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

Also: recently learned that one puppygater went on a killing spree, murdering people who he fantasized about murdering in a novel he written

One of those adjacent-category Hugo nominees---was hoping for an anthology, but might be good essays etc.:

Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985...contains over twenty chapters written by contemporary authors and critics, and hundreds of full-color cover images, including thirteen thematically organised cover selections. New perspectives on key novels and authors, such as Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, John Wyndham, Samuel Delany, J.G. Ballard, John Brunner, Judith Merril, Barry Malzberg, Joanna Russ, and many others are presented alongside excavations of topics, works, and writers who have been largely forgotten or undeservedly ignored.

Also: recently learned that one puppygater went on a killing spree, murdering people who he fantasized about murdering in a novel he written

what? really?

He was an extremely minor writer and I hadn't heard of him and there's a chance the others who were boosting him didn't even read his books, there used to be lots of them giving each other rave reviews who were ideologically opposed in many ways, but some of them really do despise each other. Doris is very good at covering right wing nutjobs in the scene

Since another "superversive" is doing the viral rounds, here's a reminder that the ranks of superversive-approved authors include an actual spree killer. pic.twitter.com/iRHbi2lNO5

— Doris V. Sutherland (@DorVSutherland) August 5, 2022

I just started Remnant Population (one chapter in), and the prose is kind of bad, or at the very least, awkward. Does its quality get better?

no imo

More from Mark V:

When I began exchanging zines, tapes, and mail art with an array of correspondents, one of those I chanced upon was Mark Pawson. A friend had said to me that my envelopes were a bit boring (whatever might be said for the inside contents): his were always festooned with weird stickers and stamps. Fortunately, Mark P had the answer. He produced trapezoidal envelopes... But that wasn’t all Mark Pawson produced: there were all kinds of strange, swirling paper objects, and he was amazingly prolific. You never quite knew what would fall out of the envelope.

The same Mark Pawson (it can only be he) at Disinfotainment is still offering a bewildering and bizarre array of publications and products. You can get, for example, Monsterama, a scrapbook of imagery from vintage SF and horror films and comics, now in its third issue. Recently announced are reprints of futuristic, apocalyptic graphic novels by cyberpunk artist Tetsunori Tawaraya.

For UK punters, I keep meaning to say that Fopp in Glasgow - and I'm guessing Fopps elsewhere - have some of those British Library SF anthologies in their 2 for 7 pounds deal. Three pounds fifty is about the right price for them - the ones I've sampled are a slightly creaky mix of much-anthologised classics eg ('A Martian Odyssey' by Stanley Weinbaum) and even older obscurities, handily out of copyright. Editor Mike Ashley (not the etc etc) is an old hand at these kind of things, and plainly knows his stuff, and the design is very nice.

https://shop.bl.uk/collections/science-fiction

I'm hoping that some of the British Library's supernatural series also turns up in Fopp.

read NONA THE NINTH by tamsyn muir, the third entry in her now-four-book locked tomb series

it was fine and i will absolutely read the fourth/final entry when it comes out next year (presumably)

but also i thought the first one (GIDEON THE NINTH) was fantastic, and these two sequels have not really measured up. (if you're gonna write a series, please try not to introduce an omnipotent character at the end of the first volume, because any subsequent conflict is totally contrived)

nevertheless i enjoy her writing -- she's also pretty funny -- and look forward to future things in which she hasn't painted herself into a corner

i put gideon the ninth down in the third chapter - i gotta pick it back up! i really liked it, not sure why i didn't keep on with it.

spent half my birthday reading SPIN by robert charles wilson

i've only read this and THE CHRONOLITHS from him, which . . . iirc isn't *wildly* different? also he seems to have written at least two novels in which some alien object lands in the northern central united states and is quarantined by the government before it inevitably gets out of control

that said, SPIN's main Thing is super interesting and the government intervention isn't nearly as annoying/nihilistic as it was in late 70s pohl

Today’s Caption This: pic.twitter.com/oJi58Xg11c

— Seán Ono Lennon (@seanonolennon) September 25, 2022

RIP Coolio, just 59. Many years ago, I spent a week with him for a magazine cover story (Details, March 1996). He grew up an asthmatic kid in Compton; as an adult, he was funny and sly and complicated. I hope he's riding dragons somewhere.

