Our reads in September 2021

Another month,another pile of books. Share your reading plans for September.Happy reading! :0)

Dusty's TBR for September
SF/F reads
Yevgeny Zamyatin - We
C J Cherryh - Divergence✔
William Gibson - Count Zero
Jack Williamson - Legion of Time
Algernon Blackwood - The Willows ✔ R
Clark Ashton Smith - The Dweller in the Gulf ✔
Seabury Quinn - Devil's Bride ✔
Randall Garrett - Unwise Child✔
Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to FindR ✔
Kelley Armstrong - The Gathering R ✔
Kelley Armstrong - The Calling R ✔
Michael Crichton - Andromeda Strain R
John Wyndham - Trouble With Lichen R
(R=rereads)

from other genres
Noel Streatfeild - Curtain Up ✔
Virginia Woolf - Orlando✔

I am currently reading A Canticle For Leibowitz by Water M. Miller Jr. I should finish that in the next few days. After that it will be The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag by Robert A. Heinlein. Then maybe Child of Venus by Pamela Sargent.

Top of the TBR pile is Descent.
I might go from there to Tales of Nevèrÿon or possibly 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I still have to finish The Ministry For the Future. I also have Hummingbird Salamander and The Human on the top of Mt. TBR, as well as a couple of nongenre books.

I'm not sure what I'm going to read next for SF; probably The City We Became by Jemisin. I'm rereading the Kencyr books by P.C. Hodgell and enjoying them as much as before, but I think I'm going to take a break after Seeker's Mask, which I just finished, to read the latest Harry Dresden book Battle Ground. My current regular fiction is Crazy Weather, to be followed by Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant which I never read. My current nonfiction isAn Elegant Madness about Regency England's high society, and my current essay collection is the first volume of Hours in a Library by Leslie Stephen (Virginia Woolf's father -- though he might cringe to be primary identified that way). The essays, on British authors, are very good, but long & (of course) rather dense; and meanwhile I'm going to bed very tired lately (my essays are read before going to sleep), so the collection may take a loooonng time to finish.

I'm still reading Inheritor and enjoying Bren's interactions with the atevi.

A re-read of Jim Al-Khalili's Sunfall for my SF&F reading group. It's competent rather than brilliant storytelling but I'm just so happy to have some "science" in my science-fiction, instead of fantasy with a couple of space-ships slapped on, which seems to have been a lot of the group's book choices recently.

I'm re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness.

This month's slate is Radiance, Rosewater Redemption, The Fallen and Polaris Rising. Valente's novel is a book club choice and my initial impression is not good.

>7 Sakerfalcon: The Foreigner series has turned out to be much more immersive than I expected. Back in January, my first book of the year was Foreigner and I have continued the series since. Just finished #18, Convergence a couple of days ago. Really enjoying Cherryh's development of the world of the atevi and Bren's place within it. I hope you decide to continue.

>10 Shrike58: Radiance is the only Valente I have read to date and I had a similar reaction. I'll probably try her again but that particular book was not for me.

Currently e-reading 14 by Peter Clines. Pretty fun elder gods story. Unless he completely flubs the ending, I will likely read more from this author.

My print book for this week is Fledgling by Octavia Butler. Excellent writing as usual. Butler, along with Cherryh, is on my top-5 authors list.

>11 ScoLgo: Interesting... I have read almost all of Cherryh's Alliance-Union novels that are set around the Company Wars but never started reading her Foreigner series. Am I correct in understanding that the Foreigner series is set in the same universe as the Alliance-Union but just much further in that future history, similar to her The Faded Sun?

Not reading any SF at the moment. Just marking my spot.

>12 Neil_Luvs_Books: I too have read quite a few Alliance-Union books and I'm not seeing a connection between the two 'verses - but it's possible they might be distantly related. If so, Foreigner would have to be set in the very early stages of Alliance-Union - at least where book #1 begins. Once we get to Bren Cameron's character, it is ~200 years later so Earth-based colonization could very well have been developing off-stage, (this is also a 'lost colony' tale so history of earthly expansion is unknown to the people in these books).

I don't consider any of the above to be spoilers since the reader will learn most all of this by page 49 of the first novel.

Thinking about it a bit more... there are a couple of plot points that come up in later Foreigner books, (which I won't detail here due to their being spoilers), that argue against a Foreigner/Alliance-Union connection. Cherryh might very well come up with a way to tie them together at some point but, so far, I don't see it.

Finished with 2001, which was great. I'm partly reading Harry Harrison's Winter in Eden, which is good and Rise of Empire.

>11 ScoLgo: I think I will be continuing the Foreigner series as I'm really enjoying it. It's slow but so immersive. However, the next volume, Precursor, isn't in stock at Forbidden Planet so I'll take a break then order it online.

Hello. New group member here.

I haven't read science fiction for a while, and recently picked up where I left off. I am continuing my read of Behemoth: B-Max, the third book in the Rifters trilogy.

>17 wez: Welcome!

