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Post by thwhtguardian on Aug 25, 2015 15:51:40 GMT -5
I read two good books over my short vacation, Andy Weir's The Martian which was a fun black comedy and Lee Carr's The Night Manager which while a fantastic thriller ended up being a little too sentimental for me. I really LOVED The Martian. I'm hopeful the film with be Ridley Scott back to form. Me too, easily the best book I've read all year. I hope Scott brings his A game as well, I only vaguely remembered the trailer when I started the book and to my mind it seemed more serious in tone than the novel but when I watched it just now there were glimpses of the humor so I hope it stays true to form.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2015 10:42:50 GMT -5
Apropos of not much, other than the recent foofaraw over the "Sad Puppies" balloting crap, I took a look just now at the Hugos listing on Wikipedia & found that I haven't read a single best-novel finalist since 1995's Brittle Innings (by Michael Bishop; quite good) or an actual best-novel winner since 1985's Neuromancer (overrated, IMHO).
Drives home as much as anything my lack of interest in the field, which I guess started setting in around the early '80s. I've said before that I basically stopped following sf when Phil Dick died in March 1982, & while that's a rather facile observation it nonetheless seems to ring true. (Maybe the demands of grad school & *shudder* adulthood drove the last nails into the coffin of my sense of wonder? I'd already lost interest in sf set off Earth &/or in the far future.) Not sure why, though the spreading popularity of series & such played a factor, I know.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 26, 2015 14:00:05 GMT -5
I too haven't read a Hugo nominee since Brittle Innings as well but still continue to enjoy older SF.
Speaking of which, I have finally finished reading the Robert Silverberg collected story editions. I've read volumes 2 through 9 which covers the years 1959 to 2009. That's over 3600 pages and am amazed how enjoyable and varied the stories were. I took some breaks from time to time but Silverberg never let me down through the decades of his writings. With the intros to each story about it's background, I feel I know the man quite well. An extremely intelligent gentleman with a great command of the language. Also seems to be quite the expert concerning archeology, history and botany. Definitely a veteran world traveler, particularly the Middle East, Mediterranean area and South America.
Besides these short stories and novellas, he has written probably over 100 novels of which I've read a few. His prodigious output is outstanding. He started writing in the mid 1950s at the age of 17 and is still going, albeit at a reduced pace. Besides Frederick Pohl and Jack Williamson, he might be the longest-running SF author.
But the general readership probably never heard of him. No stories ever made into blockbuster films or TV series (although a bunch were optioned). Plenty of Hugo and Nebula award winning and nominated stories but no best-sellers. So it goes.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2015 14:14:43 GMT -5
Never thought of Silverbob that way, but you're right -- these days, he's probably waaaaay under the radar for the mass of sf readers for the reasons you cite, even though back during my stint in fandom he seemed just about omnipresent (also for the reasons you cite).
Not sure I've ever read any of his short fiction, & I've read only 10 of his novels. One, though, was part of the first multiple-volume sf purchase I ever made, shortly after turning 14 -- The Silent Invaders. (The same batch of books included the first SF Hall of Fame collection, which came out under his editorship in his capacity as SFWA president, I believe). And though I didn't realize it for several years, I read one of his juveniles (borrowed from a friend), Time of the Great Freeze, before I ever started getting into sf.
Favorite novel of his -- Dying Inside.
Which Wikipedia tells me was one of 2 novels (along with The Book of Skulls, which I've also read) by him on the '74 final Hugo ballot. Talk about splitting one's vote ... (Asimov's The Gods Themselves probably would've won regardless. I was only just starting to stick my toe into fandom, but IIRC there was a big deal about it being his return to the novel form after something like 15 years.)
