As always which books/covers intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. Fool’s Run, Patricia A. McKillip (1987)
Michael Whelan’s cover for the 1988 edition
From the back cover: “Terra Viridian is a young woman who obeyed a vision, took a laser assault rifle, and turned fifteen hundred innocents into light. She was captured, convicted, and sentences to the orbital prison called the Underworld. Forever.
Seven years later: a bar-band pianistsnamed The Magician suddenly plays Bach, while a riot burns around him. The Queen of Hearts, a drifter who hides her life beneath a golden mask, steps enigmatically from the shadows. Underworld administrator Jase Klyos unexpectedly lets a concert bring sound to his silent, sterile hell. And beneath her mad eyes, the vision of a psychotic killer… changes. The thing that Terra Viridian saw is coming. Growing. Watching. And it must be set free.”
Initial Thoughts: In my teens fantasy was my domain. As I had access to hundreds of acres of rural Virginia countryside, the forests and streams and gullies became my invented fantasy landscape (in inhabited by Dogtullises — i.e. Dog Turtles). McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1975) and the brilliant The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976) marched with a legion of fantasy novels that fostered my love of reading. I haven’t returned to her work since. And when I discovered she wrote science fiction later in her career…. I bought one!
2. Hospital Station, James White (1962)
H. R. Van Dongen’s cover for the 1979 edition
From the back cover: “SECTOR GENERAL. Blazing like a gigantic, misshapen Christmas tree against a misty background of stars, Galactic Sector Twelve General Hospital provides environments and medical staff for the treatment of any known life form.
But it’s a big galaxy—and then there are realms beyond the galaxy. So it’s all in the day’s work for the medics of Sector General to have to deal with….
- A telepathic dinosaur
- The toughest orphan in the universe
- An incomprehensible alien that seems to be eating itself
- A berserk patient who could wipe out the whole hospital station”
Contents: “Medic” (1960), “Sector General” (1957), “The Trouble with Emily” (1958), “Visitor at Large” (1959), “Out-Patient” (1960)
Initial Thoughts: Whenever I bring up my love of medical-themed science fiction, numerous readers point out James White’s Sector General sequence of stories. While I have read a few here and there, I have yet to read one of the collections from cover to cover. Time to rectify that.
White’s three novels reviewed on this site should be tracked down:
3. Chrysalis 4, ed. Roy Torgeson (1979)
Clyde Caldwell’s cover for the 1979 edition
From the inside page: “This fourth volume in the Chrysalis series of all-original science fiction stories once again presents the very best writing by recognized masters of the art, established professionals and brilliant newcomers.”
Contents: Charles L. Grant and Thomas F. Monteleone’s “When Dark Descends,” Gregory Long’s “The Word,” R. A. Lafferty’s “St. Poleander’s Eve,” Karl Hansen’s “Wires,” Spider Robinson’s Local Champ,” Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s “Fugitive Colors,” Octavia E. Butler’s “Near of Kin,” Robert Thurston’s “Vibrations,” Orson Scott Card’s “Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory,” Alan Ryan’s “Good Night, Though Child of My Heart.”
Initial Thoughts: Octavia E. Butler wrote only a handful of short stories. As a result, I rather track them down in individual anthologies rather than an author specific collection. Along the way I might discover other short fiction gems!
4. The Strayed Sheep of Charun, John Maddox Roberts (1977)
Michael Flanagan’s cover for the 1977 edition
From the back cover: The newly discovered world of Charun, sprung from a Roman tradition, has strayed far from the old religion. Not only is the aristocracy ridden with corruption, but is supported by slaves, gangsters, and monstrous android warriors. The citizens of Charun have long been deprived of any kind of higher ideals. All they live for is gambling and the fights—confrontations of brutality and certain death—between slaves well groomed and trained for their fate….
