of above post.=====This has a load of new-ish authors I've been meaning to check out for years, so I just dropped other genre history obligations and read this. It's a very strong anthology and an encouraging first taste of many of these writers.
I don't know how to take the manifestos exactly. How much of it is serious, how much provocations for their own sake or just jokes? There's probably some references in there I didn't get. I don't have the patience or mental steadiness to verify if these stories have much to do with the manifestos but either way I try not to judge anthologies by their supposed purpose.
I was surprised by how many of the stories were funny. Yarrow Paisley's story had something making me smile nearly every page and the absurdist style caught me pleasantly off-guard. The amazingly detailed piece by Justin Isis particularly impressed me and the parts about the hand rubs and the quiet grudge match between the hostess and one of her boyfriends were so brilliant. I'm not easily shocked but a couple of things in James Champagne's story had me thinking "oh jeezus..." with a sinking realization at just how far it was going but it's also very funny; perhaps the funniest thing in the book is the idea that the character somehow has the pants of a boy from one of the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid films and wondering how on earth he got them.
Closer to my regular habits were Damian Murphy and Avalon Brantley's contributions. I'm not sure if Murphy was intending a parody but whatever the case it effectively evokes moody point and click adventure games and the quieter moments of early survival horror games, it's interesting the way it emphasizes the limitations of the gaming hardware but frequently describes things far beyond those limitations and makes you wonder at how much the player's imagination is filling in the gaps. It's a very nice little world in there. The writing of Brantley's piece is very beautiful. I really don't know how accurate her language is to the period she's portraying but I wish more historical fantasy writing was this convincing (to non-scholars like me).
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 28 September 2018 22:32 (five years ago) link
that looks really good
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 29 September 2018 08:56 (five years ago) link
It is. I've got another anthology edited by Justin Isis, but Daniel Corrick's other anthologies are probably impossible to get now.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 29 September 2018 20:09 (five years ago) link
I wish there was some way I could buy a print of one of Bob Pepper's sf book covers. Or any Bob Pepper art, really.
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 3 October 2018 21:24 (five years ago) link
Otm an sf art of bob pepper book would rule so hard. Did I tell the story of talking to a guy I know from comics (former dc editor) who ended up working for the company that does settlers of catan in the us? He told me he had a pitch there for a new board game with bob pepper art, pepper was on board, but he couldn’t get it approved.
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 4 October 2018 00:08 (five years ago) link
Yeah, he mentions Milton Bradley etc. in this brief but fairly wide-ranging interview:http://well-of-souls.com/tower/dt_pepper.htm
More in-depth---remembered Love's Forever Changes, but didn't realize he'd done so many LP covers (bunch of books here too):https://www.coverourtracks.com/single-post/2016/09/26/Bob-Pepper---The-Cover-Our-Tracks-Interview
― dow, Thursday, 4 October 2018 15:11 (five years ago) link
ooh man thanks for that interview!
Ha he did the awesome Scanner Darkly cover, I didn't realize that.
I bet the cool Avram Davidson People Under the Earth paperback i've got is him too. I'll check.
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Thursday, 4 October 2018 15:14 (five years ago) link
colour me intrigued
https://www.tramppress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/A-Brilliant-Void-Cover.png
― Number None, Friday, 5 October 2018 08:38 (five years ago) link
That's timely, what with WorldCon being in Dublin next year and all.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 5 October 2018 08:41 (five years ago) link
Science Fiction the 101 Best Novels 1985-2010 by Damien Broderick and Paul Di Filippo
This is the sequel to David Pringle's brilliant Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels. Don't know why I delayed so much in getting this because I loved all the other similar genre guides. Main differences with Pringle's earlier guide is that it adds an extra book more, Pringle always used 2 pages per entry and this uses 2-3 pages (Gene Wolfe was the only one to get 4 pages if I remember correctly). No author gets more than one book (or book series), while Pringle was quite happy to choose multiple books by the same author. It could be said that Broderick and Di Filippo cheat by cramming in lots of other recommendations as tangents (Attanasio's Radix is given a strong recommendation in the entry for Zindell's Neverness, they lament that he was overlooked for the previous book) and career run-throughs for lesser known authors (Liz Jensen gets a bundle of her books profiled). Some reviewers disliked all this extra cramming but I really appreciated it.