The opening of the article: pic.twitter.com/WfoqlkMpsz

— Gavin Edwards (@mrgavinedwards) September 29, 2022

I'm reading Purgatory Mount by Adam Roberts, who I've never heard of despite his having a 20 year award winning career. His prose is effervescent, seems like one of those writers who really loves language which seems rare in this genre(*), or at least in the books I pick.

(*) sturgeons' law applies obv.

I'm reading Purgatory Mount by Adam Roberts, who I've never heard of despite his having a 20 year award winning career. His prose is effervescent, seems like one of those writers who really loves language which seems rare in this genre(*), or at least in the books I pick.

(*) sturgeons' law applies obv.

That Coolio story is amazing.

B. Catling has passed away. I wondered how there could be 2 documentaries about him but he was in Alan Moore and Iain Sinclair's circle.

Really impressed that my friend now has a Zagava collection, he's made a bunch of graphic novels and his prose debut was at Tartarus so he's doing pretty great
https://zagava.de/shop/the-lights-and-other-stories?edition=19

I think you would like The Thing Itself.

that actually rings a bell, though not sure what kind of bell - maybe i added it to one my many 'to read' lists then forgot about it - but yes I think you might be right.

That one is in James Redd's Infinite Library of ebooks purchased but barely started and never finished.

The original cyberpunk anthology is online for free. I wish it was a pdf
https://www.rudyrucker.com/mirrorshades/

it'll be easy enough to convert to an epub and from there to anything i think. ilxmail me.

"Note that I do not grant you the right to convert, to republish or to sell the free ebooks or the contents of the free webpages."

so, er, don't ilxmail me.

although "html to pdf" turns up a heap of sites that'll do this for you

there also java, javascript, python and c# libraries that claim to do it if you have the coding chops.

I have the bottom left copy, can recall a few of the stories - gernsback, petra, m in m, all 4/5, though if they count as cyberpunk it's in form not content.

There should be a science fiction genre for environmental, economic, and social planning that focuses specifically on the planning aspects.

Seems like KRS's Mars trilogy involves a lot of planning? Judging by comments on previous Rolling Speculative threads.

That’s what jumped right to my mind as well

no idea if this would fit but I came across it the other day and thought it looked interesting: https://www.commonnotions.org/everything-for-everyone

Just watched one of those docs about Brian Catling. Had no idea he'd been a fine artist (especially performance arts) for most of his life. Shirley Collins was in it too. And Ray Winstone. Didn't realize BBC were still doing things like Arena.

read THE PARADOX MEN (novella 1949, fix-up 1953) by charles l. harness

pretty decent imo; deserves a slot alongside (or above?) alfred bester

also frank herbert totally stole the personal-shield-that-only-the-slow-blade-penetrates from ^^^

The Irish literary magazine Poetry Bus edited by Collette O’Donoghue and Peadar O'Donoghue bears on its masthead a Mark E Smith quotation: “If you’re going to play it out of tune, then play it out of tune properly.”

The latest issue, Poetry Bus 10, includes my 16-line poem 'With The Great God Pan in Whitby'. This was inspired by one of the memorable occasions of the original Arthur Machen Society, a weekend in the North Yorkshire harbour town when Mark E Smith, singer and songwriter with The Fall, joined us, with his girlfriend. We met at The Angel, where Machen had stayed, and explored other places associated with his visit.

MES was a keen Machen fan and wanted to hear about the Welsh writer’s stay there during the First World War, as a reporter investigating rumours of suspicious activity on the cliffs. There was nothing in the reports, but instead Machen filed pieces for his paper, the Evening News, on ‘Wonderful Whitby in the Moonlight’, and on the town’s famous trade in jet jewellery. The stay also inspired his atmospheric story ‘The Happy Children’.

The poem recalls some of the, er, interesting incidents of this Whitby encounter with MES.

This well-designed paperback offers 55pp of contemporary poetry from a diverse international line-up.