>11 ScoLgo: I knew that Valente was going for baroque in that book so I'm not totally shocked that I'm bouncing off it. Maybe if it was novella length, and dumped the layout that imitates a screenplay (that sort of typographical fun and games always leaves me cold), I'd be a little more patient. I actually have a pretty high tolerance for weirdness and high concept but this work went a little too far, hell, a lot too far! It also doesn't help that I'm not in love with movies and movie making from a metaphorical perspective.

I actually liked Valente's Space Opera quite a lot, though one's enthusiasm for that book is going to be tempered by how much of a romantic you are about rock'n'roll; that disease I do suffer from!

>19 Shrike58: I enjoyed Radiance quite a lot, actually. I love her prose and inventiveness.

>20 anglemark:. Same here. I liked Radiance quite a bit.

I enjoyed Valente's juvenile The Girl Who books, so I picked up a copy of Radiance, but I haven't gotten to it yet. I'm even more attracted to her In the Night Garden.

The only Valente I've read is Space Opera, which I felt was a short story–length joke stretched out to novel length.

I just finished volume 1 of G. Willow Wilson's new space opera comic, Invisible Kingdom: Walking the Path, and am about to start the Murderbot novel, Network Effect.

>22 paradoxosalpha: I really enjoyed the interweaving stories of In the Night Garden but haven't really taken to much of her stuff since.

>23 Stevil2001: I read Space Opera and the first "Girl Who..." and have no desire to read any more by her. I loved Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and doing a mash-up of that and the Eurovision Song Contest - well, let's say "Nil point!"

How it got onto the Hugo short list is beyond me.

Re: Valente - t's fantasy not SF but I really enjoyed Deathless which blends Russian fairy tales with the Siege of Leningrad. It's dark and enthralling.

I'm going to do a reread (it's been decades) of Michael Davidson's Daughter of Is, which fits in rather roughly with this month's topic (prehistoric time travel) in the Reading Through Time group. Clever idea, and I'll be curious to see how much I enjoy a reread when I know the twist ending. Just as a hint of what it's all about (and this isn't a SPOILER), the book's dedicated to C.S. Lewis.

>25 Maddz: Thanks for reading that one for us so we don't have to!

After seeing the new Murderbot novel, Network Effect, mentioned several times I took a break from slogging through Molecular Biology Of Cancer: Mechanisms, Targets, and Therapeutics 5th edition and zipped through the bot book. I liked it a lot, good break.

Finished up The Fallen this evening, and I liked this second exercise in weird space fiction by the author.

Finally getting around to Klara and the Sun.

>31 AnnieMod: I look forward to reading what you think of it.

>1 dustydigger: Muck World by C.G. Lewis

Would you be able to survive living with constant rain and mud? That is what happened in this
post-apocalyptic novel. The families that survived must be extremely cautious when they are
outside of their bunkers or get caught by the Citadel, which tries to control everyone and everything that happens. Soldiers begin combing the woods for survivors and take them to the Citadel to work at different jobs and against their will.
This thrilling novel will keep you wanting more in this excellent YA book. There is adventure at every turn, and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series. Thank you for allowing me to review this book which I received from the Library Thing.

Sincerely,
Roberta

I finished Behemoth and wrote a review. The bottom line: I liked it a lot.

I then diverted from science fiction for a breather, and read The Metamorphosis. Its speculative existentialism really resonates with me.

I am now searching for my next SF story.

>34 wez: I used to use The Metamorphosis as a case study in a Change Management education programme. It is a great story for analysing the effect of a change on different people/groups: family, colleagues, the individual.

Recently finished Use of Weapons, part of my ongoing read through the Culture series in publication order. Initially I thought I'd read this one before, but even accounting for my notoriously unreliable memory, I think this was my first read.

Lots of background info on Culture, specifically body modifications and particulars of certain ship types, also some musings on Contact and Special Circumstances. I'm especially attuned to this aspect of the series, trying to suss out Banks's outlook on the Culture generally. After my first Culture novel, I'd naively assumed he was positing an ideal scenario. I no longer think that's the case, neither do I think it's clear cut what his assessment is. Working thesis now is that Banks was feeling it out for himself, by writing stories and seeing what he thought.

Not quite as much about the Minds in this one, though the drone Skaffen-Amtiskaw provides a glimpse of the trademark AI humour.

>36 elenchus:, I assume that you've read A Few Notes on the Culture? If not, I think that you can still find it free online. See link below.

http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

>37 vwinsloe: Thanks, that's good stuff.

>37 vwinsloe:

Yeah, and also a similar essay "Notes on Marain" (the Culture universal language / writing system). I have plans to revisit those and review now that I've got the first 3 novels under my belt.

Here's a link to the Marain essay.

Finished Phoenix started The Sardonyx Net

>35 pgmcc: Fascinating! I have not heard of it used in that teaching context before.

I am going on a PKD short story spree.

I finished The Crystal Crypt and wrote a loving review.

Next up I will be reading Beyond the Door and The gun.

>39 elenchus: Iain Banks' Culture series is still on TBR list. I hope I get to them before I lose my eyesight!

