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

reading julian may's pliocene exile series for the first time in ~30 years

it is fantastic imo

I don't know that - how fantasy adjacent is it?

not very, i would say

I finished THE BEST OF C.M. KORNBLUTH. Here are comments on more of the stories.

'The Marching Morons' (1951) depicts a future in which stupidity has spread and a minority of intelligent people are keeping society running, deceiving the 'morons' as they go. If you think that sounds elitist and even possibly eugenicist - you could have a point. It is at least an ingenious inversion how Kornbluth shows the 'smart' people to be having to work hard to service the illusions of the 'morons' - rather than the reverse, the intelligent being a leisured elite. The actual story involves a character from the 20th century being reawoken in this moronic future, who gains the position of 'world dictator' by developing a means of killing off the 'morons' by deception. A kind of genocide, I suppose. This story becomes dark! But at the end this power-crazed new dictator is himself killed for his immoral scheme.

I'm not sure how serious Kornbluth was about the eugenic ideas. Rather, I think the story belongs to a mid-C20 fear of 'media-induced stupidity', also detectable, as I recall, in Vonnegut's story 'Harrison Bergeron' - or, indeed, in FAHRENHEIT-451.

'The Last Man at the Bar' (1957) is a chilling tale in which a drunk in a bar is pursued by sinister beings from another epoch. 'The Mindworm' (1950) is almost equally chilling, depicting a modern kind of vampire who can read people's minds and drain the life from them. It ends surprisingly and cheeringly as a town of immigrants from Eastern Europe to the US (I think) use their old vampire-killing lore on this monster. These stories show that Kornbluth could be a 'horror' writer, in a way, as much as his more usual metier of SF. Looking back through the pages of the stories, I'm also impressed by the density of the writing. He'll include mathematical equations, fragments of thought, distortions of language. He seems to have been unusually adventurous with words, especially for a 1950s magazine writer.

'With These Hands' (1951) is about a sculptor in a future era where art is devalued. The reason is uncannily close to our own time of emergent AI: human beings can generate art by just entering some co-ordinates in a computer; they don't need the time-intensive artistry and craft of human artists.

'Shark Ship' (1953) is a long, ambitious story about a future in which people have left the land for the ocean. They exist on crowded ships, in fishing fleets with demanding regimes. We get to know some of the captains and officers. When one ship loses the sail it needs to continue, the crew decide to undertake an expedition back to dry land. They find a New York which is recognisable to us though puzzling to them - PLANET OF THE APES Statue of Liberty stuff! It turns out that the US has been taken over by a cult of death which has replaced the desire for sex - in response, I think, to overpopulation. Once again, as with 'The Marching Morons', Kornbluth is dabbling in speculation about speculative demographics, though he is not at all sympathetic to the anti-population death cult. The story ends with the 'sea people' (from the ship)_planning to build a bridge from their ship to the land, to start to begin civilisation on land again.

'Friend to Man' (1951) is another distinctive, again very dark story in which a lone straggler on another planet is remembering his awful acts and mistreatment of a woman, and is killed by a parasitical alien. 'The Altar at Midnight' (1952) follows a scientist on a drunken, despairing binge as he encounters people who have suffered physically through space travel; it at last turns out that he invented the means of space travel, thus is responsible for their ailments. The story is short but yet again contains packs power.

'Dominoes' (1953) is a time travel story in which a businessman travels to the future to find out when the stock market will crash, goes back to the present to sell his stock, and finds that this is what causes the crash. So it's about the consequences of altering events, the involvement of the time-travelling individual in the process he observes, that kind of idea (if not paradox).

The final work 'Two Dooms' (1958) is a long story about what would happen if the Japanese and Nazis won WWII. That sounds familiar. But this is from 1958, before Dick's famous version. It's much more compact, yet has things in common with Dick - who I feel must have read it (others may know the facts here). The story is extraordinary. An atomic scientist during WWII takes a Native American mystical drug that sends him far into the future so that he can see the consequences of the USA *not* developing the atom bomb. The Allies lose the war (the facts of the alternative war are explained in ingenious detail), the Japanese take the West coast, Nazis the rest, but none of them have nuclear power; in fact their science remains backward. But the protagonist realises that the Nazis remain genocidal and murderous. So he engineers a way back to the present so that he can ... carry on and develop the atom bomb so that the US can win the war.

