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

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.

Oh, and I read Tau Zero but the physics flew waaay over my head so all I was left with was very cardboard characters rattling through space for 200 pages.

Clute seems to like a lot of his stuff but think he has a high tolerance for stuff that is just okay.

Same thing with Gardner Dozois.

VANCE

Top 5 singletons

Big Planet
The Languages of Pao
Space Opera
Maske: Thaery
The Dragon Masters/The Last Castle (novella 2fer)

Top 3 Series that aren’t The Dying Earth

The Demon Princes (5)
Lyonesse/The Green Pearl/Madouc (3)
Planet of Adventure (4)

Note: I’ve not read the Durdane trilogy… I’m saving it. Of the well known singletons, I’ve never read Emphyrio. And I’ve not read any of his genre mysteries yet, which were impossible to find until the Integral Edition - I have them as ebooks now and I’m sure they’re going to be GREAT given Vance’s particular strengths.

Been wondering if my Gateway Omnibus edition of Big Planet is the restored version.

Some collectory stuff I just bought

Kokain boxed set (a shortlived german magazine)
http://www.siderealpress.co.uk/

This new Brendan Connell book looks lovely
http://www.egaeuspress.com/Heqet.html

i read 'big planet' last night and . . . it was okay. (sorry jon)

not sure if it's because it's a fix-up, or because it's early work, or because it was the first stepping stone for that type of novel, but i thought it was a clear step down from 'moon moth + stories'

i give it props for its lack of wide-eyed idealism and for the fact that the protagonist is (mentioned once as being) dark-skinned, but a lot of it seemed, at this remove, pretty boilerplate

Jon - How about Araminta Station?

The trilogy starting with Araminta Station is great, kind of a grand finale to his imperial era (IIRC, toward the end of this trilogy is when his blindness starts to really affect his ability to produce)

I think the yellow edition of big planet is restored but not as careful editorially as the vie edition - is google to be sure

I get what you are saying mp I just have a hearty appetite for this kind of meat and potatoes Vance idk

Maybe you would dig the related Showboat World more?

This stuff about getting a good edition makes me tear my hair out, always thinking about this and I often check sf-encyclopedia (which doesn't have everything of course). I was checking my Dover edition of Lewis's The Monk to make sure it wasn't the censored version and it suggests it's the full thing but I wanted it clearer; but I think the censored version hasn't had a printing in over a century apart from print-on-demand.

<3 jon