A selection of read volumes from my shelves
What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading or planning to read next month? Here’s the August installment of this column.
The Power of the List. I adore lists. I’ve compiled lists of science fiction stories on my site about generation ship stories, immortality (abandoned), overpopulation (abandoned), and sports and games (abandoned). I religiously update my SF Novel and Short Story Review index and the Best SF Novels I’ve reviewed index. In your exploration of genre, I imagine you’ve encountered a “Best Of” list that horrified you — they tend to generate controversy, argument, and all sorts of impulsive takes. Lists can be dangerous. Lists can suggest canon. Lists exclude. Lists can be incomplete. Lists can motivate. Ian Sales, a long-time critic, author, and visitor to my site, created the SF Mistressworks (unfortunately, also abandoned) website in response to an egregious list that demonstrate utter ignorance about the wonderful SF written by women.
In its incubative form, a thematic list might suggest an encyclopedic possibility — i.e. ALL of the science fiction on a particular topic. You could create patterns and arguments about the nature of the contemporary genre vs. the past without realizing how incomplete a list might be. This, perhaps irrational, fear motivates me to track down pre-1985 stories for Olav’s wonderful Organized Labor in Science Fiction list at the Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog. I recently went full deep dive into the strange territories of pre-WWI utopian and dystopian literature about unions (inspired by my recent history reading noted later in this post). I certainly hadn’t heard of Nensowe Green’s One Thousand Years Hence (1882) or E. A. Johnson’s Light Ahead For The Negro (1902). Over the last two years or so I imagine I’ve added a good 80 stories and novels to the list. I even maintain a list of the works I’ve added to the list.
Lists are exciting!
Before we get to the photograph above and the curated birthdays, let me know what pre-1985 SF you’re currently reading or planning to read!
The Photograph (with links to reviews and brief thoughts)
- Knut Faldbakken’s Twilight Country (1974, trans, Joan Tate 1993) is a spectacular Norwegian SF vision of moody, dystopian urban gloom, intermixed with powerful images of transformation. Highly recommended. If there’s a press out there that wants to bring back a lost classic, this is it!
- Gerard F. Conway’s Mindship (1974). While I’m allergic to ESP stories, I found Conway’s take space as a landscape of psychological trauma and broken men and women and the evocation of a sinister “aura of violence” that permeates the titular mindship intriguing.
- Christopher Priest’s Inverted World (1974). One of my favorite SF novels from the 70s — unfortunately, never managed to review it.
- Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan (magazine 1970, book 1971). An enjoyable fantasy read from my youth. As I’ve mentioned before, I judged everything at the time against the vast bloated fantasy series that dominated the shelves (Tad Williams, Robert Jordan, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., etc.). I’m not sure I appreciated Le Guin’s more minimal take.
What am I writing about?
I’ve had a lull in writing in the last few months. That said, I’ve managed to post a review of George H. Smith’s “The Last Days of L. A.” (1959), for my ongoing undeclared “series” on nuclear terror, and “In the Imagicon” (1966), for my media landscape of the future series. I also posted short reviews of Joe Haldeman’s fix-up All My Sins Remembered (1977) and Burt Cole’s strident anti-war novel Subi: The Volcano (1957).
What am I reading?
My reading exploration of leftist thought of all different forms continues! I’m currently tackling Robert C. McGrath, Jr.’s American Populism: A Social History, 1877-1898 (1993). The Populists attempted to challenge the status quo of the Reconstruction south and the power of the railroads in the West. This brief political third party nabbed a few electoral votes. I wish more Americans knew the history of pragmatic socialism (in this instance, co-opts of all different shapes and sizes) amongst the rural working class. Fascinating stuff.
In the same, more utopian vein, I finished Edward K. Spann’s Brotherly Tomorrows: Movements for a Cooperative Society in America, 1820-1920 (1989). Also highly recommended — Fouriest-inspired American takes on socialism are diverse, bizarre, and relentlessly interesting. I can’t wait to visit more Harmonist sites. I still haven’t visited New Harmony, Indiana despite its relative proximity to my home in Indianapolis. And if I wasn’t traveling with my dog last week, I would have stopped by Old Economy Village, PA on my trip to Pittsburgh.
I also recently acquired on pre-order Oscar Winberg’s Archie Bunker for President: How One Television Show Remade American Politics (2025). Winberg explores the “intersection of television entertainment and American politics during the 1970s.” Count me in. Can’t wait to read this one.
