The Sci-Fi Discussion Thread

[D_Davis]

I wish books still had covers like that.

Me, too!

That's why I'm buying these vintage versions of books.

[D_Davis]

I ordered these last week:


http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/224746_181135098603809_1000012 19601760_472381_3296431_n.jpg

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/225581_181135115270474_1000012 19601760_472383_2901471_n.jpg

[Milky Joe]

I just won a copy of this off eBay, for like $10. I keep thinking it's some kind of hoax, like I'm going to be shipped a photocopy or something.

http://img.listal.com/image/66405/600full-in-pursuit-of-valis-selections-from-the-exegisis-cover.jpg

Ten freakin' dollars?? I paid about $60 for mine. Damn you! *shakes fist*

Also, I have that Palmer Eldritch cover. It's lovely.

[D_Davis]

Ten freakin' dollars?? I paid about $60 for mine. Damn you! *shakes fist*


Yeah, well we'll see what gets shipped to me.

[D_Davis]

Mathematicians in Love, by Rudy Rucker

There is a kind of problem inherent to the style of Transrealism. Transrealim needs to be all about the author, or at least highly informed by the author's real life. While at one time, Rucker was a genuine hipster (not in a bad way) with an edge, with his finger on the pulse of a new (his own) literary style, he has now grown older, and is is disconnected. And as we grow old, we lose our edge, and we find that it is harder to stay up with current trends and lingo. Thus, unfortunately, Mathematicians in Love reads like a book written by an aging hipster; the lingo is dated, and the edge is dulled. It's like a punk rock album put put by a band that has nothing to punk against.

For instance, skaters don't "jump" their boards up curbs, they "ollie."

There is a meta-irony involved in the process of Transrealism, because if the style is ti reflect the author's current life, then as the author gets older, the writing should mirror this aspect. There is a built-in freshness date for the Transrealist. The same thing has happened to John Shirley, although he is not strictly a Transrealist. And conversely, the opposite has happened to William Gibson.

However, this is not to say that I did not enjoy the book. It is still pretty good, entertaining, and thought provoking. It's just not up to the same level as Rucker's earlier novels, nor does it have that sharp edge that makes White Light and the Ware books so great.

So while I still have the utmost respect for Rucker, and I still absolutely love his non-fiction, I think his best fiction work is, unfortunately, behind him. It's just the way these things go, and that's OK.

[D_Davis]

Reading this right now:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0156881500.01._SX240_SCLZZZZZZ Z_.jpg

Very different from the other Lem I've read. It's not philosophical, or satire, but it is instead a collection of old-fashioned space adventure stories. Very well written, and the main character, Pirx, is interesting. He's more like a real man, and less like a SF hero.

[D_Davis]

I'm going to try to put together a local SF book club over the summer. I'm going to pick 6 books to read over 3 months, and treat it like a class. I've always wanted to teach SF, and think I'd be great at it.

So far, I'm thinking of the following:

1. The Stars my Destination - Bester
2. Sirius - Stapledon
3. More than Human - Sturgeon
4. Dandelion Wine - Bradbury
5. Way Station - Simak
6. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon - Robinson

[Marley]

I'm looking forward to reading my first Lem, which will be "Solaris." Right now I am in the middle of Sturgeon's "To Marry Medusa" and finding it a lot more accessible than "More than Human." What I really like about Sturgeon's stories is that they are so surprising and unpredictable where he is always 10 steps ahead. Great stuff.

That's a great idea, D! I'll gladly join. :lol:

[D_Davis]

To Marry Medusa is amazing. I love all the characters Sturgeon populates his stories with. Rarely will you find a typical heroic-type in a Sturgeon tale. His characters are real human beings.

[Irish]

1. The Stars my Destination - Bester
2. Sirius - Stapledon
3. More than Human - Sturgeon
4. Dandelion Wine - Bradbury
5. Way Station - Simak
6. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon - Robinson

Sings: One of these things is not like the other! One of these things doesn't belong!

Seriously, swap in Martian Chronicles. Dandelion Wine is an absolutely brilliant book, and for my money the finest writing Bradbury has ever done, but it has little to nothing to do with science fiction.

(Also a little surprised you didn't go for and PKD right off the bat, not even something relatively benign like High Castle.)

[Irish]

Also, I'm sneaking into your bedroom for the next couple of weeks and whispering "Childhood's End" into your ear while you sleep.

[Marley]

To Marry Medusa is amazing. I love all the characters Sturgeon populates his stories with. Rarely will you find a typical heroic-type in a Sturgeon tale. His characters are real human beings.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Gurlick is one of the more unique and awesome characters I have come across and he reminds me a lot of Gully Foyle in certain respects.

[Marley]

Sings: One of these things is not like the other! One of these things doesn't belong!

Seriously, swap in Martian Chronicles. Dandelion Wine is an absolutely brilliant book, and for my money the finest writing Bradbury has ever done, but it has little to nothing to do with science fiction.

(Also a little surprised you didn't go for and PKD right off the bat, not even something relatively benign like High Castle.)

Yeah, I agree that this list needs PKD! I'm not familiar with "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon" but it it must be noteworthy if it is on curriculum. *adds to interminable reading list*

[D_Davis]

Also, I'm sneaking into your bedroom for the next couple of weeks and whispering "Childhood's End" into your ear while you sleep.

It's a good book.

[D_Davis]

PKD will come during the second session, if there is any interest. I'm going to see how many women join, if any. I've never encountered a female who liked PKD, simply because of his terrible characterizations of his female characters. He mistrusted women a great deal, and it shows in his writing.

I think Dandelion Wine fits in well with SF (Speculative Fiction), and is a great book to read over the summer.

For the winter session, I'm thinking of Bradbury's October Country.

[D_Davis]

Not liking Pirx the Pilot at all. 4 out 5 stories have been read, and I haven't really enjoyed any of them. So dry and dull. Remember when they made that "real" King Arthur movie and stripped out all of the myth and legend? This is kind of like that. It's super-dry, no frills, very little sense of wonder SF. Lots of velocity-talk, or stuff about trajectories....ugh.

[D_Davis]

After completing The Dreaming Jewels, by Theodore Sturgeon, my friend Simon wrote:

"Theodore Sturgeon only wrote SF because no other genre could possibly have contained the immensity of his ideas."

I really like this, and totally agree. Sturgeon could not have written general fiction/literature because there are too many limitations; while Sturgeon's stories deal with very real things and emotions, they way he tells them breaks through the confines of reality. He simply had to write in a genre in which he could let his heart and imagination take flight.

[D_Davis]

Got these today

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/224610_183235138393805_1000012 19601760_485391_1199659_n.jpg

[D_Davis]

Tales of Pirx the Pilot, by Stanislaw Lem

Wow.

Totally dull, and completely uninteresting. I am left pondering and ultimately confused by the many incredibly positive reviews for this collection. The stories are as dry as can be, reading like technical manuals, or tales of space exploration written by a lab scientist only concerned with the facts, and not understanding that a well-told and engaging story needs more than mere facts. There is absolutely no wow-factor to be found. It felt like I was reading a piece of general fiction set in space, as the stories lacked much of what I look for in genre fiction. There were very few interesting ideas explored, nor was there any kind of pulp-adventure. Without one or the other, I wasn't left with anything to enjoy.

What a bummer.

[D_Davis]

Next up, another Japanese SF book...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-di-xWboT_Og/TXmC0BW1LfI/AAAAAAAABHw/1ecEUNvVx6M/MardockScramble.jpg

[kuehnepips]

... I've never encountered a female who liked PKD,

Liar. :sad:

[D_Davis]

Liar. :sad:

I meant IRL.

:D

[Marley]

Tales of Pirx the Pilot, by Stanislaw Lem

Wow.

Totally dull, and completely uninteresting. I am left pondering and ultimately confused by the many incredibly positive reviews for this collection. The stories are as dry as can be, reading like technical manuals, or tales of space exploration written by a lab scientist only concerned with the facts, and not understanding that a well-told and engaging story needs more than mere facts. There is absolutely no wow-factor to be found. It felt like I was reading a piece of general fiction set in space, as the stories lacked much of what I look for in genre fiction. There were very few interesting ideas explored, nor was there any kind of pulp-adventure. Without one or the other, I wasn't left with anything to enjoy.

What a bummer.

That is somewhat discouraging. I hope "Solaris" doesn't disappoint since I will be reading it in the next little while.

[D_Davis]

Solaris is awesome.

[Marley]

Solaris is awesome.

Phew. :)

In response to your post further up about Sturgeon's writing, I'm inclined to agree with Simon's statement as well. Having only having reading "More than Human" and almost all of "Marry Medusa", I would classify both works as SF if one applies Darko Suvin's definition of the genre. However, Sturgeon is not bound by conventions and is constantly pushing the boundaries and expectations of science fiction in ways that makes his works unique. I need to read a lot more of his work to come up with a more concise explanation of his writing techniques and interests but judging from these two novels, he is definitely not your typical SF writer. No doubt, a brilliant anomaly but of what kind, I cannot say at this point in time.

[D_Davis]

Sturgeon also broke new ground in his approach to gender, homosexuality, and sex in general.

His final novel, Godbody, is a nearly-pornographic, or at least highly-erotic, story about a messianic figure that comes to earth and teaches people to love through the act of sexual intercourse.

He was also the first SF to write a positive story all about homosexuality, and his novel Venus Plus X is nothing but a very didactic study of gender.

He was forward thinking in his themes as well as his style, and should be taught in College courses focusing on American literature. He is one of those "important" writers. I could easily come up with an entire syllabus just on Sturgeon's stories; there is just so much to talk about.

I need to get back into reading his short stories.

[D_Davis]

Mardock Scamble

0-stars for the first 100 pages.

I can't really review this, but I have to warn others.

I can't read any more of this. It's entirely pathetic. I thought I could get past the terrible prose and stilted translation, but I can't. What the hell is up with this translation? Did the publishers of the imprint even read this thing?

Like, OMG, it's so lame!

In the first 100 pages there must be, like, 20 egg metaphors. Seriously. One of the bad guys name is Shell, and he treats the main character, an underage prostitute called Rune-Balot, very poorly. She has the power to make her consciousness sink into herself, but she's told not to do this because she needs to be like an egg, and break free of her shell. But get it? The bad guy's name is Shell! And apparently Balot is the name of some kind of food dish where a chick is boiled in its shell, and then eaten. Get it? Shell? A young girl, a chick, needs to escape her shell? Oh yeah, and then the other bad guy is called Boiled! Yeah! This whole farking thing is a story about eggs.

And then the author will explain something. And then the next paragraph will start off, "In other words..." and the same thing will be explained again, only in a different manner, using a different egg metaphor.

In other words, the author will explain the same thing twice, thus increasing the word and page count, apparently, the author or the translator thinks his readers are retarded.

What I mean is, the author will same the same thing a multitude of ways, just to make sure the reader understands the point, but the point is so on the nose that you'd have to be dumber than a hard boiled egg to miss it.

I CANNOT spend 700 pages worth of time on this juvenile nonsense.

I CANNOT imagine why Viz Media, the owner of this imprint, chose this translation for publication. It's an embarrassment.

I thought the name Mardock Scramble was cool. I thought the word "Scramble" would be used in the action sense, like a bunch of bad asses scrambling into action. But now I wouldn't be surprised if the word is used to describe some kind of egg dish made in the city.

"Yes waiter, I'll have the Mardock Scramble, no cheese."

[Marley]

Sturgeon also broke new ground in his approach to gender, homosexuality, and sex in general.

His final novel, Godbody, is a nearly-pornographic, or at least highly-erotic, story about a messianic figure that comes to earth and teaches people to love through the act of sexual intercourse.

He was also the first SF to write a positive story all about homosexuality, and his novel Venus Plus X is nothing but a very didactic study of gender.

He was forward thinking in his themes as well as his style, and should be taught in College courses focusing on American literature. He is one of those "important" writers. I could easily come up with an entire syllabus just on Sturgeon's stories; there is just so much to talk about.

I need to get back into reading his short stories.

The man definitely seems ahead of his time. I just finished "Marry Medusa" and posted some fragmented thoughts on goodreads but not sure where I should go next with Sturgeon. "Godbody" perhaps. Sturgeon should be taught in college english courses but its a shame that he will likely never appear on a course syllabus. Hell, I took a science fiction course and he wasn't even mentioned once.

Concerning Marry Medusa, I was wondering what you made of the ending which left me a little baffled. Medusa was able to achieve her goal through fornication with Gurlick, right?

[Irish]

Davis, have you seen this?

http://www.amazon.com/Containment-ebook/dp/B0039PT4BO/ref=zg_bs_25_12

I bought the Kindle addition because the cover looked kinda cool and it was only 99 cents. =P.

Wondering if you've read it & what you thought.

[D_Davis]

Davis, have you seen this?

http://www.amazon.com/Containment-ebook/dp/B0039PT4BO/ref=zg_bs_25_12

I bought the Kindle addition because the cover looked kinda cool and it was only 99 cents. =P.

Wondering if you've read it & what you thought.

Never even heard of it, or the author. It does look cool though.

Added to my wish list.

[Irish]

Never even heard of it, or the author. It does look cool though.

