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

it's kind of mind boggling how shitty it is!

haven't been reading too much sf lately (altho I did just finish Malzberg's "Revelations", since I happened across a copy at a used bookstore) but am digging this blog, which covers a lot of interesting stuff: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/

haven't been reading too much sf lately myself, have come across that blog before and enjoyed it, probably linked to it at least once or twice but can't remember exactly in what context.

he covers a lot of late 70s/early 80s stuff I've never heard of and/or forgotten about, I like that he wanders a little farther afield from my usual interests. Like, do I want to read this gender-exploration novel by Tanith Lee? (Probably not, but it's interesting to read about)

Dunno. All I got for you is right here on the old thread

I'm probably reading Tanith By Choice next week. Then Tanith Lee: A-Z soon after. Then start the novels before the end of the year if I can.

Still have to read the Campbell bio properly but this blog has got some stuff on it: https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/tag/philip-k-dick/

Bonus points for incredible quote using the word "excelsior"

Checked in at another charity shop recently (Oxfam Clarkston) and was amazed how much their fantasy section expanded. I'm still perplexed at the lack of collections and anthologies. I know that they've always been less popular but they never stopped selling them, so people must buy them.

Since someone said charity shops are filling with more paper books because of ebooks replacing them, I suppose old anthologies don't get ebook versions so often.

This cover was already used on an issue of the magazine but worth reusing, it's nice
https://subterraneanpress.com/best-of-uncanny

http://necronomicon-providence.com/core-schedule/
Quite intrigued by some of the people mentioned, Jarboe and Justin Broadrick!

I suppose old anthologies don't get ebook versions so often.

Probably the rights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2cMG33mWVY

Been looking around for Russian/Soviet anthologies (found about 15 of them) and saw this series I've never heard of. Most of them had a Theodore Sturgeon introduction and Richard Powers cover art.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pubseries.cgi?1107+3

That series is pretty good and has been discussed here a little bit, probably on previous thread

Grass by Sherri S Tepper - though it's definitely SF not fantasy (no magic, space travel & technology) it reads like fantasy, with the space travel and tech very much in the background and most of the action on a single planet with giant mind-reading dogs and horses, arrogant aristos, friendly commoners, a barbaric hunt, a cruel religion, a deadly plague. The mysterious and vanished race is a typical SF thing but wouldn't be out of place in a fantasy novel. It's all brought together by science in the end - a little too neatly for my liking, and at 500 pages it could stand to be cut down somewhat, pretty good though.

i think we all missed an opportunity here:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/arthur-c-clarke/arthur-c-clarkes-july-20-2019/

(although it seems to be not widely available based on the prices i've seen)

bookshambles has an episode here: https://cosmicshambles.com/bookshambles/apollo-50th

On Tuesday I had perhaps my best charity shop day ever, 24 books was as much as I could carry, would have bought more. Found 4 Gwyneth Jones novels (including the Aleutian trilogy), Zenna Henderson, Damon Knight, Tanith Lee, Guy Gavriel Kay and more.

Only problem is that 7 of the books had extensive pencil notes that I wasn't aware of when buying, I've only erased them from 3 books so far and I was getting quite angry at whoever made them all. Perhaps this is why some of them were so cheap? I'm going to check books in second hand stores more carefully now because I never want to have to erase pencil marks for such a long time again, it is taking many hours to do.

There was lots of anthologies but unfortunately even in the Damon Knight and Terry Carr ones there was too many of the usual suspects for me to want much of them. So I got a Dozois one with lots of people I don't know well and a 1983 New Worlds anthology where Moorcock deliberately chosen the less famous stories.
Wonder how many of these massive Year's Best anthologies I can actually read because the size is daunting.

Hey where did you make this nice score, RAG? I am in the market for cheap Terry Carr anthologies esp

Hillhead Oxam bookshop has been a good source of SF recently

It was the Byres Road (that is Hillhead isn't it?) Oxfam and the Victoria Road Oxfam. I tend to always visit both.

