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

Writer Jeannette Ng called John W Campbell a fascist during her Campbell Award acceptance speech at the Dublin Worldcon. I know that not everyone here is a Cory Doctorow fan, but thought this was a good response to the subsequent fuss:

https://boingboing.net/2019/08/20/needed-saying.html

Agree with every word she said. On a slightly different note, does it bother anyone else that there's a major award named after Arthur C. Clarke, given the nature of the accusations against him?

lol how is calling John W. Campbell a fascist even remotely controversial? I mean, his politics weren't exactly a secret

unaware of accusations against Clarke so idk

I think the charge against Clarke, that he was a paedophile in Sri Lanka, was always disputed (by Clarke himself and others). The main sources for the story were the British tabloid press in the 1990s, so the scandal could easily have been malicious homophobia masquerading as concern for the vulnerable.

British tabloid press in the 1990s

lol truly a reliable source

Hmm yeah maybe, although accusations against dodgy Brits tend to turn out true more often than not. Read the first story here and decide for yourself I guess:
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/bjxp5m/we-asked-people-what-childhood-moment-shaped-them-the-most

Vice is not worth reading

Further to the Campbell controversy, David Pringle on Facebook shared a couple of...provocative quotes from J G Ballard:

"BALLARD: I never liked Asimov, I never liked Heinlein, I never liked Van Vogt -- that school of American SF I couldn't take. I never liked Astounding very much. I thought that fellow, what's his name, I met him once, the editor....
"PRINGLE: John Campbell.
"BALLARD: I thought he was a baleful influence. He consolidated all the worst tendencies of American SF. He introduced a lot of bogus respectability, all that hard sociology thing. You know: 'I was up at MIT last week, talking about the future of...' something or other, and it all sounded very _serious_. He allied SF to the applied engineering, social engineering, and so forth, of somewhere like MIT. He gave SF a serious, real dimension which was all wrong because that isn't what SF is about. I couldn't stand those writers..."
From: "An Interview with J. G. Ballard" by James Goddard and David Pringle (Shepperton, 4th January 1975).

"I mean, somebody like that illiterate editor, whatever his name was -- Campbell -- is an important figure to the American writer, and his influence is still strong. But he has no counterpart over here. I regard American sf -- much as I admire individual writers -- as really a kind of cul-de-sac, a minor tributary of the great stream of imaginative fiction. I regard the Americans, modern commercial sf which extends from, say, Asimov at one end of the spectrum to Star Trek at the other, as having done an enormous disservice to the possibility of the emergence of, you know, a serious science fiction." (From: "Interview with J. G. Ballard" by David Pringle, Shepperton, Middlesex, 14th June 1979.)

Didn’t Barry Malzberg win a Campbell for Beyond Apollo, which fact if true seems to fit in with this discussion somehow.

also didn't campbell go all-in on dianetics? hard science indeed

("who goes there" still rules tho)

Longest way round is the shortest way home

xpost

Yep:

He famously won the first John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel for Beyond Apollo (1972), a fine book about neurotic astronauts. A number of writers associated with Analog, including Poul Anderson, protested this award on the grounds that Malzberg's fiction was actively anti-Campbellian.

http://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-little-remembered-ace-double-gather.html

Malzberg's meta-fictional short story 'A Galaxy Called Rome' is also partly about Campbell and his ideas

Following that link leads to these:
https://fsgworkinprogress.com/2018/07/13/malzberg-reading-daniels-reading-malzberg/
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/10/08/turkey-in-a-suitcase/

Malzberg is way closer to Ballard's POV than to Campbell's, even if he is a huge Astounding fanboy

Yes exactly

Tanith Lee - Tanith By Choice

This is one of two recent Best Of collections, in this one the stories are chosen by friends (many people you'd expect, although I was surprised to see no Liz Williams). The other is called A-Z, a much larger collection of mostly newer stories chosen entirely by her husband John Kaiine (he chooses a story and supplies cover art for Tanith By Choice).
The Selected Stories series (2 books) from 2009 was misleadingly titled. "Selected Stories" tends to be an upper-class publishers way of saying "Best Of", but these two were just regular collections.
Dreams Of Dark And Light from 1986 was the first Best Of. Forests Of The Night from 1989 might have been a retrospective but I'm not sure, as quite a lot of her collections have overlap and choose some old favourites.