A Curated List of SF Birthdays from the Last Two Weeks [names link to The Internet Speculative Fiction Database for bibliographical info]
September 23rd: Wilmar H. Shiras (1908-1990). is best known for her short stories in the Children of the Atom sequence–starting with “In Hiding” (1948)–about hyper-intelligent mutant children and a well-meaning psychiatrist who brings them together. I reviewed the majority of her early work here.
September 23rd: Richard Wilson (1920-1987). I’ve only reviewed Wilson’s controversial “Mother of the World” (1968). I have his lesser known, and I assume quite average, story “Strike” (1953) on my list to review for my labor in SF series.
Jack Gaughan’s cover for the 1969 edition of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
September 24th: Artist Jack Gaughan (1930-1985). While he’s never been one of my favorite big name artist of the era, I find an occasional cover or interior art appealing. His cover for the 1969 edition of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) is a great example.
September 24th: David Drake (1945-2023).
September 24th: John Kessel (1950-).
September 25th: J. Hunter Holly (1932-1982).
September 26th: Douglas R. Mason (1918-2013).
September 28th: Michael G. Coney (1932-2005). I really enjoy Coney’s work. Check out my reviews of “Those Good Old Days of Liquid Fuel” (1976), “The Mind Prison” (1971), and Hello Summer, Goodbye (variant title: Rax) (1975) if you’re new to his work.
September 30th: Artist Oliviero Berni (1935-).
September 30th: Vance Aandahl (1942-) wrote a range of short stories across the best SF magazines of the 60s (and more intermittently into the 90s). Read any of his work? He’s an unknown to me.
October 1st: Futurian, author, and editor Donald A. Wollheim (1914-1990).
October 1st: Artist Richard Corben (1940-2020).
October 2nd: Jack Finney (1911-1995). Best known for the Cold War paranoid thriller The Body Snatchers (1955). I need a copy.
October 2nd: Jan Morris (1926-2020). I acquired a copy of Last Letters from Hav (1985) a few years ago. I completely forgot about it until I saw the birthday notice!
October 3rd: John Boyd (1919-2013).
Uncredited cover for the 1972 edition of Messiah (1954)
October 3rd: Gore Vidal (1925-2012). Wrote a handful of novels that could be classified as speculative or science fictional. I own a copy of Messiah (1954).
October 3rd: Ray Nelson (1931-2022). Best known for “Eight O’Clock in the Morning (1963), the source material for John Carpenter’s They Live (1988).
October 4th: A. M. Lightner (1904-1988).
October 4th: Gerald Jonas (1935-). Yes, I still need to read “The Shaker Revival” (1970)!
October 5th: Artist George Salter (1897-1967).
October 6th: David Brin (1950-). I adored Uplift sequence as an older teen — in particular The Uplift War (1987).
October 7th: H. H. Hollis (1921-1977).
October 7th: Jane Gallion (1938-2003). A poet best known for “gonzo pornography” occasionally on SF themes such as the post-apocalyptic nightmare Biker (1969), not an easy to find work. I want a copy due to her commentary, according to SF Encyclopedia, on “hippy culture gone haywire.”
October 8th: George Turner (1916-1997). I’ve only read Beloved Son (1978), but could not write a review. I have mixed memories of the book.
October 8th: Frank Herbert (1920-1986).
October 8th: Ted Reynolds (1938-).
Richard Hescox’s “Fetch!”, 1980s.
October 8th: Artist Richard Hescox (1949-).
October 9th: Artist and Doubleday Press Art Director Margo Herr (1937-2005). If you want to know more about her time at Doubleday, check out my 2016 interview with artist Emanuel Schongut.
Wojtek Siudmak’s cover for Fiction, #200, ed. Alain Dorémieux (1970)
October 10th: Artist Wojtek Siudmak (1942). I adore his early work. The cover above is a spectacular example.
October 11th: G. C. Edmondson (1922-1995).
October 11th: Doris Piserchia (1928-2021).
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 
I just posted a review of The Menace from Earth, which at least held up better than Assignment in Eternity. I have Kingsbury’s The Moon Goddess and the Son in the queue, but it’s a year too late for your purposes.
I also have an absolute stinker slated for review but not for the usual reasons.
