It's also highly gender essentialist, but undercuts its own message that men are violent by nature by having them brought up from the age of 5 in a male only militaristic environment.
I think when I read it I assumed that was the point - that men are violent because of their socialization.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 21 September 2021 09:45 (two years ago) link
maybe that's what tepper intended but it's odd that the women who are in all other respects preternaturally far-seeing and successful in their plans are blind to this glaringly obvious flaw.
― ledge, Tuesday, 21 September 2021 10:08 (two years ago) link
preternaturally far-seeing
i mean even without the benefit of their telepathic pals.
― ledge, Tuesday, 21 September 2021 10:09 (two years ago) link
I've read A Voyage To Arcturus and a few other (anthologized) things by weirdo Lindsay, but hadn't heard of this:THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2021A Centenary of The Haunted Woman by David LindsayAfter David Lindsay's first novel, A Voyage to Arcturus, was published in 1920, his next novel was serialized in The Daily News newspaper of London from the 30th of August 1921, through the 23rd of September. Thus today marks the centenary of the completed serialized publication of The Haunted Woman.
An extensive analysis of "The Haunted Woman in The Daily News" appears at The Violet Apple.org. (Direct link here.) https://www.violetapple.org.uk/hw/serial.php#f_ref_7
A brief announcement of the serial, together with a photograph of Lindsay and his baby daughter, appeared in the newspaper on 29th August. Considering the take on gyny in AVTA, his having a daughter is scary. The newspaper clip is in here, also mentioning their previous serial, The Red House Mystery, by A.A. Milne, of Winnie The Pooh fame, says that Lindsay's is *also* special---no doubt; I'd like to take a look at it.http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2021/09/a-centenary-of-haunted-woman-by-david.html
― dow, Saturday, 25 September 2021 01:30 (two years ago) link
I don't think I ever knew it was serialized but I heard the first edition only sold under 50 copies and that was a real blow to Lindsay's confidence.
To this day I don't know what's keeping most of his novels from seeing print, they are super rare.
https://www.nyrsf.com/2016/07/brian-stableford-nightmares-of-a-utopian-the-science-fiction-of-r%C3%A9gis-messac.html
Author’s note: The English translations of the various Messac works indicated and cited in the above essay do exist, and their publication was scheduled by Black Coat Press for 2016. Even though the works are all in the public domain, the author having been dead for seventy years, that publication was blocked by the threat of legal action by his grandson, Olivier Messac, which BCP could not afford to defend no matter how certain the eventual victory might be. Evidently, Olivier Messac feels that the best way to conserve his grandfather’s legacy is to extend the inaccessibility of his work in the English language for as long as humanly possible. We can, of course, only speculate as to what the fervently anti-capitalist utopian Régis Messac might have thought of copyright trolls, although we do know that the Nazis murdered him in order to prevent him communicating his ideas to his fellow human beings, not because he posed any kind of military threat to them.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 25 September 2021 10:56 (two years ago) link
Finishing the first book in Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile. I could probably do worse than to keep checking used bookstores for SF/F books blurbed by Zelazny.
― lukas, Thursday, 30 September 2021 20:21 (two years ago) link
At the bottom of this page there is a bunch of his blurbshttps://www.fantasticfiction.com/z/roger-zelazny/
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 30 September 2021 21:27 (two years ago) link
He wrote blurbs for a surprising number of books by women.
― lukas, Thursday, 30 September 2021 21:58 (two years ago) link
that series is *fantastic* imo (if slightly homophobic)
― mookieproof, Thursday, 30 September 2021 22:22 (two years ago) link
Yeah it's great imaginative stuff, a lot of balls kept in the air. Just bought book 2.
― lukas, Thursday, 30 September 2021 22:49 (two years ago) link
Interesting. Maybe will check out, if I ever regain my ability to read again.But also came to the Thread of Wonder to wonder if anyone has actually read the books from which came The Expanse.
