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

- in contrast to this, the "big" white guy names of prior eras that still get stocked: Heinlein (lol why does this schmuck still get a pass)

― Οὖτις, Thursday, November 14, 2019 9:28 PM (yesterday)

i was laid up w/ flu a while ago and digging around for something easy to read and realized i had a copy of "stranger in a strange land" for some reason even though i'd never read it and didn't remember buying it. so, i read it. and hoo boy, that is...not a good book. i wonder how any ppl who pick it up now even finish it. it is genuinely weird to me that RAH's reputation is still as high as it is.

meant to write "i wonder how many ppl" but i guess "any ppl" works just as well

really pisses me off whenever 'grok' appears in a crossword

In UK bookshops - which basically means the Waterstones chain - the SF offering is generally a bit broader than the one Shakey describes. I think that's partly because most Waterstones stock at least some of Gollancz's SF Masterworks series, which of course includes classics from the fifties, sixties, seventies and earlier. PKD is always well represented, I think in part because his reputation in Europe was always higher than in the US, and because nowadays he scores as both a cult author and as the source for lots of movies and TV series. But yes, very little of the back catalogue of people like Silverberg, Salzburg, Sheckley etc etc is still in print here - maybe because a lot of it is so easy to source online?

Haven't read much Heinlein in the last thirty or so years, but would tentatively vouch for Puppet Masters, Door into Summer, some of the juveniles and short stories. Definitely a better stylist than Asimov - who isn't - although Asimov never had the same disastrous drop-off as the last thirty or so years of Heinlein's writing career.

like J.D. I too find the persistence of Heinlein in this market something of a mystery. I mean I find him interesting in a historical way, given his huge impact on the genre, but in the new woke age idg how this guy gets a pass (or is it that the "sad puppy" types see him as a forefather and they're propping up his rep? idk) Asimov was terrible as a stylist and notoriously handsy with the ladies but he wasn't nearly the sexist cryptofascist that Heinlein was.

It's also interesting to see what women/POCs *haven't* made the cut for canonization in the new era - Emshwiller, Wilhelm, CL Moore. Apart from the occasional copy of Her Smoke Rose Up Forever collection you never see anything else from Tiptree/Sheldon.

And for all its impact in the 80s, the OG cyberpunk guys have also been largely erased. Stephenson seems like something of an exception, but Sterling and Rucker have disappeared, and Jeter (if he's available at all) is a footnote to steampunk. The occasional Gibson book still sneaks through, but I don't see lavish reprints of his original trilogy or anything.

erased from where? Online discussions, critical surveys, bookstores?

Reminds me, this fairly recent Library of America anth is in local library and bookstore:

The Future Is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women, from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin
Edited by Lisa Yaszek
"

Space-opera heroines, gender-bending aliens, post-apocalyptic pregnancies, changeling children, interplanetary battles of the sexes, and much more: a groundbreaking new collection of classic American science fiction by women from the 1920s to the 1960s
"

Overview
News & Views
Table of Contents
Contributors

Introduction by Lisa Yaszek

CLARE WINGER HARRIS: The Miracle of the Lily | 1928
LESLIE F. STONE: The Conquest of Gola | 1931
C. L. MOORE: The Black God’s Kiss | 1934
LESLIE PERRI: Space Episode | 1941
JUDITH MERRIL: That Only a Mother | 1948
WILMAR H. SHIRAS: In Hiding | 1948
KATHERINE MACLEAN: Contagion | 1950
MARGARET ST. CLAIR: The Inhabited Men | 1951
ZENNA HENDERSON: Ararat | 1952
ANDREW NORTH: All Cats Are Gray | 1953
ALICE ELEANOR JONES: Created He Them | 1955
MILDRED CLINGERMAN: Mr. Sakrison’s Halt | 1956
LEIGH BRACKETT: All the Colors of the Rainbow | 1957
CAROL EMSHWILLER: Pelt | 1958
ROSEL GEORGE BROWN: Car Pool | 1959
ELIZABETH MANN BORGESE: For Sale, Reasonable | 1959
DORIS PITKIN BUCK: Birth of a Gardener | 1961
ALICE GLASER: The Tunnel Ahead | 1961
KIT REED: The New You | 1962
JOHN JAY WELLS & MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY: Another Rib | 1963
SONYA DORMAN: When I Was Miss Dow | 1966
KATE WILHELM: Baby, You Were Great | 1967
JOANNA RUSS: The Barbarian | 1968
JAMES TIPTREE, JR.: The Last Flight of Dr. Ain | 1969
URSULA K. LE GUIN: Nine Lives | 1969