(Mark Valentine)

excellent! v vaguely seem to remember this being partly covered or mentioned in The Fall fanzine The Biggest Library Yet, tho it’s a loooong time ago now.

maybe not

I think you would like The Thing Itself.

― toby, Friday, 30 September 2022 13:08 (four weeks ago) link


that actually rings a bell, though not sure what kind of bell - maybe i added it to one my many 'to read' lists then forgot about it - but yes I think you might be right.

― ledge, Saturday, 1 October 2022 17:04 (four weeks ago) link

Jesus christ I've only bloody read it.

Downloaded the ebook last night, only 3.99 luckily. The cover looked familiar. The first page wasn't but when it got to the bit about the answer to the fermi paradox being in kant, the penny dropped. oh well, I've started so I'll finish.

Turns out Lucile Hadzihalilovic's last film was an adaptation of Catling's Earwig. Been watching more interviews and it's sad seeing him talk about limited time because it seems like he had piles of books in him. There was supposed to be a 4th Vorrh book.

read john varley's 'gaea' trilogy, which was weird

not sure why i read it; i'd never heard of him before, and tom clancy blurbing him as the best writer in america wasn't a draw

first half of the first book was pretty hard sci-fi -- oh shit there is an enormous ringworld orbiting saturn, and . . . maybe it's sentient? the rest of the trilogy was more or less fantasy -- literal centaurs and shit -- which i don't personally have any problem with, but seemed like an odd transition

dude was literally at woodstock so of course all the characters are fucking each other because free love and no one ever gets jealous. props for a certain open-mindedness but even heinlein (to whom varley is apparently often compared?) had men fucking each other, which is conspicuously absent here

props for all the important characters being strong kickass women (this was written ~1980). points off for them being the only characters who question their straightness (or, even worse, strict lesbianism)

first one was decent and for some reason i kept reading and the third book was a textbook example of a series entirely disappearing up its own ass. all i can say in my defense is that he at least puts words together in a reasonable order

Varley has some good moments but yeah it’s as you say. Heinlein has always been a good comparison, both for the kind of prurience you mention as well as for a certain kind of fast-moving facility with words that is initially exciting but can ultimately be kind of glib and annoying. In recent years I read the short story “Air Raid” and thought it was grebt.

I've read one Varley, as mentioned way upthread---it's in Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha's The 1981 Annual World's Best SF:

...John Varley, "Beatnik Bayou": that's where the kids go to hang out, in this little shack they've built, to play like beatniks or whatever--but one day their reverie is interrupted by a crazy lady, who is totally stressed out about her toddler's life being ruined by being passed over for a chance at the right schooling---and she zeros in on Trigger, a 7-year-old girl, the gang's leader/group's teacher, who until recently was a thirtysomething man, currently going back to roots and trying to rekindle romance with narrator, who is 13 and was a girl (boy before that). Trigger, under duress, admits to having a Peter Pan problem, but that's not why in trouble.
It's because of way group dealt with this lady, who brings charges, and each member is interviewed and judged by a very empathetic entity, one-on-one and simultaneously, though penalties for assault cases, which this is, can go all the way to death.
So this sublunar, post-Earth, All-Ages Sex Change On Demand, Capital Punishment Nanny State seems like it might be based on the Singapore of that era, which was getting publicity for surveillance cameras (one major thing lacking here!) resulting in penalties for not flushing urinals, jaywalking---SilverBob, taking over as Asimov's Mag resident gas giant opinionator after Isaac left our system, approved the widely publicized caning of an American teen, visiting along with his family, for graffiti.
The whole thing seems almost a little flat, under glass, but that's how they live, and I would still like to read some more of Varley's stories about this society, whenever I happen to come across them.
The narrator's mom, however, lives a very different kind of life, apparently: she's a working single parent, who got her kid into a good program, and supports a series of aspiring artists, live-in lovers, who leave, either becoming successful enough to go on to the next rung lady, or resenting her stability as a comment/insidious influence on their rebellious artistry's lack of success (what can rebellious artistry consist of, in such a society?) Would like to know more about this kind of thing.