Added to my wish list.

Ah, cool. I'll post here once I finish it. (Figure I couldn't really go wrong for a buck, plus it has 4 stars from 200 ratings).

[D_Davis]

Picked this up today:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41C0smE%2BMrL._SS500_.jpg

Really great anthology.


Contents:
• The Demon Pope (http://www.iblist.com/book15861.htm) (1888) • Richard Garnett
• The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth (1908) • Lord Dunsany
• Through the Dragon Glass (1917) • Abraham Merritt
• The Nameless City (1921) • H. P. Lovecraft
• The Wind in the Portico (1928) • John Buchan
• The Tower of the Elephant (http://iblist.com/book34539.htm) (1933) • Robert E. Howard
• Xeethra (1934) • Clark Ashton Smith
• Jirel Meets Magic (1935) • Catherine L. Moore
• The Bleak Shore (http://www.iblist.com/book18507.htm) (1940) • Fritz Leiber
• Homecoming (1946) • Ray Bradbury
• See You Later (1949) • Henry Kuttner
• Liane the Wayfarer (1950) • Jack Vance
• The Desrick on Yandro (1952) • Manly Wade Wellman
• The Silken-Swift... (1953) • Theodore Sturgeon
• Operation Afreet (http://www.iblist.com/book17885.htm) (1956) • Poul Anderson
• The Singular Events Which Occurred in the Hovel on the Alley Off of Eye Street (1962) • Avram Davidson
• The Sudden Wings (1962) • Thomas Burnett Swann
• Same Time, Same Place (1963) • Mervyn Peake
• Timothy (1966) • Keith Roberts
• The Kings of the Sea (1968) • Sterling E. Lanier
• Not Long Before the End (1969) • Larry Niven
• The Wager Lost by Winning (1970) • John Brunner
• Lila the Werewolf (http://www.iblist.com/book6552.htm) (1969) • Peter S. Beagle
• Johanna (1978) • Jane Yolen
• The Erl-King (1979) • Angela Carter
• Beyond the Dead Reef (1983) • James Tiptree, Jr.
• Subworld (1983) • Phyllis Eisenstein
• Bite-Me-Not or, Fleur de Fur (http://www.iblist.com/book.php?id=22577) (1984) • Tanith Lee
• The Night of White Bhairab (http://www.iblist.com/book16777.htm) (1984) • Lucius Shepard
• Thorn (1984) • Robert Holdstock
• Troll Bridge (1992) • Terry Pratchett

[Irish]

Nebula award winners:

Novel: Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Spectra)

Short Story (tie): Ponies by Kij Johnson (Tor.com 1/17/10) and How Interesting: A Tiny Man by Harlan Ellison (Realms of Fantasy 2/10)

Novella: The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window by Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer ’10)

http://www.sfwa.org/2011/05/nebula-award-winners-announced/

Edit: Much better list, with some links to the actual works, from winners and nominees:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/05/2011-nebula-award-winners

[D_Davis]

I really need to start familiarizing myself with current SF authors and trends.

[Irish]

Ponies is still up on the Tor.com site, btw, if anyone is interested:

http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/11/ponies

[D_Davis]

I've tried reading a couple books by Connie Willis, and I don't care for her style or preoccupation with time travel. Time travel stories tend to be my least favorite trope in SF.

[D_Davis]

Ponies is still up on the Tor.com site, btw, if anyone is interested:

http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/11/ponies

I've been meaning to get into Johnson from some time.

[Irish]

I really need to start familiarizing myself with current SF authors and trends.

Somehow I'd be disappointed if you started reading anything published past 1990. :P

I just read Ponies (it's a short short). It was ... interesting. Bit heavy handed social commentary. I'm not sure it's worthy of a nomination much less a win.

[D_Davis]

Somehow I'd be disappointed if you started reading anything published past 1990. :P

I just read Ponies (it's a short short). It was ... interesting. Bit heavy handed social commentary. I'm not sure it's worthy of a nomination much less a win.

1990 might actually be pushing it (at least when it comes to SF...now horror on the other hand...). :)

I'm interested in Johnson's take on Asian folklore, but, really, I should probably just read more Asian folklore. Why take a gaijin's word for it?

[Irish]

http://i.imgur.com/hN7EB.jpg

Davis, thought you might find this interesting -- collection of Finnish scifi and fantasy:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/05/vandermeers-import-finnish-sff-literature

[D_Davis]

http://i.imgur.com/hN7EB.jpg

Davis, thought you might find this interesting -- collection of Finnish scifi and fantasy:

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/05/vandermeers-import-finnish-sff-literature

Interesting. I don't think I've ever read a Finnish SF story.

[D_Davis]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/249947_186037951446857_1000012 19601760_503069_5735890_n.jpg

Really stoked about this edition of Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane, and the others I bought because I thought the covers were very nice.

[Marley]

Very cool covers. William Blatty is awesome and I need to read more from this guy.

[megladon8]

A type of sci-fi I've never been able to get a taste for is the stuff that frequently, mindlessly lists of technical specs or workings of ships and technology.

"He put the ships forward thrusters up to full power, diverting power from the weapons bay and medical facilities. Then he turned the warp drive up to mid power and diverted the rest of that power to the forward hull shields to put them at 60%. Blah blah blah."

It's like a sci-fi version of Tom Clancy's incessant guns-turbation.

[D_Davis]

William Blatty is awesome and I need to read more from this guy.

Yeah, totally. He's a top-5 author for me.

[D_Davis]

I almost don't want to read Day of the Triffids after reading Mr. Morris's ridiculously pompous and insulting introduction. In it, he basically derides American SF readers (saying we prefer all prefer action and space opera), and mocks American authors saying that none of them can match their British counterparts. Holy crap, talk about British Exceptionalism.

Dude - it's OK to really like an author, but in doing so don't make broad generalizations about readers and authors from other countries. It makes you sound like a giant douche-bag.

[Marley]

I almost don't want to read Day of the Triffids after reading Mr. Morris's ridiculously pompous and insulting introduction. In it, he basically derides American SF readers (saying we prefer all prefer action and space opera), and mocks American authors saying that none of them can match their British counterparts. Holy crap, talk about British Exceptionalism.

Dude - it's OK to really like an author, but in doing so don't make broad generalizations about readers and authors from other countries. It makes you sound like a giant douche-bag.


Wow, that guy sure does sound like a condescending prick. To make such a broad generalization like that has no merit whatsoever.

I had to read this book in middle-school and can barely remember a thing about it. Let me know what you think when you finish.

[Marley]

A type of sci-fi I've never been able to get a taste for is the stuff that frequently, mindlessly lists of technical specs or workings of ships and technology.

"He put the ships forward thrusters up to full power, diverting power from the weapons bay and medical facilities. Then he turned the warp drive up to mid power and diverted the rest of that power to the forward hull shields to put them at 60%. Blah blah blah."

It's like a sci-fi version of Tom Clancy's incessant guns-turbation.

I'm inclined to agree with you, Meg. I find a lot of cyberpunk or hard-SF difficult to get into because of the bombardment of technical jargon. I don't mind it in small doses and if it actually serves a greater purpose.

[D_Davis]

Wow, that guy sure does sound like a condescending prick. To make such a broad generalization like that has no merit whatsoever.

I had to read this book in middle-school and can barely remember a thing about it. Let me know what you think when you finish.

I have a feeling this introduction totally tainted my opinion of the book - already. I can tell I'm going to be super extra critical of it now. I don't think I'll read it until later.

[Irish]

I almost don't want to read Day of the Triffids after reading Mr. Morris's ridiculously pompous and insulting introduction. In it, he basically derides American SF readers (saying we prefer all prefer action and space opera), and mocks American authors saying that none of them can match their British counterparts. Holy crap, talk about British Exceptionalism.

While it's a rank generalization, I almost can't fault him for saying this given the state of SF in pop culture and the overall weakness of the genre in bookstores.

[D_Davis]

It's complete bullshit and straight up false.

Both the UK and the US have generated many great SF authors, and many bad ones.

So I put that book in the to-trade pile, and started:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511850EX4JL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

[megladon8]

While it's a rank generalization, I almost can't fault him for saying this given the state of SF in pop culture and the overall weakness of the genre in bookstores.


http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/5622/awjeeznotthisagain.jpg


SF is not the only genre out there that has a fairly weak representation in pop culture.

Most of everything is shit. Whether it be space opera, serious family drama, or Shakespeare adaptations, it's harder to find good stuff than bad.

[D_Davis]

Most of everything is shit. Whether it be space opera, serious family drama, or Shakespeare adaptations, it's harder to find good stuff than bad.

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of SF is crap, but then again 90% of everything is crap.

[megladon8]

Sturgeon's Law: 90% of SF is crap, but then again 90% of everything is crap.


Exactly.

I don't get Irish's singling out of sci-fi (or genre works as a whole) at all.

It just doesn't make any sense.

[D_Davis]

and the overall weakness of the genre in bookstores.

It also depends on what book stores you go to. Only go to Powell's or the U-Book Store and you'll think that the state of genre fiction is amazing.

[D_Davis]

Exactly.

I don't get Irish's singling out of sci-fi (or genre works as a whole) at all.

It just doesn't make any sense.

Well he was mainly reacting to what I wrote about the introduction to The Day of the Triffids, in which the author basically said that American readers are stupid and American SF authors suck.

[megladon8]

Well he was mainly reacting to what I wrote about the introduction to The Day of the Triffids, in which the author basically said that American readers are stupid and American SF authors suck.


Yes I know, but Irish has previously posted with regards to genre works (in film discussions) stating that stuff that is genre related is almost immediately inferior to serious dramatic works, due to the fact that it's genre.

[Irish]

SF is not the only genre out there that has a fairly weak representation in pop culture. Most of everything is shit. Whether it be space opera, serious family drama, or Shakespeare adaptations, it's harder to find good stuff than bad.

I said the state of scifi in popular culture and the weakness of the genre in bookstores.

I haven't read Triffids or the introduction Davis' is referencing. But if someone is criticizing Americans for liking "action and space opera," and then you, say, take a look at something like JJ Abrams' Star Trek or The Matrix and then visit the local megabookstore and see the scifi section packed with a few doze copies of stuff like The Dresden Files, while Stand on Zanzibar goes out of print ... I'm saying I can see the point of those criticisms.

And while you might find some gold in a few authors or shows here and there, I definitely think you can make a case that science fiction has gotten progressive weaker in the last twenty years overall, both in print and in television and film.

[Irish]

Yes I know, but Irish has previously posted with regards to genre works (in film discussions) stating that stuff that is genre related is almost immediately inferior to serious dramatic works, due to the fact that it's genre.

Never said that, nor came close to implying it.

[megladon8]

Never said that, nor came close to implying it.


Yeah, way back when when there was a discussion of comic book films and genre works, that's what you said.

I remember it distinctly because I called you out on it a few times. It was in a discussion of superhero films.



And while you might find some gold in a few authors or shows here and there, I definitely think you can make a case that science fiction has gotten progressive weaker in the last twenty years overall, both in print and in television and film.


I disagree.

Time is the great filter. We weren't alive in the '50s, so we didn't see the massive amount of shit that was published and shown in theatres. And since it sucked, it was forgotten.

It's not like every single book ever published and film ever released is readily available for our criticism now. Some stuff just gets left behind, because it's genuinely terrible.

In 20 years people will still remember, say, Children of Men, but stuff like Vin Diesel's Babylon A.D. will be pretty much unheard of.

Similarly, in 20 years people will be arguing that stuff was so much better now, in 2011, because all they'll have to go on (for the most part) is the great stuff that people remembered.

Art and pop culture is not getting "worse".

[Irish]

I had something posted but I deleted it. Not sure what the point is now, and god forbid I go "energizer bunny" on anyone.

Two things:

(1) You had to have misunderstood my intent, because I certainly would never say or imply that "pure drama" trumps genre "just because it's genre."

(2) American scifi is weaker now not because of volume or quality, but because it's drifted from being about ideas to being about pure run-and-gun action.

[D_Davis]

(2) American scifi is weaker now not because of volume or quality, but because it's drifted from being about ideas to being about pure run-and-gun action.

But this isn't necessarily true. It may seem this way because that's what you see in abundance at the normal bookstores, but there is still a lot of non-space opera stuff being made, probably as much as ever. And like it always has been, you just have to wade through the crap to find it.

Granted, there are some great British authors working right now - Charles Stross, Philip Palmer, Richard Morgan - but there are also some great American authors - Corey Doctorow, Vernor Vinge, Gene Wolfe.

[Irish]

Hm. Cory Doctorow. Charlie Stross. Great ... authors?

Davis.

I want you to imagine me chasing you down the street dual-wielding stainless steel cleavers and screaming at the top of my lungs.

[D_Davis]

Cory Doctorow is one of the greats. Brilliant mind, great thinker, good story teller; he's the classic ideas man.

[D_Davis]

Diff'rent strokes...

[D_Davis]

The Artificial Kid is pretty sweet so far, and damn did it ever predict our Me/Youtube Culture. In this book, people are followed around by their own flock of floating, personal cameras that record everything, and then broadcast the footage over personal television channels which people can subscribe to.

