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

Outis, I think you have a point about JL's development -- he was mostly at his best when he stayed closest to the resources of SF, and in for instance DISSIDENT GARDENS he leaves those completely, and the effect may not be satisfactory.

Never seen that 2012 interview - kind of interesting in its forced drollery / fictionality or whatever. And 'My Internet' might be worth reading.

I think the piece you have in mind might be 'What I Learned at the SF Convention', which is reprinted in THE ECSTASY OF INFLUENCE (2011).

Ballard reviewed it and dedicated the review to a riposte to Amis! That's in his book of essays

Thanks Pinefox, I read this yesterday - Ballard's response is fairly genial, although in some way he caricatures Amis in much the same way that Amis caricatures the New Wave.

thx for the link pinefox

lol @ Crying of Lot 49 post header

that's a good piece, not much to argue with apart from minor quibbles due to personal taste

although it did occur to me that he neatly elides the fact that the New Wave stuff just didn't sell well. Silverberg's comments in his collected short story volumes make it abundantly clear that while *he* loved writing that stuff, his sales tanked. And I doubt "Beyond Apollo" or "Barefoot in the Head" really flew off the shelves.

Ya think?

it just seems kinda convenient to ignore the fact that one of the reasons this stuff didn't break through into the mainstream was that it didn't even really have the commercial support of the genre audience itself. From a publishing point of view, it's like the New Wave guys wanted to ditch the sf audience entirely and go straight for the NYT Book Review audience, who couldn't have cared less (for reasons Lethem outlines fairly well)

I’ve never quite decided which side to take in this Don’t Git Above Your Raisin’ debate

heh that's a funny way to put it. I think for my part I don't entirely share Lethem's stated desire of genre boundaries being totally dissolved, nor do I really sympathize with some quest for respectability or approval from the wider (or "higher") culture. At the same time, (if it isn't obvious already) I really enjoy genre works in general, but especially those that push against or wrestle with genre conventions. Having these ready-made tools and tropes and reference points and boundaries to play with is often a good thing, whether it's metal or noir films or science fiction. That tension that comes from trying to use genre elements to make them do *something else* than what they normally do, I love that. And I suppose I'm supportive of fostering whatever conditions are necessary to produce more of that work. I don't particularly care if they are popular or highly acclaimed so much as I care that they get made at all.

Yup

I'm sure Lethem's list is incredibly good but it seems like there's not much room for FUN

The follow up to The Martian is 99p on Kindle daily deal today in the UK. Artemis.

There's a Tchaikovsky book called the Ironclads in the monthly deal as well. I thought I'd recognised the name from here but that was an HG Wells story, not this. (I haven't read my copy of children of time yet so I'm not sure he's any good, but...)

Outis -- I think you're exactly right. This is something that Lethem's past pronouncements on the issue surprisingly fail to see.

I think that JL himself has been best when using a clear sense of genre to push against and to shape the work, so the point applies as much to his own fiction too.

latest reading for me: Farah Mendlesohn, RHETORICS OF FANTASY (2008).

Really broad-based taxonomy of different kinds of fantasy narrative: portal / quest; immersive; intrusive; liminal. Great to have this kind of clarity even if she can then explore the divergences across it. Readings of Tolkien, Lewis, Terry Pratchett, Diana Wynne Jones, China Miéville et al. Disarmingly open style in which she says things like 'I now find that I agree with the reader's report for this book'.

Sounds interesting - Todorov for Tolkienistas!

came across a complete set of OG 80s paperbacks of Wolfe's Book of the New Sun novels the other day and dipped back in, man these books are great

still need to read those/pvmic

I like Mendlesohn, she's on goodreads with occasional reviews. I recall some taking issue with that book because she excludes fairy tales, which has been a very popular mode for the last two decades.

i love those timescape wolfe paperbacks to death

it's funny how much the covers embody Lethem's complaint about generic ugliness of the era, they really give zero indication of the depths inside

still need to read those/pvmic

dude get on this

I think the Don Maitz Timescape cover for Shadow Of The Torturer is actually good. His others for the series less so.

I just Googled those Timescape covers - must say, much prefer the UK covers by the great Bruce Pennington:

https://i1.wp.com/www.djabbic.co.uk/BookCovers/Images/BrucePennington/TheShadowOfTheTorturer_1982.jpg

it's the best of the four, def. And they all can be said to reasonably depict events from the book but they don't really convey the tone of the narrative.

xp

Pennington definitely an improvement!

