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

can anyone speak to lois mcmaster bujold? she's won awards, i've seen her praised, but

a) apparently no one agrees on where to start
b) really just the worst cover art imaginable

The only one of hers I've read is Memory, a turning point for apparently heretofore somewhat crazy-brilliant Miles Vorkosigan, Imperial son and rep in space, but also mercenary leader: the central protagonist in what could be called the Vorkosigan Saga, after Miles and his family. It's space opera with unusual range, incl. some depth of characterization at times. Here he's mostly back on his home world, mostly immersed in family and gov politics, intrigue, also some romance and obligatory socializing---all of which can be read on the sly side, but omg outburst of violence-crisis too, and clear enough depictions of previous activities, and I'd like to go back (and fwd) to space adventures, but this one's pretty satisfying, even though I guess mid-series.

Also maybe SFE could help you, though it's got a spoiler re Memory:
https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/bujold_lois_mcmaster

Paul Di Filippo recommends Cordelia's Honor (an omnibus) as the best starting place. Thankfully there is a series of omnibuses but they don't cover the entire saga

She gives her own take on the order here:

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/22803928-bujold-reading-order-guide-2022-update

I quite enjoyed the Vorkosigan Saga. A fun mix of politics and space opera romp

Shards of Honor and Barrayar. The first two books in the series proper, they detail the adventures of Cordelia Naismith of Beta Colony and Aral Vorkosigan of Barrayar. Shards was my very first novel ever; Barrayar was actually my eighth, but continues the tale the next day after the end of Shards. For readers who want to be sure of beginning at the beginning, or who are very spoiler-sensitive, start with these two.

Both of these are in Cordelia's Honor. I normally go for publication order, but when a series is this long and not a strict sequence, I'll make an exception.

huh

https://www.tor.com/2023/12/14/apple-tv-to-adapt-martha-wells-murderbot-alexander-skarsgard-set-to-star

feels like there are an incredible number of novels (particularly recently) about generation ships nearing their destinations and being sabotaged?

thank god we have becky chambers to make everyone rational and humane

Lol

i just read “Liane The Wayfarer” by Jack Vance and am completely blown away. next level

read 'exadelic' by jon evans

more of a techno-thriller, i suppose, than sci-fi exactly -- although robert heinlein makes a cameo appearance

hella fast-paced, covers a fantastic amount of ground, pretty decent imo

honestly the worst thing about it is that the author photo is deeply in the uncanny valley

modern SF 'about the author' entries are . . . well, cringe

female SF author is six feet tall and lives in los angeles

male SF author lives in the midwest with his family and a tarantula named rosie

c'mon ppl

Two new Broodcomb Press titles at the end of Jan.

https://broodcomb.co.uk/?page_id=84

Having read all the ones still in print, I am not sure there’s anything comparable in the folk horror / English unease canon. They’re an extraordinary achievement.

From What Did You Read in 2023?

Patrick Nielsen Hayden ((ed.): Starlight 2
(science fiction x fantasy:prestige express, but often gives out of steam
—exceptions: Susanna Clarke, *“Mrs. Mabb,” Jonathan Letham, *”Access Fantasy,” Martha Soukoup,*”The House of Expectations”)

'Piranesi' is excellent (haven't read/heard/seen Jonathan Strange).

I really liked Piranesi, it was a model of concise weirdness.

I'm reading a book of short stories ('Under My Skin') by KJ Parker, who wrote my other favorite story in that Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy 2012 collection besides Adam Roberts.

They're very fun & engaging so far, although they tend to feature male protagonists that are overly snarky and ultra-capable. But I do like his tendency to write about warring academics.

Thanks for those tips!
Also, this venerable, classy collection concludes with Ted Chiang's " Story of Your Life," which has always made me wonder: if you knew or thought you knew everything that was going to happen and how, including your daughter's death and your own, would you be this calm about it, as the narrator seems to be? Maybe part of the aliens' gift, but mainly well-mannered, along with the always tastefully attentive detail (not quite my thing. when it seems the main thing).

I'm reading a book of short stories ('Under My Skin') by KJ Parker, who wrote my other favorite story in that Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy 2012 collection besides Adam Roberts.

They're very fun & engaging so far, although they tend to feature male protagonists that are overly snarky and ultra-capable. But I do like his tendency to write about warring academics.

Also, the last story in that book has the same title as a Momus tune.

lol no, that story was real fucked up if it's the one I'm thinking of

Actually haven’t read the one in that book but I did read the one you are most likely thinking of.

Or maybe you are thinking of the one in the book. Will read and report back/pvmic

Mantis Wives

I could swear I've read/listened to at least one of Kij Johnson's stories in Clarkesworld. "The Privilege of a Happy Ending," maybe?

Think that must have been the one I was thinking of, “Spar.” A Nebula Award winner.