[D_Davis]

So after a far-too-long second chapter (filled with more infodump than I care to recall), AIK gets really awesome. This book pretty much had to be the blueprint which influenced just about every SF anime from the mid-80s through the 90s.

[D_Davis]

A super long conversation between Frederik Pohl and Alfred Bester.

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2011/03/me-and-alfie/

I've only read about 1/2 of it, but so far it is awesome.

[D_Davis]

Amen, brother Bester.



Bester: It’s kind of peculiar, we are finally accepted — the Johnny-come-latelys are now talking about “sci-fi,” which is an abbreviation which I loathe. But what makes me very curious is what the hell people are looking for in science fiction. Predictions of the future, extrapolations of technology, that sort of thing?



I still think science fiction is the poetry of literature, and if you want new ideas and ways of telling a story and new kinds of stories, you go to science fiction, because God knows you can’t find it in ordinary commercial fiction today. Most of the hundreds of science fiction soft-cover books are old-style space opera nonsense to which we pay no attention.



If you want something arresting, read a novel by Fred Pohl, which yesterday won the most distinguished award that science fiction has to offer.

[D_Davis]

Interesting look at the subversive nature of SF:


Pohl: We have been talking mostly about the techniques of science fiction, I think, and the forms of writing of science fiction. But as Alfie says, there is content too.

In America 20 years ago, during the Senator Joe McCarthy (http://www.apl.org/history/mccarthy/biography.html) era, there was not an awful lot of political free speech in America. Most of the newspaper editors and political leaders were running for the storm cellars because they didn’t want to get in the way of “Tail-gunner Joe.” And at that time science fiction was saying all sorts of revolutionary, critical, socially penetrating things — to the extent that an old friend of mine who was then minister of a church in Los Angeles used to sell copies of Galaxy and the other science-fiction magazines outside the church after services, because he said it was the only free speech in America.



And this has also been true in other countries, particularly in Eastern Europe; there is much more freedom for two classes of writers — science fiction writers and poets — than for anyone else. And partly it’s because most people don’t understand what they are talking about, anyhow.

[Marley]

Thanks for sharing that link, Davis. My admiration for Alfred Bester continues to grow.

[D_Davis]

The Artificial Kid, by Bruce Sterling

The first ~150 pages of this early cyberpunk novel are pretty sweet. Tons of great action in a creative and inventive world. Sterling's imagination was definitely a spark for a ton of anime. The Kid is a neat character, and I was enjoying the story. And while it is not incredibly well written, Sterling does a good of creating dramatic tension and excitement.

And then, it all comes to a grinding halt. There was a moment where I actually said to the book, "No. Please don't that." And it did that thing. You could call it the Wizard in Glass syndrome; the characters are stranded and unable to move forward in their quest, so they tell each other their life stories.

Ugh.

The narrative stops dead in its tracks for lazy character development and world building completely out of context to the story being told.

But unfortunately, Sterling's book never finds itself again. Once this point of the novel is reached, the edge completely disappears. It's funny, really. The characters are saved from certain death (via a HUGE coincidence) by another character who happens to be a neuter - and that's exactly what happens to the narrative: it gets neutered.

[D_Davis]

OK, so The Solar Invasion, by Manly Wade Wellman, begins with a guy named Captain Future; Otho, an android; Brain, a brain in a box; and Oog, a meteor-mimic, eating steak sandwiches while camping out on an asteroid. Gotta love the pulps.

[D_Davis]

"Holy sun-imps, man, we're fighting to get our moon back!"

[D_Davis]

The Solar Invasion, by Manly Wade Wellman

A group of superheroes in space, The Futuremen, fight off the evil Magician of Mars, Ul Quourn, and his meddling henchmen from Dimension X.

And that's basically it. No subtext, no nuance, no allegory or metaphor. Don't be naive, man! This is a pulp we're talking about, kid. It's pure action; it's high-octane bravado with handsome, dashing, muscular, and intelligent heroes, mustache-twirling baddies, robots, ray-pistols, tons of silly plot contrivances, and a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter.

And it's not bad, but nor is it great. It is, rather, a welcome little literary diversion that needs to be taken every once in awhile. I think that sometimes, as adults, we forgot the reasons why many of us started to read as children: the fun. Dipping back into this pulpy pool reminds me of that reason, and so, heavy with nostalgia and with a glint of childlike wonder in my eye, it was purely a pleasure to read something so light, fluffy, and fun.

On a side note, I would love to see a modern take on these characters. I think it would be a lot of fun to take The Futuremen out of the pulp pasts and put them into something more new wave or post-modern. It's a pretty neat little group of heroes:

Captain Future: the red-headed leader of the group. He's confident, strong, super smart, and makes split second decisions.

Otho: an android who can stretch his body, and who is a master of disguise.

Grag: A giant armored robot - super strong, kind of dumb.

Oog: A small alien creature called a meteor-mimic. It can change its body into any shape.

Brain: A Brain in a box.

Eek: Grag's little pet - think of Nibbler from Futurama.

I can easily imagine a very interesting Watchmen/X-Mutants examination of these characters in a world that is less innocent, sincere and naive, and more cynical, paranoid and cruel. How would these characters react if there were to be whisked away from their world and into a future more like one created by PKD, or Gibson, or even Rucker.

Although one might argue that Alfred Bester already did this with The Stars My Destination.

I think the perfect author for something like this would be Philip Palmer.

Anyhow, I can't really recommend this book to anyone unless they're really, really into the pulps. And even then, there are probably better examples out there. However, because of my recent Wellman obsession, I'm still really glad that it exists and that I read it.

[megladon8]

Abandoned "The Girl in a Swing" for Philip K. Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch".

[Irish]

Philip K. Dick's "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch".

My vote for one of his best. The prose is rough all over, but damn if that book isn't a complete mindfuck.

[megladon8]

My vote for one of his best. The prose is rough all over, but damn if that book isn't a complete mindfuck.


Yeah, IMO Dick was never a master of prose. He was short, succinct, and messy, but his ideas and structure were second-to-none.

[D_Davis]

My vote for one of his best. The prose is rough all over, but damn if that book isn't a complete mindfuck.

I think it's his best, too.

[megladon8]

You know what I find really cool about Philip K. Dick?

He does absolutely no world building. At no point does he spend paragraphs engaged in technical jargon, explaining the ins and outs of the world, its society, or its technology.

He talks about things as if we know exactly what it is already. He has characters using abbreviations and slang for the things that exist in their world.


And it poses absolutely no problem to the reader. We enter the book completely lost, overwhelmed by the amount of information he's throwing at us and expecting us to pick up on. We do not know what Can-D is right away, we do not know about the segregation of humankind to the other planets of the solar system, or about the Prox system.

But we come to know about it simply by reading the story. The explanations are unnecessary, because by the end of the book we feel like we've known the world he has told his story in.

It's quite an amazing skill he possessed, and that many writers in every facet of literary fiction could learn to adapt a little.

[D_Davis]

That's totally true. PKD rarely infodumped - he always built his worlds in tandem with the stories and characters.

[Marley]

Very well said, Meg. Three Stigmata is indeed awesome but the story elements don't seem to all successfully coalesce and there are far too many loose narrative threads. Nonetheless, you make a very good point about PKD's skill at world-building without resorting to info-dump. Even though his prose does tend to be slightly uneven (moreso with Three Stigmata than others that I have read by him) I still find his writing style and narrative techniques to be most enticing.

[D_Davis]

Up next...

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n3372.jpg

[D_Davis]

A brilliant answer to a subject that modern genre writers/readers give far too much importance.


Q: Who do you consider master world-builders, and what did you learn from them?

Alastair Reynolds:

I don't think I encountered the term "world-building" until long after the point when I was already selling SF, so it's always struck me as one of those hermetic, workshop-insider terms that doesn't have a lot of bearing on the actual process of writing.

Nor do I ever remember reading an SF novel, at any point in my life, and thinking "hey, great world-building going on here." To me it smacks very much of the mindset that you must assemble your fictional universe from the atoms up - working out the orbits of your planets, the plate tectonics, the atmospheric chemistry, the irrigation, economics and sanitary plumbing of your invented society, in numbing detail, before you can get on with the trifling afterthought of actually doing fiction.


For me it doesn't work like that, and I can't imagine it works like that for many of the writers whose work means anything to me. In so far as world-building is meant to make an invented environment feel plausible, that plausibility is surely more effectively conveyed by the accumulated layering of depth and texture, the telling detail and the off-hand reference. That's why Gene Wolfe's Urth, or Herbert's Arrakis, feel real to me: not,
I think, because either of them worked it all out beforehand.

I'd go so far as to say that if you're impressed by the world-building, the world-building is too high up in the mix.


http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/05/mind-meld-lessons-learned-from-master-world-builders/#comments

[Mysterious Dude]

This conversation reminds me of a book that perhaps doesn't have enough world-building:


Total number of pages about the Sino-American war -- causes, duration, casualties: 0.75;

Total number of pages about deadly mutant metallobioforms: 1.5;

Total number of pages about flora around Turnbull's home, plus fauna, weather and how his ocean view looks in different seasons: 86;

Total number of pages about Mexico's repossession of the U.S. Southwest: 0.1;

Total number of pages about Ben Turnbull's penis and his various feelings about it: 7.5;

Total number of pages about the prostitute's body, with particular attention to sexual loci: 8.75;

Total number of pages about golf: 15;

Total number of pages of Ben Turnbull saying things like "I want women to be dirty" and "We are condemned, men and women, to symbiosis" and "She was a choice cut of meat and I hoped she held out for a fair price" and "The sexual parts are fiends, sacrificing everything to that aching point of contact": 36.5.

From David Foster Wallace's scathing review (http://www.badgerinternet.com/~bobkat/observer1.html) of John Updike's Toward the End of Time.

[D_Davis]

This conversation reminds me of a book that perhaps doesn't have enough world-building:



From David Foster Wallace's scathing review (http://www.badgerinternet.com/%7Ebobkat/observer1.html) of John Updike's Toward the End of Time.

Heh...


***


2wlf_8qFUqw

[Irish]

And speaking of PKD and his prose ...


What does it mean when a great writer like Philip K. Dick is considered to have an occasionally terrible prose style? Even so brilliant and well-regarded a defender of Dick's novels as author Jonathan Lethem has referred, in a 2007 interview with the online journal Article for example, to Dick's "howlingly bad" patches of prose.

Philip K. Dick and the Pleasures of Unquotable Prose (http://www.themillions.com/2011/06/philip-k-dick-and-the-pleasures-of-unquotable-prose.html)

[D_Davis]

And speaking of PKD and his prose ...



Philip K. Dick and the Pleasures of Unquotable Prose (http://www.themillions.com/2011/06/philip-k-dick-and-the-pleasures-of-unquotable-prose.html)

Have you read Lethem's "Crazy Friend?" A 16 page article on PKD.

http://jonathanlethem.com/CrazyFriend.pdf

[D_Davis]

BTW, nice article.

[D_Davis]

Wellman's The Beyonders is fantastic so far. Loving it.

[Marley]

On the subject of PKD, I finished Martian-Time Slip today and my overall impression is that of disappointment. Not bad or terrible by any means but after reading some of his best works this novel seemed rather mediocre in comparison. Dick has dealt with similar subject matter before but this time around it is not nearly as provocative or stimulating.

[D_Davis]

Man, I completely disagree. I think Martian Time-Slip is one of his very best. Maybe 3rd or 4th over all.

[megladon8]

I'm finding "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" quite confusing.

[Irish]

I'm finding "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" quite confusing.

:D

Wait until you get to the end.

[D_Davis]

Yeah, it's a real mind-effer.

[D_Davis]

The Beyonders, by Manly Wade Wellman

I love Wellman's writing, and his style. His use of affected dialog and southern dialect adds a great deal to his narratives and characters. So much so that I wasn't even really put off by the fact that this book is, honestly, a little dull. The first few chapters are great, but then things kind of stagnate, plot-wise, until the very end, and by then things feel a little rushed, and the threat of evil never feels tangible enough.

However, I really enjoyed the time I spent in the small mountain of Sky Notch, with characters like Gander Eye Gentry, Slowly Kimber, and the Doc. These are good folk to spend time with, and Wellman creates a vivid and believable back-woods setting.

I only wish that more time was given to The Beyonders, and to the SF premise. There are some cool things bubbling away just below the surface, including an almost Lovecraftian cult of worship.

So while not quite as good as the Silver John stories, The Beyonders is still a worthy read.

[Winston*]

Read Alfred Bester's Extro today. Not nearly as good as his two famous works. Feels more dated too, despite being significantly more recent.

[D_Davis]

Read Alfred Bester's Extro today. Not nearly as good as his two famous works. Feels more dated too, despite being significantly more recent.

Yeah. It's best to ignore all post-Stars My Destination Bester. Extro (or as I know it, The Computer Connection) has some decent Bester-prose, but not much else.

[Irish]

Whoa! First time ever: Direct Polish-to-English translation of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris!

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/06/new-solaris-translation-has-arrived-but-only-in-audio-format

It's available as an audio book for now, no paper copies. But still, I've been waiting years for this.

[D_Davis]

That's cool. I'm interesting in reading that.