I saw the Heinlein review. Am I right in thinking that there’s mention of a generation ship in “Columbus was a Dope” (1947)? It’s been on my list… but… I’m just not feeling Heinlein, and haven’t for a long long long time.
There is! The story gets kicked off by it, because the characters discuss whether or not it’s a good idea.
Thank you. Well, as I am finishing up the last pre-1985 stories on my generation ship story list I guess I’ll have to get to it eventually. Alas.
You can polish the story off in five or ten minutes pretty painlessly. It’s, like, four pages long or something.
The reading of the story isn’t what takes the time — writing a review does! Hah. I write at a glacial pace with a lot of pre-preparing.
Is it the generation ship that ends up in Orphans of the Sky?
The stories are not officially linked. But whether or not there’s a reference I can’t tell you — read Orphans too long ago (and haven’t read “Columbus” yet).
I don’t think it is intended to be. The one in Dope is Pegasus. Did the one in Orphans get a name beyond “the Ship”?
JB: Gore Vidal (1925-20120 wrote a handful of novels that could be classified as speculative or science fictional.
Vidal’s Messiah is pretty good — especially for the early 1950s — and as science-fictional as some of the Brit 1960s-era social dystopias and cosy catastrophes I recall you reviewing. Vidal gets more outright science-fictional later in —
Kalki (1978) — designer pathogen in the hands of charismatic psychopath ends humanity.
Duluth (1983) — pomo/slipstream games, with insectoid aliens in a flying saucers ending humanity and bringing the book to an end.
Live from Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal (1992) — time travel, with Saints Paul and Timothy combating a mysterious figure from the future who’s deleting all traces of Christianity.
The Smithsonian Institution (1998 ) — alternate history with the protagonist helping some scientists in the Smithsonian’s basement build a neutron bomb while encountering Lincoln, Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt, etc., even as the scientists fear that the bomb might trigger a chain reaction capable of destroying the entire cosmos (and ending humanity).
Kalki and Live From Golgotha are arguably worth attention. The other two are Vidal amusing himself with post-modern games and congratulating himself on how clever he is, somewhat like latter-day, post-Zeitgeist Bruce Sterling — just as science fictional, and just as irritating if you’ve limited tolerance for that sort of thing. I can enjoy, but in small doses.
Hello Mark, The image of Messiah in the post is a scan of my personal copy — so that’s the one I own at the moment. I am intrigued by Kalki as well.
What pre-1985 SF are you currently or planning on reading?
The Years of The City by Pohl from 1984 is on my bedside currently and I’m intermittently making my way through it.
For me, the problem with SF, pre-1985, is that I read most of it back in the day — at least, almost all of it that would interest me. Also, the period between circa1978 and 1984, your cutoff point, was a particularly terrible period for the genre, when after the New Wave and related efforts, Star Wars came out, and publishers jumped on that bandwagon and on Tolkien derivatives, and old dinosaurs like Heinlein and Asimov got contracts to extrude verbiage like The Number of the Beast at 4-800 thousand word lengths. God, it was awful — the endless junk series from Piers Anthony, Jack Chalker, Philip Jose Farmer, Anne MacCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, others I have fortunately forgotten.
That said, I have come across a few holes here and there in my SF reading that seem worth filling in now — forex, Doomsday Morning by C. L. Moore is on my list of so-far unread SF works.
Yet, conversely, I recently got two Barrington J. Bayley’s story collections, The Knights of the Limits and The Seed of Evil, and him being the great ideas man and all — though I’d already given Knights a try a decade ago and found it ho-hum — I hoped his short stories would do it for me. Meh. Bayley mostly works far less well at short lengths than in his novels where he can keep on unfurling and piling up his ideas, which lets you overlook the clumsiness of some of his prose. Furthermore, I came across a couple of Bayley stories I first read in New Worlds back in the UK when I was eight or ten, and they worked far better for me then, whereas now they just seemed flatly-written cartoons.
Maybe check out the Faldbakken novel I included in the first picture? Absolutely wonderful. Doomsday Morning is certainly interesting although perhaps not a lesser known classic. You can see a bit of where she was going post-Kuttner’s death. Unfortunately, as you know, she did not write after she remarried.
Yeah, I suffered through that Heinlein in my late teens. Absolutely horrible.
I read Ian Watsons The Book of the Stars and The Book of Being, the two last parts of his Black Current-trilogy, mostly just out of curiosity after I read the first part more or less by coincidence some time ago.