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 26, 2015 19:52:29 GMT -5
Never thought of Silverbob that way, but you're right -- these days, he's probably waaaaay under the radar for the mass of sf readers for the reasons you cite, even though back during my stint in fandom he seemed just about omnipresent (also for the reasons you cite). Not sure I've ever read any of his short fiction, & I've read only 10 of his novels. One, though, was part of the first multiple-volume sf purchase I ever made, shortly after turning 14 -- The Silent Invaders. (The same batch of books included the first SF Hall of Fame collection, which came out under his editorship in his capacity as SFWA president, I believe). And though I didn't realize it for several years, I read one of his juveniles (borrowed from a friend), Time of the Great Freeze, before I ever started getting into sf. Favorite novel of his -- Dying Inside. Which Wikipedia tells me was one of 2 novels (along with The Book of Skulls, which I've also read) by him on the '74 final Hugo ballot. Talk about splitting one's vote ... (Asimov's The Gods Themselves probably would've won regardless. I was only just starting to stick my toe into fandom, but IIRC there was a big deal about it being his return to the novel form after something like 15 years.) Silverberg had 2 hiatus' during his career. The first was the very late 1950s for about 3 years. This was due to the collapse of the SF magazine market and the remaining publications had a ton of backlog material. Bob decided to leave the field and began writing non-fiction work, mostly about history or geographic locations. Probably some men's magazine sweaty adventures too. It was rewarding work and the only reason he came back was because an SF editor reached out to him and guaranteed he'd buy anything Bob would write. Bob got the SF writing bug back in due time
The 2nd hiatus was during the mid to late 70s. Bob had liked how SF was developing starting in the mid-60s. It was becoming more literate and experimental, leaving the pulp style of writing. But the fans were conservative and with Star Wars a massive hit, the pendulum swung back to juvenile Buck Rogers stories (I'm generalizing here-but a massive amount of Flash Gordon SF drowned the market) That plus a divorce and a mid-life crisis caused Bob to briefly stop
Even with these 2 rest periods, he might have written more SF than anyone else. And except for his earliest stuff as a teen writing a short story every week, it was quality merchandise-varied and thoughtful
Although if you go into a library or a Barnes and Noble, you wouldn't know he is the most prolific SF writer . You might not even see a book of his on display at all
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 26, 2015 22:11:01 GMT -5
Dan's post made me wonder, and surprisingly, I've read quite a few Hugo-nominated or winning Novels from the last few years... Redshirts won in 2013, Embassytown by China Melville was nominated in 2012, and most of the Game of thrones books have been nominated. John Scalzi's 'Old Man's War' series looks like it was mostly nominated as well. I'd say after looking through the last 15 years, I've read around 15%, and had a few others on my list.
I had no idea they gave out Hugos for comics until this week... looks like, similar to the Eisners, they like small press and non-mainstream alot more than Big 2 stuff.
Some weird stuff for movies(or 'Dramatic Presentation'.... in 1989, Who Framed Roger Rabbit won the hugo, beating out several other movies I wouldn't call Sci-Fi. In 1988, Princess Bride beat out the Star Trek: TNG pilot, Robocop, and Predator.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 1, 2015 14:00:35 GMT -5
Invaders From Space (1972) Edited By Robert Silverberg
What, another Robert Silverberg book after just getting done reading all his collected short stories and novellas? Wasn't planning it but saw this old hardcover in the library and being a sucker for classic SF short fiction from the 1970s and before, what the hey. 10 stories are included here
The Liberation Of Earth-William Tenn: A masterpiece of Earth's takeover by (friendly?) aliens over and over again The Silly Season-C.M. Kornbluth: These UFO sightings only seem to be noticed by the media when nothing else is going on Roog-Philip Dick: Only a hound dog stands between us and alien invaders Nobody Saw The Ship-Murray Leinster: An alien lands to scout for a possible invasion. How can a shepherd and his faithful dog handle this? Storm Warning-Donald Wollheim: Eart invaded by ALIEN AIR!!!!!!! Pictures Don't Lie-Katherine MacClean:We pick up TV transmission from space and they send their ambassador. His ship lands but where are they? Catch That Martian-Damon Knight: He's lose in Manhattan and if your rude he sends you to the cornfield Resurrection-A.E.Van Vogt: A ship lands on the uninhabited earth and revives one of the dead humans to find out what happened. Big Mistake. Van Vogt was such a distinctive classic SF writer and would have been the perfect author for Superman stories Heresies Of The Huge God-Brian Aldiss: An alien the size of a continent comes by to take a nap Nightwings-Robert Silverberg: In the far future, earth's denizens have been genetically manipulated to have special abilities and a caste society. One group known as the Watchers search the stars as an early warning system for an invasion that has been foretold. A novella not included in the collected volumes due to this and two other sequel novellas were made into one novel. A Hugo and Nebula winner
What I like about classic short fiction is that when its good it packs a punch and when it disappoints its over very soon
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 1, 2015 14:09:02 GMT -5
I really liked Nightwings... there's a review of it somewhere in this thread.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 1, 2015 16:01:44 GMT -5
Paradise Sky by Joe R. Lansdale. Joe Lansdale is the best genre writer extant. And I say genre writer for a reason. Because he's equally at home with horror, historical fiction, noir, fantasy, alt-history...and possibly others. This is very good historical fiction. But it crosses over into the penny dreadfuls that gave us Deadwood Dick and gave birth to the pulps and ultimately paperback originals. It's also a story about Nat Love who was a real life African-American cowboy who was nicknamed Deadwood Dick after winning the Fourth of July rodeo in Deadwood in 1876. Lansdale does a great job creating Nat Love as a complex man trying to live his life as a black man in post Civil War America. Not an easy life...though arguably a bit easier in the Old West. The best is...there are still a lot of tales to tell. I'm hoping that Lansdale finds time to tell them.