Biographical Notes
https://www.loa.org/books/583-the-future-is-female-25-classic-science-fiction-stories-by-women-from-pulp-pioneers-to-ursula-k-le-guin

Agree with Ward that the early Heinleins seemed pretty decent, when I was a juvenile (this was before the term Young Adult was applied). Stranger In A Strange Land was where I got off the bus.

bookstores

I was referring strictly to bookstores in my city

It's also interesting to see what women/POCs *haven't* made the cut for canonization in the new era - Emshwiller, Wilhelm, CL Moore.

― Οὖτις, Friday, November 15, 2019 4:06 PM

I don't think there's much interest there, sadly. If it gone before Norton (and isn't Mary Shelley), it probably wont have much chance but reviving interest in any author that old is tough for most demographics. Oddly enough, puppygaters rep hard for CL Moore and Brackett, but puppygaters are too small in number to have any impact on bookshelves.

As Ward says, Gollancz covers a lot of stuff like Wolfe and Silverberg but Moorcock seems to be slipping away (I still see the newest series though).

How well is DAW books stocked in America? Because they're the American publisher I most wish had more presence in the UK.

Probably said this a year ago but Heinlein is interesting to me because he really polarizes people in unpredictable directions. The most lefty person I know in the spec fiction circles loves Heinlein.

I've got tons of old DAW paperbacks. As far as what they publish nowadays though I have no idea.

Delany still reps big time for RAH, iirc.

Saw a pile of a few Gollancz CL Moore omnibuses a while back on sale outside the cart near the coffee stand associated with the Hunter College Shakespeare & Co. but yeah.

DAW is keeping Cherryh and Tanith in print but I really don't know in how many stores. Current bestsellers would be Rothuss, Lackey, Ben Aaronovitch, and Seanan McGuire. Aaronovitch, Rothuss and Lackey do decent in UK (under different publishers) but I cant actually remember if I've seen McGuire over here.

lol oh and how could I have forgot - for all the crowing these days about how YA fantasy fiction for girls should be respected, it's funny that Anne McCaffrey doesn't seem to be in for the canonical treatment, cuz she basically invented that shit.

Wait until you see my poll, Shakey.

Norton came a bit before her but I cant say who had more influence on YA as a category. But it seems pretty sure that McCaffrey isn't faring nearly as well as a writer in retrospect.

Some of you may have heard about the probable downfall of the publisher Chizine and the accompanying stories of unpaid work, racism and harassment associated with them.

I too find the persistence of Heinlein in this market something of a mystery. I mean I find him interesting in a historical way, given his huge impact on the genre, but in the new woke age idg how this guy gets a pass (or is it that the "sad puppy" types see him as a forefather and they're propping up his rep? idk)

Bingo. Middle-aged and older SF readers ALL seem to have started out with his juveniles, and nostalgia beats common sense any time.

Apart from the occasional copy of Her Smoke Rose Up Forever collection you never see anything else from Tiptree/Sheldon.

There isn't that much more tbh, a couple of novels and a few other stories and that's yer lot.

Some of you may have heard about the probable downfall of the publisher Chizine and the accompanying stories of unpaid work, racism and harassment associated with them.