― He POLLS So Much About These Zings (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 1 October 2021 02:48 (two years ago) link
i read the first expanse book despite certain vows regarding authors with multiple middle initials. it was fine.
that julian may series is better
― mookieproof, Friday, 1 October 2021 03:13 (two years ago) link
I’ve been somewhat curious about those Julian May books for a long time. Will grab.
― covidsbundlertanze op. 6 (Jon not Jon), Friday, 1 October 2021 11:20 (two years ago) link
I believe Jane Lindskold lived with Zelazny in his last years, but they collaborated a few times, she was interviewed recently on Geek's Guide To The Galaxy.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 1 October 2021 18:06 (two years ago) link
Oh wow I want to listen to that. She also wrote a biography of him (I discovered yesterday, listening to a different podcast)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkbPnhnWzJUBought the guy's book, will report back.
― lukas, Friday, 1 October 2021 21:35 (two years ago) link
er, same podcast
― lukas, Friday, 1 October 2021 21:38 (two years ago) link
There is a beloved but rare (in english) collection called Mirror In The Mirror by Michael Ende (Neverending Story), one of his books for adults and surrealist too. It has been reprinted recently as a print on demand version with a new translation, but a review says they taken out the paintings by his father Edgar Ende (presumably the rights weren't available?), which inspired the stories, so some would say it's not a proper reprint. I ordered it because the alternatives are too expensive (hundreds).
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 2 October 2021 13:33 (two years ago) link
omg---as Science Fiction Encyclopedia says ov May:
n the 1980s May turned her attention once again to sf, making an immediate and very substantial impact with her Saga of Pliocene Exile, which serves as an extensive prelude to the Galactic Milieu sequence: The Many-Colored Land (1981), which won a 1982 Locus Award, and The Golden Torc (1982), both assembled as The Many-Colored Land & The Golden Torc (omni 1982); plus The Nonborn King (1983) and The Adversary (1984), both assembled as The Nonborn King & The Adversary (omni 1984); and supplemented by The Pliocene Companion (1984; vt A Pliocene Companion: A Guide to the Saga of Pliocene Exile 1985). The Galactic Milieu sequence begins with a transitional volume – Intervention (1987; vt in two vols The Surveillance 1988 and The Metaconcert 1988) – and continues with Jack the Bodiless (1992), Diamond Mask (1994) and Magnificat (1996). (I've got these last three, seem promising in random read.) Underlying the increasingly complicated storyline of this four-volume prelude is what might be described as a Planetary Romance set on Earth: the protagonists have left a Utopian twenty-second century society from which they have felt estranged, via one-way Time Travel six million years into deep prehistory (see Prehistoric SF), where they discover not only that the Pliocene is rich in potential but that two apparently Alien species are in a state of deadly conflict over the young world and over the humans who have already arrived there. Much additional material – from archetypes out of Celtic myths (see Mythology) to the introductions of various Psi Powers to intimations of Hard SF – is fed into this vision, leavened intermittently by a Trickster protagonist or two. The effect is at times reminiscent of the Planetary-Romance Baroque of Roger Zelazny.
With Intervention the overall sequence moves into an Alternate History version of contemporary times which segues into the Galactic Milieu tales, where the family romance of the Remillard clan intersects with explanatory narratives set deep into the past, and with the melodramatic course of the assessing of humanity's potential role (if any) in the Galactic Milieu (see Galactic Empires) itself. The narrative is increasingly charged with metaphysical intonations, linked to a sustaining concern with the attractive theme of psychic Evolution; in the end, Zelazny seems at times less clearly evoked than Doris Lessing. But wait, there's more!http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/may_julian
― dow, Saturday, 2 October 2021 15:50 (two years ago) link
Yeah, 8 books.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 2 October 2021 16:45 (two years ago) link
Finished the much celebrated Light by M John Harrison, after three chapters I thought I was going to love it but my enthusiasm dwindled - it was too sordid, the technology too magical, the antagonist too vague (till the very end), too much of a sense of words put on the page because they sound cool and for no other reason.