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Post by berkley on Sept 1, 2015 17:32:55 GMT -5
What would be the recommended Lansdale books for a newcomer?
Myself, I'm currently dipping into Adventures in Time and Space, a 1946 science fiction anthology edited by Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas. Up to a couple years ago I'd never heard of them or this book, but it seems to have been thought of by earlier SF fans in something like the way I've always thought of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes - as probably the best SF anthology around perhaps the best single introduction to the genre. There is a bit of overlap between the two, but only a bit - maybe 4 or 5 stories I see at a glance that appear in both. I'm reading the stories roughly in chronological order of publication rather than the way they're arranged in the book itself.
I've read 8 stories so far, so around a quarter of the way through it, and so far I'd say it lives up to its billing - always keeping in mind that these are stories from the early days of American SF, so some of them may seem a little dated to readers who haven't read much from that era (1932-1945). It's unfortunately out of print but I was able to buy a used copy online at a reasonable price (about what you'd pay for a new book of similar size and format off the shelf), so it should be findable if anyone's interested.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 1, 2015 21:00:50 GMT -5
That sounds really good, Slam... I really need to read more Lansdale books. My entry for today: Carter beats the Devilby Glen David Gold I'm still not sure if I liked this book or not. It's a little bit historical fiction, a little bit thriller, a little bit romance, a little bit faux-biography... it does everything a bit, but nothing particularly well. Broadly, it's the life of Charles Carter, a real magician fictionalized here.. but it also talks about President Harding and his death, a randomo secret service agent (who's almost a 2nd main character), Philo Farnsworth, and others. We see Houdini, the Marx Brothers, and lots of other real people, but there's nothing in the book that is fact, really, it's all just setting. The main theme is escape, which is kinda neat, from the main character 'escaping' his parents expectations, to 'escaping' from being a faceless sleight of hand performer, to actual escapes, even escapes for others. The big reveal at the end wasn't much of a surprise, but was pretty satisfying for all that. I think I'd have a better feeling about it if the book was more focused.. there was some needless tragedy for the sake of tragedy, and there the whole story of Griffin (the secret service agent) really should have been it's own novel, or perhaps a kindle bonus prequel. Overall, I think it was an experience, and I'm glad a read it... I'm just not sure it was good.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 1, 2015 21:26:22 GMT -5
What would be the recommended Lansdale books for a newcomer? Myself, I'm currently dipping into Adventures in Time and Space, a 1946 science fiction anthology edited by Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas. Up to a couple years ago I'd never heard of them or this book, but it seems to have been thought of by earlier SF fans in something like the way I've always thought of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes - as probably the best SF anthology around perhaps the best single introduction to the genre. There is a bit of overlap between the two, but only a bit - maybe 4 or 5 stories I see at a glance that appear in both. I'm reading the stories roughly in chronological order of publication rather than the way they're arranged in the book itself. I've read 8 stories so far, so around a quarter of the way through it, and so far I'd say it lives up to its billing - always keeping in mind that these are stories from the early days of American SF, so some of them may seem a little dated to readers who haven't read much from that era (1932-1945). It's unfortunately out of print but I was able to buy a used copy online at a reasonable price (about what you'd pay for a new book of similar size and format off the shelf), so it should be findable if anyone's interested. Adventures in Time and Space is one of the most important SF books of all time. It was one of the few SF books that was available in hardcover through the end of the 50s. So it was one of the few SF books that could be found in a lot of libraries. It was the gateway for a ton of people to read SF. As to Lansdale... High Cotton: Selected Stories is the best primer and is a nice cross-section of his short stories. Both Paradise Sky and The Bottoms are excellent historical novels, with The Bottoms keying into the dark stuff Lansdale is known for. His Hap and Leonard books are great neo-noir. The first one is Savage Season.