In this grotesque place three men are brought together: a young fighter who sold himself into slavery in order to save his tribe from extinction, a Jesuit priest with a few tricks up his sleeve, and a Franciscan brother who plans to go quietly winning converts among Charun’s poor. Their methods are different, but their aims are the same: to live long enough to return a violent planet to the path of righteousness…”
Initial Thoughts: An author and work that I hadn’t heard about until recently. Deeply suspicious of overtly Roman/medieval tropes…. we shall see.
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 
Michael Whelan is one of my favorite illustrators – his Wheel of Time arts are great.
Octavia Butler: I count 12 stories in summary, most importantly „Bloodchild“. Others didn’t work so great for me, but here is a collection from her https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/bloodchild-and-other-stories-%e2%80%a2-1995-%e2%80%a2-collection-by-octavia-e-butler/
Thanks for visiting.
The Wheel of Time novels were also part of the legion of fantasy novels I consumed in my youth.
Yeah, I absolutely know about the Bloodchild collection. As I mentioned, I prefer to track down her stories in their original anthologies (so I can explore the other authors in them) as she wrote only a few in the date range I primarily cover on the site (1950-1987?).
Her stories didn’t get heavily anthologiest, and the collection is easily acquirable. But I see that you‘ve got other needs, and book hunting is certainly a nice hobby 😁
Well, I have the 1st Clarion volume that contained her first published short fiction — “Crossover” (1971)
And now Chrysalis 4….
As for old anthologies, well, welcome to my site! This is my 252nd book purchase post. And far from the most esoteric of the bunch!
I have read but never reviewed Kindred (1979). Do you have a favorite Butler work? Perhaps the “Bloodchild” story you mentioned? All of her short fiction is new to me.
See below 😁 Bloodchild. Hugo, Locus, Nebula winner. Also, it’s very good. Online link‘s in the review https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2015/09/15/bloodchild-%e2%80%a2-1984-%e2%80%a2-sf-novelette-by-octavia-e-butler/
Cool. I’ll check it out.
#3 sounds like fun, I have read “Near of Kin,” and “St. Poleander’s Eve” and neither was a Peak Read. Neither was crap, either, I hasten to add!
#4 gives me the heebies. Words like “righteousness” don’t sit well, for what I rather assume are self-evident reasons.
Have a favorite Butler story? I’ve read but never reviewed Kindred (1979). Haven’t read any of her short fic.
The Maddox author blurb doesn’t bode well — here’s a bit: “He and his wife are members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, which revivies early English traditions, including jousts and pageants. John has made his own chain mail and is expert in using medieval weapons; he and his wife were married in a medieval ceremony.”
All of this is the type of medievalists I AM NOT! hah.
Bloodchild is a must read, I‘d say. It’s really great. The others are mostly not to my taste.
@Andreas, if you’re curious in what I look for in SF, check out this article I wrote on the topic a while back: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2018/06/15/fragment-s-why-i-read-and-review-50s-70s-science-fiction/
I‘ve noticed that, and that’s why I followed your blog 👍
Good good!
If you were to pick four books that exemplify your science fiction fascination, what would they be?
Mine are as follows. These are not necessarily my favorite SF works but demonstrate my interests….
John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar (1968)
Barry N. Malzberg’s Revelations (1972): https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2012/08/27/book-review-revelations-barry-n-malzberg-1972/
Anna Kavan’s Ice (1967): https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2015/02/01/book-review-ice-anna-kavan-1967/
And the short fiction of Christopher Priest: for example, An Infinite Summer (1979): https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2015/11/18/book-review-an-infinite-summer-christopher-priest-1979/
Other authors that might feature if I were to expand this list — Ursula Le Guin, George Alec Effinger, Suzy McKee Charnas, J. G. Ballard, et al.
I haven’t read Malzberg and Kavan. Brunner though is well represented in my library, though I prefer Shockwave Rider over Stand on Zanzibar – as a precursor to Cyberpunk. Priest, I‘ve read a few, as well, but he‘s not a favorite.
