Thread of Wonder, the next 5000 posts: science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction 2021 and beyond

News from Wormwoodia blog:
Editor, author and Wormwood stalwart Jim Rockhill will be giving an illustrated Zoom talk on J Sheridan Le Fanu, Irish Master of Mystery on 28 August 2022 at 2000-2130 BST.

It is in association with The Viktor Wynd Museum and the Last Tuesday Society. Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland, will host the event.

The announcement reminds us that M R James was a great enthusiast of Le Fanu:

' In the “Prologue” to Madam Crowl’s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery (1925), his invaluable gathering of Le Fanu’s hitherto uncollected stories, no less a practitioner of the form than M. R. James pronounced: “Le Fanu stands absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories. That is my deliberate verdict, after reading all the supernatural tales I have been able to get hold of. Nobody sets the scene better than he, nobody touches in the effective detail more deftly.” '

Jim is a deep scholar of Le Fanu who has edited collections of his supernatural stories and of essays on the Irish visionary, and (with Brian J Showers) an anthology of stories inspired by him, among many other important editions.

Please follow the link for full details and to book.

(Mark Valentine)
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/j-sheridan-le-fanu-irish-master-of-mystery-a-zoom-talk-by-jim-rockhill-tickets-275053180467?fbclid=IwAR3enCxc5YjOyAg4vk6TIqGRp3QHCQzeI8RpjqXsyRj_Rrw17eMpz-lMHA0

a short stay in hell by steven peck

jesus you were not kidding about the bleakness

haha ikr

This is ridiculous. Literally, I KNOW editors and agents who ask for Whedonesque plots and dialogue. Apparently everybody knows what squeecore is when it's time to sell a book, but not when it's being critiqued.

— Qualia Redux (@QualiaRedux) March 4, 2022

Has anyone encountered this in your SFF reading? I've never got around to any of this stuff, but I've never been interested in Scalzi, Wendig but maybe T. Kingfisher (although she said she dislikes Whedon) someday

So is it sort of a snarky cozy? I've only read Scalzi's Lock In, having an attraction to SF prodecurals---as has been mentioned by some reviewers, this one (with at least one sequel, and a backstory novella) can be seen as an extension of Asimov's robot detective stories, except snarky, also there's some near-future political commentary, in the form of anti-Haden/Threep MAGA-type aholes on DC streets---Wiki tells it right:
plot summary
The world is exposed to a highly contagious virus. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu-like symptoms. For 1%, the virus causes the victims to be fully awake, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. This is known as "Lock In", and resembles the real condition known as locked-in syndrome. The illness comes to be known as "Haden's Syndrome" with its victims called "Hadens". Humanoid robotic personal transport units controlled by a Haden's brain (nicknamed "Threeps" after C-3PO from Star Wars) are developed as the primary way for a Haden to interact with the outside world.

Twenty five years after the initial virus exposure, FBI agents Chris Shane (who is a Haden) and Leslie Vann are assigned to a Haden-related murder, with a suspect who is an "Integrator" – someone who can let a Haden use their bodies. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden, then finding the suspect for the murder is complicated. Further Integrator-Haden related murders occur, making the case larger than expected, and as Shane and Vann dig deeper, they uncover a plot to completely shake up the Haden economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_In

Moves right along, though gets a little too TV series joeky at times, later in the story.
Liked it for light reading, but haven't felt urge to read anything else by him, although O may. Just not into that kind of light these days.

He was really upset about being labelled squeecore. Charlie Stross was compared (also recalling Christopher Priest saying Stross writes like an "internet puppy", this being before the whole sad puppy thing, so it wasn't political) but Stross seems a great deal more ambitious.

Attanasio's twitter posts remind me of Jon Anderson

Oracle Bones 2011-08-20 GMT 0 All bones touch! Fix the omen! Replace the work of time with the labors of consciousness. Act alone. Act now.

— A. A. Attanasio (@AAAttanasio) August 20, 2011

Lol.

Came to (re)post this link to Painwise in Space: The Psychology of Isolation in Cordwainer Smith and James Tiptree, Jr., by Alan C. Elms.

Think the third or fourth time is the charm so I will leave it at that.

http://future-sf.com/blog/a-list-of-ukrainian-born-sf-f-authors-whose-fiction-is-available-in-english/

read THE (viral sensation? i hadn't known) ATLAS SIX

the premise is really hackneyed: earth has magic and magicians, there is a millennia-old secret society, every ten years they invite six bright young things to study with them, after a year five of them will be offered membership

but . . . it's very well done. point of view rotates among the six, the characters are adult and have depth, and there are some interesting outside factors thrown in. would recommend if you're not utterly exhausted by the magician-school trope

Another one from Wormwoodia---remember the paste, way upthread, about imaginary islands?