:P

Neil_Luvs_Books (#43):

I hope I get to (the Culture books) before I lose my eyesight!

As long as your hearing doesn't go first, there are always audiobooks!

>36 elenchus: I'm really interested in the Culture series and have read one book which I've liked a lot (Inversions) but was completely bored by Consider Phlebas and did not finish. Are The player of games and Use of weapons very similar to the first book?

I would suggest reading The Player of Games next. It's completely unlike Phlebas and you'll then get the joke at the end of Inversions.

Use of Weapons is unlike any of those. It has a non-linear structure which will take some getting used to, but which will reward you.

It's misleading to think of the Culture books as a series. They all share a setting, but beyond that they are mostly all different from each other.

>45 chlorine:
>46 RobertDay:

I'd agree that Banks is writing different stories within a shared universe, more than writing a standard "series". It doesn't appear any specific order is needed. The amount of "background" on the Culture universe in each novel varies quite a bit, I presume partly as a result of what the story needs, and partly as a result of what Banks had invented at the time of writing. That's why I'm interested in the two essays mentioned above.

I found all the stories to be quite different, in plot or "purpose" and also in style. As I recall, Banks actually retro-fitted a story (novel?) he'd already written into the Culture universe, and published it as Phlebas. It wasn't conceived that way.

>47 elenchus: I did not know that about Banks’ Culture novels. I had always assumed they were a series. Good to know that reading order does not matter. Thanks for the tip!

>48 Neil_Luvs_Books: There are a few in-jokes here and there which make sense only if you had read the previous books but I tend to think of them as Easter Eggs - if you get them, it’s nice. If not - it is not important for that book. :)

Look to Windward ties in with Consider Phlebas and is better read if you have an awareness of the Culture beforehand.

Consider Phlebas was my first Banks book and I found it a ripping yarn. I started rereading his books after his death. On my reread of Consider Phlebas I was amazed at how much more I picked up. It has a very strong anti-war message.

Player of Games was my favourite Culture novel until Look to Windward arrived; now they are in joint favourite position, and I do not care if that is an oxymoron.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts on The player of games! I'll move it more to the front of my wishlist.
If I remember correctly I read Consider Phlebas in translation in French and that usually makes a book lose much of its flavour, particularly for SF books of that period.

Finished Seabury Quinn's 1932 wonderfully pulpy The Devil's Bride. I was amazed at just how brutal and hair raising pulp could be in the 1930s magazine world. a crucified nun,a child who is blinded,tongue cut out,hands cut off by the satanist kidnappers just to prevent there being a witness to their kidnap of a woman who they want to wed to an evil priest of Lucifer,a black mass with a nude woman as the altar,babies stolen to be sacrificed to Satan,a woman branded,poisonings,torture,rape and an awful lot more packed into less than 200 pages. Phew!. Lurid melodrama,corny dialogue,brutality and shocks all the way. Pulp horror without any faltering.I never realized just how raw such stuff could be. Interesting.
When I wasnt wallowing in such bloody depths I was battling with Woolf's Orlando,and Zamyatin's We.both quite difficult,complicated reads. Still only halfway through them both,both of them satires but radically different.
Certainly I am having a mind expanding reading month! lol
Not sure how much of my stated TBR will be completed because I just received C J Cherryh's Divergence,so everything will be cast aside till I finish that! :0)

>51 chlorine: This explains much.

I had always thought of Phlebas as a conventional adventure story in broad format, intended to sell to a publisher as an entry novel from a new name, and as such it had to conform to a lot of adventure novel tropes. Iain's later sf novels could make their own way in the world and stand or fall on their own merits; but Phlebas had to sell to a publisher first.

I read it when it first appeared, having already read Iain's first three (supposedly) mainstream novels (given that The Wasp Factory rather stretches any definition of "mainstream"). The big set-pieces appealed to me; breaking out of the Smallbay on the GSV in particular struck me as a writer having great fun with wholesale destruction (and kept coming back to mind when moving around the Excel Centre in London, site of the 2014 Worldcon where Iain was supposed to have been Guest of Honour, as some of the halls were unoccupied and seemed appropriately vast, especially when you had to traverse them to reach some programme items and launch parties). I almost passed over the opening sentence, "The Ship didn't even have a name", just thinking of it as a striking start to a novel.

Twenty-five years later, I re-read the Culture novels after Iain's death, and got no further than that first sentence before my jaw hit the floor. Because once you know with what care and yet with what insouciance Culture Ships choose their names, the utter importance of that sentence gets driven home. Yet that idea was on the first page of the first Culture novel.

>50 pgmcc: >53 RobertDay: Pro or con that Elon Musk and his crew are using Culture ship names for the names of their recovery vessels?

>53 RobertDay: Thanks for the insights!
I will definitely be moving the Culture books up my priority list as this a set of books that really interests me. Also I liked the Iain Banks (without the M) books that I've read so much that I hate to be missing something from that author.

>52 dustydigger: The Devil's Bride sounds like a great story for October. Thanks!

Well, finally finished Underland. Interesting and lyrical, but ultimately not really my cup of tea - I prefer space around me and parts of the book came across as really claustrophobic.