Like other reviewers I sometimes suspected some books were included for being important and representative (perhaps to discuss developments in the genre) rather than the best, a surprising number of bestsellers are chosen and I wondered if this was a crowdpleasing move. Some later successes by the SF elders are chosen (including Poul Anderson, Vance, Vonnegut, Ballard, Moorcock, Le Guin, Aldiss) and many other reviewers felt these entries were just out of respect to the legends of the genre. Possibly some writers were chosen out of respect for their short fiction? Since I haven't read a single one of these books and cant read the minds of Broderick & Di Filippo, I cant say how honest the choices were.
I normally welcome dense writing but when I read reviews, I rarely have the patience for it and sometimes feel like a traitor for this. But a lot of the descriptions are really confusing. They insist that science fiction rarely has much actual science in it but I was frequently lost with the mentions of singularity, quantum sciences and other such things. In a guide like this, which will probably attract newbies as much as huge SF fans, I felt they should have been more accessible like Pringle was. But I enjoyed the writing more than most people seemed to, I thought there was a glee to it. My biggest complaint is that the type size is too small, making the book much more difficult. Even if you're not fond of ebooks you might want to consider the ebook version to save your eyes.
There was quite a lot of epic Hard SF and that's a hard sell for me despite my admiration for the scale of such stories, but Broderick and Filippo did quite a good job getting me to consider getting some of them. Half way through I was wondering how many women wrote this sort of thing and the entry on Linda Nagata answers that.
I never thought I'd be interested in Michael Chabon or Orson Scott Card's Ender series but they also sold me on those. I recently passed by Cherryh's Cyteen in a charity shop and assumed it must be one of her lesser works but according to this guide it's one of her best!
The book entries I was most excited by were...
James Morrow - This Is The Way The World EndsPamela Sargent - Shore Of WomenJoan Slonczewski - A Door Into OceanPaul Park - Sugar FestivalDavid Zindell - NevernessGwyneth Jones - Aleutian trilogyRichard Calder - Dead Girls trilogyWalter Jon Williams - AristoiMichael Moorcock - Second Ether trilogyChristopher Priest - The SeparationJohn C Wright - The Golden Age (Strange to see him featured here considering what he done to his reputation since. 2012 was such a different time in the genre!)Ian McDonald - River Of GodsIan R MacLeod - House Of StormsDavid Marusek - Counting Heads Geoff Ryman - AirLiz Jensen - My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (along with a bunch of her other works discussed)Carol Emshwiller - Secret City (the crazy sounding The Mount even moreso)Ekaterina Sedia - Alchemy Of StoneHannu Rajaniemi - Quantum Thief series (seemed to do interesting things with the references)
Please don't be put off by some of the drawbacks of this guide. I cant verify how good the choices are but I haven't found many better ways to aquaint myself with what has been going on in science fiction during the period covered. Speculative fiction (and maybe other genres) are perhaps getting too big for anyone to cover comprehensively and perhaps people wont be able to do this kind of thing convincingly anymore. But I pray there will be more guides like this. Fantasy really needs more top 100 guides like this because the last really good ones were in the 80s.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 14 October 2018 20:38 (five years ago) link
Can heartily recommend A Door into Ocean. Are those emshwiller choices novels or short stories?
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Sunday, 14 October 2018 22:51 (five years ago) link
Would definitely recommend Liz Jensen
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Sunday, 14 October 2018 23:47 (five years ago) link
Jon- all the main entries are novels, although it occasionally mentioned short stories worth checking out. That's the main drawback of the top 100 books by Pringle, Cawthorn and this one, they only do novels or story collections that are completely unified (Bradbury's Martian Chronicles). The top 100 horror books by Jones/Newman feature lots of collections but horror is far more short story orientated.
