sci-fi

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CII (Disch 2xs + Anderson + Pollack)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

My fiancé picked these up for me as she perambulated through Dallas, TX—the birthplace of Half Price Books.  And, easily the best one in the country.

Two more Disch novels to add to my collection (I only owned Camp Concentration).  The cover and cover blurb for On Wings of Song (1979) is terrifyingly bad—the contents are supposedly magisterial.

I have no idea if Rachel Pollack’s Golden Vanity (1980) will be any good—looks like average space opera.

And, who can resist Poul Anderson?

Thoughts?

1. Echo Round His Bones, Thomas M. Disch (1966)

ECHORB1967

(Uncredited cover for the 1967 edition) Continue reading →

Guest Post: Brittle Innings, Michael Bishop (1994)

/ Joachim Boaz / Leave a comment

brittlefwp

(Paul Swenson’s cover for the 2012 edition)

The second installment of my guest post series on Michael Bishop’s SF is the critically acclaimed Brittle Innings (1994) (Nominated for the 1994 Hugo + Won the 1995 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel)—his last published genre novel.  In the words of the wonderful James Harris—over at Auxiliary Memory—who wrote the following review, “Brittle Innings is Flannery O’Connor mashed up with Mary Shelley, and a dash of A League of Their Own.”  Make sure to check out his site [here] where he discusses writing, science fiction, movies, and definitely track down his best SF novels of the each decade lists!

michael bishop,header,02

Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop:  Literary v. Genre Fiction

Stories about minor league baseball always have to deal the ambition of making it big, of going to the show, and playing for the majors.  Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop is a baseball novel by a science fiction writer, and I can’t help but wonder if this novel isn’t about writing in the minor leagues hoping to make it big in the literary majors Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

/ Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments

michael bishop,header,02

The first installment in my Guest Post Series on The Science Fiction of Michael Bishop was written by Jesse over at the remarkable SF review site Speculiction… Not only is he incredibly prolific (and has a large back catalog of reviews to browse) but his reviews are also a joy to read.  If you are interested in both classic and contemporary SF, and the occasional post on Chinese poetry, make sure to check out his site.

Jesse has previously posted on his site about Bishop’s  “The Samurai in the Willows” (1976) and “Cri de Coeur” (1994).  Both reviews are worth reading.  

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi” (1973) is one of Michael Bishop’s more well known novellas that was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula in 1974.  It was first published in the magazine Worlds of If January-February 1973, ed. Ejler Jakobsson.  If you are interested in finding a copy the story can be found in multiple later collections and forms the first part of his novel Transfigurations (1979) [listing here].

Enjoy!

~

“Death and Designation Among the Asadi,” Michael Bishop (1973)

The alien is perhaps the most recognized, if not the most used trope of Continue reading →

Book Review: The Dream Master, Roger Zelazny (1966)

/ Joachim Boaz / 37 Comments

THDRMMSTR1966

(Kelly Freas’ cover for the 1966 edition)

4/5 (Good)

Roger Zelazny’s The Dream Master (1966)—expanded from the Nebula Award winning novella “He Who Shapes” (1965)—revolves around the Freudian notion of the centrality of dreams and importance of decoding dreams for psychoanalytical treatment.  Susan Parman, in Dream and Culture (1990), points out that Freud was initially focused on “treating ‘abnormal’ patients” but soon “expanded his theory of psychoanalysis to explain puzzling events in ‘normal’ behavior” including dreams.  Freud’s influential work The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) argued that the “dream expresses the secret wishes of the soul” where the dreamscape is the “arena” in which good and bad forces are engaged in a struggle.  Thus, the dream is a message that must be deciphered by an “allegorical Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Acquisitions No. CI (Clarke + Bishop + Varley + Maclennan)

/ Joachim Boaz / 9 Comments

A nice range of SF authors/works!  A Michael Bishop collection containing many of his most famous 70s short stories for my upcoming guest post series….  And a SF juvenile written by Phyllis Maclennan with an intriguing premise (although, as always, I’m very dubious about juveniles in general).  John Varley’s famous novel Titan (1979) seems like a fascinating take on the Big Dumb Object trope. And finally a 50s adventure by the indomitable Arthur C. Clarke.

I am most intrigued by the Varley’s Titan and Bishop’s Blooded on Arachne.

Some of the covers are cringe inducing.

Thoughts?

