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

And thank you for that informative review---one of the resluts of Googling Mr. Grazier's work: https://schlock-value.com/2017/10/08/runts-of-61-cygni-c/

cover https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/918VNeQ7hlL._SL1500_.jpg

Don't think I've read any Jo Clayton, is this review of diadem from the stars accurate?

The story is about a superhuman Mary Sue that travels around and everyone she meets wants to kill her or rape her, but she's got superpowers, so that she can pull off a deus ex machina each and every time and move on to the next encounter. Ah, and she also likes to bathe, and for whatever reason the author decided we needed to know every time that she was going to have a bath (but don't hope in any kind of titillatory material), even though it is of no consequence to the plot and adds no depth to the character. Luckily we don't get to know every time she pees.

I haven't got far enough in Diadem, I started reading it months ago and had to put it aside until I finished other things. I was enjoying it so far. There's some ebooks but it's a shame that none of her stuff was ever reprinted, she had a decent sized audience I think.

I can't recall the author or title but there was a 70s novel about britain being ruled by soccer hooligans, I'd probably never read it but just the idea is funny.

https://file770.com/last-dangerous-visions-table-of-contents/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dangerous_Visions

This is such a huge disappointment. I'll likely get the book and I don't envy the task JMS had in seeing this through but a mere 13 of the original stories are in this new anthology and that still leaves about half of the stories in limbo, including around six writers who seem to have nothing published (admittedly these were probably the hardest writers to track down, maybe he tried) but he said he rejected some stories for being dated, which is just a terrible reason. Biggest surprise is the Bester story still absent. I would have liked to seen the Piserchia story (and everything else really).

About time I read the first two dangerous visions I guess.

Sheckley? And Cory Doctorow? Hmm

he said he rejected some stories for being dated, which is just a terrible reason.

the christoper priest piece on LAST is great.

The Book on the Edge of Forever?

Where did you read it?

https://web.archive.org/web/20000902203835/http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf-texts/Ansible/Last_Deadloss_Visions,Chris_Priest

Called THE LAST DEADLOSS VISIONS there but (c) 1994 and the wikipedia page for tldv implies it's the same as The Book on the Edge of Forever.

I think the second version was expanded.

I wouldn't expect all these stories from the 70s to be masterpieces and so what if they're dated? If you're putting out something like this it feels like missing the appeal of why people want to read it.

I’ve never been able to get through P J Farmer’s Joyce pastiche in DV, or Richard Lupoff’s similar in ADV. OTOH, the Delany in the first collection and the Russ in the second are top five SF short stories for me - and there many others nearly as good. Whatever his failings as an editor and human being, you do get the sense that Ellison could inspire people to do their best work for him, and that compared to many other SF outlets, his was a more diverse and encouraging sale.

I haven't read these since, well not quite since they came out, but the late seventies, I think.

But a few of them have stayed with me all this time and some I read elsewhere later. Table of contents of the first one still looks really good today. Feel like I forced myself to finish that PJF story, but was a bigger fan of some of his other stuff.

I think of "dated" as being like confined, stamped, done, but agree that *somewhat* dated/pleasantly/pungently musty can have its own antique charm, even allure---like I recently finally read this aaancient pb of Ballard's Chronopolis I've had for maybe 20 years, from a thrift store, and the lesser stories, liberated from cold print, would make awesome basis for 60s-early 70s anthology TV (there are also several classics/killers).

“Dated” SF can often have a hauntological effect, if I may.