I'm not into realistic dystopias- my main use for sf these days is to escape the one we're already in. "deep wheel orcadia" won the Arthur c Clarke prize, is a "romance set on a space station" sez wikipedia, written in verse. don't know how much I'd be into that either.
― organ doner (ledge), Monday, 29 January 2024 19:32 (eight months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q294mDqqgB0
I have about 29 Tanith Lee books (including omnibuses), only 65 more to get!
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 29 January 2024 20:37 (eight months ago) link
Had no idear so many! The stories I've read seemed v. fresh, no factory.
I'm going!― Daniel_Rf, Monday, January 29, 2024 4:14 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglinkYay!My ticket works out at £28 a day which isn't too bad for event entertainment these days.― Ward Fowler, Monday
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, January 29, 2024 4:14 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
Yay!
My ticket works out at £28 a day which isn't too bad for event entertainment these days.
― Ward Fowler, Monday
― dow, Tuesday, 30 January 2024 20:28 (eight months ago) link
finished Beautiful Shining People or "Beautiful Shining People, the extraordinary, EPIC speculative masterpiece" as Goodreads insists on calling it. Tokyo 2050. boy meets girl, girl has no vagina...
he has obviously read William Gibson but it's more everyday and as such is more painful when he gets the hacking language wrong - Gibson would just invent a word or be vague about it
made a good companion to Klara though
― koogs, Wednesday, 31 January 2024 18:49 (eight months ago) link
I'm reading The Chronliths by Robert Charles Wilson. Seems very much like a deliberate attempt to write a modern day John Wyndham novel, which I am totally here for even if the ratio of "narrator's hard luck life story" to actual sf content is a little high for my liking.
― organ doner (ledge), Thursday, 1 February 2024 11:43 (eight months ago) link
^ this was pretty good, the ending was a bit disappointing - very strong accept the mystery vibes - and the narrator was just not that interesting a guy to spend so much time with. But some fun ideas and generally a good stab at a wydhamesque 'catastrophes and how people deal with them'. I'll read more by him for sure.
― organ doner (ledge), Friday, 2 February 2024 11:55 (eight months ago) link
I had a mixed feeling about The Chronoliths (mostly influenced from reading it in one gulp while I was on a train in China) that felt almost colonialist? I wanted the main characters to lose.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 2 February 2024 12:10 (eight months ago) link
^ is cheap in amazon monthly deal (uk) i notice (or maybe was last month)
― koogs, Friday, 2 February 2024 12:52 (eight months ago) link
(ok, it's this month and it's cheap, but not cheap-cheap)
― koogs, Friday, 2 February 2024 12:59 (eight months ago) link
xp lol OK copperhead.I got it for £2 on kobo.
― organ doner (ledge), Friday, 2 February 2024 13:02 (eight months ago) link
they've been going through the iain m banks novels, one a month, discounting them to £3, which is cheap enough for me to pick up e-copies despite already having all the p-copies. Surface Detail this month by the looks.
― koogs, Friday, 2 February 2024 13:17 (eight months ago) link
It seems like there's been a huge change in perception of old SFF artwork, everyone used to say it was godawful and now so many people say the 60s-90s was a great period. Is it partly because the covers of general/literary fiction look like candy megapacks? They're so stupid and ugly looking now, what happened? This can't all be blamed on youtube and tiktok visibility.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 2 February 2024 22:03 (eight months ago) link
This table of contents is pretty strikinghttps://file770.com/big-book-of-cyberpunk-toc-released🕸/
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 2 February 2024 22:30 (eight months ago) link
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 2 February 2024 22:31 (eight months ago) link
Christopher Priest RIPhttps://www.ninaallan.co.uk/?p=6855
― fourth world problems (Matt #2), Saturday, 3 February 2024 01:03 (eight months ago) link
rip indeed
― mookieproof, Saturday, 3 February 2024 01:58 (eight months ago) link
Wha…? RIP :(
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2024 02:45 (eight months ago) link
I thought he would live to be at least six hundred and fifty miles.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2024 02:54 (eight months ago) link
Sad to hear about Priest, didn't expect this one.
James - what do you mean about that table of contents?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 3 February 2024 16:49 (eight months ago) link
I mean has anyone gotten that book and dipped into it yet?