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgp6SLxH_zrGpI3IxJ04v6Fc_Msbp_ZXPAGxTxYooX4HRnjlXkv55tcAtmYdvoLSOxjmBakIWK7I-uEPMk2WQsOzHs2_jfQDYJl7QC5gQ3A3mohW4s13UfuH0WJK9GDVxq68NERaWFkWq1nHHfoI4SmjdaHOQooe4XJf05p6sYrcZd45kGLe7ziatGr=s1440

Philip and the Dictator: A Romantic Story (1938) by Terence Greenidge is another in the sub-genre of fantasies involving imaginary North Atlantic islands, such as The King of Lamrock by V Y Hewson, The Dark Island by Vita Sackville-West and Hy Brasil by Margaret Elphinstone. Others, such as The Master by T H White and the Princes of Sandastre fantasies of Antony Swithin are set on the real, but greatly elaborated, island of Rockall.

In Greenidge’s novel, a young man, Philip, working in the newsreel industry, cutting and splicing footage, steps out of his Wardour Street workplace for a smoke and is transported through a drain cover to a different plane. He finds himself on a train in St Michael’s Isle, which lies in the mid-Atlantic between Britain and America. It is a former British colony that has achieved independence but retained its own king: the reigning monarch was a schoolfriend of Philip, in England.

Greenidge’s hero (modelled on the author) soon finds himself embroiled in the politics of the island, and a romance with the English-born queen: an influence is clearly Antony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1894), though with a less swashbuckling panache. The Dictator of the title is a General who leads the dominant party on the island and has autocratic tendencies: a poker-faced note at the start of the book assures us he is not based on Franco.

The idea of the mid-Atlantic island is well-realised, with a plausible sense of how such a territory might develop, and the switches from Philip’s London life to this fantasy realm (he goes to and fro several times) are achieved briskly and without tiresome explanation. The novel has a languid charm, not taking itself too seriously, and the satire on contemporary times is also fairly lightly-worn.

In asides, the author takes the opportunity to praise other books he likes, including Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner and A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys.

Lots more about Greenidge and his other books (he was part of Evelyn Waugh’s aesthetical, camp and louche circle of Oxford friends, somewhat in the Brideshead mode., also big on riding trains around England and writing about it):

http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2022/03/greenidge-dream-time.html

I've searched but can't find any discussion on here about the Books of Babel, by Josiah Bancroft. I picked up the first book, Senlin Ascends, as a bargain on Kobo a few years back and it really captured me. I don't think Bancroft has written anything before this series, which is almost indescribable--it's sort of steampunk, but in the most oblique way. If his work reminds me of anyone, it's someone like Carla Speed McNeil. The final book came out not long ago, and honestly it's been a bit of a struggle to read it. Not sure why, other than my usual hesitation about final books, which too often fall flat (see, e.g., Donaldson, Stephen R.; Erikson, Steven).

That said, I think this is a series that scratches a lot of the itches under discussion in this thread.

Oho---which itches---?

It's got the same sort of weirdness that I, at least, find in works like the last one you posted from the Wormwoodiana blog.

50 Best Fantasy Books of All Time (according to Esquire):

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g39385874/best-fantasy-books/

Fantasy is the oldest genre of literature, but its best release ever landed just six years ago.

I'm losing confidence already

Fantasy is the oldest genre of literature, but the best of all time are these recent books that will reliably generate revenue through Amazon links

Kidna funny that they didn't incluce Rowling though

seems like an interesting list had it been titled ‘here are 50 books i liked’; going with ‘best of all time’ is silly

I'm actually reading #19 at the moment and losing the will to live.

If this is "the most exciting and innovative" of the series I think I'm out

lol

It's a pretty idiosyncratic list, given that it's pure affiliate-link-bait

The capsule writeups are some of the worst I've ever read, though ("The author of Never Let Me Go has only written one fantasy novel, but he knocked it out of the park!")

I've never heard of Kalpa Imperial, sounds interesting?

Books of Babel, by Josiah Bancroft.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, March 14, 2022 3:27 AM (fifteen hours ago)

It's a self-publishing success that got picked up by a big publisher.

Misread the last name for a minute and gave a start.

You thought shakey mo was branching out from playing guitar?

Can someone post the unadorned top 50 list so I can lol/sob without bestowing clikz

it's a single page, easy to parse...

50 The City of Brass, by S. A. Chakraborty
49 The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern
48 The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro
47 The Library at Mount Char, by Scott Hawkins
46 Ring Shout, by P. Djèlí Clark
45 The Other City, by Michal Ajvaz
44 The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, by Kai Ashante Wilson
43 The Unfinished World, by Amber Sparks
42 Witchmark, by C.L. Polk
41 Tales of Falling and Flying, by Ben Loory
40 What Should Be Wild, by Julia Fine
39 A Darker Shade of Magic, by V.E. Schwab
38 The Vorrh, by Brian Catling
37 Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay
36 The Black Tides of Heaven, by Neon Yang
35 A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin
34 The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman
33 Queen of the Conquered, by Kacen Callender
32 Kalpa Imperial, by Angélica Gorodischer
31 Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
30 The Blue Fox, by Sjón
29 Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin
28 Get in Trouble, by Kelly Link
27 Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord
26 Foundryside, by Robert Jackson Bennett
25 Moon Witch, Spider King
24 The Drowned Life, by Jeffrey Ford
23 Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
22 The Bird King, by G. Willow Wilson
21 The Changeling, by Victor LaValle
20 The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
19 The Shadow Rising, by Robert Jordan
18 Ozma of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
17 Once and Forever, by Kenji Miyazawa, translated by John Bester
16 The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis
15 The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by Amos Tutuola
14 Latro in the Mist, by Gene Wolfe
13 The Bloody Chamber, by Angela Carter
12 Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler
11 Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi
10 Myst: The Book of Atrus, by Rand Miller, Robyn Miller and David Wingrove
9 Circe, by Madeline Miller
8 A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar
7 Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
6 A Hero Born, by Jin Yong, translated by Anna Holmwood
5 Who Fears Death, by Nnedi Okorafor
4 The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu
3 A Wizard Of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin
2 The Fellowship Of The Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
1 The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