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Post by berkley on Sept 2, 2015 1:46:45 GMT -5
What would be the recommended Lansdale books for a newcomer? Myself, I'm currently dipping into Adventures in Time and Space, a 1946 science fiction anthology edited by Raymond J. Healy & J. Francis McComas. Up to a couple years ago I'd never heard of them or this book, but it seems to have been thought of by earlier SF fans in something like the way I've always thought of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes - as probably the best SF anthology around perhaps the best single introduction to the genre. There is a bit of overlap between the two, but only a bit - maybe 4 or 5 stories I see at a glance that appear in both. I'm reading the stories roughly in chronological order of publication rather than the way they're arranged in the book itself. I've read 8 stories so far, so around a quarter of the way through it, and so far I'd say it lives up to its billing - always keeping in mind that these are stories from the early days of American SF, so some of them may seem a little dated to readers who haven't read much from that era (1932-1945). It's unfortunately out of print but I was able to buy a used copy online at a reasonable price (about what you'd pay for a new book of similar size and format off the shelf), so it should be findable if anyone's interested. Adventures in Time and Space is one of the most important SF books of all time. It was one of the few SF books that was available in hardcover through the end of the 50s. So it was one of the few SF books that could be found in a lot of libraries. It was the gateway for a ton of people to read SF. As to Lansdale... High Cotton: Selected Stories is the best primer and is a nice cross-section of his short stories. Both Paradise Sky and The Bottoms are excellent historical novels, with The Bottoms keying into the dark stuff Lansdale is known for. His Hap and Leonard books are great neo-noir. The first one is Savage Season. Yeah, I feel somewhat appalled at my ignorance of something so well known in a genre I pretend to follow, however casually. But that's much outweighed by the good feeling of discovering something "new" that's so good. Most of the stories I haven't even heard of before, though there are a few famous ones, besides the ones I read years ago in the Hall of Fame books, that I've always meant to get around to. High Cotton sounds like a good intro to Lansdale, unless I decide to go with the first Hap and Leonard book or one of his horror novels. Not a huge western fan but Paradise Sky seems like one I might want to make an exception, along with a few others I plan to try - e.g. Elmore Leonard, classics like Zane Grey and Louis Lamour, etc.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 2, 2015 12:12:52 GMT -5
Adventures in Time and Space is one of the most important SF books of all time. It was one of the few SF books that was available in hardcover through the end of the 50s. So it was one of the few SF books that could be found in a lot of libraries. It was the gateway for a ton of people to read SF. As to Lansdale... High Cotton: Selected Stories is the best primer and is a nice cross-section of his short stories. Both Paradise Sky and The Bottoms are excellent historical novels, with The Bottoms keying into the dark stuff Lansdale is known for. His Hap and Leonard books are great neo-noir. The first one is Savage Season. Yeah, I feel somewhat appalled at my ignorance of something so well known in a genre I pretend to follow, however casually. But that's much outweighed by the good feeling of discovering something "new" that's so good. Most of the stories I haven't even heard of before, though there are a few famous ones, besides the ones I read years ago in the Hall of Fame books, that I've always meant to get around to. High Cotton sounds like a good intro to Lansdale, unless I decide to go with the first Hap and Leonard book or one of his horror novels. Not a huge western fan but Paradise Sky seems like one I might want to make an exception, along with a few others I plan to try - e.g. Elmore Leonard, classics like Zane Grey and Louis Lamour, etc. If you're at all into short stories then I can't recommend enough The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard. The man was an absolute master of the western short story. And it contains the original short story for 3:10 to Yuma, along with the story that was the basis for the movie The Tall T. There isn't a bad story in the lot and some are just excellent.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 2, 2015 13:44:51 GMT -5
And then there's Raylan which was turned into the most excellent show Justified... it's not a period western, but it's the modern equivalent
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