1. Titan, John Varley (1979)

TTNRPPCRKF1979

(Ron Waltosky’s cover for the 1979 edition) Continue reading →

Book Review: Juniper Time, Kate Wilhelm (1979)

/ Joachim Boaz / 48 Comments

(Bob Aulicino’s cover for the hideous 1979 edition)

3.5/5 (Good)

Nominated for the 1980 Nebula Award

“Everything that is, Robert had said, must be.  Every cycle must be completed, must lead to the next cycle.  He had talked about times when the desert had been drier than it now was, times when it had been lush and wet, and there had been no questions in his mind that this too must be” (170-171).

At the heart of Kate Wilhelm’s Nebula-nominated novel Juniper Time (1979) is the notion of historical cyclicality at both the macro- (earth cycles) and the micro- (human historical time) levels.  Wilhelm’s near-future mysteriously drought-stricken world is at an important juncture of two such cycles.  The macrocycle concerns devastating world-wide desertification, which is most likely caused by a natural cycle but the precise nature of which is unknown.  The microcycle concerns a shift in human populations in the drought stricken countries: mass migrations towards coasts as the springs and rivers of the hinterlands turn to mud.  In this world the farmer, in the past linked tightly to his fields, abandons his traditional position in American society and moves to a cluttered and violent state Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. C (Bishop + A. E. Van Vogt + Pangborn + Pratt)

/ Joachim Boaz / 11 Comments

Another Michael Bishop novel for my upcoming guest post series (announcement coming soon)!  Irresistible after the brilliant Stolen Faces (1977) and his masterpiece A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire (1975)….

The rest are fun but not high on my list of must reads.  I’ve never been a fan of A. E. Van Vogt (could not tolerate the inarticulate labyrinth of a novel The World of Null-A) but the Powers cover on The War Against the Rull (1959) was fun.

I’ve heard good things about Edgar Pangborn, although people seldom discuss West of Eden (1953), perhaps with good reason.

Fletcher Pratt’s Invaders from Rigel (1932) is one of those AMAZING covers but incredibly dubious reads.  Even the back cover is rather non-sensical.

Thoughts?

1. Transfigurations, Michael Bishop (1979) (MY REVIEW)

TRNSFGRTND1980

(Mike Hinge’s cover for the 1979 edition) Continue reading →

Uncollected short story reviews: Joe Haldeman’s “Two Men and a Rock” (1973), A. G. Moran’s “Close Your Eyes and Stare at Your Memories” (1973)

/ Joachim Boaz / 3 Comments

My first in a new series of reviews that aim to bring to your attention short stories that appeared in magazines (I have substantially more due to Chris’ generosity—go visit him at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed & Creased) but where never collected in later English language volumes.  I’ve decided to pair a known author (in this case Joe Haldeman) with a lesser known author (in this case A. G. Moran) published in Amazing Science Fiction.

amazing_science_fiction_197303

(Mike Hinge’s cover for the March 1973 issue of Amazing Science Fiction, ed. Ted White)

“Two Men and a Rock” by Joe Haldeman (1973) 3/5 (Vaguely Average):  Joe Haldeman, of The Forever War (1975) fame, tells a straight-laced Hard SF tale of two “fools who would rather die breathing space then never see the stars” (87).  The place in space is a station in an asteroid rich region.  Four prospectors, sixteen sappers, seven pilots, and a variety of secretaries live on the station—the job, ride out to an asteroid on a rickety sled, carrying a pile of nukes, without its own Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. XCIX (Vinge + Randall + McIntyre + Wylie + Brunner + Sohl)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

A nice mix with some gorgeous Powers’ covers—some 30s + 50s pulp, three novellas in one of only a handful of female SF author anthologies ever published, and another John Brunner novel for my extensive collections (it’s an expanded novel from one of his earlier pulp works, hopefully he improved the original version).

Enjoy!

1. After Worlds Collide, Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer (1933)

FTRWRLDSCL1968

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1963 edition)

From the back cover: “When the group of survivors from Earth landed on Bronson Beta, they expected absolute desolation.  This Earth-like planet from another universe had been hurtling through space, cold and utter darkness for countless millennia.  All life should have perished millions of years ago.  But the Earth-people found a breathtakingly beautiful city, encased in a huge, transparent metal bubble; magnificent apartments filled with every luxury; food for a lifetime in the vast, empty kitchens; but with no trace either of life—or death.  Then the humans learned they were not alone on Bronson Beta…” Continue reading →