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

The cover of the ebook I have is kind of simplistic but definitely an improvment:
https://cdn.kobo.com/book-images/9a8c4336-4865-4a9f-99b2-a87b51c7f2a6/1200/1200/False/norstrilia-4.jpg

Hmm. It's kind of growing on me, just like Stroon is growing all over that sheep.

His daughter's webpage about him still works: http://www.cordwainer-smith.com/

I agree with her that Dad seems at least a plausible basis for Kirk Allen in "The Jet Propelled Couch," which you can read prob in under an hour, so no re-check from the Internet Archive required, unless you then wish to grok The 50-Minute Hour as a white collar early 50s pulpadelic whole:
https://archive.org/details/fiftyminutehourclind

I saw the Playhouse 90 teleplay of "TJPC" on early YouTube, but have never found it since:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jet_Propelled_Couch_(Playhouse_90)

Also: http://www.sondheim.com/shows/the_jet_propelled_couch/

started reading ben aaronovitch's 'rivers of london' series

they're essentially police procedurals but with magic occasionally involved

can't vouch for the whole thing but the first few, featuring in first person detective constable peter grant, the mixed-race only child of jazz legend 'lord' grant, are clever and well-written and fun

if you know london (i do not) they may be extra interesting

(tbf i have *been* to london and am a bit surprised that our protagonists can find parking places as easily as they seem to)

I was never a car owner in london but afaik there's nothing quite as insane as the new york street sweeper parking shuffle that i learned about the other day from 'how to with john wilson'.

Adam Roberts, 'What Did Tessimond Tell You?' - A perfect short story, by FAR the gem in this collection so far. It's sort of a theoretical physics mystery/thriller about a team who's about to win the Nobel prize, but whose members keep dropping out after talking to a particular individual. I don't want to say more but it's worth seeking out, and also has a perfect ending. Will have to check out his other work.

I found this in a cheap ebook collection - solaris rising 1.5 - and yep really good. The P-O-R joke was a bit overdone but a fantastic central idea. I'll read the rest of the stories in the collection after I've got through Ian R. Macleod's Song of Time.

Was that collection Solaris Rising 1.5?

Oh, sorry, you already said that.

Okay, just jumped on the bandwagon and read it in Solaris Rising 1.5, where it originally appeared. It's in an Adam Roberts collection called Saint Rebor as well. Tessimond was also the last name of a poet named Arthur Saint John Tessimond.

Hope I didn't hype up that story too much, but in comparison to the others in the collection I'm reading it was a standout.

I grabbed a few of his novels & short story collections since the ebooks are pretty cheap, they sound interesting, especially 'The Thing Itself' (!).

No, you didn’t overhype. Reminded me of at least one Ted Chiang story tbh. I have The Thing Itself but haven’t read yet.

I've read it twice because I forgot I read it once, as detailed upthread. Would read more by him.

I liked whatever History of SF stuff I've read by him.

I've reached the point in The Song of Time where the incredibly talented violinist is having her first major concert accompanied by her even more talented pianist lover:

As the swirling dance of the third movement commenced, I sensed the whole audience give a startled jump. I wanted to show them. I wanted them to laugh and weep. I wanted them to know. We all did - the whole orchestra. The strings were percussively sharp. I took the melody. I twisted it around, threw it back at them. Then we were together, and I didn't want this to stop. Not ever. The basses growled as I floated by them. Then the threads were gathered as I made staccato interventions and the great musical beast against which I'd been pitting myself, which was by now something more than merely an orchestra or even Claude Vaudin, roared, then collapsed and died, impaled on my last high C.

Do people really enjoy reading stuff like that? It won an award! I might have to give up even though I'm half way through.

Most people seem to have pretty low standards of what they will read, apart from the people on this thread, apart from the people on this borad. There are others too of course, but in general…

a not particularly complimentary review by adam roberts! http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/song-of-time-by-ian-r-macleod/ - it does use the 'd about a' phrase which hoary though it is obviously crossed my mind but i thought 'puking about tiddlywinks' might be more fitting.

Lol, that would make me bail.

Ha, that review is great. Feel like I want to cut and paste the whole part about music in particular.

found this browsing other reviews on the site, shame it's not really my cup of tea:

https://i0.wp.com/strangehorizons.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/516hE3UMQeL._SY346_.jpg

Lol

Yeah I gave up on Song of Time, moved on to Yesterday's Kin by Nancy Kress. That's more like it, under 200 pages (though I've just learned it was later expanded and then had two sequels) with mysterious (but apparently friendly) aliens.

Posted this on Spielberg thread but think it belongs here too: http://www.ianwatson.info/plumbing-stanley-kubrick/

aldiss's "banal crap" = destroying the blue fairy, which he hated, in a nuclear explosion.

xpost great read, thx

They pay banal money for this crap?

Didn't know about the Aldiss/Watson beef. 'Ansible Dave' made me smile.

Ha, me too!

I scored big points once with somebody by pointing out his Mekons connection.

“Really?” retorted Stanley. “Do you trust this Ansible Dave? Sounds like a cowboy’s name.”

Also smiled at his use of "palely loitering."

HI DERE!

I think most British SF writers of that era had a falling out at some point, even in interviews from only months ago they talk about not speaking to each other a long time.

Maybe. Sort of makes sense, but I don’t think they all did to that degree. In this case it seems like some kind of narcissism of small differences.

In other news, I just came across some very interesting Adam Roberts posts on Medium about Our Mutual Friend since it seems he is writing a book on Dickens.#onethread

Thanks for the Kubrick! I def need to read more Watson---omnibus The Books of the Black Current was ooo-OOOOmg

I've just started his Very Slow Time Machine collection. (Finished Yesterday's Kin, a pretty decent page turner, no more, no less.)

I conclude Cordwainer Smith's THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF MANKIND.

You conclude?

And you just drunkboat in here to tell us that without any further explanation?

Simmer down now James! jeez

I wish to report back on this book but have not yet had time.

No worries. I kid, I kid the P’fox.

My man is not a beast!

I just bought a Cordwainer Smith book (Quest of the Three Worlds) for £2 from a charity shop, and it's all this threads fault

thanks to this thread i read 'scanners live in vain' and 'what did tessimond tell you?'

j/k

the former was fine but i think you had to be there at the time? his are among the shoulders people are standing on

the latter was good but i found some of the ways in which he padded it out (which, tbf, was absolutely necessary) kind of annoying

He could be kind of annoying, eager-beaver, even in some of the stories that turned out well, and I was especially put off by the cat story incl. in wildly erratic THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION.

“The Game of Rat and Dragon”? Love that one.

Definitely one of my favorite first sentences ever: “Pinlighting is a hell of a way to earn a living.”

I just like how he dreamed up all these weird malaises associated with space travel and then equally weird solutions to dealing with them: the habermans and the Scanners and the oysters to deal with The Great Pain of Space in the up-and-out in “Scanners,” the telepathic cats in their tiny little armed football-sized spaceships communicating or communing with the pinlighters to fight the Rats/Dragons in “Game.”