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

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.

Read my second Robert Charles Wilson, Blind Lake. It was ok, definitely absolutely not at all hard SF despite the talk of bose-einstein condensates. Felt somehow less satisfying that The Chronoliths even though it didn't play the same trick of unasking all the questions set up at the beginning. Read a bit like an airport thriller in parts. Oh well I bought Spin as well so he's get one more go from me.

There was a good interview with him on Geek's Guide To The Galaxy this week