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2024 16:53 (eight months ago) link
I just saw it at my local library but didn’t borrow it…yet.
Still there on the NEW shelf, a few books down from Curepedia.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2024 17:59 (eight months ago) link
Christopher Priest RIPhttps://www.ninaallan.co.uk/?p=6855🕸
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2024 19:11 (eight months ago) link
Heh, they haven’t, but Paul Kincaid has, and they both liked Kincaid’s book about him so maybe I should take a look at that
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2024 23:34 (eight months ago) link
Also saw tributes from Pat Cadigan, a Ballard fan club and, wait for it, a Harlan Ellison fan club! Clute and Langford, like Richard Hell, said it’s too early.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 3 February 2024 23:35 (eight months ago) link
Never read anything apart from Inverted World but it blew my mind of course. Would love some testimonials on his other stuff
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 3 February 2024 23:39 (eight months ago) link
Lost track at some point but The Affirmation, The Glamour, The Extremes and The Separation are all really good.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 00:00 (eight months ago) link
Also The Adjacent, The Space Machine and The Quiet Woman.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 00:06 (eight months ago) link
And the stories in The Dream Archipelago.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 00:07 (eight months ago) link
That was a Golden Age of SF for me, when I read all of those books one after the other.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 00:21 (eight months ago) link
Still wanna read The Prestige, The Islanders, A Dream of Wessex and maybe The Gradual.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 00:27 (eight months ago) link
Hadn’t known he was first married to Lisa Tuttle for six years.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 00:31 (eight months ago) link
The relatively recent collection Episodes looks good, featuring the classic Palely Loitering which is also in this fine collection https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/a/a7/NNFNTSMMR271979.jpg
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 00:36 (eight months ago) link
This one he edited is good too:https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/7/74/NTCPTNSFVJ1978.jpg
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 00:37 (eight months ago) link
i recommended 'inverted word' to someone literally one hour before his death was announced, so maybe it's my fault
― mookieproof, Sunday, 4 February 2024 01:21 (eight months ago) link
.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 01:52 (eight months ago) link
At least he outlived his bête noire Martin Amis by a wee bit.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 03:45 (eight months ago) link
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 4 February 2024 17:12 (eight months ago) link
don't actually know paul kincaid, but this is lovely re: christopher priest
https://ttdlabyrinth.wordpress.com/2024/02/03/chris
― mookieproof, Monday, 5 February 2024 05:41 (eight months ago) link
Yeah, meant to link. Does that have the Cavern club story?
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 February 2024 10:48 (eight months ago) link
Have Adam Roberts and M. John Harrison weighed in yet?
Christopher Priest has died.https://t.co/OaH6Iwse4m— Adam Roberts (@arrroberts) February 3, 2024
― Number None, Monday, 5 February 2024 12:11 (eight months ago) link
forgot the quote marks there, but anyway, a nice thread from Roberts
― Number None, Monday, 5 February 2024 12:12 (eight months ago) link
Ah I don’t use Twitter. I was hoping for a Medium post.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 February 2024 13:20 (eight months ago) link
Okay, just created an account to see that, which somehow seems fitting.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 February 2024 13:31 (eight months ago) link
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 February 2024 13:32 (eight months ago) link
Priest lived on the island of Bute in recent years, and not long ago donated lots of books to this local charity bookshop:
https://friendsofwemyssbaystation.co.uk/bookshop-test/
On my last visit, I picked up a hardcover edition of Movie Magic: The Story of Special Effects in the Cinema (1974) by John Brosnan and found this inscription inside:
https://i.imgur.com/vJbxa08.jpg
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 5 February 2024 13:39 (eight months ago) link
Nice!
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 February 2024 13:48 (eight months ago) link
Somebody on social media (on that Cavern Club thread I think) posted a picture of a book he had bought of Priest’s with an inscription from Richard Cowper to him.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 February 2024 13:50 (eight months ago) link
Thread is here
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 February 2024 13:53 (eight months ago) link
not much to it outside what I already told you though, but the inscription is cool.
― Al Green Explores Your Mind Gardens (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 5 February 2024 13:54 (eight months ago) link