That's dark, again. 'Two Dooms': Nazi victory or a world of nuclear weapons. And the hero chooses the second.

Looking over these stories again, I must admit that in the couple of weeks since I finished them, I've already lost touch with much of the detail - which is a sign of how complex and original they are. Kornbluth seems to be a pretty remarkable writer: dense, driven, going into dangerous territory, while also more linguistically detailed and ambitious than many SF writers of his time. Like most people he's less crazy than Dick, more controlled; he has some of the black humour of Sheckley but is less relaxed and droll, more scary. I'm not sure how much Kornbluth is read today but this compact book is an example of the extraordinary amount of thought, speculation, creativity that went into SF short stories in the period.

Otm

some of those are in the public domain and available here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/34039

Martin Macinnes, In Ascension. I've loved all of his books, but I think this one might be the best; it's a little less oblique (although I see some reviews complain that it's still too oblique) but I don't think it suffers from this. Nothing revolutionary in the subject matter but has a mood of its own that I guess reminds me a bit of Vandermeer's Annihilation (more for its effect on me than the actual content).

― toby, Thursday, 23 February 2023 11:18 (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

this was fantastic. mature, intelligent, wonderfully written.

Glad you liked it!

Michaiah Johnson - The Space Between Worlds

recommended by a couple of folks here and I liked it a lot. the multiverse aspect was actually interesting here, and despite the risk that one might find the multiverse premise a bit played-out these days i thought it delivered some fresh takes. the premise of someone (Cara, the lead character) who works moving between these realities as a way to gather relevant information pertaining to patterns, population growth, ecology, etc which will help her own world function better is an interesting one, though the narrative is primarily focused on the personal with the lead character. one of its subtexts is a certain vicious toxic masculinity, which comes into play across all parallel worlds, though to the shock of Cara she discovers an abuser in one world is a strong, kind person in another. And vice-versa, in certain ways. It's a really interesting one, and she's a good writer.

Yeah, and Cara is a bold one/kind of a basket case at times, got her own consistent parallels, across the multiverses.
With wi-fi down, I finally resorted to my first reading of an ebook, downloaded long ago onto the Kindle app: sometimes thought of adjusting the brightness of this old PC, but the stark high contrast (and whatever wrought iron font it flaunts) so suited/wouldn't let me touch that dial around the florescent moonlight of Karen Russell's novella about a pandemic of insomnia, Sleep Donor(please give now).

dang---Sleep Donation, that is---gotta get it right for Karen Russell, one of the best. Likewise w fluorescent moonlight. The novella's now available as a Vintage trade pb, which might glow in the dark also.

My local library can borrow books from a Big City Library that has thee following Patricia A. McKillip trove---what should I ask for, where should I start? (Have only read Winter Rose and some equally awes anthologized stories). Behold:

Kingfisher
Od Magic
Harrowing The Dragon
Ombria in Shadow
Solstice in Shadow
Alphabet of Thorn
The Bards of Bone Plain
The Sorceress and the Cygnet
Harpist in the Wind
The Bell at Sealey Head
Riddle of Stars
Moon-Flash
The Tower at Stony Wood
The Cygnet and the Firebird
Fool's Run
The Book of Atrix Wolfe
The Riddle-Master of Hed
The Changeling Sea
In the Forests of Serre

riddle-master of hed and harpist in the wind are books one and three of a (great) series

(book two is called heir of sea and fire)

Riddle of Stars is an omnibus edition of that trilogy

I've just read that, and some of the stories in Harrowing the Dragon. She is fantastic.

