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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 9, 2017 21:53:30 GMT -5
There is. But it was all published in bits. If you can find it, the NESFA published a book called The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith. It's pretty much everything except Norstrilia. At 671 pages of short fiction, I probably wouldn't recommend reading it all at once. But over a period of time it's a great read. I've read some of Cordwainer Smith's short fiction in best-of-year anthologies. Two other stories that were highly praised of his are Scanners Live In Vain and Game Of Rat And DragonThose are both great stories. "Scanners Live in Vain" was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964. "Game Of Rat And Dragon" is a must read for cat people.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 14, 2017 14:27:50 GMT -5
I think I really liked "Game of Rat and Dragon' if it's the story I'm thinking of... weird, but good. Grabbed Bad Chili from the library finally... For some reason I had skipped it before when I was reading Hap and Leonard.. man, do they get put through the ringer in that one! It was almost too much, honestly, but having Brett introduced makes up for it
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 23, 2017 16:39:37 GMT -5
Call of the Wild by Jack London This wasn't as much a read as it was a listen. I listened to most of an audiobook version of this driving back and forth from some training in Sun Valley. But I did read it when I was a kid. And I may have read it to one of my sons when they were younger...though that may have been White Fang. This is really one of those consummate classic adventure tales. Buck is kidnapped from his home in California and ends up as a sled-dog in the Yukon, eventually leading a wolf-pack as a wild dog. It's a good read and London certainly knew the Klondike and the Gold Rush. It's a nice short novel. Written for a general audience but easily readable for what are now called tweens or early teens as long as they aren't squeamish about animal violence. It was a nice change of pace from what I usually read. I'll add that it's almost always bugged me when Buck is portrayed as either a husky or a german shepard on book covers and in movies. He was mostly St. Bernard...which is actually kind of a big deal in the story.
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Post by berkley on Mar 23, 2017 20:11:51 GMT -5
I was just reading an article about Jack London a couple days ago. Really interesting character himself. I've never read any of his books but I have a bunch on my list now. Still undecided about Call of the Wild.
Some of the things you read about London's work remind me of Robert E. Howard, though I think London was a little more politically aware. I'm curious to see if this comes out when I actually read something.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 23, 2017 21:25:25 GMT -5
I remember reading Call of the Wild back in high school, and liking it alot more than some of the other classics we were force fed. I'm really not a dog person though, so that I think made my enjoyment a bit less than some. Pulled out one of my classic sci-fi books this week: The Third Eye Theodore Cogswell Not bad as short story collections go, but nothing spectacular. Cogswell mostly does satire, some works really well...'No Gun to the Victor' reminds me very much of 'A Modest Proposal' for the Baby Boom generation... some just seems kinda generic. He also has a tendency to recycle names, which probably was fine back in the day, but doesn't work well in a collections. There were a couple well worth the read, though.. besides 'No Gun to the Victor', 'Disassembly Line' was a very smart, unique way to present a very old idea (Purgatory), and 'a Spudget for Twilbert' was a pretty fun take on old school snake oil selling.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 23, 2017 23:43:49 GMT -5
I was just reading an article about Jack London a couple days ago. Really interesting character himself. I've never read any of his books but I have a bunch on my list now. Still undecided about Call of the Wild. Some of the things you read about London's work remind me of Robert E. Howard, though I think London was a little more politically aware. I'm curious to see if this comes out when I actually read something. London was definitely politically aware and politically active. He ran for mayor of Oakland as a Socialist twice. The Iron Heel is definitely influenced by his politics. None of his other works that I've read are overtly political.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Mar 24, 2017 20:01:13 GMT -5
Never got to read Call Of The Wild but did see the 1935 film adaptation with Clark Gable and Loretta Young. It was pretty good but supposedly not a faithful version of the original story
Also read a couple of Theodore Cogswell short stories in Best Of Year Anthologies. A fine and now forgotten SF pulpster
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 25, 2017 0:08:57 GMT -5
I think the fact that his only novel was a Star Trek one probably made the short stories easier to forget.. it's the big epic series that seem to get alot more remembered that single short stories, after all (with some exceptions). I couldn't resist this one when I saw it at the library, even if I had my doubts about the plot Arabella of Mars by David Levine It's clear Mr. Levine is a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs... he does a magnificient job creating a solar system that would find it self right at home next to John Carter's Mars. He uses that backdrop to mimic an entirely different genre, having the main character on a ship, and essentially doing his own verison of a Horatio Hornblower novel through the middle of the novel. Around it, we get a little Victorian Era 'girls-cant-do-stuff' plot, and after we get some back to the much more interesting Martian culture, and how it interacts with a Victorian London that is able to ply the solar system for colonies as well as Asia and Africa. Also, there's a fair bit of steampunk thrown in, with 'automata' being somewhat pervasive... mostly as toys, but I suspect that'll change as the series continues. The big ideas are fantastic, but the actual plot and characters leave something to be desired. Arabella herself is far too perfect, and is able to perform whatever feat is needed at the time at will, often to a ridiculous extreme. Captain Singh is every bit the perfect English gentlemen, the fact that he's actually Indian doesn't really change that... he act exactly as he should at all times. The 'Jane Austen' bits of the book are stiff and predictible, made all the more skippable by the fact that the other parts are so much more interesting. That said, I'm 100% certain my daughter is going to love it. He does get a few points extra points for an extremely clever appearance of a certain Doctor and his trademark scarf, though. The world building is so good, one can only hope the author will try to break free a bit with the plot in the next one.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 1, 2017 14:29:06 GMT -5
Dragon by the Bay - Garnett Elliott. Holy Moly!! I wasn't expecting something this good in a e-published novelette. Carson Lowe just wants to spend his time in San Francisco pulling some grifts and making some money. Instead he is pulled into a plot to destroy the city by awakening a dragon beneath San Francisco Bay. He's pulled into the mystical underbelly of 1866 Chinatown fighting for his life and the city along with a Kung Fu master and a cathouse madame. This one is super fun and is a fast furious read that is well worth the limited time it's going to take.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 10, 2017 14:23:57 GMT -5
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman takes a number of Norse myths and uses his always compelling prose style to craft a story arc that takes us from the worlds creation to Ragnarok. Gaiman isn't writing a new novel here. He's acting as a storyteller, having us gather around the campfire as he retells these myths from the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. This is a tight re-telling of the Norse myths. And those who are used to Hollywood endings or are looking for the Thor and Loki from the Marvel Universe are in for a surprise. This is well worth the read even if you already know the fate of Jörmungandr.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 13, 2017 14:09:53 GMT -5
I do not understand why Edgar Rice Burroughs' Beyond thirty was not published in book form for decades after it first saw print in a 1916 magazine. It's quite a decent Burroughs tale, and although the plot pretty much follows the author's established formula, it features his trademarked flair for depicting strange and engrossing worlds... even when they are only XXII century Europe.