Author Twitter is talking of nothing else, until the next shitty thing comes along. Turns out internet pile-ons are useful for something though if it gets rid of bullying dodgepots like this bunch seemingly are/were.

original longer version of "Who Goes There"
https://www.blackgate.com/2019/11/09/the-return-of-the-thing-frozen-hell-by-john-w-campbell/

I have the fantasy one
https://www.blackgate.com/2019/11/12/new-treasures-the-new-voices-of-science-fiction-edited-by-hannu-rajaniemi-jacob-weisman/

Turns out internet pile-ons are useful for something though if it gets rid of bullying dodgepots like this bunch seemingly are/were.

― Cornelius Fondue (Matt #2), Saturday, November 16, 2019 10:03 PM

As might be expected, there's still a lot of controversies I hear about that have been bubbling for years and never get made entirely public. Leaves you wondering what people are accusing each other of.

Bingo. Middle-aged and older SF readers ALL seem to have started out with his juveniles, and nostalgia beats common sense any time. Less nostalgia in my case than dim, persistent memory of enjoyment; common sense would have to be applied in (unlikely) re-reading, if at all.

There isn't that much more tbh, a couple of novels and a few other stories and that's yer lot. Only if you don't check her bibliographies (spoiler: quite a few stories)(and the good 'uns aren't all in Her Smoke....)

Got xpost The Future is Female from the library today, started this evening: stately prose of first two selections in good contrast to reveals, esp. Leslie F. Stone's testimony/bed time story re matriarchal utopia vs. waves of capitalist barbarian male things from third planet: seems pretty wild for 1931 market (target audience?) Prev. read this in The Big Book of Science Fiction, still startling, with wicked zoom lens at times. Next up: C. L. MOORE: The Black God’s Kiss | 1934

It's on: Best book from the ads at the back of an old Bantam paperback of Crompton Divided

Amazed how often Japanese cover artists are famous manga or videogame artists.

C.L. Moore is maybe at her most pulpadelic, flexing the form and my head, spiraling sword and sorcery through Dark Ages scientific romance ov netherworld geometry and geography and trans-cosmological human and alien perceptual and emotional separation and convergence--also nonstop action. Joiry has fallen, and Jirel descends, willing to sell her soul rather than be sold into sexual slavery as prize ex-commander (spiritual adviser says she could be forgiven for the latter, never for the former, but she must have thee weapon).

Great description, Don. Read that one in a Best Of.

SF TV note:

Last night BBC1 started a new adaptation of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Oddly it mixed the invasion story with a domestic drama - I'm not sure where the latter comes from.

Then BBC4 re-screened a documentary about Ursula K. Le Guin. It affirmed her greatness and made me want to read her again. I especially enjoyed

a) the mid-1970s SF convention circuit, the sense of UKL amid all the others in the field
b) how glamorous she was as a young woman - many terrific photographs were glimpsed
c) David Mitchell a huge, eloquent fan
d) UKL apparently making waves with her 2014 lifetime achievement speech attacking Amazon and others, rather than going quietly.

> Oddly it mixed the invasion story with a domestic drama - I'm not sure where the latter comes from

HG Wells' personal life iirc from Front Row last week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells#Personal_life

Thanks Koogs - I wondered if it was something like that.

Perhaps better to draw from HGW's lie than to make it up randomly, but I still don't quite see the logic, and not sure it adds to this particular drama which is world-shattering enough already.

There is a general desire / need to put 'feisty women' into every historical narrative even where, in reality, the women might not have had such opportunities or even inclinations to be feisty ... but that's another discussion.

The WOTW series gets worse as it goes along.

Saw the Lost Transmissions book in Waterstones recently. I think I was aware of most of the topics but it does make for an interesting mix. Last night I listened to a panel interview about the book on Geek's Guide To The Galaxy podcast.

The editor/main author was fretting about people complaining that too many of the topics were too famous, but including them on the basis that many of the younger generations will not know them and some of the older fans will not know things less ingrained in older ideas of the genre.
Then ensued discussion of a sometimes puzzling reluctance of speculative fiction fans to claim things that originated outside the heartland.