Thanks yall! I belatedly thought to search on ilx, found a lot of comments. The trilogy was often mentioned favorably, although some readers thought it was over-extended (in the middle, I think, before strong finish), being from the Time of Trilogies, when writers could seem pressured into them. Great to know it's all in the omnibus, which the Big City Library has. I read Harrowing's title story in anthology, really great, so may start with that collection. Or---

Yeah I think Riddlemaster is possibly a victim of the late 70s trend of publishers getting writers to emulate Tolkien but hers was more distinctive and original than most but its far too long. I wish I had started with another book. I think Ombria In Shadow might be a better bet, some people who've read lots by her seem to rate her 90s-00s stuff highest?

bite your tongue/i will fite you

it is not far too long or even long at all. the entire trilogy is listed at 578 pages, which is less than half of lotr and less than 200 pages per book

The scenes on the dusty road go on forever and some of the journeying seems to go nowhere. I've read 10 page stories that are waaaaaaay too long, so 578 can certainly be too long. On that podcast I posted somewhere above I think E. Lily Yu also said she thought Riddlemaster was a bad starting place. But I'll say again that the magic battles in the third book knocked my socks off and there's other good stuff in there. Ombria In Shadow, Changeling Sea and Forgotten Beasts Of Eld will be my next McKillips.

i respect your knowledge of it but every single one of the landrulers are interesting in different ways. if you were so inclined, you could write a trilogy about mathom of an. and the dusty road is necessary for the harper

Terra SF: The Year's Best European SF - edited by Richard D. Nolane

There was only two of these, the editor clarifies that it's really just western europe. Joe F. Randolph translates all but one of the stories (Sam J. Lundwall translating his own) and it results in most being readable but a few are very very awkwardly done. They must have realized this because the next book has a few more translators. Nolane is a bit ashamed about only having one woman in the anthology but he says that America is far ahead of western europe in this regard, which really surprised me but I've just been realizing that the UK, despite it's very strong SFF scene, seems to have only started getting any real quantity of women writers in the 90s, didn't expect America to be ahead of the curve in this way. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Have to admit this was a disappointment and I warn you that tracking this down will not be worth it for most readers. Most of the stories are slightly absurdist near future dystopias, I thought the two about revolutionaries were quite engaging but won't really stand out in their subgenre. Lundwall's "Take Me Down The River" about people flying on kites and strange contraptions suicidally off the edge of a planet was pretty good and I wonder if this inspired David Gullen's Third Instar at all? Lino Aldani's "Red Rhombuses" is very eccentric in style and content but I feel like this is one of the translators greatest failures because I just couldn't grasp it much.
My favorite was Erwin Neutzsky-Wulff's "Aruna" because it has sort of dreamy science-fantasy imagery and was quite enigmatic. Neutzky-Wulff writes all kinds of things (including philosophy and computer programming) and I wouldn't mind reading more of his fiction. Sounds like an interesting guy.

I'll get around to the next book eventually.

Recently finished Patricia Briggs' Dragon Bones, which is the kind of bedtime reading I was looking for: not boring, not so exciting that I couldn't stop reading at a reasonable time, or even find that I had plain passed out, no need to consciously stop. Although the cadence remained the same, no matter the build-up to or unexpected outbursts of violence. Well, I wanted something less cranked-up than my usual, and got it. Down-tempo and immersive detail led the way from a run-down keep, Hurog ("Dragon), which was especially hard-hit by the soft, poison decay of residual magic after the general departure of dwarvenfolk from the Five Kingdoms---but, after the sudden death of the main narrator's asshole father, ruler ov Hurog, the dump has enough residual prestige (also dragon bones, for the few who know) that some others kinda want it, and the main narrator and comrades. excluded from good treatment, set out on a little campaign to save another area of little practical but (in this case) potentially significant political significance, which will somehow make main narrator Wardwick (Ward), rightful ruler of Hurog, hurrah.
Thee whole thing is absurd in some ways that ring true to nonfiction tales of fantasies and power struggles, while travelling rugged inner and outer highways of character development and group dynamics, resulting in how it all goes down---plus. just enough good questions arise at the end that I'll keep an eye out for the sequel, though not gonna go questing.

more like

little practical but (in this case) potentially significant political value

Douglas A. Anderson (Tales before Tolkien) posts on Wormwoodiana:

"The Shining Pyramid" Centenary

The Shining Pyramid, by Arthur Machen, edited from Machen’s previously uncollected journalism by Vincent Starrett and published in May 1923 in Chicago by Covici-McGee, is a landmark book, both for good and bad reasons. Of the good reasons, it was important in the development of Machen’s popularity in America. Of the bad reasons, it precipitated the end of the friendship between the author and the editor. And as a title, it is easily confused with Machen’s own selection titled The Shining Pyramid and published by Martin Secker of London in 1925, which has very different contents, as is discussed below.
...But what of the contents of the book itself? The Shining Pyramid consists of some twenty-two tales and essays, several of which date from late 1880s and early 1890s, and a few come from the late 1910s. Thirteen essays come from 1907-08, when Machen wrote regularly for The Academy, then edited by Lord Alfred Douglas. One essay (“The Capital Levy”) was even unpublished—it was printed from a manuscript that Machen gave to Starrett. Wallace Smith contributed an interior illustration.

The short stories and fiction are probably the most significant items. These include “The Shining Pyramid” (1895), “Out of the Earth” (1915), “The Lost Club” (1890), “The Wonderful Woman” (1890), and three pieces (1907-08) —“In Convertendo,” “The Hidden Mysery” and “The Martyr” — all being salvaged from the original ending of The Secret Glory (published in 1922 but written in 1907) and not used in the published book (Machen described such pieces as “wreckage”).

Starrett’s second volume, The Glorious Mystery, contains twenty-eight pieces...Only two items are fiction: “The Iron Maid,” an 1890 version of what became a section in some editions of The Three Imposters (1895), notably omitted from the 1923 U.S. edition; and “The Rose Garden,” a stray 1908 publication collected in Ornaments in Jade (1924), Four essays come from periodicals from 1910-1920, but the bulk of the essays, some twenty in total, come from The Academy, 1907-08, as described above.

After Starrett’s second compilation was published, Machen made a one-volume selection published by Martin Secker in London under the title The Shining Pyramid, confusing things bibliographically. It was published in an edition limited to 250 signed copies in December 1924, and in a trade edition in February 1925. (A U.S. edition, made from sheets printed in Great Britain, published in April 1925 by Alfred A. Knopf of New York further confuses bibliographical matters.) Machen’s selection amounts to only eight items from Starrett’s two books. The fiction includes “The Shining Pyramid”; “Out of the Earth”; “The Happy Children”; and two of the three pieces aborted from the original ending of The Secret Glory (“In Convertendo” and “The Martyr” but not “The Hidden Mystery”). “The Secret of the Sangraal” is expanded from the version in The Glorious Mystery (itself reprinted from The Academy, 1907). “The Mystic Speech” is a retitling of “A Secret Language” in The Glorious Mystery. The final item (“Educated and the Uneducated”) came from The Shining Pyramid...

Cool titles---good stories?

I think I've read three of them and they're good but I'm not as big a Machen head as so many people I know

read THE FERRYMAN by justin cronin

overblown in places, and owes a great deal to christopher priest, but pretty decent imo. the plot doesn't bear too much close inspection but it's intriguing and paced like a thriller -- i pretty much read it in one sitting