Kij Johnson kind of updates Tiptree via Ballard, or something.

https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/audio_10_09/

Actually there are more audio stories over there where that came from.

No, I know what it was: "The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe." IIRC, the Coode Street guys had that on one of their year-end lists.

Okay, thanks for clarifying.

Jordan, it took me awhile to see that you had reviewed that book in two posts. At first I thought you just overlooked some stuff you didn’t like.

http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/2023-in-review-part-one/
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/2023-in-review-part-two/
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/2023-in-review-part-three/

They're very fun & engaging so far, although they tend to feature male protagonists that are overly snarky and ultra-capable seems to definitely be k.j. parker's thing

he's really into how things work -- it's like, this is how we tried to build a trebuchet, and why it didn't work at first, and how we found the materials and how we raised the money to buy them rather than just 'we catapulted some shit at the enemy' or 'we used magic'

no doubt many readers won't care for that sort of thing -- in my mind i call it 'playing with encumbrance' -- but it's not at all as dry as it sounds (partially due to the snarkiness)

reading the last of the Silo (nee Wool) trilogy and it gives zero fucks to you having read the previous one 2 years or about 80 other books ago. i can't even remember the major plot points it references.

now onto third of the children of time trilogy. this one does do a two page recap so that's good. also send to be 200 pages shorter than my memory of the first two - another point in its favour

I read that recently, interested to see what someone else thought of it
halfway thru Infinity Gate. decent enough modern scifi if kinda unremarkable so far

first 50 pages of Children of Memory feels a lot like Dust detached, limited communities (silo / sleeper ship survivors), overly curious child with a book

Charles Platt - An Accidental Life volume 1

This series is slim and magazine sized, probably for the sake of the large number of photographs. I haven't read any of Platt's fiction yet but I needed more of what I enjoyed so much in his Dream Makers books.

Platt doesn't seem to have liked England in the 40s and 50s very much, even in his privileged upbringing he makes it sound like a terrible time to live in, until there was something that blown his mind, like Little Richard, Elvis, John W. Campbell's Astounding magazine and Sergeant Bilko (I'm 4 decades younger than Platt and I never imagined this television show could have so profound an effect on someone). He praises scientific advancements and writes little infodumps for the kind of technology owned by ordinary people.
He describes his teenaged self as a sociopath, he was stealing books and bicycles and by the time he gets in contact with Christopher Priest, Michael Moorcock, the British science fiction community and begins his involvement with New Worlds, it seems like that saved him from further petty crime (I'll see if that's true in the next volumes). It's incredible that he managed to capture his youth in so much detail and he goes deep into what was maybe wrong with him and everyone else.

This is a lot of fun and I've started the next one.

Children Of Time, 40% through

just past the attempted lynching

it's sci-fi as fairy story almost. and gethli / gothi are obviously modelled on hugin and munin, so a bit of norse myth in there too. is fun.

Time / Memory, whatever

Reading Hyperion and hope the infodumping ends at some point

Never read Terry Bisson. Fire on the Mountain looks good.

https://jasperbernes.substack.com/p/terry-bissons-fire-on-the-mountain

Charles Platt - An Accidental Life volume 2

This volume focuses on Platt initially designing New Worlds but then gradually taking more and more control of all aspects of the magazine. He goes into all the technical detail about typesetting and what the succession of different printers did. Also about his earliest novels, going to America, meeting various science fiction writers and writing what would have been one of the last Essex House novels.
It's very gritty and he shows that New Worlds was never a true success by their criteria and he has quite a bleak assessment of what the new wave really achieved. There's a few alarming scuffles (especially Moorcock chasing his close friend Barrington Bayley with a smashed bottle) and enough unpleasantness that I wonder what it was about his work at a fetish magazine was too embarrassing to write down. This is a great series.

Reading Hyperion and hope the infodumping ends at some point

It's worth reading the whole series. He stuck the landing about as well as anyone, ever.

Hyperion was one where the writing style and characters annoyed me but the actual story and world was interesting enough to make whole thing worth reading and overall still enjoyable

finished Children of Memory

would've liked it more if it was more linear rather than jumping backwards and forwards like it did, even though that's difficult given the multiple iterations of a simulation thing that was actually happening

ravens were the best bit. and Paul in his planetary state.

i wonder if Paul was named after Paul the psychic octopus?

yeh I loved the ravens and the way they act/think. the plot felt Star Trekkish to me, away team adventures
finished Infinity Gate. ok but I'm going to forget it all in six months

Totally. I really ended up enjoying Children of Memory, scared to try any of his books outside the trilogy because they sound kinda lame.

i didn't like the other one i read, ironclads. the architect series sounds ok but i don't want to commit to another 1500 page trilogy.

have since read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow which is about games developers but not really sf. yesterday i started Klara and the Sun which might be more on topic.