Watch out for the pencil notes because it seems like one person offloaded a huge amount of their stuff.

And I will be visiting the Clarkston Oxfam more often.

Reading Anne McCaffrey's The Ship who Sang. I will probably struggle through to the end but it's incredibly corny. Worst offence is the use of the word 'Dylan' to mean a song so lyrically persuasive and melodically powerful that anyone who hears it can't help but be converted - and a 'Dylanist' is someone who writes them.

lol I had forgotten that particular detail. corniness sort of ingrained in her approach tbh.

she's an odd one in that she doesn't seem to get singled out for hipster kisses as a feminist sf icon a la LeGuin or Butler or Russ. Granted she doesn't write like any of them, she's way hackier/pulpier, but for a while there if you were an adolescent girl interested in sf, she was one of the few people speaking to/writing directly for that market

ahem

? did I miss something

Oh no I'm just outing myself. AMC was right there in the pocket for baby In Orbit circa 1988-1994 or so.

Tbh I think the Master Harper trilogy is really the masterwork there. It all goes a bit "BUT THEY'RE FROM EARTH DON'T U SEE" after a while, but Menolly's story of persecution, escape, and finding refuge and a purpose in life is some high-quality stuff.

AMC was a huge formative influence on my wife (which I've probably mentioned before), we have an extensive collection of her works, only some of which I've read myself

<3 <3 <3

I wrote to her once. It was pre-internet of course but the bio in the back of the book gave her address as "Dragon Hold, County Wicklow, Ireland" so I addressed it there and, wouldn't you know, it arrived? I think she wrote me back but I actually can't remember, which seems crazy? SOMEWHERE I think I have a reply from AMC.

haha my wife had the exact same experience

She must have had a whole secretary just for answering 14-year-old girls.

I'm sorry, I tried a few AMC short stories for the first time recently, and thought they were p terrible - the short story version of Ship Who Sang was def more tolerable then the first two dragon stories, which seemed interminable even at novella length. Obv she's not mentioned in the same breath as Le Guin or Butler or Russ because she just isn't in the same class as them - or Vance or Silverberg or Tiptree. Funnily enough, just re-read 'When It Changed' by Russ - now THAT's a science fiction short story!

I’ve only read the dragondrums etc trilogy and I remember liking it. Long time ago though.

That's the one I meant to reference! Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q587qIUFET0

Enjoyed a couple of her books as a teenager, but yeah, she's a dreadful writer.

her prose is on par with Delaney's early works imo

Jo went down in the hole to turn over the boysh and rennedox the kibblebops.

could've come from either pen

Tanith Lee - "Bite-Me-Not or, Fleur de Fur". Really good, it's been reprinted a bunch. A lot of her collections have overlap, I still don't know if this is normal for an author of her times, maybe to do with being published between America and UK, catering to what readers are likely to own? She still has another two collections to come out.

Tbh I think the Master Harper trilogy is really the masterwork there.

― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Tuesday, July 30, 2019 8:36 PM

Do you mean the Harper Hall trilogy? Masterharper Of Pern is a single book, not in that trilogy.

Can this be approached by a newbie? I was thinking of trying the initial omnibus someday but I'm not in a hurry, I've got hundreds of priority authors ahead of her.

Nice appreciation of Samuel Delaney on The NY Times book section today.

Cool - just finished Dhalgren as it happens. Will go look.

i seem to have used up my lifetime's allocation of free nyt articles.

Don't think I had seen the contents list before
https://www.blackgate.com/2019/07/28/new-treasures-the-big-book-of-classic-fantasy-edited-by-ann-and-jeff-vandermeer/

Do you mean the Harper Hall trilogy?

Yes.

https://www.tor.com/2019/07/31/celebrating-poul-anderson-with-five-favourite-works/

Found this quite interesting, comments too (had no idea Greg Bear was his step-son). Brain Wave sounds awesome.

Thought Bear was his son-in-law.

Brain Wave has a good reputation, but my copy is still sitting in the To Be Read One Day on the Dying Earth pile/pvmic