[Marley]

Whoa! First time ever: Direct Polish-to-English translation of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris!

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/06/new-solaris-translation-has-arrived-but-only-in-audio-format

It's available as an audio book for now, no paper copies. But still, I've been waiting years for this.

The translation I read might help to explain why I found Solaris to be so underwhelming.

[Irish]

If anyone is interested in the Solaris audiobook, you can get it for free by going to http://audible.com/hulu.

Pros: Free ebook!
Cons: You have to create an account and cancel the subscription before 30 days or your card will be charged.

They're running some promotion right now on Hulu, and you can choose any book you want.

[D_Davis]

Started this, this morning:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2313/3537858664_a636668455.jpg

"Men Against the Stars," by Manly Wade Wellman

As the death of our space program looms on the horizon, I could not have picked a more perfect time to read this story. Old science fiction reminds me of a time of dreamers, when people dreamed of big ideas, and worked hard to make these ideas into a reality; of a time when the government was concerned with funding programs that would help humanity, things above and beyond the military industrial complex.

But those times are long gone. NASA's funds are slashed, the government is trying to kill education and NPR, and the only thing they even remotely care about is the Pentagon and the "defense" budget. If you think I'm being hyperbolic, I am not:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/201... (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/08-3)

However, many decades ago, people cared about things that were actually important. And this wonderful, short tale by Wellman captures this era of dreamers expertly. It illustrates the impossible tough decisions, sacrifices, determination, and ultimate success that such things bring.

Well man has a way with words that I find greatly impressive; he says so much with so little, and hones in on the details with belaboring the point. He also writes some wonderfully poetic descriptions, such as this brief passage about a space ship that has blown up:

As if in acceptance of that proposition, the ship explored around them like a shell. Poppy fire bloomed briefly in requiem.

Poppy fire bloomed briefly in requiem. What a sentence!

I hope the rest of the stories in this collection are as good. And yes, tings are very dated. The Wellman story was written in 1930, and spaceflight was still a dream to mankind. However, it's not about the technology, or the author's ability to prognosticate correctly. Good science fiction is about humanity and how we deal with things, and "Men Against the Stars," is good science fiction.

[D_Davis]

Picked this up last night, solely based on the cover:

http://assets.nybooks.com/media/images/productimage-picture-ice-trilogy-134_jpg_180x479_q85.jpg


Pulp fiction, science fiction, New Ageism, pornography, video-game mayhem, old-time Communist propaganda, and rampant commercial hype all collide, splinter, and splatter in Vladimir Sorokin’s virtuosic Ice Trilogy, a crazed joyride through modern times with the promise of a truly spectacular crash at the end. And the reader, as eager for the redemptive fix of a good story as the Children are for the Primordial Light, has no choice except to go along, caught up in a brilliant illusion from which only illusion escapes intact.

Sounds awesome.

[D_Davis]

Yeah! It came today...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/269766_202327849817867_1000012 19601760_586672_1696219_n.jpg

That may be my favorite cover yet.

[megladon8]

Oh man...I totally want a print of that cover.

[D_Davis]

Up next...

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178999554l/863687.jpg

[D_Davis]

Why A. Merritt isn't as popular today as Lovecraft is will forever be a mystery to me. He's a superior writer and storyteller, and thus far The Moon Pool is extraordinary.

[Marley]

Why A. Merritt isn't as popular today as Lovecraft is will forever be a mystery to me. He's a superior writer and storyteller, and thus far The Moon Pool is extraordinary.

That's some high praise. I'll keep an eye out for his work in the future.

[D_Davis]

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1280796098l/8699631.jpg

Man. I just do not know what to think of Cordwainer Smith's The Planet Buyer. Hopefully a reading of The Underpeople will provide some light with which my opinion can be properly formulated. Let me say these things: it was interesting enough that I am greatly looking forward to reading much more Smith; I am fascinated by the ideas of The Rediscovery of Man and The Instrumentality; the book was a little dull, and didn't have a cohesive, dramatic-drive; Smith throws a metric-ton of stuff at his readers to parse through; the book contains many great ideas, but I don't think they are executed upon as well as they could be.

[D_Davis]

Saw these at Half Price tonight...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/229750_212879828762669_1000012 19601760_621755_6331741_n.jpg

They wanted $300.

I offered them $150.

They took it.

There is one complete set on Abe Books fro $500, and one on Amazon for $1,000.

I should be a picker.

[Marley]

I've never heard of that author but that is some rad cover-art. I hope the price was worth it. :lol:

[D_Davis]

I've never heard of that author but that is some rad cover-art. I hope the price was worth it. :lol:

He's a lesser-known SF humorist/satirist, probably the grandfather of Hitchhiker's Guide.

And yes, those covers a very, uhm, special? :) Really small press stuff here....don't know why so much of his stuff is totally OOP. He's another one of those writers-writers; all the masters love him and were influenced by him, and yet he is rarely read by readers.

[D_Davis]

From the New York Times...


Robert Sheckley, 77, Writer of Satirical Science Fiction, Is Dead

By GERALD JONAS
Robert Sheckley, a writer of science fiction whose disarmingly playful stories pack a nihilistic subtext, died yesterday in Poughkeepsie. He was 77 and lived in Red Hook, N.Y.



The cause was complications of a brain aneurysm, said his former wife, Ziva Kwitney. Mr. Sheckley wrote more than 15 novels and around 400 short stories; the actual total is uncertain since he was so prolific in his heyday, the 1950's and 60's, that magazine editors insisted he publish some stories under pseudonyms to avoid having his byline appear more than once in an issue.



Four of his stories were made into films; the best known, "The Tenth Victim" (1965), starred Marcello Mastroianni (http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=46339&inline=nyt-per) and Ursula Andress (http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=1687&inline=nyt-per).
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Maplewood, N.J., Robert Sheckley joined the Army in 1946 after graduating from high school, and served in Korea. In 1951 he received an undergraduate degree from New York University and sold his first short story.


Over the next two decades, he was a major force in the development of modern science fiction. His first collection of stories, published in 1954, was hailed as one of the finest debut volumes in the field. In the 1960's he found a wider market for his science fiction in magazines like Playboy.
Many of his novels were well received, among them "Journey Beyond Tomorrow"(1962) and "Dimension of Miracles" (1968), but Mr. Sheckley was best known for his short stories. At a time when science fiction was just starting to grapple with the social implications of technology - from atomic bombs to missile-carrying rockets - Mr. Sheckley turned a satirist's eye on the genre and its concerns.



Like Ray Bradbury (http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=7905&inline=nyt-per), he was interested in the scientific apparatus of science fiction - space travel, time travel, extrapolated futures - only so far as it served his purpose. While Mr. Bradbury poetically mourns the failure to live up to our dreams of the future, Mr. Sheckley mocked the self-delusions that lead to dreams in the first place.


He reveled in the freedom the genre afforded him to dramatize the fears and anxieties of everyday life. When he wrote about the war between the sexes, he conjured a future in which disappointed lovers had the legal option of using real bullets to express their anger. When he wrote about alienation as a state of mind, he sealed the reader in an endless loop of disaffection that reduced the outside world to a hallucination wrapped in an illusion.



Because he leavened his darkest visions with wit and absurdist plotting, he is considered one of science fiction's seminal humorists, and a precursor to Douglas Adams, whose "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (1979) seems to take place in a Sheckleyan universe. But Mr. Sheckley's work is darker than Mr. Adams's; the smiles he evokes leave a bitter taste on the lips. A better comparison might be to Kafka, a fabulist who could never understood why his friends didn't laugh when he read his stories to them.



Mr. Sheckley's fiction has been translated into German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish and Lithuanian. His work is especially popular in Russia and Eastern Europe.


Mr. Sheckley's marriages to his first four wives, Barbara Scadron, Ms. Kwitney, Abby Schulman and Jay Rothbell, ended in divorce. At the time of his death he was separated from his fifth wife, Gail Dana. Other survivors include a son, Jason, from his first marriage, a daughter, Alisa Kwitney, from his second marriage; a daughter, Anya, and a son, Jed, from his third marriage; his sister Joan Klein of New York; and three grandchildren.

[D_Davis]

Some new Sheckley news:

http://assets.nybooks.com/media/img/books/9781590175088_jpg_180x450_q85. jpg (http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/store-of-the-worlds/)


An NYRB Classics Original



Robert Sheckley was sciencefiction’s in-house reply to the black humorists of the 1950s and 60s: Bruce Jay Friedman, Terry Southern, and the young Thomas Pynchon were his nonetoo- distant relatives; Mort Sahl’s comedy, Charles Schultz’s cartoons, and Tom Lehrer’s songs all mined similar veins. Sheckley targeted the conformity and consumerism of our mid-century technotopia while it was still under construction. His new worlds, alternate universes, and future dystopias have only become more present with the passing years, even as his career, played out both in the pulp magazines and in front-line venues like Playboy and Omni, is a glimpse of a time when “science fiction writer” could be a kind of hipster credential. Mordant, absurdist, and deadpan, the best of Sheckley’s dissident farces represent science fiction’s high-water mark as an allegorical clearinghouse for twenty-century angst.



One of the few acknowledged humorists in SF, and by far the funniest, Sheckley plays with myths the way Mel Brooks plays with classic movies.
—The New York Times Book Review

Science fiction’s premier gadfly.
—Kingsley Amis



Witty and ingenious… a draught of pure Voltaire and tonic.
—J.G. Ballard

[D_Davis]

Some people do read it for the articles/fiction:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/252159_216012395116079_1000012 19601760_631213_6521090_n.jpg

[D_Davis]

ctrl-f "Bester" = list fail
ctrl-f "Sturgeon" = list fail
ctrl-f "Dunsany" = list fail
ctrl-f "Lovecraft" = list fail

ASOIAF? Really? The series isn't even finished yet. Major fail.
Gaiman in the top 10? Epic fail.
The Kingkiller Chronicles? Serious?

NPR's Top 100 SFF Novels (http://www.npr.org/2011/08/09/139248590/top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books)

[lovejuice]

http://bp2.blogger.com/_bzAv5R3A-Ro/SIfa7lAHiuI/AAAAAAAAAqA/GTp_0lFrdPw/s400/Sim+1.jpg

Here I am more impressed by Dick's mastery of narrative skill than the story itself. A sci-fi usually has one or two what-ifs. The Simulacra has countless: what if we went to Mars and encountered the Martians; what if the president were a robot; what if we could do time travel; what if a new breed of mutants tried to take over the world; what if a pianist attained the psychic power of God. These are all seamlessly cramped into a novel of merely two hundred pages.

Yet I find the conclusion far from satisfactory. Dick seems to write mainly two types of novels. This and HIGH CASTLE belong to the type of which the story is more epic, involves a big cast and sweeps across a whole futuristic scene. However I am more partial toward the other type. Those include UBIK and POLICEMAN, in which he writes about the personal ordeal of individual characters

[D_Davis]

I didn't care much for The Simulacra. It felt as though PKD could figure out what kind of story he wanted to write. Sometimes his scatter-shot approach works, but with this I felt otherwise. I didn't dislike it, but it felt rather mediocre to me.

[D_Davis]

So I only have the following PKD books left to read:

Counter-Clock World
The Penultimate Truth (started, didn't like, never finished)
Lies, inc. (started, didn't like, never finished)
The Crack in Space (started, got distracted, never finished)
Deus Irae
The Man Who Japed
The Zap Gun

I'm picking up The Penultimate Truth, again, because I hear it gets quite good after the 50th page.

[monolith94]

A little bit more than halfway through "On Blue's Waters" and am really starting to get into it, even though I should I probably should have read the Book of the Long Sun first...

[Qrazy]

Martian Chronicles: In regards to all of the black people in the south getting into rocket ships and sailing away.

"In still farther meadows the watermelons lay, unfingerprinted, striped like tortoise cats lying in the sun."

For real Bradbury? For real?

[Qrazy]

Finished The Martian Chronicles... ehhh... a couple of solid short stories intermingled with a lot of middling ones. I found Bradbury's tone very uneven fluctuating too drastically from story to story between humor and hubris.

One problem with the short story format is there is a tendency towards the sudden reveal at the end. I find this can get a little tiresome in a collection because the overarching narrative (there isn't really one) can never really build to an emotional climax. I'm not sure how one would make this work. I feel that Fellini's episodic narratives could serve as a good jumping off point. There are very distinct sequences there but they all feed into a larger narrative. This collection also feeds into a larger narrative but without enough common threads other than theme and to some degree setting.

Ultimately I suppose I felt there were about three or four strong stories in this collection of about twenty or so. And I have to say I do find Bradbury's prose fairly underwhelming. I consider Fahrenheit 451 to be one of the lesser dystopian novels. I wouldn't say he's bad, just terribly mediocre. I don't think I will read anything more from him.

[Milky Joe]

Watching this "Prophets of Science Fiction" show on something called SCI channel. The episode is about Philip K Dick. Great, right? No, it's basically taking his ideas and using them to shill for the Homeland Security industry. About two minutes spent on his mystical experience (which they misrepresent entirely), from which they drew the conclusion that he thought he could "tell the future," which led into a discussion of Minority Report and its implications for current crime-prevention. Disgusting. Television is the worst.