Read a bunch of Gillian Bradshaw historicals I'd picked up: Alchemy of Fire, The Beacon at Alexandria, The Bearkeeper's Daughter, Beyond the North Wind, Dark North, Horses of Heaven, Imperial Purple, and The Sun's Bride. All well-researched, but light and fairly undemanding - I got through them a day per book (about 2-4 hours). A couple were more historical fantasy - Beyond the North Wind and Horses of Heaven. Hopefully this will bring me out of the reading slump I've been in for over a year. I enjoyed Dark North and Horses of Heaven the most, followed by The Sun's Bride and The Beacon at Alexandria, although I found the hero of Dark North to be too much jack-the-lad for my taste - but at least he grew up throughout the book.

Next week I'm on leave so will try and catch up on more reading - although we have some days out planned. We're actually off to himself's mother this afternoon - we have to take her to an appointment early tomorrow morning, and we'll spend the day with her before coming home tomorrow evening (Virgin are booked Tuesday). Wednesday we plan a trip to Cambridge followed by birthday dinner, but the rest of the week is free if the weather isn't good enough for gardening.

Continuing my PKD short story spree, I read Beyond the Door, The Gun, Piper in the Woods and Mr. Spaceship.

I have about 5 short stories left in my reading list.

>58 wez: I must get back to reading PKD. I have the five volume set of his short stories but have only read the stories in one of them so far. I still have a few of his novels to read. Your post has reminded me of things not read.

By the way, I love the ending in We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. I think it is better than the ends in the film versions, not that I think much of the remake at all.

>54 Karlstar: I found it interesting and it could bring some people to Iain's books, which is no bad thing. It could even encourage some of those people who bought the film rights to do something with them.

I am not sure if that is really your question; I think your question was, "Pro of con Elon Musk?"

The response to that question would be, "That would be an ecumenical matter." :-)

>59 pgmcc: I especially like the stories featuring the wub. "Not by its cover" is hilarious.

>61 bnielsen:
I loved, “Beyond Lies the Wub”. I must go back to that volume.

>54 Karlstar: I'm waiting to see if he names his humanoid robot Meatfucker.

>52 dustydigger: Sally Potter's film of Orlando with Tilda Swinton in the title role is quite sumptuous and well worth seeking out.

>54 Karlstar:, >60 pgmcc:: pgmcc has taken most of the wind out of my sails on Elon Musk. I find it ironic that he has acknowledged IMB's work with the names, which he publicly acknowledges are from the Culture, when so many of his own instincts seem contrary to Iain's own.

There was a recent BBC Radio 4 documentary series, 'The Evening Rocket' (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xdxc - may not be available in all territories), looking at the influence of sf on the current crop of high-worth entrepreneurs. It concentrated on looking at themes out of Golden Age sf and the thesis was that these individuals embody the technocratic attitudes writers such as Asimov and Heinlein, plus others (some quite obscure) who are not on my radar. But they also embody some of the other attitudes of the Golden Age, which excluded women and minorities. The series made no mention of IMB, which surprised me. Either the series creator couldn't reconcile Iain's own world-view with Musk's, and didn't know how to put that over in the series; they'd made the connection, but its implications went counter to their thesis; or their research wasn't as thorough as they'd like us to think.

The author was Jill Lepore. Normally, I would write to the content creator if I had comments or insights; often, the BBC website will give contact details for the production team, or if they are academics they can be fairly easily tracked down. I've been doing this quite a bit recently over 'Nudge Theory", as I found out a couple of years back that the name can be laid at the feet of Irish sf fan Walt Willis, even if the theory itself is rather older (https://robertday154.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/weirdos-and-misfits/). This has led me down a number of interesting paths. But Jill Lepore appears to have neither publicly-named website, nor to have mailboxes with either her academic institution or the New York Tines. So I've been unable to find out if she is aware of the Iain Banks connection.

>65 RobertDay:

If, as you yourself say, Musk's "connection" to Banks is superficial at best and he doesn't reflect Banks' values even in your own opinion, then Lepore has no reason to bring it up because it doesn't contradict the thesis that he and other techbros are channeling toxic attitudes of golden age sf (or whatever her actual formulation of that notion might be).

>65 RobertDay:
I enjoyed your post.

I must check out that documentary. My experience of the BBC Player is that you need to be on a uk domain and have a UK TV licence to see TV programmes but can hear the radio channels ok. I have not used it recently, so we will see.

Yes, I agree that Iain may not be too enamoured with being associated with a billionaire such as Musk.

>66 LolaWalser: True, but it ought to have been explored. Musk's attribution of the drone ship names has been sufficiently publicised to make others wonder where IMB fits into the thesis, if at all. Perhaps Musk can't see the subtexts in Banks' work (which would say a lot about Musk and his supposed smarts). Or is it just a demonstration of his capacity for doublethink?

I've wrapped up my read of MacLeod's Descent and posted my review. I've started in on The Third Policeman, and when I'm done with that, Tales of Nevèrÿon is next on the TBR pile.

