John Crowley on his newest book Ka. He talks about crows, utopias and his fondness for Paul Park.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSWZ1lakcNY
I still haven't read his work but I enjoyed washing dishes to this.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 15 April 2018 15:46 (seven years ago)
I ordered the second of the liu novels. i am weak.
― Fizzles, Sunday, 15 April 2018 17:00 (seven years ago)
Maybe this is kind of/is and is not where Mieville got the idea for The City and The City (borders not borders that is, not all street signs in English as noted above):
Then I glanced at a street sign, and I knew. I had unknowingly crossed the Röstigraben, the amusing term for the invisible line separating German- and French-speaking Switzerland.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180325-switzerlands-invisible-linguistic-borders
― dow, Monday, 23 April 2018 00:52 (seven years ago)
Still enjoying that show btw. Though I do have that feeling I get so often watching literary adaptations, of having a checklist in my head and crossing off what they've kept from the original. Pedantry not the best attitude to engage with anything.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 23 April 2018 09:29 (seven years ago)
My goodreads review of Aliya Whiteley's The Beauty-
A fungal infection that kills off all women gives birth to a new type of women. I really liked this, I liked standing around with a bunch of slightly hippie-ish men in the countryside (probably wearing bright waterproof jackets) contemplating these new women. Near future science fiction with a lot of body horror and a bit of body wonder.
My one criticism is how Nate's fear of beauty seems to come entirely from his mother's feelings of inadequacy in the face of her glossy magazines. I know that children can form strange fears around their parents reactions to things but this just didnt seem like enough of an explanation for a general fear of beauty.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 27 April 2018 18:02 (seven years ago)
Le Fanu's "Squire Toby's Will" is really good. Everything and everyone is so worn out and I wish I could speak convincingly in the same rough manner as these people. Le Fanu always seems so fresh to me.
Hodgson's "Voice In The Night" is good too.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 27 April 2018 18:17 (seven years ago)
https://denniscooperblog.com/the-neo-decadents-present-drowning-in-beauty-a-neo-decadence-day/
quite a bunch of people from Ligotti forum in this anthology, so I'm very interested. Not all of it unrealistic stories but they are all writers who have written in that area I think.
Also from Snuggly BooksDecadence and Symbolism: A Showcase Anthology, edited by Brian Stableford. – Release date: May 2018
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 28 April 2018 23:54 (seven years ago)
Am reading Planetfall by Emma Newman, so far so Prometheus (religious scientists go in search of their maker, find mysterious city...), narrator is pretty annoying, it turns out (spoiler!) she is a pathological hoarder. Interesting choice.
― lana del boy (ledge), Monday, 30 April 2018 08:56 (seven years ago)
Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima. It's pretty congested and stylistically immature, and I doubt I'll finish it, but it's playing in a japanese SF space I don't know much about so I'll probably persist for a bit longer than i would otherwise. Also picked up some Japanese titanic mecha SF (United States of Japan), which I might give a shot as well.
― Fizzles, Monday, 30 April 2018 18:40 (seven years ago)
Bum. I just got Sisyphean after reading a rave review, but that does not sound promising.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Monday, 30 April 2018 23:48 (seven years ago)
i’m interested to hear what you think - i’ve only just started so may find i settle in. immediate observation is that his method of writing with the assumption the reader is from that world and time is not as clever as he thinks it is. it makes the tone and descriptions stiff and arch.from that interview it sounds like translation is likely to miss a *lot* so i guess that may also be an issue.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 1 May 2018 05:29 (seven years ago)
i gotta say, it sounds like exactly my sort of thing
liu is definitely waiting until i finish reading hilary mantel's french revolution novel
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Wednesday, 2 May 2018 02:36 (seven years ago)
i just read three sentences excerpted somewhere and my desire to read it dropped by about nine-tenths
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Wednesday, 2 May 2018 02:41 (seven years ago)
Just wrote reviews of six new books that fit with this thread:
The Redwood Revenger, Book One, by Johannes JohnsNoir by Christopher MooreBandwidth (An Analog Novel, Book 1) by Eliot PeperThe Hazel Wood, by Melissa AlbertBone Music (The Burning Girl Series, Book 1), by Christopher RiceChildren of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha #1), by Tomi Adeyemi
http://fastnbulbous.com/first-quarter-book-review-roundup-2018/
― Fastnbulbous, Wednesday, 2 May 2018 12:29 (seven years ago)
I think I’ve been to the eight-foot-wide, four-stories-tall jook house described in Noir, though I hope my dish did not include snake venom. Your real-life impressions of this place, please!