They were simultaneously more intersting/less YA-fantasy-ish and more sloppy/incoherent than the first part.
I’m a big fan of Watson. I read but never reviewed The Jonah Kit and The Embedding. I’ve reviewed a collection of his short fictions on the site. He’s one of many authors that I need to return to.
Watson’s Embedding — along with the likes of Brunner’s Shockwave Rider and Budrys’s Michaelmas (which I know you don’t like) — was part of what I think of as a final flowering before 1978 and the Star Wars-initiated deluge of junk hit.
Watson became a lot sloppier after that, churning them out, as in the Black Current books. His Miracle Visitors is from that looser period but is definitely worth a look — though now I look, it’s from 1978, so write on the cusp before the deluge.
Ironically, cinema SF got better in that period with Ridley Scott’s two films, following on from Spielberg’s Close Encounters, and then Carpenter’s The Thing in 1982.
Maybe this is a controversial opinion but I think Close Encounters is a trite and and incredibly silly movie. Albeit, well-made… I’ll take Star Wars over that sad excuse for a first contact story.
I was curious so I checked my reviews for any books from 1979 and 1980 that I particularly enjoyed:
Tanith Lee’s Electric Forest (1979)
John Shirley’s City Come A-Walkin’ (1980)
Kate Wilhelm’s Juniper Time (1979)
Gary K. Wolf’s Killerbowl (1979)
M. John Harrison’s A Storm of Wings (1980)
Craig Strete’s collection (most published in 1980): If All Else Fails… (1980)
Walter Tevis’ Mockingbird (1980)
Among others…. (Bishop for example is still putting out great stuff, fix-ups and not, in the late 70s and early 80s).
Still some good stuff.
Don’t forget Crowley’s ENGINE SUMMER (1979).
I haven’t read that one, yet. But I’ve heard and read multiple reviews that proclaim its greatness.
Some books knock you down; their long-term effects vary. Others enter quietly and become part of you. ENGINE SUMMER is of the latter type.
@JB –
Yeah, notable SF works still were published in the 1978-84 period.
From your list, only Tevis’s Mockingbird is something I’d rate –the Strete I haven’t read, the Harrison is fine but Harrison is largely his own genre and this one wasn’t SF, and the others are kind of meh, as far as I’m concerned
Published in 1978, however, was Thomas Disch’s On Wings of Song, which I absolutely commend to your attention —
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1439
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Wings_of_Song_(novel)
Despite a load of award nominations and Harold Bloom’s putting it in his Western Canon, and W. Gibson calling it “one of the great neglected masterpieces of late 20th-century science fiction,” at its publication it did very little commercially — it may have sunk like a stone — and Disch gave up on SF novels, moving into the horror category and also the likes of The Brave Little Toaster.
This was a loss in two ways. Firstly, while the move gave him scope to indulge in Dischian snark and contempt for humanity, it seemed to me that his work from then on never rose much above that, and lacked the pity, imagination, and beauty of his best SF. Secondly, Dish had been working on an SF novel called ‘The Pressure of Time’ (about the arrival of human immortality), which from the fragments of it he did publish —
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?58756
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?69777
–could have been one of the great SF novels. We didn’t get it because Dish gave up on SF.
~ ~ ~
Other notable works published during the 1978-84 period were most of Gene Wolfe’s that’s likely to be remembered (the four New Sun novels) and The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, which collected most of the great Wolfe short fiction.
Also, Vernor Vinge’s True Names, which is certainly historically important. Doubtless, there are some others that I’m overlooking and which John Boston, if he thought a couple of seconds, would remind me about.
Definitely aware of the Disch. Acquired a copy in 2014 according to my site — wow, a long time ago…
Yeah, I don’t understand claims that Harrison is his own genre. Never understood why people (I mean, I actually do know but find it a condescending position to take — oh, “the stuff I like isn’t ‘genre'”) who want to claim certain works aren’t SF or fantasy when instead they might be a unique take or a unique dialogue with others within genre.
Octavia E. Butler is writing great stuff in the late 70s and early 80s… I should have another Butler review up soon.
So yeah, I pretty vehemently disagree with your narrow classification of the immediate post-Star Wars SF world. I also just like to argue, so… haha 🙂
Christopher Priest’s The Affirmation (1981), Robert Holdstock’s Where Time Winds Blow (1981), P.C. Jersild’s After the Flood (1982), Tom Reamy’s Blind Voices (1978), Bishop’s Transfigurations (1979) (a fix-up) and No Enemy But Time (1982), etc. etc. etc.