>67 pgmcc: Mr. Banks is deceased, is he not?

>70 Karlstar: He is, unfortunately. He would still not be enamoured with the association.

>66 LolaWalser:.

“Many critics and reviewers have claimed that the Culture represents the American Libertarian ideal. Given that this is clearly not the case, how do you characterise the politics of the Culture?” asks Roberts. “Really? I had no idea,” replies Banks. “Let’s be clear: unless I have profoundly misunderstood its position, I pretty much despise American Libertarianism. Have these people seriously looked at the problems of the world and thought, ‘Hmm, what we need here is a bit more selfishness’? … I beg to differ.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/nov/19/iain-banks-culture-lives...

>72 vwinsloe: Thank you for the link to the article. I must track down the full interview.

Found it:
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/a-few-questions-about-the-cultur...

>73 pgmcc:

Thanks for posting that link, Banks addresses head on a few of the questions I'm most curious about myself!

>73 pgmcc:. That's great. Thanks!

>59 pgmcc: That sounds like a very nice set you have. I must say I have been enjoying his older works very much.

I read and loved five more short stories by P.K. Dick.

Second Variety, The Defenders, The Variable Man, The Skull and Beyond Lies the Wub.

All these stories are available on Project Gutenberg. It seems I missed a couple on PG, so I have more to read. Yay!

>58 wez: Piper in the woods is one of my favorite short stories of all time.

Just finished Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Very good book! Not perfect, but definitely worth the time. I'm glad that I intentionally didn't read any detailed reviews of the book before starting, because the several twists and turns of the plot were part of the enjoyment. As usual the "science" was basically sound to my untrained eye, although the very end stretched credibility a bit. (But, hey, it is science *fiction* after all!) Sometimes the "sciencing with science" also slowed the pace of the story a bit, as explaining the boiling point of mercury or the calculation of orbital mechanics kind of diluted the tension of whatever harrowing situation the protagonist was in. (There were many harrowing situations!)

>79 drmamm: Glad you liked it, I thought it was very good also, but not perfect.

The Inspiration4 crew made orbit! It is awesome to see non-astronauts in space.

>80 Karlstar: do you get the feeling they are going to commercialize the filmed parts in some way since there was no live scenes of the view through the “cupola “ window? Since it is supporting a very good charity no harm done by theatrics I guess.

I've just started The highest frontier.

Reading some of of my birthday pressies and others:

Action at a Distance. The 7th Rivers of London graphic novel. We're now in 1957, where Nightingale is helping a former army mate with a police matter. A flashback to WWII which is also the coda to 1957, and a present-day framing story.

The Fey and the Furious. The 8th Rivers of London graphic novel. Back to the main storyline, where street racing meets the Fey. Peter is called to tackle street racing which fronts a smuggling operation.

In the Empty Quarter. A short story by G Willow Wilson. Interesting - an American oil executive's wife has a supernatural encounter in the desert. There's a nice feel of culture clash here - the smugness of the American way of life meeting the Middle Eastern way of life making the latter seem inferior.

The Dracula Tape. The first in The Dracula Sequence - a re-read for me (I own the print copies). The story of Dracula from Dracula's point-of-view. There's parallels to Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint Germain in how Dracula is presented - a civilised and urbane gentleman with a savage background, although Dracula is closer to the savagery than Saint Germain.

I've also been dipping into various other books but not settling down to read them (yet - in many cases I'm waiting to complete the series).

I am supposedly browsing for reads for Spooky October. Night in the Lonesome October (of course) The King in Yellow which I've never read before. Possibly Weaveworld which been looking at me reproachfully for no less than 2 years.
I intend to read old faves from Lovecraft,Arthur Machen,M R James and other weird tales. Unfortunately as I search out great stories,I just cant resist reading ''just one or two pages,and am then gripped till I have completed the story! lol. At least four stories gripped me so far,and its likely to be more lol!
One such story was The Dweller in the Gulf I really want to extend my knowledge of Clark Ashton Smith,and was intrigued at this tale of prospectors on Mars whom take shelter from a sandstorm in a cave.Talk about spooky,its 3 days latr and still cant get the ending out of my mind! EEK! I was expecting a replay of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness really,but this was something else. Definitely I need to read more of CAS.His very literary intricate style takes more effort to read than HPL,but I enjoy the oldfashioned ornate style,and that was some ending
.Any good recommendations fro Weird Tradition members from this group?

>81 DugsBooks: I don't know, but I expect it will definitely appear in SpaceX promotional material. Right now they are way ahead of VG and Blue Origin and Musk likes it that way.

>84 dustydigger: One such story was The Dweller in the Gulf

This was before I joined the group, but The Weird Tradition discussed that CAS story here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/136415

>84 dustydigger: I tried a re-read of Weaveworld fairly recently. It has not worn well at all.

>87 Maddz: It has not worn well at all.

I see what you did there.

:-)

>88 pgmcc: I hadn't noticed! (Until you made me catch my foot in the hole...)

>89 Maddz:

Our minds deal in metaphors (puns) even when we aren't aware of it. Perhaps, especially when we aren't.