Think that one came up upthread in link to and discussion of Viriconium cover art

I am continuing to read Hugo winners, slowly. 'Nightwings' by Robert Silverberg has all his strengths - great invention and storytelling, a dash of well-handled cosmic mysticism - and some of his weaknesses - chiefly, really corny sexy stuff - definitely the v worst thing with the UK/US New Wavers in general, or those older writers keeping up w/ the times, eg 'Gonna Roll the Bones' by Fritz Leiber, which mixes the near obligatory gratuitous sexism w/ a number of gratuitous racial slurs too - dangerou vision, fuck you. This one won both the Hugo and Nebula, but seems like a just ok gambling w/ the devil story, rather floridly told. Leiber seems to have a massive rep w/ other SF writers - Moorcock, Ellison, William Gibson all massive fans - but the little of him I've read (and he seems to have been insanely prolific over many years, despite 'substance abusing' alcohol, according to Wiki) hasn't really blown me away compared to Dick, Bester, Pohl, Damon Knight! - perhaps others here can point me in the right direction!

I can't! never been able to get into Leiber. His appeal eludes me.

I have enjoyed some of his classic stories such as “A Pail of Air” and You’re All Alone aka The Sinful Ones freaked me out when I read it as a nipper, but there’s a lot of his stuff I couldn’t quite get into. It just seemed too middle of the road, neither well-written enough (because of the alcohol?) or pulpy enough or clever or weird enough despite having some Weird accoutrements- witches, cats black or otherwise, etc. Having said this, I am still about to give his sword and sorcery another try.

For a second there I thought I was reading the Elvis POLL and that you were referring to Jerry Leiber and said “wtf?” to myself.

I tried to read a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser book once, recall it actually being kind of hard to find/rare at the time (pre-internet) but was subsequently underwhelmed

He’s no Gene Wolfe, that’s for sure.

Leiber might be better as a horror writer; Our Lady of Darkness is a good one.

Re US/UK New Wave, it is somewhat interesting that several of the British New Wave writers seemed to keep going whilst the Americans to a man got their wings burned and crashed, either remaining embittered and giving up entirely or returning to earlier forms of hack work and fan service, perhaps with a bit more polish.

kinda wanna read that one just for the local flavor tbh

xp

I tried to read a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser book once, recall it actually being kind of hard to find/rare at the time (pre-internet) but was subsequently underwhelmed

Sorry, introduced only

I tried to read a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser book once

haha when they showed up in 'deities & demigods' i was all wtf, not least because the books seemed to barely exist at the time

i have read the book of the new sun twice (or maybe three times, not sure) and i'm not sure i can even explain it. started the book of the long sun once and was disappointed

see also gene wolfe's book of the NEWSUN!!!!! reading club

Conjure, Wife was really good

"Smoke Ghost" is a decent mood piece, although doesn't live up to its reputation (like most things really).

An alternate version of Our Lady Of Darkness was released two years ago, supposed to be substantially different and it has the very odd title The Pale Brown thing (obviously Our Lady Of Darkness was a better name). I haven't seen many reviews so I don't know how different.

There is an account from one of the main guys from the Valve videogame company meeting up with Leiber in the 70s and expecting him to live in a mansion, but he just had a regular apartment and slept on a huge pile of books.

I often hear people speak fondly of a lot of his horror stories, particularly the collection The Night's Black Agents, but there's two Best Ofs I have that I might bump up my to be read pile.

Another thing I heard that I thought was quite cool was that in the last Fafhrd & Grey Mouser story, the assassins sent after them are called The Death Of Fafhrd and The Death Of Grey Mouser.

One of my favorite goodreads reviewers convinced me I should read all twelve books Wolfe Solar Cycle books someday.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/222439779?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

Would be cool if someone started another Best Of line like this, see the comments for further research on these
https://www.blackgate.com/2018/07/13/the-pocket-best/

Those Pocket Best Ofs look good but I don’t really remember them. Definitely bought a whole lot of those Del Rey Best Ofs when I was a bored teenager. Feel like I read somewhere recently that some contemporary writers resented them as old stuff crowding out the new stuff.

I only have the Vance out of those. Mine is the leftmost of the three cover variants. The one on the right is awesome - looks like gervasio galliardo kind of?

Lovecraft talking about his bizarrely named cat
https://www.reddit.com/r/Lovecraft/comments/917u74/on_lovecrafts_cat/

I have always had a notional interest in FAFHRD / MOUSER because of Gary Gygax's interest in them / their role in inspiring F&D --- and then the whole extensive LANKHMAR D&D set which I have now owned for about 30 years but never done anything with.

http://pro.bols.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Lankhmar-Header.jpg

Finished rereading Lethem's AMNESIA MOON. The relative incoherence of the narrative perhaps struck me more than before, the sense that things weren't holding together and perhaps JL didn't mind that, bearing in mind PKD's talk of wanting to build universes that fall apart.

it does wander - at the same time that seems appropriate. Also of a piece with Gun, With Occasional Music's narrative disruption, with the dude getting knocked out and waking up years later and the whole previous story basically abandoned/unresolved.

(at least that's my memory of it?)

One thing I learned from reading PLAYING AT THE WORLD, the excellent history of RPGs and their antecedents, is that Leiber was in very early. He created some sort of fantasy board game for his own use in the 30s, and began putting together the Lankhmar game in 1960. And of course he is a participant in Dragon Magazind later on.