My pick is as follows, and they are favorites
Dune – I discuss this here: https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2020/07/11/dune-%e2%80%a2-1965-%e2%80%a2-sf-novel-by-frank-herbert/
Le Guin: The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness (actually, everything by her)
Gibson – Jonny Mnemonic (I grew up with the start of cyberpunk)
Robinson – Red Mars for Hard SF
I could add some more contemporary works from Chiang, Liu, and Stephenson.
Did you see my recent review of John Shirley’s City Come A-Walkin’ (1980)? Definitely proto-cyberpunk. https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2020/06/28/book-review-city-come-a-walkin-john-shirley-1980/
I grew up with 90s and early 2000s fantasy. I’m a child of the very late 80s.
I subscribed just recently, so this didn’t come up (and I didn’t browse your site). Shirley is great. Back in the 80s, I read more Aldiss than Shirley, though.
My reading experience started in the early 1980s, mostly with Fantasy (Tolkien, Michael Ende, and McKillip). SF started with Dune and loads of Perry Rhodan (guilty pleasure, haha 😆)
Perry Rhodan?????
Wow, I had forgotten about those. When I was a teenager in Germany they came out in “Roman” format, a 60 page pulp fiction magazine, each a somewhat stand-alone story, but all the same characters. I bought and devoured those every week. I Palladin and Gucky are some of the characters I remember. Telepathy, teleportation, it was all there! Thanks for mentioning that!
They continue publishing – every week since 1961, more than 3000 stories in a continuously evolving space opera. It’s really a cultural thing. I came back for a few pulps when they started their „Neo“ timeline.
Yeah, I am a weentsy tidge surprised you’re planning to read it. Maybe it will be delicious, one can never be entirely certain.
Favorite Butler story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_Sounds
“Speech Sounds” is, to my thinking, an all-time masterpiece in her, or almost any, ouevre.
Well, it might sit on that shelf for a bit (or far more than a “bit”).
“Speech Sounds” seems fascinating.
It really is, after all it won her her first Hugo.
Speech Sound is great, and with COVID-19 absolutely relevant again – breakdown of civilization after a pandemic… review‘s here: https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/speech-sounds-•-1983-•-near-sf-short-story-by-octavia-e-butler/
It’s that fillip of hope, maybe hope is too strong a word, the hope for the existence of hope perhaps, that makes the story as powerful a statement about humanity as it is.
Hi, I love checking out all the neat books you find, lots of great stuff, thanks for sharing.
I have a question, was wondering if you could help. Years ago, would be the early 2000’s, 02 or 03, I was at a used bookstore and remember seeing a Sci-Fi novel and was wondering if you could help identify it. I didn’t buy it, and can’t remember the name but it’s been stuck in my head for years. On the cover was a woman in a glass tube, and the plot of the book was about a man who had his mind transfered into the body of a woman who along with a super genius who’s mind was in a little kids had to go on a quest to find their original bodies.
Does that sound familiar to anyone?
Thanks
Hello,
Thanks for visiting. When do you think the book was written? Was it newish in the early 2000s? If so, it’s not my area of knowledge.
Maybe it’s one from the list here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading_in_fiction
I looked through the wiki list but didn’t see it, but good idea, thanks.
I don’t think it was a new book, most of the books in the bookstore were older, from the 70s and 80s, and the memory I have of the cover it looks like something from that time. Woman in a glass tube is such a common SciFi image though I’ve never been able to find the specific one I remember seeing.
Yeah, I put together an entire themed art post on the topic a while back. It’s far from encyclopedic. https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2012/07/20/adventures-in-science-fiction-cover-art-imprisoned-in-glass-viles-of-the-metaphoric-medical-experimental-variety/
First I thought of Heinlein’s I will Fear no Evil, but I don’t think that’s the one you’re looking for. Then I googled “science fiction cover woman in a glass tube” and there are tons of covers. Have you scanned those?