We’ll just agree to differ then. I, for instance, rate most of the works you just mentioned as minor except for the Chris Priest and I enjoy his ‘The Glamour’ from that period more.
JB: Never understood why people (I mean, I actually do know but find it a condescending position to take — oh, “the stuff I like isn’t ‘genre’”) who want to claim certain works aren’t SF or fantasy when instead they might be a unique take or a unique dialogue with others within genre.
Don’t straw man me. That’s clearly not my position, as I like genre and I rate Harrison highly. But I’ve read all his stuff, including a pure mainstream effort like Climbers — which may be his best book — and Harrison’s central theme in all of them — whether the individual work is tendentiously adjacent to SF, fantasy, mainstream, or whatever — is describable as epistemological collapse.
And sure, there’s a lot of SF that’s inevitably concerned with that, too, because the SF mission, as H.G. Wells laid it out in his argument with Henry James, was to move beyond the bourgeois novel to get the frame — the universe — into the picture (think of Wells’s Time Traveler finally reaching a beach at the end of time).
But Harrison is concerned solely with the epistemological collapse part and not at all with any of the rest of ‘getting the universe into the frame.’ In fact, I’d say the indications are that he thinks the rest of it may be impossible for human beings. Arguably, he says that in every book he writes, whether the book may notionally be categorized as fantasy, science fiction, mainstream, etc.
So in that sense Harrison is his own man and his own genre. Not a small thing at all.
As I say, we can agree to differ.
To be clear on one point, there are few things that I am more reluctant to engage with than debates over genre (Which all leads me to be a bit snippy). Alas. Rather than debate the particulars, I tend to deploy a large and inclusive umbrella into which I place Harrison and other authors with their roots in the New Wave who wanted to push it in new directions. Same goes with mainstream authors who seem to have some perhaps imaginary conception of “SF” and write their “anti-SF” novel and claim how it’s “mature” SF. It’s still an attempt at engagement, and thus participation within, genre.
Yes, he’s his “own man” but I still do not see how that precludes him from engaging with the larger discourse and tropes of genre which thus includes him within it. The same thing goes with Malzberg, who also seems obsessed with “epistemological collapse.” That’s my take at least.
Nah, I’m past the age of quick thinking and into the age of looking things up, so of things not mentioned (I think) I’d add Pohl’s JEM, Benford’s TIMESCAPE, PKD’s TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER, and Crowley’s LITTLE, BIG if we’re letting that sort of thing into this thread. Also Cherryh’s DOWNBELOW STATION (if we’re letting . . . .). Oh, and Howard Waldrop’s THEM BONES.
Them Bones is worth reading? I’ve heard very contradictory things about it.
To my taste THEM BONES is a very smart and amusing entertainment by a writer whose main assets (aside from off-trail and esoteric knowledge) is attitude and sense of humor. If you like Waldrop generally I think you’d like it, though it’s not the place to look for profundity. Waldrop was a premier jester.
I’ve only liked Waldrop’s “Mary Margaret Road-Grader” (1976). The other three short stories I covered were far more average.
I adored the paranoia of Downbelow Station as a kid. I assume I’d still like it!
I’ve previously read Deathhunter and The Very Slow Time Machine, and liked both of them a lot – much more than the Black Current-books.
I’ll be looking for more of his early ones, The Embedding seems like a good one to check out.
I remember enjoying The Embedding. As with a quite a few other novels, I wish I managed to write a review — I’d be able to tell more precisely why.
Lists… lists are arbitrary assemblages that propose false categories or false typologies and bury the actual network of linkages that connect the items listed… I, too, love lists like any reader or Borges or Calvino, or anyone who inhabits a library.
The slate of S.F. books that I am delving into currently seems to limited to the brothers Strugatsky… of course, there are always other books––books related to my teaching, books that I read in the morning, books that put me to sleep in the late hours of the evening, books that are graphically intriguing, books that are nice to hold in my hands, books that my son has suggested, books related to science so I can hold a decent conversation with my daughter, an science fiction books that occupy my time inbetween the others.