― ledge, Monday, 4 October 2021 07:58 (two years ago) link
Still I preferred it to Joan Slonczewski's A Door into Ocean, almost its exact opposite.
― ledge, Monday, 4 October 2021 08:11 (two years ago) link
read 'a matter of oaths' by helen s. wright -- solid space opera that i thought packed quite a bit into its short one volume
particularly notable for having been written in 1988, when that sort of thing was unfashionable, and for being remarkably diverse, in the modern parlance: the main character is non-white, the kickass commander is a woman, there is gay sex, etc.
this no doubt explains why it fell out of print and was recently republished with a forward by becky chambers (#hopepunk). pretty weird how the brief author's note mentions that she, who still lives in the uk, 'never married' though!
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 5 October 2021 22:05 (two years ago) link
anyway i liked it, it was worthwhile!
(i will simply never not reference hopepunk because come on)
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 6 October 2021 04:15 (two years ago) link
https://www.tor.com/2019/04/18/quiltbag-speculative-classics-a-matter-of-oaths-by-helen-s-wright/
I must have seen it in this article (quite a good article series by Bogi Takacs) and on the Cherryh blurb list but I don't recall it. I can't find any biographical info, even on her personal site. Only one book then done, but it seems to have quite a strong fanbase considering that.
I don't have a very good handle on how publishers and readers treated gay sex back then. I was quite surprised by how much there was in Somtow's early 80s books in what are pretty much mainstream novels, maybe that's part of why Inquestor wasn't the hit I think it should have been.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 6 October 2021 17:53 (two years ago) link
Fun interview, he speaks so fasthttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hplcp-fragments-ep-05-interview-with-nick-mamatas/id1508892873?i=1000501553249
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 8 October 2021 21:28 (two years ago) link
That guy is good.
― He POLLS So Much About These Zings (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 8 October 2021 23:07 (two years ago) link
I just (very) belatedly discovered Ursula Le Guin -- read Wizard of Earthsea and Tombs of Atuan in quick succession — they are so incredible!
My problem with most SF/fantasy is the bad sentence writing, so she’s obviously like the diametric opposite of that — but she’s so good at the “ripping yarn” part too. Especially in the first book, I love that dissonance between the subdued elegance of her prose and the extreme metalness of whatever’s going on in the story.
Also love that feeling when you read a great author for the first time and realise you have a whole new catalogue to explore.
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 9 October 2021 22:07 (two years ago) link
Yeah I rediscovered A Wizard of Earthsea a couple years ago, hadn't really appreciated it at 12.I was pretty stunned. AWoE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
― lukas, Saturday, 9 October 2021 22:19 (two years ago) link
Just to give one example, just before the final confrontation in the book, there's a cozy, funny, relaxed domestic scene. It's such a striking shift of tone, so unexpected, and yet it works.
― lukas, Sunday, 10 October 2021 05:02 (two years ago) link
Yes, I was grateful for that moment, like Le Guin was saying "just in case you were concerned - I can do people and dialogue too". The relationship between Ged and Tenar in the 2nd book is very convincing too
― Chuck_Tatum, Sunday, 10 October 2021 13:52 (two years ago) link
My problem with most SF/fantasy is the bad sentence writing, so she’s obviously like the diametric opposite of that — but she’s so good at the “ripping yarn” part too. Especially in the first book, I love that dissonance between the subdued elegance of her prose and the extreme metalness of whatever’s going on in the story. Struck by how otm this is also re last night's bedtime reading, Joanna Russ's "My Dear Emily": an Emerson-reading collegian, who's made prim-and-proper her eyes-lowered hot-cool style, obediently returns to old San Francisco and encounters the vampiric sole survivor of one the city's really olde families---with his aristocratic, Old Worldly male triumphalizm suitably enhanced, let him show her how---the erotic spiral of exhilaration and damage, incl. acting out, is jolting, esp. with slightly "disjointed" sentence momentum, clear as a cracked bell can be (real clear, turns out).This from a Best of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, copyrights 1961-62-63---must have caused a stir back then---what else should I read by her---?