[Qrazy]

"Foundation and Empire" - Isaac Asimov


I suggest reading this series from the very beginning.

In fact start with I, Robot... then Prelude to Foundation and then Foundation, etc. There is an awesome thematic arc to the series that especially hits home when you read them chronologically.

[Qrazy]

Just got back from Half Price Books, with:

Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Ender's Game

Did you read any of these yet?

[D_Davis]

Did you read any of these yet?

Started Foundation - couldn't stand it. Stilted writing, and dull story. I don't get along much with Asimov. Sometimes I like him (The Gods Themselves), but for the most part I don't. For future history, I prefer Olaf Stapledon's The Last and First Men.

I don't really get along with many of the golden age guys - Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, etc. I often find their writing and stories to be very dry, lacking in pathos and emotion. For golden age stuff I'll turn to the pulps and Theodore Sturgeon. In general, I tend to gravitate more towards the post Stars My Destination material more these days. I guess you could say I prefer the "S" in my "SF" to stand more for "speculative" than "science," to play the genre semantics game.

[D_Davis]

Watching this "Prophets of Science Fiction" show on something called SCI channel. The episode is about Philip K Dick. Great, right? No, it's basically taking his ideas and using them to shill for the Homeland Security industry. About two minutes spent on his mystical experience (which they misrepresent entirely), from which they drew the conclusion that he thought he could "tell the future," which led into a discussion of Minority Report and its implications for current crime-prevention. Disgusting. Television is the worst.

Yuk - that sounds terrible.

[D_Davis]

Ultimately I suppose I felt there were about three or four strong stories in this collection of about twenty or so. And I have to say I do find Bradbury's prose fairly underwhelming. I consider Fahrenheit 451 to be one of the lesser dystopian novels. I wouldn't say he's bad, just terribly mediocre. I don't think I will read anything more from him.

October Country and Dandelion Wine are his two best. I prefer horror/weird Bradbury to SF Bradbury.

[Qrazy]

Started Foundation - couldn't stand it. Stilted writing, and dull story. I don't get along much with Asimov. Sometimes I like him (The Gods Themselves), but for the most part I don't. For future history, I prefer Olaf Stapledon's The Last and First Men.

I don't really get along with many of the golden age guys - Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, etc. I often find their writing and stories to be very dry, lacking in pathos and emotion. For golden age stuff I'll turn to the pulps and Theodore Sturgeon. In general, I tend to gravitate more towards the post Stars My Destination material more these days. I guess you could say I prefer the "S" in my "SF" to stand more for "speculative" than "science," to play the genre semantics game.

Asimov's brilliance lies in carrying unique and layered ideas to their logical conclusion. The concepts in his science fiction are what are interesting about him. Although I don't think I fully agree that his work completely lacks emotion. I don't remember all of the characters of the series but the mule and a few others are presented with humour and pathos. But no, Foundation is not going to draw you in with a bang. All of the books in the series are a slow burn. Each one reaches an apex. They culminate like a mystery and by the end all of the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

I don't mean this as a slight at all but it seems like part of it is that for the most part you just like more action adventure in your stories.

[D_Davis]

I don't mean this as a slight at all but it seems like part of it is that for the most part you just like more action adventure in your stories.

Oh, not at all.

I'm more into SF stories featuring human emotion, pathos, and ideas.

However, I also like the pulpy stuff. I like anything that I think is good.

I just don't happen to care for Asimov and Foundation much, I'm sure you'll get over it. I did. :)

[D_Davis]

But no, Foundation is not going to draw you in with a bang. All of the books in the series are a slow burn.

Yeah I love slow burn SF. However, nothing I read in Foundation interested me at all. I also found it incredibly silly that in an attempt by Asimov to dismiss religion, the characters substitute the word "space" for "God," while they still use the word "hell" as a curse. Huh? It was silly, and just points at how authors like Asimov are so caught up in their utopian ideology - that only through the eradication of religion (the other, whatever that happens to be) will the world get better. I'm not drinking his kool-aid.

On top of all of this, there was absolutely no dramatic drive and I wasn't engaged by anything that was happening.

Give me Sturgeon, Ballard, Miller Jr., Dick, Sheckley, Bracket, Simak, and Stapledon any old day.

[Qrazy]

Oh, not at all.

I'm more into SF stories featuring human emotion, pathos, and ideas.

However, I also like the pulpy stuff. I like anything that I think is good.

I just don't happen to care for Asimov and Foundation much, I'm sure you'll get over it. I did. :)

Well you can't really form an opinion on it given that you haven't read it.

[Qrazy]

I enjoyed Bester's The Demolished Man but ultimately I had a few problems with it.

First off we are supposed to be witnessing the first triple A murder in 70 years and yet after this a number of murderous and violent actions occur which seem to have little repercussion. At first I gave the novel the benefit of the doubt, Ok so Ben killed once and now he kills again to cover his tracks so these other murders are not surprising. However the way in which these murders and attempts at murder are handled are surprisingly and absurd. For instance when Powell is grilling Tate and they are attacked Powell refers to Quizzard's killers or psychgoons (drug addicts). And these killers manage to kill Tate and yet Powell seems to think nothing of this, it's a common occurrence. Well you can't have it both ways. Either this is an extremely dangerous future world or there hasn't been a murder in 70 years and it's a purely cat and mouse game. Later on Ben attempts to kill another of his associates and Powell witnesses this and yet does nothing and before this he had another chance to apprehend Ben at the scene of a crime and again did nothing. The manner in which this man goes about his police work strikes me as incredibly far fetched.

The second thing that bothered me was the psychologizing. Honestly Freud was the absolute worst thing to happen to literature in the last 100 years. The novel's conception of the human mind is so facile as to be laughable.

Which ties into my third and final issue with the novel which is the conclusion. I am annoyed at Bester's compulsion to imbue the narrative with grand, sweeping galactic consequences. If Reich is not stopped his mental psychology will topple all of humanity, give me a freaking break. The Mass Cathexis Measure seems first off completely outside the realm of acceptable police work especially given what the plot had established earlier and secondly it undermines the political complexity the novel had sought to establish amongst the espers. I really wish the book had just focused on the issue of solving the murder and the cat and mouse games between Ben and Powell and the Esper guild. I also would have liked the esper guild to have been fleshed out a bit more and their end goal should have been a little more ominous for all of us normals.

Despite all of these complaints though it was a fun page turning read. The murder itself, the fall out and many of the character exchanges are quality. So quite good overall, particularly in the sci fi genre, but not great.

[megladon8]

So apparently that novel All You Need Is Kill is becoming a movie starring Tom Cruise and directed by Doug Liman.

Tom Cruise? Cool. Doug Liman? Yuck.

[D_Davis]

So apparently that novel All You Need Is Kill is becoming a movie starring Tom Cruise and directed by Doug Liman.

Tom Cruise? Cool. Doug Liman? Yuck.

Yeah - WB paid a HUGE sum of money to secure the rights. It's supposed to be their big blockbuster next summer.

It's a great book, and it could make a very cool flick.

[monolith94]

So I stopped reading Flashback. It was awful. Terrible scifi, terrible book. Avoid.

[Qrazy]

I finished The Forever War. Initially I thought it was very weak but then it proceeded to continually subvert my expectations. It was kind of like The Best Years of Our Lives meets Starship Troopers. So ultimately I would say I enjoyed it. The characterizations were flat, the dialogue middling and some of the pacing was rather poor. But the uniqueness of the approach and the strength of some of the concepts buoy the rest of the work.

I've now moved on to my first Strugatsky experience, Roadside Picnic (the work that was turned into Tarkovsky's Stalker). I can already tell that a loooot has been lost in translation, but I will proceed all the same.

[Melville]

I've now moved on to my first Strugatsky experience, Roadside Picnic (the work that was turned into Tarkovsky's Stalker). I can already tell that a loooot has been lost in translation, but I will proceed all the same.
I'll be interested in how that one is. It's on my to-read list. I started reading Beckett's Murphy, by the way. Though I can't remember if it was that one or Watt, or both, that you recommended to me years ago.

[Qrazy]

I'll be interested in how that one is. It's on my to-read list. I started reading Beckett's Murphy, by the way. Though I can't remember if it was that one or Watt, or both, that you recommended to me years ago.

I primarily recommended Malloy (and by extension the trilogy) and Watt, those are my two favorites. But Murphy is a solid entry.

[Melville]

I primarily recommended Malloy (and by extension the trilogy) and Watt, those are my two favorites. But Murphy is a solid entry.
Have you read First Love? Other than the trilogy, it's my favorite of his. Brilliantly grotesque depiction of sex and romance.

[Morris Schæffer]

I'm currently reading R.W. Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Everyone into Star Wars should read it. It's absolutely fantastic.

One of the things I've learned is that, during the asteroid scene, if one knows where to look, you will see....potatoes.

[Qrazy]

Have you read First Love? Other than the trilogy, it's my favorite of his. Brilliantly grotesque depiction of sex and romance.

No, I'll get on that.

I stumbled upon this moment in Mercier and Camier (that I had forgotten) while looking up First Love. Pretty much sums up Beckett and adds credence to the fact that you need to get on Watt.

"A much-changed Watt makes a cameo appearance, bringing his stick down on a pub table and yelling 'Fuck life!'."

[Qrazy]

I'm currently reading R.W. Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Everyone into Star Wars should read it. It's absolutely fantastic.

One of the things I've learned is that, during the asteroid scene, if one knows where to look, you will see....potatoes.

Where do you look?

[Morris Schæffer]

Where do you look?

Hey man, I just read it. :). Just at a specific spot or spots I guess during that entire scene where the falcon escapes from the empire right after Threepio informs Solo of their awful, awful odds. :)

[Melville]

you need to get on Watt.
It arrived from Amazon a few days ago, so I'll be on it soon.

[Morris Schæffer]

I'm currently reading R.W. Rinzler's The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Everyone into Star Wars should read it. It's absolutely fantastic.

One of the things I've learned is that, during the asteroid scene, if one knows where to look, you will see....potatoes.

The audio logs pages - Kershner was wearing a cordless mike during the entire filming of the carbon freeze chamber scene - are incredible to read.

[suddenly Fisher gives Williams quite a powerful whack]
williams: don't hit me like that!
Fisher: Did it hurt?
Williams: Of course it hurt.
fisher: I'm sorry. How do you hit someone?

And it's pretty hilarious that Han Solo was originally going to say "I'll be back" instead of the brilliant "I know".

Ahnuld's career would never have been the same. :)

[D_Davis]

I've heard that The Secret History of Star Wars (http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com/) is also really good. I've had the PDF for ages, but I've never read it.

[Morris Schæffer]

Sounds like a good read. May consider down the line.

[D_Davis]

Finally started Matadora, the second book in the Matador trilogy, part of the Musashi Flex series. The first book, The Man Who Never Missed, is a total classic of pulp action-adventure. A perfect marriage of The Stainless Steel Rat and old Shaw Brothers martial arts films. So far this second book is amazing as well. Steve Perry writes the best depictions of martial arts I've ever read.

[D_Davis]

Matadora is awesome.

[D_Davis]

In Other Worlds, by A.A. Attanasio, is really great so far. This is my first AAA book, and it reminds me a lot of slightly less wacky Rudy Rucker book. Attanasio's effortless style is wonderful, and simply readable. I started last night, and I'm having a really hard time putting it down.

[D_Davis]

In Other Worlds is freaking fantastic. It starts with a great hard-SF premise, complete with real formulas and all that jazz (at least from what I read in some other reviews written by people who claimed to understand that braniac stuff), and then quickly turns into a dimension-hopping, rip-roaring, action-adventure with crazy power armor and one of the most hideous and fearful creatures I've ever encountered in a work of fiction. Attanasio has created a species of alien that scares the crap out of me. Totally righteous - can't wait to plow through the rest of the novel.

[D_Davis]

In Other Worlds, by A.A. Attanasio

It is safe to say that I loved this book. It's part transrealist fiction, part superhero story, and part farflung adventure, all wrapped up in a cosmic SF package absolutely teeming with big ideas, scary monsters (I mean really scary, like the scariest I've ever encountered in a book), and interesting characters.

Attanasio packs almost each and every page with something awesome; he throws caution to the wind and just lets the narrative rip. Some people might have a problem with how scatter-shot the whole thing is, but for me it totally worked. I was reminded of the old Hong Kong films from the '80s and '90s; In Other Worlds has that same kind of "why the hell not?" approach to its structure and execution.

My only complaint is that there is too much action at the end. I am not a huge fan of drawn-out action sequences in fiction, and I would have preferred a more cerebral ending, and was secretly hoping for something more like The Stars My Destination, which would have worked perfectly.

Anyhow, I'm really looking forward to reading more from this author, because as it stands In Other Worlds is just about perfect.

[D_Davis]

Starting on volume one of The Collected Short Fiction of Robert Sheckley. It is very, very good. There is a NYRB collection of his stuff due out soon - I'm interested to see what stories they picked.

[Killed_by_Smalls]

I started Theodore Sturgeon's The Synthetic Man (a.k.a. The Dreaming Jewels). I hope I didn't do myself a disservice by making More Than Human my first Sturgeon. It'll be hard for anything to live up to the expectations it created.