The host made an interesting observation that many kids like him in the 70s-80s-90s had no real idea how popular their favorite things were. I would have thought magazines would give you some idea but I don't know how widely circulated they were or what their coverage was like.

There are hopes for a second book but if the small number of user reviews is anything to go by, it doesn't seem likely. It's pretty nice looking, I might get it this week.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?89573
This lineup is crazy

http://scripsit.com/website/about-mapping-winter/

Marta Randall on her necessary remake of an older novel.

I think Phyllis Ann Karr and some other writers of this generation had done recent novel remakes too.

has anyone read ada palmer's too like the lightning, and does it become less insufferable than the first 20 pages is?

― The Pingularity (ledge), Wednesday, June 19, 2019 2:41 PM (five months ago)

objections: a grating 18th century prose style with frequent asides to the reader; copious chandleresque unexplained in-universe words and concepts; ridiculous names (martin guildbreaker, saneer-weeksbooth); frequent references to theology and theological concepts.

― The Pingularity (ledge), Wednesday, June 19, 2019 2:51 PM (five months ago)

She had donned her boots too, tall, taut Humanist boots patterned with a flowing brush-pen landscape, the kind with winding banks and misty mountains that the eye gets lost in. Any Humanist transforms, grows stronger, prouder, when they don the Hive boots which stamp each Member’s signature into the dust of history, but if others change from house cat to regal tiger, Thisbe becomes something more extreme...

kill me now

― The Pingularity (ledge), Wednesday, June 19, 2019 2:58 PM (five months ago)

It's funny, I was totally uninterested in this when it came out years ago, everyone was talking about it; but after seeing an enthusiastic review by Paul Di Filippo and seeing her buzz about her many interests (refreshing, since too many authors talk about the same shit everyone else does), I'd really like to read it sometime.

Tor announced recently that they are reprinting John M Ford's novels. This is after years and years of people complaining about a lack of reprints. It was widely believed that Ford's remaining family was hostile to his work and was preventing it from going back into print, but Will Shetterly was very eager to say this was a baseless myth.

Quite amused that the term "Killer Bs" (always referring to Benford, Bova, Brin, Baxter and Greg Bear) actually got used on a book cover at least once.

Another was "McMacs" for Ken Macleod, Ian McDonald, Ian Macleod, Paul McAuley and probably more.

McMacs >>> Killer Bs in overall quality terms, though Bova will drop any group's average quality

Lol. Feel like Bova did something good once, can’t remember. Maybe editing one of those SF Hall of Fame volumes.

AAAggghhh, Ligotti forum has been under maintenance for over a week.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/john-ford-science-fiction-fantasy-books.html

Cool

This Stan Lee-with-an-eyepatch Fantasy Masterworks edition of Dragon Waiting isn't too hard to source in the UK:

https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1173289687l/268437.jpg

It's a great book, too.

Thought this interview with Ada Palmer was a lot of fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMg92oT8lk4
Don't know why Crilly thought censorship was so new though.

It's news to me that the Laemmles showed interested in making a Clark Ashton Smith adaptation before they were booted from Universal. One of the stories Smith submitted to them for consideration has a giant made of melted corpses.

I wonder if there's any books which resemble the aesthetic of Voivod's Dimension Hatross or Skinny Puppy at their most scifi.

K.W. Jeter

Specifically Dr. Adder, Noir, Glass Hammer, Death Arms

this http://www.voivodfan.com/morgoth_bio_neutronboy2000.htm mentions a few books in passing (but is probably not what you want):

lord of the rings
dracula
neuromancer
dune
various French philosophers
don juan(?)

I have Doctor Adder somewhere in my room (for years I've been getting them mixed up with William Kotzwinkle's Doctor Rat). I might bump it up the pile a little but I feel I should read a bit more PK Dick before I do.

Quite interested to see how this plays out. Some people are worried.
https://www.blackgate.com/2019/11/30/the-chinese-worldcon-bid-for-2023-and-the-chengdu-conference-of-2019/