Cool, will check library for that.
Fixing to check in one that I just finished: The Fair Folk, 2005 Science Fiction Book Club anthology of new stories by big names, edited by Marvin Kaye. The Folk are presented as just comprehensible enough in human character terms for a glimpse, a lingering taste: sympathetic enough at some points, along with the capacity for danger, for assholery, omg and wtf, partially teachable moments sliding by.
Tanith Lee's strong opener evokes sleekness maybe under a kind of curse, left/created as beautiful and hollow, hard to fill: human narrator stars as a modern Cinderella, finally blurting "THREE WISHES!" Not specifying, so local Lord of the Enchanted Wood takes the opp to declare that she she must grant him three wishes, since he and his kind have done the other way around for so long---thus the title, "UOUS." (Not "IOU."). His first two wishes are just for show, the sorts of things that the powerful, human and his kind, are supposed to care about, or have to show their power, but the third is what he does want, Narrator;s voice is brittle, but lots comes through the cracks.
"Grace Notes," by Megan Lindholm (AKA Robin Hobbs), is the most low-key immersive, as a seldom-glimpsed brownie changes the everyday life of a young working man (he's messy and monotonous; she's into Martha Stewart). Also there's a human young woman who figures out what's going on, tries to help him deal with it. She's got a degree in folklore, he's got a more practical tech one, but they're both working grub jobs vs. student loans, along with the brownie's own striving.
Kim Newman's "The Gypsies In The Wood" is good but marbled with cuet Britishy Late Victorian/Edwardian nudge-nudge, albeit with a more modern(more audibly humming along) network of manipulations, in which human and other characters bravely do their best and worst. All these stories are long; this one seems long-ass, but I got used to skimming the involved wallpaper.
Patricia A. McKillip's "The Kelpie" has some of the same knick-knacks, unexpectedly, and getting past them wasn't really worth it, especially considering how high she's set the bar in other stories (although I haven't read that many, mainly some others in anthologies and her novel Winter Rose)
Craig Shaw Gardner's "An Embarrassment of Elves" is also kinda Britishy, an extended joek ov expertise, relaxed and well-timed.
Killer finale is Jane Yolden and Midori Snyder's "Except The Queen," presented as correspondence, mainly between two Folk sisters, exiled to humanity for pranking the bitch Queen---maybe the authors kicked letters back and forth without warning, topping each other, with some seamless edits later; it's very cohesively complex after all (leaving me with just a few questions, which seems right). Novella deserving a stand-alone edition (prob is or will be an e-book, I suspect).

https://www.blackgate.com/2023/05/21/in-memory-of-a-legendary-collector-denny-lien-september-26-1945-april-15-2023/

Utterly vast collection, seems like a lot of it will be binned

this month's and next month's reading will be catching up on the 10 250-ish-page sff things clogging up my kobo.

so far, Rendezvous With Rama (reread), very easy reading, took 3 days without even pushing it.

now reading Robot by Adam Wisniewski-Snerg, which is much more of a chore. reminds me of the underground bits of Tiger Tiger so far.

recently:

THE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE by Jaime Green: short, breezy popular science about whether extraterrestrial life exists and what it might be like . . . but the author is a total sci-fi nerd and leans on it a lot for metaphors

WITCH KING by Martha Wells: full-length non-murderbot fantasy novel with a terrible title. solid, as usual. the (must i say it?) 'world-building' was extensive enough to support sequels

INK BLOOD SISTER SCRIBE by Emma Törzs: i know there are thousands of 'global conspiracy involving magical books' novels published each month (off the top of my head, MR. PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE was lightweight fine, THE CARTOGRAPHERS by Peng Shepherd sucked ass, FOULCAULT'S PENDULUM is cool, was Dan Brown like this? haven't read it). anyway this one was pretty decent and at least well-written

TITANIUM NOIR by Nick Harkaway: i like this dude although i could have done without the steampunkish influences in some of his earlier books. this one is, well, noir + very specific and interesting SF effects. he does it very well. kinda hated the ending but pretty sure i was supposed to

THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SEA by Ray Nayler: this one i'm not sure i *liked* so much as i was massively impressed by it. dude's first novel, kind of a techno-thriller in the background (or is it?) but mostly about language and communication and what it means to be sentient. this one i would perhaps recommend to user caek (and be mortally embarrassed if he hates it)

Mark Valetine posts:

One of the more unusual volumes in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy paperback series in the 1960s and 70s was Orlando Furioso Volume 1, sub-titled The Ring of Angelica. This was published fifty years ago: the US edition was in January 1973, and the UK Pan Ballantine edition in September 1973. It was translated by Richard Hodgens, and introduced by the series’ Editorial Consultant, Lin Carter. The dramatic cover art was by David Johnston.
It was the start of a version of Ariosto’s Italian Renaissance epic revolving around the court of Charlemagne and his knights. This work was roughly the equivalent of Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur or the Medieval Welsh tales in The Mabinogion, and like them plays brazenly with history, topography, time and magic.

