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

Reading Shadow of the Torturer for the first time. It's way more *fun* than I was expecting it to be, and Wolfe writes the most readable purple prose I think I've ever encountered from a sci-fi writer.

B-b-but ave you read Jack Vance?

ave typo was a reference to Gene Wolfe’s religious bent

I haven't! I actually haven't read widely at all so I'm making a huge generalisation

(widely in fantasy)

Vance is the undisputed master of decorative prose in SFF

Yeah, if you like Wolfe, you might well dig Vance (I prefer him). Torturer and others in the New Sun series aren't fantasy, geekly speaking: as with others in the dying earth thing (incl. maybe JV's The Complete Dying Earth, which I've got but haven't read), they can be seen as planetary romance or science fantasy, with some elements of ecotastrophe, for instance or way in its wake---although the Wolfe books (as I dimly recall from the 80s) just have a really old Urth, in need of a New Sun (which will meet the same ol' Urth right? Read on).
I have a soft spot for Disch - he has some amazing short stories Yeah---can't remember where I
long ago encountered this or the title, but there's one that starts out with Ugly American tourists---caricatures often found in other slick-lit fiction of late 50s-to-early-70s---making themselves at home in or near coastal North Africa, I think---but just as they reach a peak of reek, US Gov commits a military atrocity in some other culturally and ethnically related region, the Middle East, I believe---and Mr. and Ms. Asshole suddenly find their credit declined, to put it mildly---they get swept up in a shitstorm---political prescience aside, it becomes more about unwelcome, unavoidable empathy--- maybe TD's slickest twist evah, but more "O shit!" in the immediate reading experience.
Like some live performances of "Ballad of a Thin Man," from a flourished sneer to sheer (protracted) fear---that's the only comparison I can think of.

Heard about Disch's On Wings Of Song rcently, sounds great, these covers are amusing
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/7/7d/NWNGSFSNGH1979.jpg
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/e/e1/BKTG01901.jpg

Did LeGuin require reviving? I thought she was always popular? Read about Disch's digs at her and other writers, they seemed completely unfounded. I listened to an interview and he said he treasured his grudge with someone (Algis Budrys?), didn't know if he was joking but sounded crazy.

Just seen this blurb

From the introduction by Eleanor Arnason: "Sargent has a quality usually associated with hard SF: a certain kind of intellectual rigor. With her, it carries through all of her work. She thinks things through. ... Notice, when you read this collection, how many different kinds of stories are here and notice the range of moods: the stories go from really funny to really dark, with a lot in between. ... I also want to mention Sargent's persistence. Writing is a hard life. Many good woman writers I admired in the 1970s, '80s and '90s have vanished. They stopped writing or stopped trying to sell their fiction or changed their names and moved to writing romance, gay romance, generic fantasy -- whatever they could sell. In one way or another, they were silenced. Sargent has kept doing thoughtful, serious fiction, dealing with the issues that interested her."

Free ebook here for a few more days https://www.sevenstories.com/books/3273-lovestar. Read the first few pages and seems promising, although the blurb comparisons might put you off.

Oh fuck, it's God
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/8/86/BKTG09307.jpg

it me

Are you there, bizarro gazzara? It’s me, James Redd.

New from Strange Attractors Press:

http://strangeattractor.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/faunus-cover-forwebsite.gif

“Machen’s a slippery ghost.He eludes us. The best of Faunus blows smoke towards the space he occupies invisibly and attempts to extrapolate his exact shape from hollows in a moving cloud.” Stewart Lee

For twenty years, Faunus, the biannual journal of the Friends of Arthur Machen, has been publishing an astonishing range of scholarship, debate, archival material, and esoterica relating to the writer H. P. Lovecraft described as a “modern master of the weird tale.”
Arthur Machen (1863–1947) was not only an author of weird and decadent horror fiction lauded by Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro (among many others); he was also a journalist and essayist who, over decades, produced a vast body of nonfiction on subjects ranging from High Church theology to “the truth about curry”. This anthology gathers some of the highlights of Faunus, from its very first issue to its most recent. Subjects include the Great War, the Celtic Church, the “real” little people, Machen and Modernism, Machen and the occult, and myriad other investigations into Machen’s life and legacy.