[D_Davis]

I started Theodore Sturgeon's The Synthetic Man (a.k.a. The Dreaming Jewels). I hope I didn't do myself a disservice by making More Than Human my first Sturgeon. It'll be hard for anything to live up to the expectations it created.

The Dreaming Jewels is awesome; it was my introduction to Sturgeon and pretty much blew my mind. I think that Some of Your Blood, Godbody, and To Merry Medusa are better than More than Human, but only slightly. I'd rate his novels:

1. Some of Your Blood
2. To Merry Medusa
3. Godbody
4. More than Human
5. The Dreaming Jewels
.
.
.
.
.
6. Venus Plus X

[D_Davis]

Started this this morning:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jfJinosdtJs/Tjs3WfRA7EI/AAAAAAAAUzM/FvUHVK5v7DY/s1600/Mayfl-12448+Farren+Quest+of+the+DNA+ Cowboys.jpg

It's a crazy, 1970s on the road style SF adventure, mixing in elements of western, SF, martial arts, drugs, sex, and all kinds of crazy things. In the first few chapters the main characters meet a trucker who is a Lord of Creation. The Lords of Creation drive their trucks around the vast and desolate highways protecting them from being destroyed by a reality-destroying force called The Disruptor. It's very, very cool and inventive so far.

Farren, the author, is kind of a super star of the UK underground. He was a lyricist for Hawkwind and Motorhead, a musician, and a journalist for NME.

[D_Davis]

Quest of the DNA Cowboys - If Ralph Bakshi had been a SF author in the 1970s, this is what he would have written. This book is insane, and insanely good. Totally my kind of SF. It's a totally weird road-trip adventure with tons of strange creatures and characters, social commentary, and a completely gonzo sensibility that throws caution to the wind. Farren lets it rip.

[Qrazy]

It arrived from Amazon a few days ago, so I'll be on it soon.

Roadside Picnic was good although very different from Stalker. Stalker strips it down and abstracts it and turns it into a very personal and allegorical piece. The book has more of a noir vibe. It's about a variety of stalkers going into the zones and taking out valuable objects to sell. It's still quite a thoughtful book in a different way though. Although I much prefer the structure of Tarkovsky's film... introduce all the characters and their struggles, go into the zone towards the room, get out and wrap up. The novel jumps between characters, time and place and the overarching structure just seems much less purposive than Tarkovsky's. Still, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[D_Davis]

Finally worked out the perfect analogy for The Quest of the DNA Cowboys: it's the novelization of Galaxy Express 999 directed by Ralph Bakshi. There really isn't a plot, other than a series of interconnected adventures and scenarios, punctuated with lots of sex and drugs, a little bit of rock and roll, and a counter-culture vibe straight out of the 1970s.

[D_Davis]

Quest of the DNA Cowboys, by Mick Farren

Ever wondered what Galaxy Express 999 would have been like as a novel written by Ralph Bakshi? If so, might I suggest reading Mick Farren's SF, on-the-road adventure novel, The Quest of the DNA Cowboys.

Quest is pure '70s. There is lots of drugs and sex, a little bit of rock and roll, and it contains the kind of counter-culture messaging of an Easy Rider. There are three different narrative threads. The main arc details the adventures of two young men named Billy and Reave. Their "quest," as it were, is simple: to leave the confines of their small country town and head out into the vast expanse of the wasteland to find themselves and adventure along the way. The second narrative is a bizarre one dealing with a trinity of female alien beings who find themselves drawn towards Billy's and Reave's hometown of Pleasant Gap. And the third narrative arc deals with the debauchery of a super-high-class society and the things they do to alleviate their boredom.

The world that Farren creates is a very interesting one. The very physical fabric of the universe is falling apart; reality itself is deteriorating, and thus travelers need to carry portable stasis fields in order to keep their surroundings intact. There are lizard-driven carriages, truckers who call themselves the Lords of Creation, a bohemian village populated with immortal teenagers, a decrepit rundown town full of ghostly inhabitants on the verge of vanishing, and a region of land in which a war has been waging for centuries.

The only thing the book lacks is a cohesive plot. There really isn't much of a quest, nor is there anything driving Billy and Reave along on their journey outside of the desire to have new experiences. It's pretty much set up as a series of scenarios and chance meetings with bizarre characters, after which Billy and Reave move on to the next seemingly random encounter. I enjoy this kind of adventure, but I can see others having a problem with it.

The book ends on a major cliffhanger, and it is the first part of a trilogy. Although I don't really think it's a trilogy as much as it is one longer book broken up arbitrarily into three parts. If you're interested in reading this, I highly suggest getting the omnibus version so that you can read it as one novel. I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of Farren's creation, and I have a feeling that it will end up being one of the better books I read this year.

[EyesWideOpen]

If any of you guys remember Reaver from over at RT he had his first novel published (Haywire) and it's available on amazon in print ($9.99) and kindle ($4.99) versions. I got my copy yesterday and plan on reading it during my vacation. I don't read too much sci-fi but Reaver's a good dude so I figured I'd give it a shot and give him a plug over here.


http://www.amazon.com/Haywire-Justin-R-Macumber/dp/1470099152/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331951775&sr=1-5

[D_Davis]

Next up:

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1281197263l/492773.jpg

My first from Lafferty. This guy is supposed to be an absolute genius, so I'm expecting great things.

[Qrazy]

Ringworld was okay. It's strongest aspect is that it is quite conceptually interesting in places. It has a lot of cool speculative tech and the universe it builds up feels quite vast. That said the world building is pretty good only up to a point. From time to time I had trouble visualizing any given scenario and I think this was more of a problem with Niven's descriptions than with me. As is the case with most sci fi the female characters here are an absolute joke, more or less sex dolls for the protagonist. In fact all of the characters are thinly sketched. It kept me engaged enough to read it through fairly steadily until the end though so I guess the narrative is okay.

[D_Davis]

Never read Ringworld, and never had much of a desire to. Not sure why.

So far, Nine Hundred Grandmothers is fantastic. The reasons that Lafferty is so highly praised by other writers are becoming abundantly clear. Like Sturgeon, Lafferty is simply working on a different level than most of his contemporaries. Also like Sturgeon, I can understand him being a writer's writer, and it also makes some sense that his stuff has been OOP for so long - I can't imagine there being a big market for this stuff. Of the five stories I've read, I've loved three ("Nine Hundred Grandmothers," "The Six Fingers of Time," and "Frog on the Mountain") liked one ("Land of the Great Horses") and disliked one ("Ginny Wrapped in the Sun"). Of the ones I've loved, "The Six Fingers of Time" is my favorite. It's a very well-written story about time manipulation (think bullet-time), with some secret-society conspiratorial stuff mixed in.

[Qrazy]

Never read Ringworld, and never had much of a desire to. Not sure why.


It was definitely worth reading for some of the concepts but the sexual politics are awful and there's probably more technical jargon (given that it's 'hard' sci fi) than you enjoy.

[D_Davis]

It was definitely worth reading for some of the concepts but the sexual politics are awful and there's probably more technical jargon (given that it's 'hard' sci fi) than you enjoy.

Yeah - I think that's why I've avoided it. I tend to not read the hard-SF, as I prefer the soft sciences in SF more. I probably should at least attempt it, though. I've owned it for years, ever since I was reading through the Hugo winners.

[Qrazy]

Yeah - I think that's why I've avoided it. I tend to not read the hard-SF, as I prefer the soft sciences in SF more. I probably should at least attempt it, though. I've owned it for years, ever since I was reading through the Hugo winners.

There's quite a bit of humor in it and the characters feel much pulpier than most hard sci fi so it makes it a bit less stately than most hard SF.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I dug the crazy invention of The Crack in Space and had some admiration for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I just finished A Scanner Darkly, and now I am firmly a fan of Philip K. Dick.

[D_Davis]

I just finished A Scanner Darkly, and now I am firmly a fan of Philip K. Dick.

Great novel. One that transcends genre. Just an all around great piece of American literature.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Great novel. One that transcends genre. Just an all around great piece of American literature.

The other two I read were strong but also all over the place. I may have talked to you about that before - how he races through ideas that other writers could spend entire books on. But Scanner built such a strong portrayal of drug addiction. The pros, the cons, the pleasures, the idiocies, the tragedies. There's a compelling focus to the story - if ever it wanders, it makes sense as the wanderings of people under the influence.

Barely sci-fi.

The afterword, with Dick listing the names of real people who suffered so much from it, really got to me.

Also: pretty funny. The failed suicide of Freck and the business with the ten-speed bike made me chuckle quite a bit. Love how Freck picks out an Ayn Rand book to hold as a suggestion of his misunderstood genius qualities.

[D_Davis]

It's true - PKD would cram more ideas into one of his novels than many authors would into a dozen. While this is sometimes cool and entertaining, it almost always makes for spastic reading.

ASD, OTH, is extremely focused, and almost entirely character driven (The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is probably his most character driven, and it also the most un-SF of all of his SF novels). And, like you said, the tangents it goes on make sense because of the characters.

And yes, it is hilarious. Many of his books were very funny. This is why I really like the film of ASD. It's the only film based on one of his books to nail the humor - Linklater understands Dick's humor. I think they were very similar in this way. Slacker even feels Phildickian without any SF elements.

I'm curious as to what you would think of VALIS.

[D_Davis]

A new translation of Roadside Picnic was released this month. Just picked it up.

[D_Davis]

About a 1/4 of the way through Roadside Picnic. Man is it ever good. How did Tarkovsky turn such an exciting, suspenseful, and quickly paced novel into one of the dullest films (Stalker) ever made? It's almost like he read a completely different book than the one I'm reading. The voice of the main POV character is simply fantastic. He's such a bad ass. Also, the book as a wicked sense of humor. Really glad I didn't let the film keep me away from this.

[Qrazy]

Good book. Great film. So your opinion is wrong and it makes me angry.

[D_Davis]

Hook, line, and sinker. ;)

[Qrazy]

Hook, line, and sinker. ;)

Let me know when you're done the book, they have some cool stuff in there that's worth talking about.

[Mysterious Dude]

I've been on a science fiction binge this year, reading a lot of books I should have read in high school. For some reason, I've had this impression that science fiction books are often very long, but I've discovered that that isn't the case at all. Some of these were shockingly easy to read. I think I may be done with sci-fi for a while, so I'll do a run-down.

The Left Hand of Darkness (1969, Ursula K. Le Guin) A man visits a planet populated entirely by men who go through a monthly menstrual cycle where they become women. You'd think this would make for interesting story possibilities, but Le Guin seems more interested in political intrigue and the planet's climate, so the gender issue constantly seems like the elephant in the room. Why are we not talking about this?! **½

Flowers for Algernon (1966, Daniel Keyes) A retarded man is given an operation to make him more intelligent. A simple, sad story. Great narration. I loved this book. ****

Childhood's End (1953, Arthur C. Clarke) This was one that seemed like it ought to be longer, for some reason. The things that happen in it are just huge, but it's a pretty breezy read. It seemed like it had as much summary as it had story, though, about how the aliens changed civilization and so forth. I liked it, but didn't love it. ***

The Forever War (1974, Joe Haldeman) I loved that this book actually acknowledged time dilation in light-speed travel. In so much science fiction, humans are like gods of the universe, whipping back and forth from solar system to solar system, but here, they are slaves to reality, and even though it seems to take only minutes to travel to other planets, years have passed on earth. This, of course, helps to emphasize the pointlessness of the war the main character has been drafted to fight, and every time he gets back to earth, years or decades have passed and everything has changed. ****

Neuromancer (1984, William Gibson) I was consistently lost throughout this book. A lot of jargon was used that I don't think was ever properly explained. I'd like to see this made into a movie; it might be easier to follow if I could see it happening. It's interesting how dated the idea of "jacking in" to cyberspace is now that so much of our technology is wireless, but in the eighties, there were wires everywhere. Not a criticism, just an observation. **½

A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960, Walter M. Miller, Jr.) A Catholic monastery in Texas tries to keep knowledge alive after a nuclear war has destroyed much of civilization. They don't understand much of the knowledge they are trying to preserve. They revere a man named Leibowitz, who was martyred shortly after the war. He has a decidedly Jewish name, but they never mention that. This book is really three stories, set about five hundred years apart from each other, from what I gather. I was digging the first story, but then it suddenly ended. I didn't find the other two quite as interesting. I wonder if it would really take 1,700 years for man to recover from a nuclear war. ***

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965, Philip K. Dick) Just finished this one today. I've never read a Dick novel before. There certainly is a lot in here. It's interesting that Dick explored the idea of "pre-cogs" outside of The Minority Report, and that such people could be useful for services other than predicting crimes. The various movies based on Dick's novels really don't feel like they're set in the same world, but I wonder how Dick felt about it. The book really takes off after Mayerson takes Chew-Z for the first time. ***½

[Irish]

Wow, great write ups, Isaac. You covered some of the best from a single period there.

If you're still in sci-fI mode, take a look at adding Dying Inside and Stand on Zanzibar. Both are from the same years and are criminally under read.

[Milky Joe]

The various movies based on Dick's novels really don't feel like they're set in the same world, but I wonder how Dick felt about it.