>89 Maddz: & >90 elenchus:
This is an interesting thread.

Samuel R. Delany, in Triton:

Text, of course, comes from the Latin textus, which means “web.” In modern printing, the web is that great ribbon of paper which, in many presses, takes upwards of an hour to thread from roller to roller throughout the huge machine that embeds ranked rows of inked graphemes upon the “web,” rendering it a text. All the uses of the words “web,” “weave,” “net,” “matrix” and more, by this circular ‘etymology’ become entrance points into a textus, which is ordered from all language and language-functions, and upon which the text itself is embedded.

>86 elenchus: thanks for the link,Elenchus.there was so much interesting stuff there. Unfortunately for the state of my TBR,I found no less than 256 stories on the group list! EEK!!
At least I know where to go for probably the next 5 years for interesting stories! :0)

>84 dustydigger: Hi Dusty,
Funny, I usually think of that genre as closer to fantasy than SF -- but the pesky literature keeps ignoring borders. :-)
Have you read Abraham Merritt? Best know for lost-civilization type books; but a favorite of mine is Burn Witch Burn, one of the best witch stories ever. Madame Mandilip (the witch) is a classic.
In fullscale SF, George RR Martin of Game of Thrones fame wrote a novella (short story?) earlier in his career, A Song for Lya which is both creepy and sad.

So, catching up after my trip to the beach, I did knock off A Psalm for the Wild-Built. If you don't like the slice-of-life stories that Becky Chambers comes up with this novella probably won't change your mind, but I enjoyed it.

>94 rshart3: hi,rshart. So far I have read The Moon Pool a fun if overrought tale - and a bit too long. Also read Dwellers in the Mirage. I have also got 4 other of his books,including Burn Witch Burnon my kindle. At the moment,this year, I am focused on short stories,I shall probably read those Merritt books next year. Also some Stanley L Weinbaum and Jack London,and should continue my Doc Smith Lensman series then too.The TBR is reaching mountainous proportions! lol.

“ Is Becky Chambers the Ultimate Hope for Science Fiction? “ A rather lengthy interview with Becky Chambers in wired magazine. I checked out on Overdrive but did not have time to read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet as I remember it.

>97 DugsBooks: That's like saying Are Coal Fired Power Stations the Ultimate Hope for Climate Change.

Ouch.

Shots Fired.

Started Constance by Matthew FitzSimmons and More Beautiful Than Death by David Mack.

Browsing for books for Spooky October,I almost decided on a reread of Childhood's End. Am I the only person who finds this book really spooky? Who distrusts these seemingly benevolent invaders? And is the Overmind REALLY intending just the ultimate transcendent uplifting? Perhaps I am unduly cynical and suspicious but thoughts of these tender morsels ending up on the menu refuses to leave my mind. lol.Beware the Greeks bearing gifts.........
In the end I decided not to put myself through mistrust and agitation,and put it aside.Instead i will subject myself to NOS4A2 and some weird short fiction.Frightning,but not at all unsettling. Clarke's take on alien invasion is undoubtedly his masterwork - and barely even 200 pages long!

>102 dustydigger:. Childhood's End really freaked me out when I read it years ago. As an American, the complete loss of individuality did not seem to me to be an adequate trade for peace and harmony. If there is no individual to appreciate it, is it utopia?

I didn't care too much for NOS4A2 despite the bike riding female protagonist. But it was light reading, and perhaps a good way to recover from Childhood's End.

Started Lovecraft Country, a tie-in to the TV series apparently (I've not watched it). It's started off a bit slow but will hopefully pick up once they get to the actual Lovecraft country.

Finished The Sardonyx Net, began A Door into Ocean.

>102 dustydigger:, >103 vwinsloe:
The creepy edge is definitely one of the things I love about Childhood's End. I haven't read it since I was a kid, but I recently read the novella that was the basis of the first part, "Guardian Angel" (in The Sentinel).

>104 SChant:
Lovecraft Country was issued as a novel in 2016, and the TV series was based on it after the fact.

>106 paradoxosalpha: Thx!

Completed C J Cherryh's Divergence. One of the few authors where I check how many pages are left to read and wish the number was larger,as I never want to come back to earth.!
I should imagine that only one more 3 book arc will be needed to finish off the saga. But CJ is now 79 yrs old.Better get cracking finishing the whole thing. No popping off leaving all the devoted Atevi fans in distress! So no going off track with things like Alliance Rising! lol.
What an amazing career she has had,first novel published in 1976, (It won the John Campbell award for best new author)and still going strong. Yet so many dont even recognize the name. Very odd.

>108 dustydigger: Them are fighting words! We need new books in BOTH universes ;)

As for the not recognizing the name - a woman, writing mainly SF (and not fantasy (she has a few of those and they are not bad either), paranormal romance and urban fantasy)... shall I say more?