The gist of the story is that World War I went on a bit longer than expected, and that the North American continent did not join it. (I wonder how that could be possible for Canada, but that's not very important). A very isolationist Pan-American state eventually developed, one with no contact whatsoever with the warring European and Asian nations. Contact is even strictly forbidden upon pain of death.
Centuries after contact ceased, a young and dashing hero finds himself stranded upon the shores of England... and meets (a) his version of Jane/Dejah Thoris/Dian/Duare, as well as (b) adventure.
What I love about such Burroughs stories is not so much that the adventure depicted is original... but that they always seem to have so much potential for further exploration. They're really a door into new worlds full of surprises and wonder.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 19, 2017 20:44:12 GMT -5
Anno Dracula 1899 and Other Stories by Kim Newman First, I'm an Anno Dracula fanboy. It hits that Wold Newton thing that just makes me happy. That said...this is a short story collection and there is only one Anno Dracula story...and it's really a teaser for Newman's upcoming Anno novel. Luckily, every story in this book is at least good and most of them are excellent fun in that Newman style. What if Superman landed in Germany instead of Kansas. Unscrupulous capitalists get ahold of the Jekyll/Hyde formula. The Invisible Man finds himself drawn to the monster graveyard. This is the kind of thing that Newman does better than almost anyone. For a pop-culture junky it hits all the right neurons.
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Post by berkley on Apr 20, 2017 0:02:57 GMT -5
I do not understand why Edgar Rice Burroughs' Beyond thirty was not published in book form for decades after it first saw print in a 1916 magazine. It's quite a decent Burroughs tale, and although the plot pretty much follows the author's established formula, it features his trademarked flair for depicting strange and engrossing worlds... even when they are only XXII century Europe. The gist of the story is that World War I went on a bit longer than expected, and that the North American continent did not join it. (I wonder how that could be possible for Canada, but that's not very important). A very isolationist Pan-American state eventually developed, one with no contact whatsoever with the warring European and Asian nations. Contact is even strictly forbidden upon pain of death. Centuries after contact ceased, a young and dashing hero finds himself stranded upon the shores of England... and meets (a) his version of Jane/Dejah Thoris/Dian/Duare, as well as (b) adventure. What I love about such Burroughs stories is not so much that the adventure depicted is original... but that they always seem to have so much potential for further exploration. They're really a door into new worlds full of surprises and wonder. I remember liking this one as a kid, though I can't recall any details after all these years. You're right of course about Burroughs following a formula in almost all his books and if I ever get around to re-reading a bunch of them, one thing I'd like to do is try to figure out why some are better than others, i.e. why the same formula works better in some books than in others. Not sure if there's any set of characteristics common to the ones I consider the best or if it's something different about each one of them, but it's a question that arouses my curiosity.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 20, 2017 13:31:45 GMT -5
You're right of course about Burroughs following a formula in almost all his books and if I ever get around to re-reading a bunch of them, one thing I'd like to do is try to figure out why some are better than others, i.e. why the same formula works better in some books than in others. Not sure if there's any set of characteristics common to the ones I consider the best or if it's something different about each one of them, but it's a question that arouses my curiosity. If we need an example of a book in which the formula fails, it is The monster men. I just finished it and oh, Gawd, what an awful read. "Tedious" hardly begins to describe it, and a certain last minute revelation kills any interest the story might have had.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 21, 2017 16:42:25 GMT -5
You're right of course about Burroughs following a formula in almost all his books and if I ever get around to re-reading a bunch of them, one thing I'd like to do is try to figure out why some are better than others, i.e. why the same formula works better in some books than in others. Not sure if there's any set of characteristics common to the ones I consider the best or if it's something different about each one of them, but it's a question that arouses my curiosity. If we need an example of a book in which the formula fails, it is The monster men. I just finished it and oh, Gawd, what an awful read. "Tedious" hardly begins to describe it, and a certain last minute revelation kills any interest the story might have had. I'll agree that The Monster Men is pretty bad. But since I'm slowly re-reading my Burroughs (very slowly) I found The Eternal Savage to be the worst of his first 15 novels. The Monster men probably runs it a close second though.
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