He only saw the first 20 minutes of Blade Runner and was apparently blown away by the look of the film, but didn't live to see the full thing. Sadly.

[Mysterious Dude]

What I meant is, I wonder if Dick considered all or some of his books to exist in the same world. Like how a lot of William Faulkner's books were set in Yoknapatawpha County, even though the characters didn't necessarily know each other.

Also like Faulkner, there doesn't seem to be much consensus on which of Dick's books is the best, so I wasn't absolutely sure where to start.

[Irish]

What I meant is, I wonder if Dick considered all or some of his books to exist in the same world. Like how a lot of William Faulkner's books were set in Yoknapatawpha County, even though the characters didn't necessarily know each other.

Some of them yes, others no. AFAIK, there are no references to specific characters or events (like what Vonnegut used to do, where Rosewater or Trout would be supporting characters in one novel and leads in another).

Several noves, like Radio Free Albemuth, contain major changes at the socitetal level (ie, the US becomes a quasi facist state), so it'd be difficult if not impossible to set more novels in that timeline without making direct sequels.

But! Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said references "Nexus-7" androids, which are the follow up model to the "Nexus 6" guys in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which suggests that those two books, at least, do take place in the same universe and roughly the same time period.


Also like Faulkner, there doesn't seem to be much consensus on which of Dick's books is the best, so I wasn't absolutely sure where to start.

Most people will say Man in the High Castle because it probably had the most accessible narrative and it's easily the most lucidly written.

Part of the the trouble with Dick is that he either didn't work with an editor at all, or worked with bad ones.

Only with two of them -- Scanner Darkly and High Castle -- there's a noticeable change in quality of prose, because he was working with the same editor. It was a woman who was married to another author. I want to say Del Rey but I'm not sure.

Edit: It was Judy-Lyn Del Rey. I wish she had edited all his stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy-Lynn_del_Rey

Edit 2: This is interesting. Several later novels began as sequels to High Castle, but then diverged: Ganymede Takeover and Albemuth, which was later repurposed into Valis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle#Seq uel

[D_Davis]

What I meant is, I wonder if Dick considered all or some of his books to exist in the same world. Like how a lot of William Faulkner's books were set in Yoknapatawpha County, even though the characters didn't necessarily know each other.

Also like Faulkner, there doesn't seem to be much consensus on which of Dick's books is the best, so I wasn't absolutely sure where to start.

I think that Three Stigmata is his best.

A good top ten would be:

1. Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
2. VALIS
3. Ubik
4. A Scanner Darkly
5. Dr. Bloodmoney
6. Martian Time Slip
7. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
8. The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (which contains his only female POV character, who is also his most positive female character)
9. The Divine Invasion
10. Galactic Pot Healer

A lot of his novels might have taken place in the same world, but only very loosely, and mostly thematically at that. Dick wasn't too big on the idea of world building, although he did use a lot of the same kinds of technology in his novels and stories, but I imagine this was more for utilitarian purposes - he didn't have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

What he did do a lot of is utilize similar themes and ideas and character archetypes. The dark-haired girl is a great example of this; she represented Dick's ideal woman, as well as playing the role of deceiver, trickster, and reluctant love interest; through this character Dick dealt with his own troubles and hang ups with women.

[D_Davis]

Part of the the trouble with Dick is that he either didn't work with an editor at all, or worked with bad ones.


What's more, he often didn't remember writing his novels. He believed that some of his novels were written by another entity that took over his body. He would go into a drug and alcohol induced trance, and "wake up" with a completed novel, often completed in a few days. He wrote fast, and was out of control, which is part of the charm and character of his work.

This entity was fully realized as VALIS, and largely shaped the last parts of his life when he believed that he was living a dual life, one as PKD, and the other as a secret Christian being persecuted by a non-defunct Roman empire.

[D_Davis]

The Forever War (1974, Joe Haldeman) I loved that this book actually acknowledged time dilation in light-speed travel. In so much science fiction, humans are like gods of the universe, whipping back and forth from solar system to solar system, but here, they are slaves to reality, and even though it seems to take only minutes to travel to other planets, years have passed on earth. This, of course, helps to emphasize the pointlessness of the war the main character has been drafted to fight, and every time he gets back to earth, years or decades have passed and everything has changed. ****


Such a fantastic novel, and one of the best Vietnam War inspired novels I've read. I highly, highly recommend reading Haldeman's Mind Bridge as well. As good as The Forever War is, I actually like the other more.

[Irish]

Super long Paris Review interview with Ray Bradbury from 2010:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6012/the-art-of-fiction-no-203-ray-bradbury

[Irish]

Also, there's this:

http://www.tor.com/images/stories/blogs/12_06/pkdick-android.jpg

[Irish]

Author Harry Harrison has died.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/15/harry-harrison

[D_Davis]

:(

Stainless Steel Rat = one of the greatest things ever made.

[Irish]

:(

Stainless Steel Rat = one of the greatest things ever made.

Agreed. God, how I loved those books as a kid. Every few years, I still go back and read some of them.

[D_Davis]

Same here. I was just thinking about doing that the other day. The best SSR books represent the absolute best-of pulp SF. Harrison was a giant - he helped shape the genre as much as any other author in the field.

Deathworld is good, too.

[D_Davis]

Robert Heinlein Muses on Anarcho-Capitalism in 1962 Letter to Ted Sturgeon (http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/02/robert-heinlein-muses-on-anarcho-capital)

[Mysterious Dude]

I didn't like Asimov's Foundation very much. Just as I'm getting used to a set of characters, the book leaps forward in time and they're all dead, and I have to get used to a whole new set of characters. Eventually, I was so disheartened that I stopped even trying to care about the characters.

I've read several science fiction books that follow similar formulas of jumping forward in time and following new protagonists each time (A Canticle for Leibowitz and Childhood's End). I almost never see this in movies, and I'm not surprised that none of these books have been made into movies. I wonder if there are any other genres where you can get away with this. Magical realism?

The third story (about Terminus vs. Anacreon) was my favorite.

[D_Davis]

I think it's a popular SF convention - a generations story, where we see a small aspect of various generations and how they impact each other.

I don't like Foundation at all. Couldn't even finish the first book. I found it poorly written, with terrible characters, and zero dramatic drive and tension.

[D_Davis]

I started reading my first R.A. Lafferty novel last night, The Reefs of the Earth. Within the first 15 pages or so, it is easy to see why Lafferty was considered to stand above his contemporaries; his use of language and structure is unique. Can't wait to read more from this forgotten author.

[Irish]

@Davis -- Ridley Scott just hired the guy who penned the All You Need Is Kill script to write the next draft of the Forever War adaptation, which Scott is producing & directing.

Thought of you when I heard that.

[D_Davis]

@Davis -- Ridley Scott just hired the guy who penned the All You Need Is Kill script to write the next draft of the Forever War adaptation, which Scott is producing & directing.

Thought of you when I heard that.

Woah - that's crazy. Both of these movies are coming out soon?

Two of the best military SF novels I've read. I'm actually not sure which one I like the most.

[Irish]

Welllll Forever War is in development hell. No final script, no casting yet.

All You Need Is Kill is shooting now, releasing in 2014 ... And it stars Tom Cruise. :cry:

[D_Davis]

I'm a pretty big fan of Tom Cruise the actor, although I'm wondering what part he'll be playing? I mean, the main character in the book is a teenage Japanese kid! :D

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to see what they'll do with Kill. Honestly, I'd rather see a big budget Madhouse or Studio 4 degrees animated film of it.

[Irish]

Yeah. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing he's the lead because, well, he always is in this sort of picture.

They're not putting an Asian actor at the head of a big budget movie (see: Last Samurai, Last Airbender, etc).

[D_Davis]

Oh yeah. It does seem weird though, because they'll basically have to change everything about the book. It makes me wonder what's the point? Just make a new story. I'm all for creative license with adaptations, but when something will have to be changed so much, it's just weird. Why pay for the rights at all? It's not like the book is popular and has a fanbase at all.

The book's theme really hinges on the Japanese-ness of the characters, and also relies on them being young. It's a very Japanese story, and contains all the things we love about those kinds of stories (like the mono no aware). I think it's a far better handling of the themes presented in Neon Genesis. So imagine if someone remade Neon Genesis with a bunch of old white people in the main roles? That wouldn't make any sense! :)

[Irish]

:lol: I agree, but we're talking about the kind of mindset that wanted to make Kaneda a white kid with a brother, after all.

[Irish]

Heh, check out the IMDb page. Costarring Bill Paxton and Emily Blunt.

And Cruise is playing "Lt Col Bill Cage" :lol:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631867/

[D_Davis]

Heh, check out the IMDb page. Costarring Bill Paxton and Emily Blunt.

And Cruise is playing "Lt Col Bill Cage" :lol:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631867/

It's also took 5 people to write the screenplay...

[Irish]

It's also took 5 people to write the screenplay...
That's probably an original team of writers, and the 3 guys Cruise brought in the rewrite his part.

[D_Davis]

I'm about 25 pages into this Lafferty novel (The Reefs of Earth), and I haven't felt this way about about a SF novel since when I first read Theodore Sturgeon.

[D_Davis]

The Reefs of Earth continues to be insane, and insanely good. It is reminding me of a bizarre mix of The Circus of Dr. Lao and More than Human. It's about these 6 siblings (3 look like goblins, 3 look like normal humans) and their ghost brother named Bad John (all are actually Puca, a race of aliens), and their quest to kill every single person on the planet Earth. To each other they tell stories that predict the future, and they kill people by making up poems.

The chapter names are done in verse. For example:

1. To Slay the Folks and Cleans the Land
2. And Leave the World a Reeking Roastie
3. High Purpose of the Gallant Band
4. And Six Were Kids, and One a Ghostie

I also love this brief exchange:


"How could you have sewed your right arm on first if you didn't have your left arm on to sew with?" Dorothy asked.

"I just said that to see if you were paying attention," Helen said. "I really sewed my left arm on first, then my right."

Just a brilliantly delirious, creative, well-written tale from a writer's-writer who has sadly been all but forgotten over the last 30-40 years.

[D_Davis]

The Reefs of Earth, by R.A. Lafferty

This book...it's like it was custom made for me. I totally understand that most people probably won't like it, or love it nearly as much as I do. I love books without heavy exposition - books in which strange, weird, funny, touching, and insane things happen just because. Books about aliens or bizarre beings that don't explain much about their culture and their history are, to me, much more interesting, rare, and valuable than books that do. I don't need to know why a zimmerfudaggle works or acts the way it does, just show me the damn thing doing what it does in context and I'll get it.

In other words, scrap the INFODUMP. What are you writing, Moby Dick? Bah!

R.A. Lafferty's The Reefs of Earth is such a book. It is completely insane, and insanely good. The plot is messy and unfocused, the characters are strange and wild (there are aliens, ghosts, monsters, humans, and all kinds of strange beings), the setting is interesting and mysterious (backwoods, mythological America), and the entire thing lacks a single sentence of expository INFODUMP.

I still don't know if anything in the book actually took place, or who to believe, and what was real and what was the fabrications of a group of neglected children. Were they really aliens? I don't know. I know less after having finished the book than I did when I started, and I love it for that! It's the kind of book I could read multiple times, continuously discovering new little things.

I now see why Lafferty is so highly regarded, and, unfortunately, so under-read. Most of his stuff is completely OOP, and has been for some time. I can't see his style of fiction being in vogue now, especially during these times of massive tomes and series that feel the need to explain every little detail of the world and characters. Lafferty lets it rip, and the fun and excitement explodes off of every page.

So yeah...I'll definitely be reading more from Lafferty. Luckily over the last few years I've been able to secure a few of his novels, and I will probably be investing heavily in the stuff from him that is not easily obtained.

[D_Davis]

"Sometimes you wanna go....where everybody knows your name...."

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312041887l/34270.jpg

I'm re-reading the first book of the Callahan Chronicals, and then I'll be moving onto books II and III. I love these stories so damn much. They are all so heart-felt, just brimming with humanity. Callahan's bar is just about the most perfect place in the universe.

Callanah's Place is the fictitious place I'd like most to visit. Pretty much the greatest literary bar I know of. Even better than The Inn of the Last Home.

Highly recommended to fans of Theodore Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury.

[Dead & Messed Up]

I wanna say a lot of things about The Stars My Destination, but I'll try to contain myself.

1) I kinda knew where the story was going before it got there.

The introduction says that nobody can space-jaunt, which makes it pretty darn clear that the hero will learn to space-jaunt. And when you start seeing Foyle's burning man apparition, it's an easy jump to say, "Oh, I get it, if you can space-jaunt, you can space-time-jaunt."

Not exactly a knock against the book, because it was still satisfying to see those revealed.

2) The "synesthesia" stuff at the end, where

Foyle's feeling colors and seeing touch and all of that, was pretty damned amazing. I loved seeing the text try to replicate the confusion he was feeling. It's a bold move, but it worked to awesome effect.

3) I loved how it graduates from revenge story to social exploration to religious odyssey. Smooth stuff, all the way through.

4) The story moves like a bastard. Endless energy. Foyle's lust for revenge is such a strong motivator, and my jaw literally dropped when

he whispers "Vorga" and leaves Jisbella behind. I just could not believe that.

