Finally, a famous (“Joachim Boaz you will adore it”) fix-up novel by Keith Roberts enters my collection….
Overpopulation SF never gets old—even if I have low expectations about this one.
More Pangborn and a singleton Cherryh novel I had never heard of….
Thoughts?
1. A Torrent of Faces, James Blish & Norman L. Knight (1967)
(Diane and Leo Dillon’s cover for the 1968 edition) Continue reading
The sixth in my Kate Wilhelm’s SF Guest Post Series (original announcement and post list) comes via 2theD (twitter) over at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature and Tongues of Speculation. He is a prolific blogger of vintage, translated, and newer science fiction. Unfortunately, and much to my frustration (he knows!), he is on something of a hiatus (other than short story summaries and ratings). Thus, when I approached him about participating in this series he volunteered one of his older reviews. As I remembered it fondly, I agreed.
Thanks so much for contributing!
~
(Patrick Goodfellow’s (?) cover for the 1972 edition)
Kate Wilhelm is among a handful of female science fiction writers who need no introduction. She’s authored scores of short stories, about thirty-six genre novels, and eleven collections. She’s probably more prolific than many common and respectable male authors, yet she receives very little of the limelight that’s due to her (outside of SFMistress’s occasional posting on her work). Of her novels, I read her most popular work Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976) and the much lesser popular Let the Fire Fall (1969), their respective popularity very much reflecting their quality. The two-story collection in Abyss (1971) had some Continue reading
One of Robert Silverberg’s most famous 70s novels…
Barry N. Malzberg’s first published novel (more speculative fiction than SF)…
Lloyd Biggle, Jr.’s best known novel…
And Roger Zelazny’s first published collection of SF shorts…
And some great covers!
1. The Book of Skulls, Robert Silverberg (1971)
(Dean Ellis’ cover for the 1971 edition) Continue reading
(William Hofmann’s cover for the 1964 edition)
4/5 (collated rating: Good)
Filth. Decay. Mud. Transmutation. Brian W. Aldiss’ SF is filled with such images: Men—with limbs removed—who are slowly (and artificially) transmuted into fish, writhe around in the mud of their tanks grasping at the last shards of their humanity; A powerful matriarch lords over a planet where her pets transform at will; A tall tale about a planet filled with strange life and a human hero who cannot get over the fact that everything smells like garbage…. Aldiss’ novel The Dark Light-Years (1964), despite its poor delivery, is the best example of these themes—humans encounter sentient aliens who spend their days copulating, laying around, and eating in their own fifth. And they are happy with their lot.
Starswarm (1964) is comprised of three novelettes and five short stories with conjoining explanatory material that links the previously published short fiction into a cohesive collection. The modus operandi of such a conjoining concerns the “Theory of Multigrade Superannuation” where “the universe is similar to the cosmic clock; the civilizations of man are not mere cogs but infinitely smaller clocks, ticking in their own right” (7). Thus, the inhabited solar systems of Starswarm—our galaxy—will exhibit all the characteristics through which a civilization can Continue reading
The fifth in my Kate Wilhelm’s SF Guest Post Series (original announcement and post list) comes via Max Cairnduff (twitter)—who reviews literature and occasionally SF over at Pechorin’s Journal. In the past he has contributed to my Michael Bishop series. He is responsible for introducing me to one of my favorite works of all time, Anna Kavan’s phenomenal hallucination of a novel Ice (1967)—so check out his site.
Although he does not seem to have enjoyed Margaret and I (1971) as much as I did, his review does touch on the novel’s extreme psychological power and ingenious set-up.
Thank you so much for contributing!
~
(Uncredited cover for the 1978 edition)
Nominated for the 1972 Nebula Award for Best Novel
The only Kate Wilhelm I’d read before Joachim invited me to take part in this Guest Post series was her novel Welcome, Chaos. I’ve not even read Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (though I always thought I had, which ironically is probably what stopped me reading it).
Beyond those two titles I knew very little about her work. Joachim though knows his vintage SF, so when he invited me Continue reading
(Robert Adragna’s cover for the 1978 edition)
2.5/5 (Bad)
Gordon R. Dickson introduces a medieval tapestry (perhaps The Lady and the Unicorn in Paris’ Musée national du Moyen Âge)—filled with symbolic representations that make up the sum of the world—as the central framing metaphor for The Far Call (1978). Our idealistic young politician main character sees himself and everyone else as “caught up in its pattern” where “countless threads like his own make up the background.” The brighter threads “would be the movers and shakers among the people” yet no one would be more than a single thread (35). Continue reading
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 