A selection of SF volumes acquired over winter break!
Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. Flesh, Philip José Farmer (1960)
Gerald McConnell’s cover for the 1st edition
From the back cover: “Spaceman by DAY… MONSTER by night!
Peter Stagg was caught in the vilest trap ever devised–his own lust-driven body! For FLESH is the pulse-stirring story of a space explorer’s return from the strangest voyage man had ever made–to the strangest world the universe had ever seen–his own Earth!
Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, Tim Powers (1985)
Ron Walotsky’s cover for the 1985 edition
From the inside flap: “The civilized world had come to an end more than a century earlier, but in California life and society went on… taking strange, often horrifying forms.
Gregorio Rivas was a survivor–a proud, resourceful man who had, most recently, made his way from the corrupt, crumbling city of Venice to carve out a successful career as a musician within the walls of Ellay. He played his pelican with raw energy and flashy style, and people came from all over to hear him. But Greg’s real claim to fame had nothing to do with music. It was a part of his past he wanted to forget. And it had come back to haunt him…
Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. When Gravity Fails, George Alec Effinger (1986)
Jim Burns’ cover for the 1988 edition
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.
Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?
1. The Company of Glory, Edgar Pangborn (serialized 1974, novel 1975)
Vincent Di Fate’s cover for the 1st edition
From the back cover: “BEHOLD DEMETRIOS! With the same rich imagination and dazzling insights that won him the International Fantasy award, Edgar Pangborn weaves a magical tapestry set far in man’s future.
It is a time when man, struggling to rise above the ashes of nuclear holocaust, has returned to the simpler values and lifestyles of medieval times. And in this society, Demetrios the storyteller is revered among men for his captivating tales of the Old Time, with its miraculous Telephones, and Jet Planes, and TV, and Automobiles. But Demetrios is also feared–for one storyteller with a head full of ancient truth can be dangerous.
So Demetrios is forced to flee, with six compatriots, and together they embark on a journey full of unexpected sorrows, and unimagined delights, a journey through realms of fantasy, philosophy, and rich human possibility, which the reader will be delighted and privileged to share.”
Initial Thoughts: After reveling in Pangborn’s masterpiece Davy (1964), I decided to acquire everything in the Tales of a Darkening World sequence I didn’t own already. According to Spider Robinson, the editor at Pyramid Books cut portions of the novel that was serialized in Galaxy… Inset image is from Robinson’s intro to Still I Persist in Wondering (1978).
What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading this weekend?
After the success of the previous installment, I’ve decided to make this a bimonthly post (“column”) for my site (“fanzine”). As before, I’ve included a bit about the books in the photograph, birthdays from the last two weeks, and brief ruminations on what I’ve been reading and writing.
Terry Carr’s anthology Fellowship of the Stars (1974) collects nine original short stories by luminaries of the genre, Ursula K. Le Guin and Fritz Leiber, to lesser known authors such as Alan Brennert and Mildred Downey Broxon. As the title suggests, Carr commissions stories on the “theme of friendship between human and alien beings” (vii). In a bit of a twist, in more than one instance “friendship” might be code for something far more sinister.
1. Mick Farren, of the “protopunk” and rock band The Deviants fame, wrote SF: drug-addled SF about the cult of musicians in a post-apocalyptical England. At least it’ll be a crazy romp! And probably not very good….
2. I’ve been slowly posting all the New Dimensions anthologies edited by Robert Silverberg that I purchased a few months ago. Inspired by my enjoyment of New Dimensions 3(1973).
3. A gift from a family friend… Definitely not a book I’d look for but, who knows, sometimes I get a hankering for pre-WW II science fiction of the pulp sort.
It comes with a solid Paul Lehr cover.
4. Huge fan of Geo. Alec Effinger (that should go without saying if you following this site). I want ALL his short story collections.
I’ve reviewed the following Effinger novels/collections:
1. I recently read and reviewed enthusiastically New Dimensions 3, ed. Robert Silverberg (1973). Inspired, I procured quite a few more in the series… Here is number 1. Looks like an absolutely spectacular lineup — Le Guin, Ellison, Malzberg, Lafferty, etc.
2. One always needs more Clifford D. Simak, right?
For an anthology, bound to contain a filler story or two, this one is spectacular. Robert Silverberg’s New Dimensions 3 (1973) lives up to his claim to contain “stories that demonstrate vigorous and original ways [often experimental] of approaching the body of ideas, images, and concepts that is science fiction” yet do not sacrifice “emotional vitality, or clarity of insight.” Ursula K. Le Guin, with her rumination on utopias, and James T. Tipree, Jr.’s proto-cyberpunk tale of commercialism and performing gender, deliver some of their best work.
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 