The brothers Strugatsky… well, anyone who has been seduced by the remarkable film, Stalker by Andrea Tarkovsky will begin with Roadside Picknic. The book, perhaps enhanced by the film, is nonetheless, most a remarkable work. The film fragments into a series of images that remain and resonate throughout the reading; however, the book outstrips the film in its complexity and layers of possible references, meanings, and events, like a labyrinth. Following that I picked up The Snail on the Slope––and fell into its back-and-forth vision of The Forest and the Administration… reminding me of the complexities spun between the oral and the written traditions. My current read is a romp through un-nerving realities between science and [fiction] magic: Monday Starts on Saturday. I feel consumed by these works in a manner that has not recently been experienced… at least, not since I fell into the deep well of Stanislaw Lem.
I’m glad you’re encountering a large corpus of work to plunge into. I think you should put The Doomed City on your list. They finished the novel in 1972 but knew they would never be able to publish it due to the censors. Didn’t hit shelves until 1989.
It’s fascinating how diverse the Strugatskys are. Roadside Picnic and Snail on the Slope are all time favorites of mine, heavy and mysterious stuff, whereas Monday Starts on Saturday seems almost like light entertainment (despite the satiritcal elements).
George Turner’s BELOVED SON, his first SF novel, was tediously turgid, as were his next couple. After that he learned to get out of his own way and produced several very capable and interesting (and more compact) books. THE SEA AND SUMMER a/k/a DROWNING TOWERS and BRAIN CHILD are the best to my taste.
My vague memories (the problem of not managing to write a review) of Beloved Son were similar. Generally appealing premise that devolves into lengthy endlessness…
Not science fiction. I’m rereading out loud with my grandson The Lord of the Rings. It’s probably 20 years or so since I last read it with his dad. It’s a fine fantasy to read aloud with an eight year old.
Nice! I have fond memories of listening to The Hobbit read to me. I read the trilogy on my own. Any pre-1985 near-future plans?
September was a productive month, in which I finally got around to reading ‘Pavane’ by Keith Roberts’ (which I could still wax lyrical about – tremendous book). Short stories have included Jerome Bixby’s ‘It’s a Good Life’ (well deserving of its strong reputation), Lieber’s ‘Coming Attraction’, & David I. Masson’s ’Lost Ground’ (still a rather underrated author, although admittedly his output was very small).
The most recent novel was P.K.D’s ‘The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch’ – an absorbing albeit challenging read!
Nice! I wrote about “Coming Attraction” (a rare reread) very recently: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2025/07/02/magazine-review-galaxy-science-fiction-ed-h-l-gold-november-1950-brown-asimov-boucher-leiber-knight-simak/
David I. Masson and I don’t see eye to eye. I’ve reviewed two of his stories over the years on the site.
I enjoyed The Three Stigmata — took place in my late teenage/early 20s PKD binge.
Great review – and wholeheartedly agree with the ‘Masterpiece’ rating. It was a story that kept working away in the background long after I finished reading it 👍
Leiber is a favorite of mine. Here are a few more stories worth reading:
“The Moon is Green” (1952) https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/12/29/short-story-reviews-fritz-leibers-the-moon-is-green-1952-and-sonya-dormans-go-go-go-said-the-bird-1967/
“A Bad Day for Sales” (1953) and “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949) https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2022/02/20/future-media-short-story-reviews-fritz-leibers-the-girl-with-the-hungry-eyes-1949-and-a-bad-day-for-sales-1953/
That’s great – thanks for the heads-up. I’m definitely interested in checking out more of his work.
No problem. I look forward to your thoughts.
Can’t remember if I previously mentioned recently finishing Joanna Russ’ “The Two of Us”, her usual mixture of sharply observed prose, dark humor, empathy, anger and frustration. Did not disappoint.
Moved on to Katherine MacLean’s short story collection “The Diploids”. Not sure if I had read anything of hers before, maybe some short stories in anthologies, but didn’t recognize any from this one. About two thirds of the way through it and some of the stories have been fun, others less interesting. There’s a something of the ironic, arched-eyebrow tone of the era (50s/early 60s) mixed with hard science that is intermittently amusing but also feels slight. So far I haven’t found any of the ideas particularly compelling, and the prose is functional but nothing special.
Kit Reed’s “Magic Time” is next on the sf-to-read pile.
Magic Time was an okay read. She’s done better (I’ve read three of her novels)! Have you read her first novel Armed Camps (1969)?