Have only read a couple of Varley short stories - agree that 'Air Raid' is really good, some of the same energy as Tiptree and proto-Cyberpunk in terms of flash. Other one was 'The Persistence of Vision', about a blind/deaf community, complete with v 70s and v dubious older/younger sexual encounter (cos love is blind you grok?) So comparisons to creepy Bob H not wide of the mark in that regard either. It won both the Hugo and Nebula for Best Novella, so he was a big deal for a while there. I thought he was a real Hard SF guy - perhaps because of that Clancy endorsement - but maybe not?

I know what you mean about the Clancy but no he's not quite the modern version of Hard SF, more like a throwback to the guy we keep mentioning. I remember when "The Persistence of Vision" won all that stuff and being a little creped out by it, your description is otm. Disch had something negative to say about it, don't know if I can locate it.

It was in one of his print books. I'll never find it, don't think I even own it anymore.

Also want to say that I believe he came up with name "Beatnik Bayou" based on Hippie Hollow in Austin.

Ah okay, this goes way into his significance and the books that seemed disappointing as well--grab a coffee and be braced for a spoiler or two: https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/varley_john "Beatnik Bayou" is from his Eight Worlds series, about humans banished from Earth for bad behavior (wiki sez the Invaders hand it over to rightful caretakers, whales and dolphins). But for some reason they're allowed to spread through the Solar System, maybe because they're resolved to/compulsive about changing, becoming or maybe just trying to become something like posthuman, or betterhuman. The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), in this series or thematic sequence, is mentioned as his first and maybe best novel; Irontown Blues (2018, his latest), is a return to the Eight Worlds, but there's also the Titan series and other stuff, incl a YA sequence this century.
Also in the Eight Worlds universe, here's an example of his Hard SF side:

Steel Beach (1992)...demonstrates through its very considerable length a virtuoso control of the Hard SF toolkit, presented through many of the kind of compulsive narrative hooks employed by Robert A Heinlein in his ruthless prime; but the story itself...lacks dramatic urgency, despite many cleverly conceived (but sidebar) episodes full of action. The title itself, however, deserves to have become established as a tag for the evolutionary impasse humanity may soon face: like a lungfish struggling to breathe on a Pacific beach, Varley suggests, humanity could soon find itself struggling for breath on the steel beach that is all the home that remains, after the final death of Nature. The difficulty with his presentation of the steel beach that may be our destiny lies, perhaps, in his underlying hopefulness that engineering solutions may pry us out of hell.

I seem to remember that in a lot of his stuff both sex changes and revivification after corporeal death using cloning and scanned memories were about as easy as dyeing one’s hair. This was okay when these technologies sort of helped drive the mystery of the stories but sometimes just seemed sort like, um, some other writer I can’t quite recall the name of right now who wrote about going back in time and siring himself, maybe being his own mother as well, that’s his grandmother over there etc.

I always thought the premise of the Eight Worlds was kind of cool, although I still haven’t read my copy of The Ophiuchi Hotline. Nor I have I read the novel-length version of “Air Raid,” Millennium, although I did read the table of contents and notice that all the chapter titles are also the titles of various sf classics. It was made into a movie called Millennium as well which I haven’t seen and is terrible according to Varley, despite the William Goldman screenplay.

Yeah I'd like to read those.
xpost it seems to be more about the compulsiveness ov change taking over/pulling at and through from idealism, guilt, fear--is what I got from "B.B." and sfencyclopedia's takes---but yes, physically, techonologically, it seems all too easy, which makes it more compulsive, of course (deliberate effect on author's part, also it seems that he wants to believe: see sfencyc's ending comment on Steel Beach above)

https://web.archive.org/web/20160509113332/http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/20020218/both_and.shtml

thanks---also you're reminding me of our discussion upthread, with some references to https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/transgender_sf"> https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/transgender_sf and another one I can't paste now because wtf chrome but search for original post of the one I did manage to paste earlier in this sentence and you'll see what I mean: an article about a film re trans life, based on a Heinlein story.

Some good stuff in here, clearing up misconceptions but most of it wont be news to us oldsters, some interesting trivia I don't know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tntj13Qgkf4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISG3DpAcrW4