With a new introduction by long-term Friend of Arthur Machen member Stewart Lee, the book makes newly available reprints of rare pieces by Machen himself as well as items from the Faunus archive by writers including Tessa Farmer, Rosalie Parker, Ray Russell, Mark Samuels, and Mark Valentine.

http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/faunus-the-decorative-imagination-of-arthur-machen/

Curious as to Machen's thoughts on curry, hope they're not racist.

Some good stuff in this free journal: http://sumrevija.si/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SUM-11_FINAL_pages.pdf
Includes new Peter Watts story for those who like Peter Watts, like me.

Andre Norton - Storm Over Warlock

This book has an aesthetic of old generic science fiction that I can easily imagine a very deliberately retro cartoon tapping into (in a sort of Ariel Pink way). Ships like plates, insect people and reptile people, a colorful planet (but not especially lush) with glowing plants.

In the author biography page, Norton describes herself as being a staid teller of old fashioned stories. The style did come across slightly odd to me, not quite wooden or robotic but staid is probably closer. I've seen someone describe her writing as detached but there is a definite investment in the characters and the observations about gender/species relations are hardly without emotion.

Main character Shann is black and in 1960 that was unusual, he is one of two human survivors on a planet attacked by insect people (it is often written like a survival journal). A love of animals comes across in the depiction of the two wolverine pets.

I was worried this was going to be a simple humans vs insect people story but it gets more interesting when the dreams and reptile people are focused on. I was kept guessing about the trajectory and even close to the end I really couldn't tell where it was going. But ultimately I cant recommend this because every situation is over-explained to tedium and although there are interesting things in here, nothing to make the journey feel like it was all worthwhile.

My bedside oxford dictionary didn't really describe fiords (or fjords) very well because after an online image search, it changes the look of this fictional landscape considerably.

I should have started with another Norton book. The reason I chose this one is because I happened to find it in a charity shop last year and someone on a Norton thread recommended Forerunner Foray (the third book in the series, only tenuously linked to the previous two). Despite feeling let down, I do actually want the first omnibus because the next two books sound much better, but who knows, some people love this book. But next I'm going to the short stories, Wheel Of Stars (someone said it was a good horror fantasy) and Search For The Star Stones omnibus and Solar Queen omnibus.
I'm determined to know what Norton is all about.

Really good interview with Quentin S Crisp about his new horror(?) novel. Talks about Nagai Kafu among other things.

http://www.holdfastnetwork.com/sherdspodcast/26/5/2019/21-graves-an-interview-with-quentin-s-crisp

Was very fortunate to recently catch the fact that not all versions of Simak's City contain the final story "Epilog". Not even the SF Masterworks version includes it.

Here are the ones that do
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?92546

I bought the Methuen edition.

Bit shoddy of Gollancz: normally they're more careful than that.

Reading Ann Kavan’s “Ice”, wiki entry of author noted ref by “post-rock band Carta”, instantly recalled membership of ilxor akm, lattice of coincidence identified

from Robert's "Epilog"-inclusive City link above, fave cover (if can't see it, is noir chien, paws in pocket)s:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71tH-EvL-vL.jpg

Waiting for Maigret.

Finally got the new Ted Chiang collection EXHALATION, which is predictably great. Sadly it only has 2 new stories in it which I haven't already read. Ah well, there'll be another book in the early 2030s.

Which ones are new?

'Omphalos' and 'Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom'. All the others have been published online and in print in one place or another.

Newly discovered (and translated) Stanisław Lem story:
https://przekroj.pl/en/literature/the-hunt-stanislaw-lem

Sad!

As in bad?

As in ;_;

It's fine, bit of a mood piece, not up there with his philosophical/speculative highs.

I just received City in the mail. Simak says he has mixed feelings about including the story in the book but did so for the editor. It was written a long time after the other stories and perhaps some feel it spoils the book? But I've mostly heard that fans like it.
Perhaps Gollancz wanted the original book as it was. The Gollancz introduction does note the existence of the last story, but from what I could find out from reviews, offers no explanation for leaving it out, so perhaps it was a mistake.