― dow, Wednesday, 2 May 2018 15:46 (seven years ago)
It was quite a while ago, 1996. I sat at a counter on a stool with a bunch of old Chinese men and had a bowl for lunch, and was unceremoniously hurried along when finished. I inhaled it because I was hungry from walking all over San Francisco that day up and down hills, but can't remember details about the food other than it was delicious.
― Fastnbulbous, Thursday, 3 May 2018 05:23 (seven years ago)
Was trying to imagine being in a space of those dimensions, also w other people and food, but mainly being there at all---guess you got used to it?
― dow, Thursday, 3 May 2018 16:09 (seven years ago)
The Circlet Press Steampunk Erotica Bundle isn't an appealing title but a reviewer says one story contains "an ivory dildo with a detailed engraving of the Battle of Trafalgar".
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 7 May 2018 12:33 (seven years ago)
So there's a new Tim Powers coming out, but it's being published by Baen so it looks like this:https://edel-images.azureedge.net/ea/SS/images/jacket_covers/original/9781481483407_d8283.jpg?width=1000
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 01:24 (seven years ago)
fuck me. i did enjoy last call. what’s the rest of his stuff like?
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 09:44 (seven years ago)
A mate raved about Anubis Gates but I just thought it was badly written, cliche-ridden shit.
― groovypanda, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 09:50 (seven years ago)
I loved Anubis Gates, On Stranger Tides and Last Call. Would check out anything Powers did. Bad covers should be no impediment to the seasoned prospector.
― when worlds collide I'll see you again (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 12:18 (seven years ago)
Yeah, if I didn’t read sci-fi with bad covers, I may never actually read a book.
― Jeff, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 13:21 (seven years ago)
more put off by Orson Scott Card endorsement
― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 15:23 (seven years ago)
Bad covers should be no impediment are an enticement to the seasoned prospector.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 15:25 (seven years ago)
I couldn't get into Anubis Gates
It would have made a cracking role-playing game manual though
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 16:06 (seven years ago)
i mean it's that kind of book, a system fantasy, he excels at that stuff
blaylock will always be my one true love but powers has kept more productive than him
― cheese is the teacher, ham is the preacher (Jon not Jon), Wednesday, 9 May 2018 16:41 (seven years ago)
i couldn't get into anubis gates either
that cover looks like it's for a jasper fforde book
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 9 May 2018 22:57 (seven years ago)
Three Body Problem is 99p in the Kindle deal of the day in the UK today...
― koogs, Thursday, 10 May 2018 05:28 (seven years ago)
Mixed reviews above. Worth reading all three books? I kind of don't want to start it unless the whole lot is worth the effort.
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 11 May 2018 09:45 (seven years ago)
about 3BP? yeah, one of the search results i found was me asking last time it was cheap whether it was worth reading and being put off by the results. i did click the button yesterday though because 99p
― koogs, Friday, 11 May 2018 10:14 (seven years ago)
Oh, I mean, worth the time, not the cost - I've bought it already! I'm just dubious about starting a trilogy unless it's worth reading the whole thing.
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 11 May 2018 11:19 (seven years ago)
I liked it, overall. Full of ideas, sense of long-range time, but also generations of characters handing over the baton over that period of time (later achieved by cryogenics). One of those things where the strengths are strong enough to make it a recommendation despite the weaknesses.