Has anyone read that Myst book? Used to love the games and had no idea there was a novel (or that it would rank so highly in a list like this)

I weirdly got the Myst book as a Christmas gift sometime in the 90s. I don't really remember much about it. I guess I enjoyed it enough to keep myself interested till the end. Definitely not anything I would have ever expected to show up on anybody's best fantasy novels of all time list.

No McKillip, no Leiber, no Vance? No (since Best of All Time) authors incl. in Tales Before Tolkein?
Haven't read most of these, but will vouch for:
28 Get in Trouble, by Kelly Link
23 Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
12 Kindred, by Octavia E. Butler
2 The Fellowship Of The Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Not Earthsea?

Fraid not; I don't read much fantasy. But maybe I'll get to that one, which has been on the eye-level elf shelf for many years.

But yeah seems like you can't go wrong with anything by McKillip, most things by Leiber and Vance, and several anthologies: Tales Before Tolkien, edited by Wormwoodiana contributor Douglas A. Anderson, incl. stories by authors praised by T, others he probably knew about, some he probably didn't, but who fit.
Ditto Hartwell's Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder, 19th and well-into-20th Century stories.
Several cross-genre/subgenre collections, with rich fantasy elements, of new fiction commissioned by George RR Martin & Gardner Dozois: the ones i've read are Down These Strange Streets, Dangerous Women--those are my faves, but also like Rogues, and the retro SF-planetary-romance-canal-desert-sailpunk-etcTales of Old Mars
Ellen Datlow's Naked City: urban fantasy, incl. some of Martin & D's contributors, such as Patricia Briggs and Jim Butcher.

Ditto Hartwell's Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder, 19th and well-into-20th Century stories.

Hey, I just bought a copy of that last week. Really looking forward to digging in.

I'm also in love with Vance right now, though I've still only read the first Dying Earth volume. He is an absolutely amazing imagist.

Anyone ever come across this show? http://fantasybedtimehour.com/

The premise is: "Two girls in bed ill equipped to handle fantasy concepts... discuss Lord Foul's Bane"

I've watched a few episodes, and it's basically a goofy low-budget public access show ostensibly devoted to reading and reenacting Lord Foul's Bane, but where the hosts pretend to have no idea what's going on. Donaldson apparently shows up at some point.

god help me i am honestly kind of intrigued

I was too for a nanosecond but now I think I’ll just let mookie go first.

I'm also in love with Vance right now, though I've still only read the first Dying Earth volume. He is an absolutely amazing imagist. The Compleat Dying Earth is still v. affordable in paperback and Kindle. I've never read a whole book, but always enjoy anthology encounters, and somewhere still have ancient paperback JV collection, Dust of Far Suns, which I never finished, but was always good to take around for quick breaks while waiting in line etc: soothingly sardonic, dusty, vivid.

For those who e-read, the entire Vance corpus is available at his estate’s own website (Spatterlight) all derived from the definitive Vance Integral Edition texts and very reasonably priced per book. Happy to recommend starting points

Well okay, what are some good starting points??

moon moth and other stories iirc

Yup

I’ll write up my top 5 singletons/top 3 series later today
(Taking as given that everyone already knows about dying earth quartet and moon moth antho)

Look forward to seeing yr expert recs, JnJ. My favourite Vance short story is 'The Miracle Workers which I first read in this p much all killer no filler (apart from Poul Anderson) anthol:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?84151

Somebody should make a list of the good Poul Anderson stories because it turns out there are a few of those despite some of his tendencies.

I remember his 'Queen of Air and Darkness' being quite a clever fantasy/SF mash-up, and the early Time Patrol stories are entertaining enough (Kingsley Amis was a big fan of them) but otherwise I'm drawing a blank ...

"The Man Who Came Early" and "Call Me Joe" are good.

Forgot "The Longest Voyage." That's mostly what I got, although I have heard a few other things are good.

He really was insanely prolific, for a long, long period of time, there's bound to be at least a decent anthology's worth of stories out there. And I know Moorcock and others rep for his early straight fantasy novels. But even putting the politics aside, I find most of his stuff to be just so much boilerplate SF sludge - his default prose is one of the closest to Chandler's SF parody.