In my ongoing search for Spooky October reads I was seriously thinking about choosing Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find.Not strictly horror but the darkest of Souther Gothic.Of course I couldnt resist rereading it there and then. As usual it blew my mind,and left me with a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. What a story!
I did see on YouTube a thread with her reading this tale aloud. It might as well have been in Mandarin,her southern accent was so broad.lol. This gal fro North East England found her accent totally impenatrable :0)

I recently finished my read of The Third Policeman, which somebody has tagged as "science fiction." I don't know if I concur, but it could be a Spooky October read, if your tastes run to the surreal. Not strictly horror but ... Irish Gothic? It does start with a murder or two, and the policemen are some sort of supernatural monsters.

>111 paradoxosalpha:
Apparently it was the inspiration for the TV series, “Lost”.

>112 pgmcc:

Huh. I never watched a minute of the TV series, but I wouldn't have guessed the relationship from what I heard.

Wikipedia sez: The Third Policeman was featured in a 2005 episode of television series Lost with the intent of providing context for the show's complex mythology, with the result that sales of the book in the three weeks following its mention equalled what it had sold in the preceding six years.

>110 dustydigger:. You won't go wrong with that collection. I read it decades ago, and the story that stuck with me the most was Good Country People. Lots of relevance even today.

Thinking more on TV and The Third Policeman, I realized the really apposite show is The Prisoner. The namelessness of No. 6, the bicycle emblem, the futility of various "escapes," and the idyllic unreality of the Village could all have been inspired by O'Brien's book. And it would make the series into a more vivid indictment of Cold War spyfare with that referent. (No. 6 really is the villain the whole time.)

N.B. The show debuted the same year The Third Policeman was first published, so the fine points of chronology might support or disprove my conjecture of influence.

>98 justifiedsinner:
“That's like saying Are Coal Fired Power Stations the Ultimate Hope for Climate Change.” - Justified’s response to the article titled “ Is Becky Chambers the Ultimate Hope for Science Fiction? “.

As stated by >99 paradoxosalpha: >100 igorken: , that sets the scene for a great debate & if it happens I will facilitate by using the full extent of my qualifications - bringing popcorn 🍿

Speaking of spooky October reading, there is a fighting chance that I'll have the next of Charlie Stross' "Laundry" stories in my grubby little mitts for the coming month.

The new one? Escape from Puroland?

>115 paradoxosalpha:

I've never screened the full series and have long sought a DVD copy. I never would have guessed O'Brian as a primary source, though from what I know of both (I've not read The Third Policeman but have read other of his work), they are suitable cross-referents.

>72 vwinsloe:

Right--not much in common with Musk there.

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My latest sf read was Non-Stop, very enjoyable and even moving. Technically one could quibble with stuff not fitting this and that, the time-frame doesn't work for the various de/evolutions implied, but that's easy to overlook for a story this good.

>120 LolaWalser: I found that forest the tribe were living in absolutely terrifying!So claustrophobic and dangerous. I think I should read more Aldiss next year. Ashamed to say I have never read the Heliconia series or Greybeard.I find his books a bit dry and hardgoing as a rule,but Non-Stop was so packed with movement,danger discoveries and adventure it was easier to read than most of his stuff.:0)

>119 elenchus: Huge fan of the prisoner series, a lot of herbs were sacrificed during the various runs of the shows - seems like it would be available with all the streaming options.
>115 paradoxosalpha: thanks for making me look up “ apposite”.

>105 ChrisRiesbeck: Both good books, and good authors. I think A Door into Ocean is much more substantial; a minor classic. Too bad she didn't write more than she did. Too busy doing real-life science....

>117 Shrike58:, >118 paradoxosalpha:

Hm. Not only do I see that the title has been changed to Escape from Yokai Land, I see that the release date is now March 2022. So I'm guessing that's not your next Laundry read.

>108 dustydigger: Yes! I remember when I first read Downbelow Station a couple of decades ago I could not believe that I had never heard of CJ Cherryh before that. I could not put that book down and have read it a couple of times since and read the others in her Alliance-Union universe. I must get around to her Foreigner series.

>105 ChrisRiesbeck:, >123 rshart3: I've just finished The highest frontier by Slonczewski and loved it. I really must find my copy of A door into ocean and read that soon.

I've just started reading Happy policeman by Patricia Anthony.

>118 paradoxosalpha: Yep...

>124 paradoxosalpha: I know that there is a full "Laundry" novel coming out early next year so I'm going to keep thinking happy thoughts on the matter.

Speaking of novels, I've knocked off Polaris Rising. Basically a mash-up between romance and space opera and it was an acceptable change of pace; might continue with the series, might not. If that sounds like damning with faint praise it was a step up from some of the other space opera adventures that I've read over the last year or two.

>123 rshart3:

Joan Slonczewski isn't dead yet! She could still write more stories.

>130 karenb: Thanks - you've done me a favor. I thought she might still be around, but seemed not to have written any novels for decades. I just checked & see that she wrote one 10 years ago. I'll add it to my bookstore search list! And you're right: with an output that slow, 2 or 3 more might be coming.

finished More Beautiful Than Death by David Mack. Meh.

I finished with the monkey by reading Macaque Attack, which was like the other two books except Powell has his monkey discover the multiverse and then he hits us over the head with it.