― Fizzles, Friday, 11 May 2018 12:14 (seven years ago)
(last time i looked i had 40+ things in my todo shelf anyway (and that's just the ebooks). everything i read prompts me to want to read at least one more thing.)
have just started We. which seems to have inspired pretty much every book in the world ever if you read wikipedia (brave new world, 1984, anthem, player piano, logan's run, the dispossed, invitation to a beheading. and reminds me of thx1138)
(and that prompted me to add two jack london books to the list, iron heel, scarlet plague...)
― koogs, Friday, 11 May 2018 12:32 (seven years ago)
We is great. V strange.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 11 May 2018 13:44 (seven years ago)
Loved We.
― Fizzles, Friday, 11 May 2018 14:33 (seven years ago)
Read an Elizabeth Jane Howard ghost story and it's pretty good. She only wrote 4 stories but she has a fair number of fans considering that. She was buddies with Robert Aickman, they did a split collection and that's probably a big part of why she is still known.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 11 May 2018 20:47 (seven years ago)
wasn’t he her first husband? we are for the dark (if i’m remembering rightly) was a collection of their collaborations (again, i’m hazy on this). but from what i’ve read she wrote stuff that added to the english ghost story.
― Fizzles, Friday, 11 May 2018 21:22 (seven years ago)
Before Kingsley?
― The Great Atomic Cat Power (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 11 May 2018 21:36 (seven years ago)
She wrote more than 4! I have a collection of her stories here.or do you mean pure supernatural stories?
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 12 May 2018 03:10 (seven years ago)
I guess but I didn't know she wrote anything but that and a children's book.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 03:51 (seven years ago)
ah they were lovers not married (tho yes, she was married twice before kingsley). there were six stories in “We Are For The Dark” and although all are officially collaborations i think three are credited to her. i’ll have a read again today. my general (not unproblematic) view is that the english ghost story strand of the victorian period maintained its formal, stylistic and imaginative characteristics to become a specific subgenre in the U.K., until US science fiction and horror, itself a branch of that same victorian strand, got taken up by UK writers (inc TV). iirc We Are For The Dark is an early, non-US innovation on the standard. the pastoral is uncanny and dangerous in abstract, structural ways, to do with time and space and fabric. a sort of immanence. they’re interesting and good.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 05:08 (seven years ago)
I read it in the first volume of Aickman's Fontana anthologies of Great Ghost Stories, which he ballsily puts stories by himself and EJH in. It's generally frowned upon to put your own stories into anthologies, but that he put them in anthologies of all-time greats is another level and many would say he stands up well in them.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 12:00 (seven years ago)
i just had a quick read of the first two stories – my memory of the whole set was clearly dominated by the EJH (I assume) short story The Trains, which is really excellent. The first, Perfect Love overextends its premise I think, but is sinister enough.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 13:50 (seven years ago)
The Trains is Aickman -- one of his best
― Brad C., Saturday, 12 May 2018 13:56 (seven years ago)
There you go. Had it completely wrong – thanks Brad. It really is very good as you say. I've seen Aickman is almost thought to have started his own subgenre - 'Aickmanesque'. Do you know what characterises that? I haven't read enough to spot its elements.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 14:27 (seven years ago)
As far as I've read, it's when there's not just the question of some supernatural incident but everything seems off and ambiguous.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 14:48 (seven years ago)
Yep, ok that makes sense. 'Everything just seems off' is good. It's close in one sense to that Roald Dahl/Tales of the Unexpected Stuff - uncanny rather than supernatural. But I find his stuff actively unpleasant (not always in a bad way) and its uncanniness gaudy and cruel.
― Fizzles, Saturday, 12 May 2018 14:59 (seven years ago)
Walter De La Mare is similar but less gaudy and cruel. Oliver Onions and Henry James are not too distant. The type of horror that is going to disappoint a lot of people by being far too vague for most tastes.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 15:12 (seven years ago)
There's a guy I know online who is particularly obsessed by this mode and he often has Elizabeth Jane Howard as his forum and twitter avatars
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 12 May 2018 15:14 (seven years ago)