I first thought of Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil as well. But, then the bit about the quest threw me off…
Hi
I did post on Fool’s Run it appeared here. https://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2016/06/22/fools-run-patricia-a-mckillip/
I did read most of White’s Sector General stories which I don’t think have aged well for me.
Happy Reading
Guy
Hello, Guy. I’ll take a peek!
Ah, I commented on that review way back in 2016… I’m all for comparisons to Babel-17! I look forward to reading it.
A word about John Maddox Roberts. I haven’t read Strayed Sheep so I can’t really comment on it, but he is also the author of SPQR, a mystery series set in Rome around the time of the fall of the Republic. There are, like, 10 books in the series and the quality falls off a bit by the end, but the first few are highly entertaining. Most of his other books seem to be fantasy and I hope that they would be as enjoyable, but the only one I have read is one of his Conan novels and it felt pretty generic…Oh, and apparently he later expanded Strayed Sheep and republished it as Cestus Dei, so you don’t even have the final version.
Yup, I am aware that I have the first version of The Strayed Sheep. Like Wilson Tucker’s brilliant The Long Loud Silence (1952, rev. 1969), I am perfectly okay reading an earlier version.
This is something of a related tangent, maybe? Bear with me!
As for his more overt historical fiction, as I’m a professional medievalist (PhD) with an primary interest in medieval conceptions of and historical writing about Rome — I’m deeply reluctant to read it…. I suspect my view is something akin to a professional scientist encountering amateur level science in a novel. It’s nothing to do with whether they are actually entertaining or not! It’s simply that I rather read about history in an academic monograph or article.Also, I tend to approach them as if I were researching about medievalism (the presentation of medieval history after the middle ages), which is currently a major area of study at the moment.
Even loose extrapolations from the “roman,” or “medieval” or “early modern” frustrate me. There’s a reason I haven’t reviewed Keith Roberts’ wonderful Pavane. It’s steeped with a deep anti-medieval current… which, of course, was all the thing back in the 60s/70s. And that’s okay. I find it far more interesting as a work of “medievalism” than a novel. Some of these issue broil beneath the surface of my review of Richard Cowper’s The Road to Corlay (1978) (which I also did not enjoy writing about). https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2019/04/01/book-review-the-road-to-corlay-richard-cowper-1978/
At the same time, my area of study deeply impacts how I approach SF. At a conceptual level I am fascinating by texts within texts (I researched medieval compilations of other writings quoted and rewritten), commentaries on memory and the act of history, how one retells the traumatic past…. Those operations pull me into SF. On another level, my professional obsessive approach to history informs my general approach to reading — finding a niche and exploring its nooks and crannies.
I’m assuming that you would not be a fan of Avram Davidson’s Virgil novels then, as they also tell a Roman tale as filtered through a “medieval lens.
If I were writing an academic article on “medievalism,” I’d be all on board!
Hi. Fool’s Run sounds grim, but the Forgotten Beasts of Eld was one of my favorites.
Grim ain’t bad!
While the details of her early fantasy remain nebulous in my mind, I remember enjoying them, especially The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976).
I loved FOOL’S RUN. I think it’s McKillip’s only science fiction novel. Lively and colorful, not overly interested in science or avoiding plot coincidence.
Seconding Butler’s “Speech Sounds” and “Bloodchild” — brilliant stories.
Thanks for stopping by Hestia! It’s been a while.
I look forward to reading it. Apparently McKillip also wrote some YA science fiction — but yeah, mostly fantasy.
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mckillip_patricia_a
I had forgotten that Moon-Flash and sequel were science fiction. Might need to revisit.
Let me know your thoughts if you do!
Recently read “Fool’s Run”, it is a combination of melancholy, music, and space opera.. The primary characters are a pair of twins, and a man who is in love with one of them. I loved it, and it has one of the best covers of all time. I also loved the rather whimsical cover by H. R. Van Dongen for the James White collection.