Stan at his best is the best. Stan phoning it in is, as you say, portentous.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 30 April 2022 22:26 (two years ago) link
Which of his do people think are the best ones? He’s written so many.
― Eric B. Mash Up the Resident (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 30 April 2022 22:49 (two years ago) link
I was introduced to him through his Three Californias Trilogy, and that's still my favorite.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 30 April 2022 23:00 (two years ago) link
Thanks. What about The Green Earth Trilogy?
― Eric B. Mash Up the Resident (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 30 April 2022 23:38 (two years ago) link
I haven't read that one, although it appears to be on his preachy side. The Mars Trilogy was solid.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Sunday, 1 May 2022 00:09 (two years ago) link
The Green Earth I mentioned---maybe first volume of a trilogy now? Can't keep up with this guy---is itself a mixdown of the Science in the Capital Trilogy: Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting: supposedly tighter (he said he was inspired by the way Peter Matthiessen turned his Watson Legend Everglades Trilogy into Shadow Country, but seemed too all over the place for me, too spacey and glib and impulsive---not that I didn't enjoy it in those terms, and sympathize with him and his characters pushing against the patience of eco-decline by working hard, also playing hard, which some of them def made time for---which is why I wondered if the original books may have had more grounding, though he seems well aware of his rep for going on and on in very great detail, like the hard science fiction overlords of yore----anyway my favorite was The Wild Shore, as far as I got in the Three Californias, alas
― dow, Sunday, 1 May 2022 04:08 (two years ago) link
Also, I first knew of him as a writer of short stories, believe it or not, in Asimov's. Well, and novellas---if interested, try the 1992 collection Down and Out in The Year 2000 (gotta dig up my copy).
― dow, Sunday, 1 May 2022 04:12 (two years ago) link
The central character of Green Earth started out as a dour, tightassed researcher, but soon seemed like he, man of the present century and not that old, had grown up smoking pages of his parents' or grandparents' Whole Earth Catalogs, which was odd, but pulled oldie me along, and reminds me there's a Stewart Brand bio just out.
― dow, Sunday, 1 May 2022 04:18 (two years ago) link
I really liked Aurora, a sceptical take on the generation ship tale.
― buffalo tomozzarella (ledge), Sunday, 1 May 2022 06:10 (two years ago) link
Back to SF with Isaac Asimov: FOUNDATION & EMPIRE (1952).
― the pinefox, Sunday, 1 May 2022 11:20 (two years ago) link
Pinefox, you mentioned on WAYR? that his Foundation Trilogy has no robots, but they do show up in some much later Foundation books; I won't tell you which ones.
― dow, Sunday, 1 May 2022 18:36 (two years ago) link
read LESSER KNOWN MONSTERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY by kim fu
short stories; riyl kelly link
― mookieproof, Sunday, 1 May 2022 19:46 (two years ago) link
I didn't mean to say that this trilogy had no robots - my main point was that so far, it didn't contain aliens (but no spoilers if they appear later).
So far it rather oddly doesn't seem to contain robots; oddly because he had written key works about robots over the previous decade!
One thing that everyone says about Asimov is "he later wrote loads of books to connect his various sagas up", so yes, I think I knew that somehow he connected robot stories with the Foundation ones, which I believe resumed c.1982. I think I will finish the trilogy but then not read the later ones; it seems more worthwhile to go on with other SF.
― the pinefox, Sunday, 1 May 2022 20:21 (two years ago) link
iirc the later ones are better-written but perhaps unnecessarily muddy the waters
― mookieproof, Sunday, 1 May 2022 20:37 (two years ago) link
Some interesting stuff in here, the Malinda Lo book in particular (didn't catch the title) and the scarcity of old gay bookshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgmJmdXldKU
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 4 May 2022 19:09 (two years ago) link
FY50 challenge: fully incorporate women into the species
― youn, Wednesday, 4 May 2022 19:18 (two years ago) link
One thing that everyone says about Asimov is "he later wrote loads of books to connect his various sagas up”
― Wile E. Is President (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 4 May 2022 19:56 (two years ago) link
rip patricia mckillip
https://www.tor.com/2022/05/11/patricia-a-mckillip-1948-2022
― mookieproof, Thursday, 12 May 2022 13:35 (two years ago) link
That's sad. Once her friend Pat Cadigan said she stays away from the internet noise and I hope that wont leave her increasingly unknown but I guess she was successful enough she didn't have to self-promote much?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 12 May 2022 18:55 (two years ago) link
It's interesting, she seems like an important figure, but hardly any news sites are picking this up.
― jmm, Thursday, 12 May 2022 19:03 (two years ago) link
I looked around twitter and there are plenty of mourners, in spanish and japanese too
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 12 May 2022 20:40 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIjGgC9qBP4
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 16 May 2022 21:21 (two years ago) link
This book has been in the making for a very long time, so I hope there will be a cheaper edition eventuallyhttp://www.centipedepress.com/horror/feestersinthelake.html
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 23 May 2022 17:53 (two years ago) link
I'm reading Beyond the Hallowed Sky by Ken Macleod, good fun but decidedly un-hard SF. They often get mentioned in the same sentence but it does feel very much like Iain Banks - bit of politics, bit of espionage, bit of handwavy implausible technology, maybe a bit less sarcasm. It's set in the 2070s after global political upheavals and the invention of AI but you don't get the sense that either of those things has particularly changed the world, the first is just background and the second just part of the plot - a plot which is often very conveniently advanced, e.g. the AI can predict things except when it doesn't, manual overrides are implausibly but helpfully available just at the right moment. Still it's pretty much fulfilling my periodic need for some sensawunda and thrill-power.