― dow, Tuesday, 12 October 2021 16:20 (two years ago) link
Should say it really is mostly about Emily; he just starts her up...
― dow, Tuesday, 12 October 2021 16:27 (two years ago) link
read 'the praxis' (millennia-old multi-species galactic empire falls apart when its ruling race dies out) by walter jon williams
military sf is not my thing -- stopped reading the mazalan book of stuff early on because i do not want to have to know who is commanding the 47th brigade of strike force nine or whatever -- but this one was recommended by jo walton, whom i like
anyway, it was pretty good -- akin, perhaps, to 'the expanse' minus the protomolecule? maybe a little too much of ships and missiles trying to maintain delta-v, etc. etc. but the two main characters (one male, one female) are interesting and not cardboard. it has sequels that i might read sometime
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 12 October 2021 16:45 (two years ago) link
The Best Ghost Stories Of Algernon Blackwood
There's only one or two Blackwood stories I've read that aren't on this so I can hardly be an authority, but despite his expertise I think E.F. Bleiler probably left off a lot of highly deserving stories (the ones I've heard mentioned often, such as "The Man Whom The Trees Loved") that tend to get on the other Best Ofs. I can't tell you if there is a better collection of Blackwood, the huge Centipede Press editions are too rare/expensive for most people to consider but I have a feeling there are other better introductions.
I slightly prefer "The Wendigo" to "The Willows" (his two biggest classics), I find the setting and particular creepiness of the former a bit more enchanting but they're both great. "The Glamour Of The Snow" is a little beauty. "The Empty House" is more chilling than the garden variety murder of the story would suggest. "Ancient Sorceries" is spoiled slightly with the too insistent reminders of how shy the main character is and the revealed Satanism is underwhelming. I was struck by "The Transfer" because of how it describes an unwittingly oppressive man having an effect on people that sounds strikingly like how people today describe oppressive systems of power; and I like the line "It seemed a few hours had passed, but really they were seconds, for time is measured by the quality and not the quantity of sensations it contains".
I think in terms of prose, Blackwood is head and shoulders above most of the other classic horror writers, he's so deft with delicate details and nuances of moments in a way that makes a scene come alive in a way M.R. James and Lovecraft couldn't pull off as well. But sometimes like in "Max Hensig", he explains the details in such a longwinded manner that the effectiveness is lost. I hear his novels can be more challenging for this reason. He's not without his prejudices but there's something refreshing about how outgoing and positive he is compared to the writers he is often mentioned beside. I'd only consider a few of these stories essential though.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 13 October 2021 20:25 (two years ago) link
Crime vet tries her hand at folk horror crossover:The Devil at Saxon Wall (1935) by Gladys Mitchell draws on the tradition of the Victorian inheritance mystery, but with added folklore and witchcraft thrown in. Three babies were born in the remote village of Saxon Wall, one to the family of the local manor, another to a woman reputed to be a witch, and another to a woman regarded as a simpleton. Only two of the children survived: but which two?
Hannibal Jones, a writer of sentimental novels, comes to the village to convalesce from nervous trouble and becomes unwillingly involved in its affairs, which include stories of changelings and impersonations and missing heirs. The pub, the Long Thin Man, is named after a local spirit connected with a tumulus on the downs above. There are spells, potions, the evil eye, and propitiation rites to bring much-needed rain.
A full cast of characters, as well as the witch and the supposed simpleton, includes a couple of Ivy Compton-Burnett-esque sister spinsters with brisk, brittle dialogue (we could have done with even more of them), a volatile vicar with a Japanese valet, and of course Mitchell’s reptilian psychiatrist-detective, Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange. These vivid characters and the deft twists in the plot are the novel’s main strengths.