My three favourites in this collection are...
(1) "Bite-Me-Not Or, Fleur De Fur". Wonderful setting: a castle of decadent royalty and vast surrounding mountains populated by winged humanoids, beautiful story.
(2) "White As Sin, Now". Fairy tale told from fragments of different viewpoints from different time periods.
(3) "After The Guillotine". Funny story about the afterlife of a group of people executed in the French revolution. I kept smiling at "let us pause to admire him". Gorgeous ending.

Although I tended to prefer the type of stories most associated with Lee, there's a good range, surprising at times. Especially "The Ghost Of The Clock", a fairly modern gritty British story. Perhaps too many stories were chosen for the circumstances in which they were first encountered?

I could see some people making a good case for "The Isle Is Full Of Noises" (final piece, the only novella) as the best in the collection. Even quite a long way into it, I wasn't sure what shape it would take or what sort of story it was, the uncertainty was enjoyable. There's so many parts to consider and piece together, to puzzle over. What was "the sound"?
Sarah Singleton says it's one of a few Tanith stories that sort of casts Rutger Hauer as a character (I have a strong feeling that "After I Killed Her" from another collection put me in mind of Hauer, which is bizarre, since I cant imagine any detail so specific suggesting him so effectively) and it has some commentary on using real people in this way.
I thought it was mostly great but I often struggled to visualize the shapeshifter in a satisfying way and a bit more detail could have fixed that, I know it was purposely vague but I felt it could have been less awkward. And some of the comparisons used throughout the novella seemed too much of a stretch. An impressive piece all the same. Loved the way it criticized talk shows too.

Unfortunately, there's quite a number of typos and one story has the wrong title across the upper corner of the pages. I'm guessing scanning technology was used because a few times "1" was used instead of "l" or "I". "Cold Fire" has lots of course slang written in an unfamiliar way, so possible typos were doubly dangerous there.
Every book should be proof-read but when you're trying to ensure a writer's legacy and talk in the introduction about the preciousness of their words, it's a bit harder to swallow a lack of proof-reading. Still a very strong book though.

After I've read A-Z I might come back here and say how it compares as an introduction to the writer. This is only my second book by her so I cant say how well selected it is.

Always liked this cover but I had no idea it was by the Dillons
http://bookscans.com/Publishers/pyramid/images1000/PyramidX1611.jpg

I'm increasingly wary of people being dismissive of large areas of a genre, or a large body of one writer's work. I used to lap it up when people dismissed Booker middlebrow stuff but now I think most such claims are probably bluffing about the extent of their reading experience. Upthread I mentioned Moorcock saying Aldiss was the only one who had read much American golden age SF. Would he have admitted this as a younger man? In that New Worlds 1983 anthology, he gives his opinion on a large number of trends and writers and while I have no doubt he's read a ton of this stuff and he's always interesting to listen to, I really don't think I can trust him. So many writers summed up quickly by a negative trait.

I realize that with certain areas of comics and animation, I'm in danger of becoming this schmuck. But the capability of someone's drawings is a bit easier to gauge.

So many writers on twitter impatient to dismiss one of the big boys. Show me report cards, motherfucker.

I'm impressed by John Clute's entries in the SF Encyclopedia but I'd like to know if he really has read everything by the dead authors he's mapping out.

Not that I'm doubting him, major respect but I just would like to know.

I know what you mean but with Clute I believe it. He has lead me to some great stuff but also to some mediocre stuff. I think he, like Michael Dirda of the WaPo (or James Morrison of ILB *ducks*), just seems to have an endless capacity to keep reading.

Although to be fair Clute and Dirda seem to err on the side of boosting merely okay stuff which Real ILB James does not do.

What did Clute overrate for you?

Raising Stony Mayall, by Daryl Gregory, some mid-level Poul Anderson are what come to mind at the moment

iirc, isaac asimov said that the reason he rarely included extra-terrestrial life in his early stories was that john campbell refused to run any stories in which aliens were depicted as superior to humans in any way -- definitely an odd guy.

i spent a couple hours trying to figure out the charges against clarke a while back and came to the conclusion that they were pretty much BS -- there were no actual accusations as far as i could tell, just innuendo from some very untrustworthy sources.

campbell refused to run any stories in which aliens were depicted as superior

he'd already written "who goes there" so no others were necessary QED

Think maybe we should run a book club (famous last words) on that Astounding Campbell bio.