I actually havent read Kit Reed before – I know Magic Time has a midsling rep but I’ve been curious about her for awhile and this was just the first one I came across.
I really enjoy her short fiction — what she’s known for. Other than her first novel Armed Camps, I find her novel-length works very slight. For example, Fort Privilege (1985).
ha, yes that Fort Privelege review was what piqued my curiosity. (I am also still on the hunt for a copy of Transmaniacon 🙂)
Ah, good good. Maybe try some of her short fiction first? Or, like me, explore around the edges a bit before you get to what is considered “the best” 🙂
I’ve started Ecotopia. It’s one of those travelogues to a Utopia. I usually don’t like them because they tend to be a lot of “this place is so much better than where I’m from” and that gets boring; the exception is Owen Grebory’s Meccania, the Super-State, which is an entertaining satire of Wilhelmine Germany. Despite my reservations, I’m reading Ecotopia because it’s supposed to be an important example of ’70’s west coast environmentalism and I live on the West Coast. I’m only about 10% through and the country of Ecotopia sounds like a poorly planned commune.
I just finished The Duplicated Man, which was far more boring than it should have been given the plot. Political science fiction can be hit or miss and this one was a bit of a miss.
I took a look at Wojtek Siudmak’s work and it’s amazing. It’s unfortunate that he’s not better known.
I’ve read Ecotopia. Never managed to write a review. I found it intriguing but a bit.. meh. I wanted to support this cool book store in Mexico City a few years back so I snagged a copy from their limited SF collection.
Joachim,
I’ve finally gotten around to Wright’s Islandia that I’ve been wanting to read for years. Earlier I found and read Ballard’s Billenium, The Four Dimensional Nightmare and The Day of Forever; Panshin’s Star Well. Other older stuff from my list of early SF were Dent’s Emperor of the If, C. Thomas’ The Crystal Button & London’s The Star Rover. And I just bought a bunch from Wonder Book store in Hagerstown. I’m trying to read 200 books this year.
At one point 200 books was possible for me (I read 190 books in 6 months for my MA oral exam to prove I was ready to conduct my PhD research– but that was my “job” in addition to grading for a professor). Unfortunately, the prospect of writing and reading history works for other projects combined with my incredibly stressful job makes that impossible. I’m lucky if I hit 60-70 books a year these days. There are days I come home, make dinner, and go to sleep.
Thoughts on Islandia?
I obviously love Ballard.
Joachim,
I was expecting and found a leisurely paced story full of details so far, since the book is nearly 1K pages long (Btw, I made it a point of not reading any reviews so I wouldn’t have any preconceived expectations). I’m 100 pages into it and finally there’s a hint of drama, akin to a mild blush on a woman’s face. The interactions between the protagonist and the native females remind me of Burrough’s A Princess of Mars. Without the choppy Paso Doble temperaments. I expect this is actually a love story…
Andrew
I imagine I’ll find it most interesting as political commentary. It featured heavily in this fantastic dictionary of imaginary places volume that I had as a kid. I was obsessed with the maps of Islandia that were included.
I’ve been reading old sci-fi comics a lot lately, but I recently purchased the “Dalgoda” omnibus by Jan Strnad (writer) and Dennis Fujitake (artist), and found it extremely underrated. Do yourself a favor and check this one out. It has some of the best worldbuilding and art I’ve seen in an 80s comic.
This week, I’m reading something past the 1985 cut-off point. “The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories” by Ken Liu. So far it’s not bad, but it doesn’t deserve the amount of praise it gets when compared to the collection “Stories of Your Life and Others” by Ted Chiang.
Yeah, scifi comics aren’t for me — sorry.
That’s fine. Any specific reason you’re not into them?
Check out my reviews! I’ve reviewed every SF comic I’ve read.
Chaykin’s Empire (1978) (with Samuel R. Delany)
Paul Gillon’s The Survivor (1985, trans. 1990)
Bilal’s La Foire aux immortels (trans. The Carnival of Immortals) (1980).
Gene Day’s comic collection Future Day (1979).
To put it another way, I have almost no tolerance for SF TV which isn’t nostalgic (i.e. Star Trek). I rather the visuals NOT be supplied to me. The Bilal is the closest I got to liking one. And in every instance, I find the story of secondary status to the art. I really am more a reader of text and text alone. The art is all tertiary to my interest in pre-1985 SF.