Time for more holiday finds!
Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. When Gravity Fails, George Alec Effinger (1986)
From the back cover: “In a decadent world of cheap pleasures and easy death, Marîd Audran has kept his independence and his identity the hard way. Still, like everything else in the Budayeen, he is available …for a price.
Continue readingMy first review of 2024!
To quote a much younger me: “I’ve always been fascinated by imaginary and historical cities: the utopian (Tommaso Campanella’s 1602 work The City of the Sun), the allegorical (Calvino’s Invisible Cities), the multi-layered (Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Rome), the planned (Palmanova), the [fantastically] decaying (Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris), the multi-tiered (Tolkein’s Minas Tirith)…”
The science-fictional examples–from the urban gestalt of San Francisco in John Shirley’s City Come A-Walkin’ (1980) to the arcologies of an overpopulated world in Robert Silverberg’s The World Inside (1971)–hold special appeal. As manifestations of societal decadence and vice or vibrant communities of interaction and discovery, they often become characters—changing and evolving over the course of the narrative.
To inaugurate my brand new short story review series on The Urban Landscape in Science Fiction, I’ve selected one of my favorite SF short stories: Michael Bishop’s “The Windows in Dante’s Hell” (1973). Bishop adeptly renders a human drama in a future Atlanta, replete with soaring dome and nine subterranean levels. I’ve paired it with two stories entirely new to me: Barrington J. Bayley’s “Exit from City 5” (1971) and A. J. Deutsch’s “A Subway Named Mobius” (1953). Bayley depicts a city as generation ship. A. J. Deutsch imagines a mathematical mystery within a rapidly expanding metro system underneath a future Boston.
Let me know if you have any favorite city-centric short stories that I haven’t covered on the site published pre-1985 that I could include in this series.
Up Next: Robert Abernathy’s “Single Combat” (1955).
5/5 (Masterpiece)
Michael Bishop’s “The Windows in Dante’s Hell” first appeared in Orbit 12, ed. Damon Knight (1973). If you have an Internet Archive account, you can read it online here.
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Here’s to a happy 2024! I hope you had a successful reading year. Maybe you pulled down some dusty tome that you’ve wanted to dive into for a decade. I’d like to imagine you finally picked up a book I raved about in years past that you acquired with great anticipation but never opened. Whether you are a lurker, occasional visitor, or a regular commenter, thank you for your continued support and wonderful conversation.
What were your favorite vintage SF reads–published pre-1985–of 2023? Let me know in the comments.
Continuing a trend, I read only a handful of novels this year. Instead, my obsessions focused on my science short story review initiatives (listed below), collections, and histories of the science fiction genre. Without further ado, here are my favorite novels and short stories I read in 2023 with bonus categories. I made sure to link my longer reviews where applicable if you want a deeper dive into the rich seam of science fictional gems.
Check out last year’s rundown if you haven’t already for more spectacular reads. I have archived all my annual rundowns on my article index page if you wanted to peruse earlier years.
My Top 5 Science Fiction Novels of 2023
1. Edgar Pangborn’s Davy (1964), 5/5 (Masterpiece): Nominated for the 1965 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Full review.
Continue reading"There is a world of experience and culture that is exclusively Amerindian that has never been told. That I have set out to try to relate what I can of this world is audacious, perhaps. But there was simply no way I could have done otherwise, even if I had consciously tried" -- Russell Bates' intro to "Rite of Encounter" (May 1973)
With this post I complete my micro-series covering the short fiction of Kiowa author Russell Bates (1941-2018), one of a handful of Native American science fiction authors active in the 1970s. In Part I, I provided a short biography and what I could find about his writing career including contributing to Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974), and reviewed his first three short stories.
In this post, I’ll cover his three remaining published non-franchise science fiction stories. He also wrote “The Patient Parasites” anthologized in Star Trek: The New Voyages 2, ed. Myrna Culbreath and Sondra Marshak (1978) that I won’t feature. Unfortunately, his submission–“Search Cycle: Beginning and Ending 1. The Last Quest; 2. Fifth and Last Horseman”–to Harlan Ellison’s infamous Last Dangerous Visions, slated for 1973, still has not seen the light of day.