Anyway, a total blast of a novel.

[D_Davis]

My favorite SF novel, and the only novel I've ever read twice in a row.

[megladon8]

Have begun reading Clifford D. Simak's "Way Station".

Completely taken with it right from the first page.

[D_Davis]

Have begun reading Clifford D. Simak's "Way Station".

Completely taken with it right from the first page.

Great book! Love it.

[Irish]

Have begun reading Clifford D. Simak's "Way Station".

Completely taken with it right from the first page.

Nice! Simak is amazing; one of my favorites. If you dig that, check out his "Time is the Simplest Thing," "City," and "Time and Again." Lotsa mind bending ideas with good prose.

[D_Davis]

Nice! Simak is amazing; one of my favorites. If you dig that, check out his "Time is the Simplest Thing," "City," and "Time and Again." Lotsa mind bending ideas with good prose.

Of these I like City best. City starts off kind of poorly, especially if read after Waystation, but man does it eve get good. I need to read Simak this year. Haven't read him in quite awhile. He's like the SF version of Lake Wobegon meets John Steinbeck.

[D_Davis]

Happy birthday, Theodore Sturgeon. You were among the greatest men to have ever lived.

[Irish]

Happy birthday, Theodore Sturgeon. You were among the greatest men to have ever lived.

Hear, hear!

Also, Davis: I may have asked you this before, but have you ever read Damon Knight's "Why Do Birds"? It was reprinted again in the 90s, but I think its gone out of print since.

[D_Davis]

Hear, hear!

Also, Davis: I may have asked you this before, but have you ever read Damon Knight's "Why Do Birds"? It was reprinted again in the 90s, but I think its gone out of print since.

Never have. As a matter of fact, I've never read anything my Knight. Recommended?

[Irish]

Never have. As a matter of fact, I've never read anything my Knight. Recommended?

OH HELL YES.

I picked it up when it was reprinted. It's one of those kind of books you might find while wandering the bookstore, by pure serendipity. It's pulpy as hell and gets increasingly weirder as it goes on.

I no longer own a copy. Only read it once, over 15 years ago. But it's one of those things that sticks in your head forever. I always think of it when I see a sci-fi rec thread in any context (like on reddit) or when somebody mentions a guy like Sturgeon, or older, less well known SF.

I think it would be right up your alley. Picture something like Bester mixed with bits of PKD and maybe Bradbury.

[D_Davis]

Cool - I'll look into. He's one of the authors I see at used book stores all the time. He was an editor for an anthology or monthly publication, wasn't he? Wasn't he also married to another SF author?

Nope - he was actually well-known as a SF critic. That's where I've heard his name before.

I was thinking of Henry Kuttner for the married thing.

[Irish]

Nope - he was actually well-known as a SF critic. That's where I've heard his name before.

Lots of shorts. And "Star Trek," baby! "Star Trek"! Pon Farr!

[D_Davis]

And Twilight Zone.

[megladon8]

Finished "Way Station".

I think I liked it more than "The Divinity Student". Just a smidge.

It was affecting emotionally and spiritually, with Simak's simple, naturalistic prose telling the story in a beautiful way.

I don't think I'll ever forget Enoch's story.

[D_Davis]

I don't think I'll ever forget Enoch's story.

Such a great character. Perfect name, too; the biblical connotations are present.

One of my favorite books - so pastoral, and emotionally engaging. If John Steinbeck wrote SF, he might have written something like it.

By far the best thing Simak wrote, by an order of magnitude.

[megladon8]

Such a great character. Perfect name, too; the biblical connotations are present.

One of my favorite books - so pastoral, and emotionally engaging. If John Steinbeck wrote SF, he might have written something like it.

By far the best thing Simak wrote, by an order of magnitude.


Your preference lies with "City" though, right?

I have that one on my shelf too and I will definitely be reading it sometime this year, as well.

[D_Davis]

Your preference lies with "City" though, right?

I have that one on my shelf too and I will definitely be reading it sometime this year, as well.

Way Station blows City away. There are parts of City that are great, but the whole thing is not.

Way Station is a Simak's masterpiece by a huge margin.

As far as SF novels featuring dogs go, I greatly prefer Sirius over City; I also prefer Sirius over Way Station.


BTW, I picked up Penpal.

[megladon8]

Next read is "The Last Days of Krypton" by Kevin J. Anderson.

It's supposed to be a pretty great epic sci-fi story.

[megladon8]

I started reading "The Last Days of Krypton" last night, and I think I may give up on it pretty quickly.

It's almost entirely sci-fi techno babble, which I find incredibly uninteresting and, to be honest, pretty silly.

"He loads the galvanizer into the forward thrust magnetizer, turns the dial to 0.56243 and begins calibrating the quicksilver mega zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

I just can't get anything out of that kind of writing.

[D_Davis]

I started reading "The Last Days of Krypton" last night, and I think I may give up on it pretty quickly.

It's almost entirely sci-fi techno babble, which I find incredibly uninteresting and, to be honest, pretty silly.

"He loads the galvanizer into the forward thrust magnetizer, turns the dial to 0.56243 and begins calibrating the quicksilver mega zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

I just can't get anything out of that kind of writing.

That sounds exactly like the kind of SF I don't like.

[megladon8]

Officially gave up on it today. Read about 1/4 of it and I just don't have enough interest to keep going.

I hate giving up on a book, but I don't want to lose steam in my reading run.

[D_Davis]

Officially gave up on it today. Read about 1/4 of it and I just don't have enough interest to keep going.

I hate giving up on a book, but I don't want to lose steam in my reading run.

Good for you. The little I read up on it sounded....less than time-worthy.

I typically stay away from expanded-universe franchise books, unless the author is outstanding - like Joe R. Lansdale's Batman novel.

[D_Davis]

Now I need some plot.

http://sciencefictionruminations.file s.wordpress.com/2012/06/screen-shot-2012-01-09-at-11-52-27-am.png?w=480

[D_Davis]

I'm really digging The Cybernetic Brains. Over the years, Raymond F. Jones has become one of my favorite authors of classic SF. I've read one other novel, The Non-Statistical Man, and it, too, is very good. This is old school SF - the SF of big ideas. In The Cybernetic Brains, Jones creates a world in which people can volunteer to have their brains harvested upon death to be plugged into computers to control all manner of machines and devices for the living, thus making it possible for humanity to live without doing much work. But what only the top echelon of scientists and politicians know is that the brains aren't mindless things - they people they belong to go on living, trapped in a cyber-hell from which they cannot escape; they live out their tortured existences trapped in a constant state of slavery, without the benefit of their senses. All they can do is think. Kind of a creepy concept, and Jones expands upon it in his no-frills style; It's workman as can be, but also entirely compelling.

[megladon8]

I picked up this book called "Blind Sight" that sounds fascinating.

I may take a mini-break from my horror run and read this next (when I'm done "My Work Is Not Yet Done").

[D_Davis]

The Cybernetic Brains, by Raymond F. Jones

Cool premise, solid execution. The only reason I don't rate it higher are its confused political and social messages. At first it seems like a right-winger book railing against the welfare state, but then it starts railing against corporations and capitalism. It never really takes a side, and loses its edge a bit. What could have been a good little piece of social-polical SF ends up being just a solid pot-boiling thriller. Nothing wrong with that, and Jones continues to impress me with his no nonsense style


****

Started Delany's Dhalgren, the second entry into my long and hard project.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3474/3398816595_b8d8a7d622_z.jpg

About 30 pages in, and I'm loving it. Totally my kind of thing - it's weird, mysterious, ambiguous and mythological.

[D_Davis]

I think that Dhalgren might have my favorite opening of all time:

"to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind."

This book is incredible.

[Irish]

DD, not surprised you dig "Dhalgren." Need to get my hands on another copy. Read the first chapter-ish & loved it. Not sure if I have the stamina to get through a novel's worth of at that kind of prose, though.

Have you read Ted Chiang? "Story of Your Life & Others." A collection of shorts.

Also, any thoughts on Jeff Noon's "Vurt"? I don't usually go for early 90s cyberpunk, but this is pretty wild.

[D_Davis]

I am loving, I mean LOVING Dhalgren. A little over 1/2 finished, and at this point I'm completely in the "masterpiece" camp. It's speaking directly to my soul in a profound way; it's exactly the book I need to be reading at this exact moment in my life. It's easy to see why Theodore Sturgeon loved it so much, for it is a heart-felt story about humanity in all of our capacity to do good and evil, to love and to hate, and to create and destroy. For most of the book, the prose and style is very straightforward. It's one of the most vivid books I've ever read. And about once per chapter, Delany goes into this super hardcore, stream of conscious prose mode in which he throws down some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read.

I have Ted Chiang's first collection of short stories, but haven't read it yet - yes, that's the one.

Never read Jeff Noon - one of those guys who's books I always see, but never pick up. I've heard good things, though.

[Marley]

This "Dhalgren" novel you speak of sounds pretty damn cool. I've been in the mood to read some science fiction again -- got a bunch sitting on my shelf. Which ones would you recommend first guys?

Odd John/Sirius by Stapledon
Dr. Bloodmoney by PKD
Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
A Wizard of Earthsea by Le Guin

[D_Davis]

This "Dhalgren" novel you speak of sounds pretty damn cool. I've been in the mood to read some science fiction again -- got a bunch sitting on my shelf. Which ones would you recommend first guys?

Odd John/Sirius by Stapledon
Dr. Bloodmoney by PKD
Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
A Wizard of Earthsea by Le Guin

Damn! All of those are amazing!

In my order of preference:

Sirius
Dr. Bloodmoney
Earthsea
God

[Marley]

I picked up this book called "Blind Sight" that sounds fascinating.

I may take a mini-break from my horror run and read this next (when I'm done "My Work Is Not Yet Done").

Read this one a couple of years ago and if I remember correctly, the author is also Canadian which is cool since I have yet to come across any talented science fiction writers from our home turf. Robert J. Sawyer comes to mind although I have only read Flashforward which is pretty decent. Getting back to Blind Sight, it is one of those hardcore SF novels that was a little difficult to get into at first with all of its technical jargon, physics, etc but the ideas presented were compelling enough to keep me interested. The author deals with a lot of complex philosophical concepts such as consciousness and morality but I found the story-telling weak with flat characters. He's a good writer but his prose is a little too clinical for my tastes.

[Marley]

Damn! All of those are amazing!

In my order of preference:

Sirius
Dr. Bloodmoney
Earthsea
God

Sweet, thanks Davis. I'll let you know what I think about "Sirius" whenever I get around to finishing it sometime this week.

I picked up an original print of Dr. Bloodmoney during its first publication (1965?) for $10 at a used book store a few years ago but have been afraid to take it out of the package ever since. It seemed like a rare find.

[Irish]

@DD - Had the same experience with Noon. Have seen his books around forever but never picked up a copy. Changed after I read this article about him in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/apr/20/jeff-noon-life-in-writing

@Marley - Haven't read all those, but I'd recommend "Bloodmoney" at some point if that's what you have on hand.

[D_Davis]

@DD - Had the same experience with Noon. Have seen his books around forever but never picked up a copy. Changed after I read this article about him in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/apr/20/jeff-noon-life-in-writing


I think I will too, especially with how much more I'm enjoying experimental fiction these days.

[D_Davis]

Sweet, thanks Davis. I'll let you know what I think about "Sirius" whenever I get around to finishing it sometime this week.

I picked up an original print of Dr. Bloodmoney during its first publication (1965?) for $10 at a used book store a few years ago but have been afraid to take it out of the package ever since. It seemed like a rare find.

Bloodmoney might actually be PKD's secret masterpiece. It is one of the most unique books he wrote; it has a very different atmosphere than many of his other books, and also contains his largest and most varied cast of characters. It really is something else.

[Winston*]

Almost finished China Mieville's Embassytown. It is awesome. Clear influence of Delaney's Babel-17, D_Davis: Asian female protagonist, central focus on language issues between humans and Alien races. Mieville is fantastic: thematically dense, unpredictably plotted genre works with impeccable prose. What more could you want?

I own Dhalgren, the same copy you posted up thread. Should read it at some point.

[Irish]

Winston, have you read anything else from Mievelle? Always wanted to check him out, especially "City and the City." Heard some things that his books are less about plot & more about ideas. Confirm/ deny?

[Winston*]

Winston, have you read anything else from Mievelle? Always wanted to check him out, especially "City and the City." Heard some things that his books are less about plot & more about ideas. Confirm/ deny?

The City and the City is incredible and expertly plotted. Not sure where that criticism comes from.

[D_Davis]

Almost finished China Mieville's Embassytown. It is awesome. Clear influence of Delaney's Babel-17, D_Davis: Asian female protagonist, central focus on language issues between humans and Alien races. Mieville is fantastic: thematically dense, unpredictably plotted genre works with impeccable prose. What more could you want?

I own Dhalgren, the same copy you posted up thread. Should read it at some point.

I've been meaning to give China another chance. I tried Perdidio Street Station many years ago, and it didn't click with me. I'm sure I'd get along a lot more with him now, especially since he and I like so many of the same authors and novels.