Before that, Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North, fantasy tinged post apoc spy thriller which plays out as a battle and a conversation between eco hippies and disaster capitalists, i read it quickly enough but didn't fully buy into it for some reason, maybe it was lacking in shades of grey, maybe the main bad dude wasn't convincing, a james bond villain masquerading as an éminence grise.
― buffalo tomozzarella (ledge), Friday, 27 May 2022 08:40 (two years ago) link
Looked through local library SF shelves, took out Asimov's THE CAVES OF STEEL. Looking forward to making time for this.
― the pinefox, Saturday, 28 May 2022 12:52 (two years ago) link
read BRAKING DAY by adam oyebanji
entertaining take on a colony ship as it, after ~130 years, approaches its destination . . . and not everyone is happy about it
respect to the author for living in pittsburgh; thorough disrespect for having characters order 'pittsburgh lite' beers
hardly groundbreaking but a nice lil sf mystery type thing
― mookieproof, Monday, 30 May 2022 04:27 (two years ago) link
Beyond the Hallowed Sky is part 1 of a series, ends on a cliffhanger, part 2 hasn't been written yet :(
― buffalo tomozzarella (ledge), Monday, 30 May 2022 07:31 (two years ago) link
he does churn them out though (and it sort of shows tbh)
― buffalo tomozzarella (ledge), Monday, 30 May 2022 07:32 (two years ago) link
inspired by the pinefox i also read THE WAY THE FUTURE WAS. it was great, but i wanted more dirty details, like exactly how much of an asshole harlan ellison was, or was heinlein truly a fascist. pohl's pretty complimentary of everyone except l ron hubbard -- which is just as well, i suppose, because he spent another 40 years running into them everywhere
also curious if pohl had any issues in the '50s as a former card-carrying member of the communist party; if so, he didn't mention it
also struck by how incestuous his group of writers was -- everyone seemed to be constantly marrying each others' exes. pohl himself got married four times between 1940 and 1953; wives 1 and 3 were also SF writers
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 31 May 2022 18:29 (two years ago) link
Because no one else wanted to hang out with them back then, maybe, unless it was at Horace Gold’s poker game.
― Once Were Chemical Brothers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 18:32 (two years ago) link
a valid point. pohl did apparently hang out with john cage tho!
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 31 May 2022 18:36 (two years ago) link
Yes, at that poker game! Although I now see something that Cage sometimes babysat for the Pohls - on some poker nights! Whether it was Horace's game is not specified.
― Once Were Chemical Brothers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 18:42 (two years ago) link
https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2021/11/carol-frederik-pohl-science-fiction.html
― Once Were Chemical Brothers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 18:44 (two years ago) link
Guessing Martin Gardner didn't want to do it and turned them down.
― Once Were Chemical Brothers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 18:48 (two years ago) link
I just managed to dredge up one more memory from the SF convention at the LaGuardia hotel where Frederik Pohl signed my copy of The Space Merchants which I may post here even though it is but a sliver of a fragment, discovered in the lining around the mummy's corpse.
― Once Were Chemical Brothers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 19:05 (two years ago) link
But if I do tell you I'm afraid the portal will close up on me and I might never be able to gather in the hall of the planets again.
― Once Were Chemical Brothers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 21:07 (two years ago) link
Please post it.
I'm loving this discussion. Thought I was the only person who had THE WAY THE FUTURE WAS !
It's true, you would think a former actual Communist would be suspect in the US 1950s.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 1 June 2022 10:18 (two years ago) link
I wonder if anyone is gathering his blog entries for publication, because that's wayback machine work but they were popular and he was writing them up until death I think. They basically continued the book.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 1 June 2022 19:33 (two years ago) link
I found it in the wayback machine. I went to Nov 27, 2015. So two years after he died but they were still keeping it up.
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 12:10 (two years ago) link
Just remembered Damon Knight’s The Futurians is available as an ebook, for further reading. Pohl and Asimov are on the cover, among others.
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 12:17 (two years ago) link
Didn’t know/remember that Damon Knight had been married to Lester del Rey’s ex!
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 12:27 (two years ago) link
Before Kate Wilhelm of course.
Del Rey’s second wife, not the first one who died in a car crash and not the fourth, Judy-Lynn.
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 12:30 (two years ago) link
A whole book called THE FUTURIANS ??
Meanwhile, this last post relates to something confusing in Pohl's book: he writes of del Rey marrying his, Pohl's, secretary?, later says that del Rey's wife died in a car crash, but these can't be the same person.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 2 June 2022 12:33 (two years ago) link
Yes, you might as well read The Futurians also while you’re hot. Del Rey was married four times. Assuming the secretary may have been the third wife.
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 13:02 (two years ago) link
Apparently Del Rey's first wife who died in the Ballardian crash was Evelyn Harrison, who had previously been married to- wait for it- Harry Harrison.
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 14:12 (two years ago) link
Seems like there might be more info in Sam Moskowitz's Seekers of Tomorrow.
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 14:13 (two years ago) link
Guess it's del Rey, not Del Rey.
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 14:14 (two years ago) link
Picked up Chana Porter's The Seep today, never heard of the author somehow but lots of praise plastering it from some big names
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Thursday, 2 June 2022 14:32 (two years ago) link
We go back, way way back...
― Magical Misery Tour Spiel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 2 June 2022 14:33 (two years ago) link