I would be into that

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/612DyWJpRGL.jpg

Damn that is better than the one my childhood copy had (which I also loved)

Major soft spot, at least in memory, for the well of souls series

Me as a child reading Barlowe’s Guide: omg this one series has like ten aliens in here! Must read!

I just bought two Chalker omnibuses. Apparently his best stuff if Clute and Gollancz are to be trusted. For some people, he's filed together with Piers Anthony as an author who had great early work, occasionally returns to ambitious work but got drunk on commercial success and endlessly milked a successful series.
I often wonder if a world of guaranteed financial safety would stop writers pandering and churning out lower quality work than they were capable of, but maybe the fan attention is enough to create this effect.

Did you finish the Tanith Flat Earth book you were reading?

I'm increasingly wary of people being dismissive of large areas of a genre, or a large body of one writer's work. I used to lap it up when people dismissed Booker middlebrow stuff but now I think most such claims are probably bluffing about the extent of their reading experience. Upthread I mentioned Moorcock saying Aldiss was the only one who had read much American golden age SF. Would he have admitted this as a younger man? In that New Worlds 1983 anthology, he gives his opinion on a large number of trends and writers and while I have no doubt he's read a ton of this stuff and he's always interesting to listen to, I really don't think I can trust him. So many writers summed up quickly by a negative trait.

This might be reductive, but maybe that sort of dismissiveness is a bad trait in a critic but a good one in an author? In that you kinda have to have a lot of faith in the idea that what you're doing is to some degree the "right" way.

Moorcock's fantastic for certain things. Literary crit isn't particularly one of them emo. His opinions are often entertaining if not entirely trustworthy. For ex. he called Tolkien a crypto-fascist - which is funny and thought-provoking - but I would much rather read Tolkien than Moorcock's precious Edgar Rice Burroughs.

emo = imo

Great artists are/were always making unsupportable (but often hilarious) pronouncements about others’ work or dismissing vast swathes of aesthetic

RJG, I ended up tabling The Flat Earth for later, it is very intense work and not the place my mind wanted to be at that moment.

As an illustration of how much genre work has been done in audiobook now compared to when Audible launched, my wife has listened to the whole flat earth series on audible this year...

I'm listening to the Dark Forest (second book in Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem trilogy) on Audible. Nearing the end and loving this crazy ride. Can drift into esoteria, info-dumps (as described upthread) and I agree with critics who say the wall-facer project is a very far-fetch conceit; plus it takes a while to get used to the many characters and their Chinese names. Still, it is making astrophysics fun and I appreciate how smart and slick this hard sci fi turned out to be

https://theastoundinganalogcompanion.com/2019/08/27/a-statement-from-the-editor/

John W. Campbell Award renamed! That was quick. I think the subject may have been under discussion there already. Although I do think calling it the Astounding Award makes it sound like a description of the award, at least to anyone who doesn't know the history of SF short fiction markets (i.e. most people). Couldn't they have called it the Gardner Award or something (after the recently-deceased Gardner Dozois)? Anyway, whatever, good news.

long time coming tbh

anybody read this (or anything by this guy?)
https://sciencefictionruminations.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/mercedes-nights.jpg?w=474&h=703

Sienkiewicz cover!

(never heard of the author before)

yeah he snagged Sienkiewicz for two covers somehow

From the back cover: “This stunning novel marks the arrival of a major SF talent. Mercedes Nights is a wildly inventive novel imbued with the unreality and manic energy of Philip K. Dick, but wholly original in concept and in the scope of its author’s imagination.

A black market cloning operation plots to sell duplicates of Mercedes Night, the hottest vidstar around, to clients with enough money to indulge in such pleasures. But the clones have minds of their own—and soon the real Mercedes must come to grips with the existence of several exact duplicates of herself. The characters whose lives are touched by the Mercedes Nights include the twisted and paranoid Arthur Horstmeyer, who waits for the day he can evolve past humanity; Lancelot, the handheld intelligent computer; and the mysterious Magnus, owned of Sub-Space Corporation and unseen manipulator of people and events. And drawing them all together is Mercedes Night—one of the most captivating, sharp-edged, unforgettable characters in all of science fiction.