The Ariosto poem, itself a continuation of another hand’s earlier work, is a massive work of heroic fantasy, complete with kings, barons, questing knights, vigorous heroines, witches, wizards, monsters, strange landscapes, feuds, intrigues, and tumultuous plotting. Carter, no doubt with an eye to the market, described it as ‘in the great tradition of imaginary world fantasy, a direct ancestor of The Well at the World’s End, The Worm Ouroboros and The Lord of the Rings.’ The problem for a modern audience, however, is its form: it is a very, very long, closely-rhymed poem.
...The great virtue of Hodgens’ prose version is that it is clear, brisk and succinct. It makes no attempt to emulate the style of the original or its poetic form, but instead focuses on the narrative. His interest is in the romantic, chivalric and mythic content and to some extent in the worldly, sophisticated tone. He also avoids the sham-archaic approach used in some historical fiction (‘godwottery’ or ‘gadzookery’, as it is sometimes called), in favour of a more direct, lucid prose. The reader can therefore appreciate the story Ariosto told, even if the full literary intricacies of the work are not conveyed...

Mark *Valentine*

now onto Octavia Butler's 'Kindred' which is 1% science fiction and 99% life on a plantation.

Time travel continues, more than 1% in effect on characters.

I am starting Kindred as well! Just finished Babel 17 by Delaney which was absolutely wonderful and touching and thought provoking.

i and halfway through kindred and did realise this morning that the next logical step is rufus being dragged into the present, or 1976 anyway. i look forward to being proved right.

(am enjoying it well enough, just wasn't what i expected, especially compared to the dick-alike I've just finished)

TITANIUM NOIR by Nick Harkaway: i like this dude although i could have done without the steampunkish influences in some of his earlier books. this one is, well, noir + very specific and interesting SF effects. he does it very well. kinda hated the ending but pretty sure i was supposed to

I liked this, can't resist a tight sci-fi noir.

Patti perret - The Faces Of Science Fiction

From 1984, this book has 82 photos of American science fiction authors plus a statement from each. Some writers talk about their genre, writing in general or even life in general. A few do this in the form of a poem. As you might imagine, a lot of the statements are quite defensive.

It's from a point in time when A. E. Van Vogt, C. L. Moore, Alfred Bester and James Tiptree were still around to participate. Heinlein and Ellison aren't here but most of the writers you would expect are featured.
Oddly this book gave me some of the strongest nostalgia for pre-internet life and it must be seeing all the writers homes and imagining how peaceful it might have been.

Tiptree writes something really interesting about peoples uneasiness around being unable to confirm someone's gender. Alan Dean Foster looks very wealthy. The reflection of Thomas Disch is seen on his toaster. S. P. Somtow says something very strange about eastern and western ways of thinking. Larry Niven thinks it's a sin to waste a reader's time and I agree. Ian Wallace has a painting of himself as a muscular hero. Karl Edward Wagner has pictures of Diana Rigg on his wall.

This is a hugely charming book, most of the statements are very thoughtful and it got me curious about the few writers I didn't know. I also have the 1996 sequel The Faces Of Fantasy which has American, British and Irish writers, many returning faces and even more surprises. I strongly recommend both books.

Can’t stop thinking that says Peter Perrett.

Another Girl, Another Planetary Romance

read THE FERRYMAN by justin cronin

overblown in places, and owes a great deal to christopher priest, but pretty decent imo. the plot doesn't bear too much close inspection but it's intriguing and paced like a thriller -- i pretty much read it in one sitting

I didn't love this book, but any particular Christopher Priest?

‘the affirmation’ imo

Yes to that

Haven’t read any of the last several, but pretty much everything through THE ADJACENT was very high quality.

reading the dispossessed for the second time, first time was 20 odd years ago. i don't remember anything about it - what happens, what could happen, what kind of book it is.

Apologies, of course I meant the dispossed https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/134991320-the-dispossed

(i'm getting a lot of 404s from individual book pages on goodreads lately. like that one)

A highlight from Faces Of Science Fiction I forgotten to mention is David Gerrold saying he loves killing people he knows in his stories and that he has lost count of the number of times he has killed his dog. The photo has Gerrold sitting in the house while his dog watches him from outside.

Thanks for the Christopher Priest recommendations - I've only read Inverted World and The Evidence, will get on to The Affirmation soon.

INVERTED WORLD is some kind of ILB classic at this point, unless the worm recently turned. THE EVIDENCE is one of the recent ones I have been ignoring thus far.