“Hello, Walls and Fences” (1973) and “Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined…:” (1977) also serve as the 32nd and 33rd story in my media landscapes of the future series.
Previously: Edmond Hamilton’s “Requiem” (1962) and John Anthony West’s “George” (1961)
Up Next: George H. Smith’s “In the Imagicon” (1966)
3.75/5 (Good)
“Hello, Walls and Fences” first appeared in Infinity Five, ed. Robert Hoskins (1973). You can read it online here.
A bleak allegory of the societal forces that compel the creative to sell their souls, “Hello, Walls and Fences” follows a nameless narrator attempting to find work from a mysterious tycoon named Thornton, who spends his days on a technologically advanced estate playing wickets and eating cheese. The work itself isn’t entirely clear: it might concern computer programing for massive one-time military “hologrammers” that Thornton places across his oasis (70).
Continue readingHappy holidays. I hope you’ve been able to squeeze in a bit of science fiction reading.
Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. Those Who Watch, Robert Silverberg (1967)
From the back cover: “CRASH LANDING FROM THE STARS.
Only three humans would ever know that the blinding flash in the sky on that night in 1982 was an exploding flying saucer. Only they would learn the truth about THOSE WHO WATCH–about the alien beings who came into this world in a crash landing from the stars. THOSE WHO WATCH is the strange, seductive novel of three accidental colonists from outer space whose chance encounter with Earth triggers interplanetary conflict. It is also the most unusual love story ever written.”
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What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading this week?
I’ve settled on a monthly schedule for this column. Check out the previous installment!
If you’re new and curious about my rationale for the perimeters of my site, check out this recent interview and podcast. And follow me on Mastodon if you don’t already as I no longer post on my Twitter account.
And, most importantly, let me know what pre-1985 SF you’ve been reading!
The Photograph (with links to reviews and brief thoughts)
What am I writing about?
Continue readingToday I’ve reviewed the 30th and 31st story in my series on the science fictional media landscape of the future. In Edmond Hamilton’s “Requiem” (1962), the newsmen and women of the far future descend en masse to witness Earth’s death. And in John Anthony West’s snarky satire “George” (1961), the titular character’s body slowly atrophies while ensconced in the living room watching TV.
Previously: Sydney J. Van Scyoc’s “Shatter the Wall” (1962).
Up Next: Russell Bates’ “Hello, Walls and Fences” (1973) and “Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined…:” (1977)
3.5/5 (Good)
Edmond Hamilton’s “Requiem” first appeared in Amazing Stories, ed. Cele Goldsmith (April 1962). You can read it online here.
In 2020, I read Hamilton’s brilliant “What’s It Like Out There?” (1952) which obliterated my ignorant view of his fiction. I asked some of my readers for other ruminative Hamilton works (i.e. not the pulp cosmos-exploding adventures he’s best known for) and “Friend of the Site” Brian Collins mentioned “Requiem.” And onto the queue, it went as it fit this series. Thank you!
Continue readingWhich books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. Under Compulsion (variant title: Fun with Your New Head), Thomas M. Disch (1968)
From the back cover: “A BLACK BANQUET OF PURE DISCH
A part-human, part-electronic brain going slowly mad in the Venus jungle.
The last man on earth rejecting the last woman.
A Russian astronaut looking for a good reason to die on the moon.
A chilling glimpse of a 21st century America where war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength–and they like it like that.
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4.25/5 (Very Good)
Sarban, the pen name of British diplomat and author John William Wall (1910-1989), spins a hypnotic horror in which a soldier, escaping from a Nazi prison camp, awakes in a dystopia a hundred years after Hitler’s victory in WWII [1].
Drawing on a rich English tradition of pastoral novels, The Sound of His Horn (1952) [2], despite its brief length, weaves a disquieting vision of the mechanisms of power and control [3] It’s unusual. It’s terrifying. It’s possessed by a gorgeous turn of phrase. And, in its most ruminative moments, an incisive exploration of the nature of desensitization and the fear that underpins all actions.
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Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 