Unique, ironic, and absorbing, Mercedes Nights is a novel that will be talked about for years to come.”

I looked it up in Pringle's Ultimate Guide to SF:

"A star comedian is kidnapped, cloned and sold as a sort of living sex doll. This turns out to be the front-shop operation for some political machinations. There is a parallel strand about travel to the stars by what seem to be mystical means. An energetic first novel." (1 star)

And his second novel, My Father Immortal (1989):
"Three newborn babies are cast into space and, as they grow towards puberty, machines teach them of their strange past... A complex tale of suspended animation and post-nuclear horrors: crude in place, but powerful." (2 stars)

Οὖτις - I think ERBurroughs was only a youthful enthusiasm for Moorcock. But like other writers, perhaps saw more potential in his style to be developed.

Jon says "RJG"

I'm reading this as Robert John Godfrey.

Daniel says "This might be reductive, but maybe that sort of dismissiveness is a bad trait in a critic but a good one in an author? In that you kinda have to have a lot of faith in the idea that what you're doing is to some degree the "right" way."

I've always wondered about this. Nick Cave said something along these lines. Personally, I've never liked it. I believe that eventually big blind spots strangles artists when they get older.

Just far too many dismissive provocateur statements going around these days.

Another artist, Helmut Wenske used a lot of art for both albums and books. He was most associated with the band Nektar and did quite a few PK Dick, Lem and Strugatsky covers.

https://iansales.com/2013/06/11/your-epic-fantasy-list-smells-of-elderberries/

Ian Sales again. The epic fantasy lists he links to are entertaining enough but they're more concerned with speculating widespread influence than quality (still enjoyable though). His selections all seem to be his favorites.
Ricardo Pinto's interesting sounding trilogy is currently being revised into a longer series, he says "I have broken the Stone Dance into seven rather than three parts. There are practical reasons for this, but the artistic reasons are the clincher."
More info here..
https://www.ricardopinto.com/2018/08/15/stone-dance-second-edition/

I totally agree with Sales that the film/tv awards should be done away with in literary awards. Some of the recent nominations and winners are a bit embarrassing.
Rich Horton was understandably upset that Alec Nevala-Lee's landmark non-fiction Astounding was beaten at the Hugos by an online archive of fanfiction. See the comments here...
https://www.blackgate.com/2019/08/24/john-w-campbell-was-a-racist-and-a-loon-a-response-to-jeannette-ngs-campbell-award-acceptance-speech/
I had a look around this archive and was amazed how much music fanfiction there was (both of band members and the worlds contained in their music), but as with all the crossovers of prose fiction, comics, screen and videogame characters, I think a lot of this is done for laughs or outdoing each other at unlikely crossovers (Hodgson's Night Land mixed with some tv show I hadn't heard of). The Burzum/Mayhem sex stories might be serious but I didn't have the patience to verify.

I am finally reading a fantasy novel.

THE TROLLTOOTH WARS, the first Fighting Fantasy novel, by Steve Jackson:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1129762.The_Trolltooth_Wars

Because of nostalgia?

I tried to read "In the Ocean of the Night" by Gregory Benford but the attractive successful astronaut and his polyamorous relationship with two attractive successful women took up over half the book and was insufferable, even when one of them was stricken with a life threatening incurable illness.

From a goodreads review: white british dude whose only personality trait is getting irrationally angry at complete strangers about religion goes from being in a polyamorous relationship with two women to getting a petite Japanese manic pixie dream girl to fall in love with him via impressing her with weed? and being incredibly patronizing towards her.

Now I'm sad I didn't get as far as the japanese manic pixie dream girl.

Because I found it in a 2nd hand bookshop for £1 ... and yes, I go way way back with actual FFGs. A FF novel is of course a different entity, but it has fun with using some of the same places and names from books like THE CITADEL OF CHAOS.

I have a sense that Jackson was occasionally trying to do some quirky things, eg: with a character called a Chervah who is like an elf / pixie character who is vegetarian and teetotal, always trying to get the hero to eat health foods. The book sometimes reminds me of the corny humour of Fantasy people.

I read Gregory Benford's most recent novel, and criticised it on Goodreads, and he started bitching at me in the comments

lol