Might be difficult to write about lots of short stories and it's hard to come by a truly stonking good collection or anthology.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 19 October 2018 17:48 (five years ago) link
https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41MGCK4rwyL._SL500_SX325_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
I have this by Pringle, which I find very useful (I think there's a second edition I don't have). Hundreds of capsule reviews of every significant SF novel up to that point; also major short story collections and anthologies, tho no short story reviews as such. Alongside his own fairly pithy comments and a standard star rating system, Pringle also finds space from quotes by other reviewers like Ballard, Clute, all the usual suspects.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 19 October 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link
I might get that, I absolutely loved his 100 SF Novels and 100 Modern Fantasy Novels guides. I got a new-ish (90s or early 00s) fantasy guide by him and was just profiles of authors and it didn't seem to have anything like reviews. But there's lots of books by him with similar titles, not sure which ones are updates.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 19 October 2018 19:12 (five years ago) link
That Pringle book Ward mentioned is Internet Archive-borrowable here: https://archive.org/details/ultimateguidetos00prin
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 20 October 2018 07:21 (five years ago) link
Had a look through Ultimate Encyclopedia Of Fantasy this morning. As a critical guide it isn't very helpful, Pringle is joined by Brian Stableford, David Langford and someone else I cant remember, but you never know who is writing what and evaluating what might be worthwhile is difficult because it isn't very review focused although it does occasionally offer judgements.
But it's got way too much film and tv stuff and useless profiles of the most famous fantasy lands. Films cover everything you'd expect to things like Big (Tom Hanks), Peggy Sue Got Married, Groundhog Day, Michael (Travolta), The Mask (Jim Carrey) and Splash. How many readers are going to find these selections helpful? There's also favorable reviews of Pirates Of The Caribbean and Shrek (I doubt Stableford written those). Who knows how many duds and not relevant enough things you could end up searching for? But it's also got curiosities like Artemis 81, which really does look worthwhile.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 20 October 2018 14:35 (five years ago) link
Lafferty's Reefs Of Earth recently came out on paperback.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 20 October 2018 15:28 (five years ago) link
That’s good news - my favorite longer lafferty work
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Saturday, 20 October 2018 15:33 (five years ago) link
Never read a longer Lafferty; describe, please!
Encyclopedia of Fantasty, fraternal online twin of Science Fiction Encyclopedia, is pretty handy:http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.phpAlthough it's done, Sun:This digital version of the Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) edited by John Clute and John Grant, was prepared by David Langford in 1999 and placed online in October 2012. Please note the disclaimer at the foot of (almost) every entry.
― dow, Sunday, 21 October 2018 00:30 (five years ago) link
It's the new 'Dynasts'!
― alimosina, Monday, 22 October 2018 16:19 (five years ago) link
There's a new edition of Erckmann & Chatrian in the shops from HarperCollins. First in quite some time.
I don't know if the two Oxfams in Glasgow have been better recently or I just know about more writers because I've been finding interesting stuff lately. Including the above mentioned River Of Gods by Ian McDonald. I think I'm going to make a habit of visiting both stores, I hadn't really bothered in years.
Making my way through a Dunsany collection now and there's some really nice stuff in there.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 26 October 2018 18:02 (five years ago) link
The charity shops near me have been absolutely great for books recently. A friend posited it was perhaps due to the influence of the Kindles and people decluttering their lives, shrug.
― You (bleeping) need me. You can't Finn without me (fionnland), Friday, 26 October 2018 21:35 (five years ago) link
Gollancz just put out a Lafferty omnibushttps://www.gollancz.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/hbg-title-9781473213418.jpgAnd have a collection of his short stories due next year
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Friday, 26 October 2018 23:55 (five years ago) link
Ooh
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 27 October 2018 01:26 (five years ago) link
With introduction by Neil Gaiman.
― Buckaroo Can't Fail (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 27 October 2018 01:29 (five years ago) link
Boo
― Οὖτις, Saturday, 27 October 2018 02:05 (five years ago) link