Now reading O-Zone, mainly to see if time has lessened the amount of derision it got from the sf community back in the 1980s. So far, about 150 pages in and not impressed.

Hey hey. So I rounded off my Philip K. Dick short story time with:

- Beyond Lies the Wub,
- The Defenders,
- The Eyes Have It,
- The Hanging Stranger,
- Second Variety,
- The Skull,
- Tony and the Beetles, and finally,
- The Variable Man.

I really enjoyed all of these. I am now reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep again as it is a favourite I like to revisit. That will conclude my PKD reading spree.

For spooky October I have lined up the graphic novel Hellraiser The Dark Watch Vol I & II, and Zombies: The Recent Dead - an anthology of undead stories.

Wow! Just completed Woolf's Orlando. Incredible writing,a barely concealed biography of her friend and lover Vita Sackville West's family and family estate over a period of more than 3 centuries.Fun satire of history,culture,literature and gender issues over the centuries. So many threads and themes I havent yet digested it. Who would imagine that the seemingly staid and reserved Virginia could produce such whimsey ?An eyeopener for me.
Would it be classed as magical realism,I wonder? Good stuff!
Still struggling with Zamyatin's We.

>135 dustydigger: My favorite Woolf novel and her most accessible.

>134 wez: Just saw a comment in a non-LT group, complaining that PKD is mostly unreadable. What would you say?

>137 Karlstar: To each their own, really. There's a lot I haven't read yet, and while I generally very much enjoy his work, there is some that is pretty awful. I could also say that in particular his short stories aren't very polished, so depending on where they come from, I can certainly understand people feel that way, though I strongly disagree.

Finished Zamyatin's We. Bit of a downer,but fascinating.I can see why Orwell was so impressed with it.
Now reading Williamson's pulpy Legion of Time and hope to complete my reread of Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain. Despite all the tech detail the book is so smooth and fast moving. Its decades since I read any Crichton,and may go on to Congo once Spooky October is over.
Was so down after the harrowing We I just had to cheer myself up with a viewing of my all time fave zombie film. Shaun of the Dead. Absolutely priceless,it seems to get better every time I watch it! :0)

>139 dustydigger:
I loved We. I was also fascinated with the story of how it got published in English 22 years before it every appeared in its original Russian.

I saw the film of The Andromeda Strain many moons ago and loved the story. About twenty years ago I read the book and then subsequently rewatched the film. The film did not age well, but I still like the story. You might call it "A Warning to the Curious".

Shaun of the Dead is one Simon Peg film that I have only seen parts of. My wife does not like zombies and even in Shaun of the Dead she cannot watch them.

She loves Paul.

Finished up The Rosewater Redemption this evening, which winds up being a pretty good alien invasion epic. I'm not quite as impressed as some people seem to be, particularly when I found the middle book to be the strongest part of the trilogy, but I can give it a strong recommendation.

I'm reading Unconquerable Sun which is an enjoyable space opera.

Finished my fun reread of Andromeda Strain. I love Crichton's wry and sly digs against the scientists. No supermen here,just flawed humans who make lots of mistakes or false assumptions and go way off track at times,and somehow plod through in the end.
Crichton pretty much started up a whole subgenre with this book,and it is truly flourishing today.......wonder why........

Just finished the new Carrie Vaughn book Questland. I suspect that some people will like this a LOT: Think Jurassic Park, except the island is off the coast of Washington State, and it's a place for classic, pseudo-medieval role-playing games. The problem is that the island self-isolated (lots of new technology), and no one has been in or out -- or heard from -- in months. The gazillionaire owner hires a handful of ex-military folks and a lit/culture professor to go in and wrest control of the island back. There are riddles, and puzzles, and creatures, and nifty tech, and awareness of trademark/copyright infringement. It also pays homage to lots of source material for RPGs, so it's full of geek love.

I'm reading Protector by Larry Niven. Already I'm quite taken with his knobbly extra-terrestrial.

>140 pgmcc: Yes! Shaun of the Dead was such a great send-up of zombie films! i thoroughly enjoyed it. :D

>145 SFF1928-1973: Larry Niven’s Protector is excellent. I read a bunch of Niven stuff way back when after reading Ringworld and being captured by that vision. I read the sequel The Ringworld Engineers and found it interesting but not quite as captivating as Ringworld. I still need to go back and read the subsequent sequels at some point. Such an interesting premise.

>145 SFF1928-1973: One of my old favorites!

>137 Karlstar: I can see why some people would find it unreadable. Some works require extra attention and patience and, even then, toes the line of enjoyability. I find it worth the effort more often than not. It would be foolish to expect everyone to be the same; to wit, I find Dan Brown mostly unreadable :)

I have just started Ring Shout. My last Hugo novella finalist, I think.

>3 Neil_Luvs_Books: Canticle for Leibowitz is still one of my favorite dystopian read; found it in college and read it till the book fell apart. Amazing work.

>150 cindydavid4: I really enjoyed Canticle for Leibowitz. It was well worth reading.