Also, if you're going for Cordwainer Smith, note that Rediscovery Of Man has been used as a title for both a Best Of and a Complete Stories collection.

Cant remember if I noted above but Strugatsky Bros' Snail On The Slope is getting a Masterworks entry. I presume it's a new translation because the earlier translation was said to be a disaster and the brothers hated it.

RIP Dennis Etchison

On the subject of long delays between books. Evangeline Walton maybe holds record for biggest gap, with 36 years between two entries but I'm pretty sure she wasn't writing that whole time.
But it really isn't that unusual for some to be stuck for 10-20 years. Sometimes due to poor sales, contracts or just having difficulties writing.
Of course some begin with a clear arc in mind and some are open ended with each novel, just in case. Long comments thread about some of this.

https://www.tor.com/2019/05/29/hope-springs-eternal-five-unfinished-series-that-remain-a-joy-to-read/

I happened to buy Steerswoman's Road by Kirstein last week.

As for my favorites, I've only read the first of Somtow's Inquestor books so I don't know if the fourth book in 1985 was open ended but he started it again last year.

Another incompleteness spotted from a review. M John Harrison's Viriconium omnibus doesn't have these stories
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?78184
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?42243
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?78183

but I'm guessing he just doesn't like them enough since the first one has only been printed twice.

What do you mean by the last? It has “In Viriconium.”

In US at least.

It might be a mistake but it's listed as a separate thing from the 3rd novel.

Opinions on D.G. Compton? I am not digging “The Continuous Catherine Mortenhoe” tbh, reads like a combo of Spinrad’s dumbest ideas + some heavy-handed moralizing.

I see there are some positive readings upthread but tbh I’m finding several aspects of the basic premise irritating, like he had a polemical point to make that superseded any pretenses of logic.

Really enjoyed The Silent Multitude, but then I also enjoyed Catherine Mortenhoe, so that probably doesn't help.

Reading Ann Kavan’s “Ice”

Thoughts? I'm midway through and it's not doing much for me. It's techniques are almost identical to Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, one of my all time favourites of all time; however the characters and setting here are too unsympathetic for my tastes.

re: Catherine Mortenhoe - I'm not ready to give up yet (only 50 pages in) because honestly the writing is so good maybe it will get me past my quibbles with the premise

re: Ana Kavan's "Ice" - I really liked it and read it in two days. The repetitive, hallucinatory vibe is very well sustained, even though it's incredibly dark the dreamlike atmosphere just carried me along. Granted I haven't read Ishiguro.

Bought Emma Bull's War For The Oaks today, taken note that Vernor Vinge and John Christopher are the two remaining in the Penguin Worlds line (did this just stop? There hasn't been any books since the initial bunch in 2016) I don't have.
Then I had a dream Vinge, Christopher and I were all at a convention and had a diarrhea attack at the same time.

We three had a diarrhea attack in the dream. I didn't have a diarrhea attack during the dream.

http://www.egaeuspress.com/Of_One_Pure_Will.html
Looking forward to this, just ordered.

I asked Hari Kunzru if there were going to be more in that series, and he said he hoped so but it was up to the accountants. I guess the accountants said no.

Maybe the covers were just too retro.

Any cyberpunk recommendations from the last couple years?

I am not digging “The Continuous Catherine Mortenhoe” tbh, reads like a combo of Spinrad’s dumbest ideas + some heavy-handed moralizing.

so... I came around on this one, largely due to the excellence of Compton's prose and the depths of his characterizations. This is ultimately a character study wrapped around some old school Christian humanism, the sf elements largely being just background/window-dressing. Some of that is arbitrary and/or poorly defined but ultimately it doesn't matter much. He is definitely a much better writer than Spinrad. While the premise and general UK 70s malaise setting are, I guess, kind of Ballardian, Compton's overall approach and tone are nothing like Ballard's alternately cold or bemused detachment. Will read Synthajoy if I come across a copy.

Wish Spinrad was a better writer.

I like some of his stuff quite a bit but he is even more hit or miss than, um, a lot of other writers in the field, and that’s saying something.