Gladys Mitchell was the author of over sixty crime novels, and they are uneven in quality, as she herself admitted. At her best her books are vigorous, eventful, sly, full of rich colour and eccentric characters. But even Mitchell experts seem divided about this book... ---from Mark V.'s latest post:http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-devil-at-saxon-wall-gladys-mitchell.html
― dow, Thursday, 14 October 2021 17:19 (two years ago) link
interesting looking afro-futurism(?) set in Kindle daily deals today, but all only 20-40 pages long.
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/amazon-black-stars-chimamanda-ngzoi-adichie-excerpt
(would probably fit in nicely with this month's reading but the size makes them expensive)
― koogs, Sunday, 17 October 2021 12:11 (two years ago) link
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7791/Artykul/2789010,British-writer-unveils-his-gnome-in-Poland%e2%80%99s-WroclawGraham Masterton once said his sex guides were so successful in Poland that strangers approached him in the street to thank him. I'm pretty sure the creature coming out the book is Manitou, from his horror series. I wonder who else has a gnome?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 17 October 2021 17:33 (two years ago) link
Bought Andy Weir's 'Project Hail Mary' as it was on offer, this may have been a mistake. (I have not read The Martian.) 500 pages ffs, does no-one write short books any more?
― namaste darkness my old friend (ledge), Monday, 18 October 2021 09:39 (two years ago) link
Just finished that. Quite enjoyed it but it's basically The Martian in new clothes: (very mild spoiler) character all alone has to solve lots of science problems in order to survive
― groovypanda, Monday, 18 October 2021 09:48 (two years ago) link
i also bought that (on saturday when it was cheap). and this is meant to be a return to form after the (slight) artemis. but we shall see.
(martian was similarly long but a very quick read fwiw, i think you'd enjoy it. it reminded me of a.c.clarke in that it was physics-led storytelling)
― koogs, Monday, 18 October 2021 11:48 (two years ago) link
(i think the martian may've suffered from having only been seen as 'popular' (read 'hyped') because the film was good, but the book was good enough in itself)
― koogs, Monday, 18 October 2021 11:53 (two years ago) link
i liked the martian and project hail mary, but the martian was better. that's my review.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 18 October 2021 17:08 (two years ago) link
(the martian was 300 pages, and read in a weekend)
― koogs, Monday, 18 October 2021 17:37 (two years ago) link
yeah i read the martian in like 4 hours. PHM is arguably overlong.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 18 October 2021 17:41 (two years ago) link
500 pages ffs, does no-one write short books any more?
― namaste darkness my old friend (ledge), Monday, October 18, 2021 10:39 AM
I don't think all of these are in paper form, but some of the ones labelled as ebooks are actually available in paper. Some of them have become hits.https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/tor-novellas
Small press novels tend to be shorter though.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 18 October 2021 18:10 (two years ago) link
i would be interested to know what fraction of readers of something like PHM listened to the audiobook. has to be a lot.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 18 October 2021 18:17 (two years ago) link
it's a thing though, isn't it - big selling book followed up by a larger book - editors less likely to tell them to cut it down.
(thinking of harry potter here, and the dark tower books)
― koogs, Monday, 18 October 2021 18:22 (two years ago) link
But isn't it usually the publisher that demands bigger books? Small press (usually with minimal editing) and self-published books are not known for being longer, big publishers want big books and King is just a long book writing guy.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 18 October 2021 18:27 (two years ago) link
ha, maybe. i wonder where the profit / effort maximum is?
― koogs, Monday, 18 October 2021 19:36 (two years ago) link
king literally refuses to be edited iirc? although i don’t know when exactly he became big enough to get his way on that
― mookieproof, Monday, 18 October 2021 19:45 (two years ago) link