technology

Book Review: Starswarm, Brian W. Aldiss (1964)

/ Joachim Boaz / 21 Comments

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(William Hofmann’s cover for the 1964 edition)

4/5 (collated rating: Good)

Filth.  Decay.  Mud.  Transmutation.  Brian W. Aldiss’ SF is filled with such images:  Men—with limbs removed—who are slowly (and artificially) transmuted into fish, writhe around in the mud of their tanks grasping at the last shards of their humanity;  A powerful matriarch lords over a planet where her pets transform at will;  A tall tale about a planet filled with strange life and a human hero who cannot get over the fact that everything smells like garbage…. Aldiss’ novel The Dark Light-Years (1964), despite its poor delivery, is the best example of these themes—humans encounter sentient aliens who spend their days copulating, laying around, and eating in their own fifth.  And they are happy with their lot.

Starswarm (1964) is comprised of three novelettes and five short stories with conjoining explanatory material that links the previously published short fiction into a cohesive collection.  The modus operandi of such a conjoining concerns the “Theory of Multigrade Superannuation” where “the universe is similar to the cosmic clock; the civilizations of man are not mere cogs but infinitely smaller clocks, ticking in their own right” (7).  Thus, the inhabited solar systems of Starswarm—our galaxy—will exhibit all the characteristics through which a civilization can Continue reading →

Book Review: The Far Call, Gordon R. Dickson (serialized 1973, book form 1978)

/ Joachim Boaz / 46 Comments

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(Robert Adragna’s cover for the 1978 edition)

2.5/5 (Bad)

Gordon R. Dickson introduces a medieval tapestry (perhaps The Lady and the Unicorn in Paris’ Musée national du Moyen Âge)—filled with symbolic representations that make up the sum of the world—as the central framing metaphor for The Far Call (1978).  Our idealistic young politician main character sees himself and everyone else as “caught up in its pattern” where “countless threads like his own make up the background.”  The brighter threads “would be the movers and shakers among the people” yet no one would be more than a single thread (35).   Continue reading →

Guest Post: Welcome, Chaos, Kate Wilhelm (1983)

/ Joachim Boaz / 18 Comments

The fourth in my Kate Wilhelm’s SF Guest Post Series (original announcement and post list) comes via Megan (twitter)—who blogs on both vintage classics and lesser known work to the recent BSFA-nominated SF novels at From Couch to Moon.  This is her second contribution to one of my guest post series and is definitely worth the read.  Her first guest post review was for my Michael Bishop series: check it out!  Thanks Megan!

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(Jane Mackenzie’s cover for the 1983 edition)

Two parts mainstream Cold War espionage thriller to one part bio-social science fiction, Welcome, Chaos is a departure from Wilhelm’s reflective, elegiac vision of seven years prior: the captivating, multiple award-winning Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976). In many ways common with one another, both novels contain themes of pre- to post-apocalypse, survival via artificial biological advancements, ethics of scientific Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXXVI (Lessing, Silverberg, Sheckley, Dickson)

/ Joachim Boaz / 29 Comments

I have yet to read anything by the Nobel Prize for Literature-winning author Doris Lessing…  And she wrote numerous SF novels—I’m very excited that I found one in a clearance section for 2$.  I also found one of the very few 1970s works by Silverberg not in my collection.  Dickson’s supposedly most mature novel (which I doubt is very good) also joins my collection.  So far the only Dickson I can tolerate are a handful of his short stories. And finally, my last acquisition is one of Robert Sheckley’s best-loved novels.

Thoughts?

1. The Memoirs of a Survivor, Doris Lessing (1974)

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(Brad Holland’s cover for the 1988 edition) Continue reading →

Guest Post: Year of the Cloud, Kate Wilhelm and Theodore L. Thomas (1970)

/ Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments

The third in my Kate Wilhelm’s SF Guest Post Series (original announcement and post list) comes via Mike White (twitter)—a research biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, MO—who blogs on mostly early SF (pre-1920) and a variety of science topics with a whole cast of other writers at The Finch and the Pea (a “public house for science”).  This is his first contribution to one of my guest post series and it is greatly appreciated (and won’t be his last).

He selected, on purpose (in very Joachim Boaz fashion I might add), what might be Kate Wilhelm’s least known SF novel.  Early in her career she wrote two novels with Theodore L. Thomas: the Nebula-nominated The Clone (1965) and Year of the Cloud (1970).

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(Francois Colos’ cover for the 1970 edition)

Post-apocalyptic stories do many things, one of which is to question our mastery of nature. We’re used to relying on technology to bend the world to our will — science stands between us and the brute forces of nature. Extinction is for lesser species. But post-apocalyptic stories remind us of all the ways that nature could wipe us out: the Earth could collide with a comet or pass through a toxic cloud of space gas, the sun could fade or go nova, or some pandemic plague could arise that kills us directly, wipes out our food supply, or turns us into the walking dead.

As horrifying as these events would be in real life, there is a strain of post-apocalyptic fiction that doesn’t see these disasters as all bad. Killing off most of humanity offers, in fiction anyway, a chance to wipe the slate clean and start over. With the post-holocaust world much less crowded, noisy, and Continue reading →

Guest Post: The Infinity Box, Kate Wilhelm (1975)

/ Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

The second in my Kate Wilhelm’s SF Guest Post Series (original announcement and post list) comes via Heloise Larou (twitter) who blogs on a variety of genres and topics over at Heloise Merlin’s Weblog.  She previously contributed an absolutely stupendous review for my Michael Bishop series (here).

Thank you for contributing!

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(Appelbaum & Curtis, Inc’s cover for the 1975 edition)

Science Fiction trappings are kept to an absolute minimum in this story collection first released in 1975, and even if the author does make use of some traditional SFnal gadget, she keeps it as unobtrusive as possible, like a time machine coming in the guise of an expensive but otherwise quite normal-seeming watch (in “The Time Piece”). And Kate Wilhelm does not bother with explanations either, not even a minimal hand-waving, some of the stories (most notably, and in spite of the title Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Acquisitions No. CXXV (M. John Harrison + Coney 3x + Anthology + Cooper)

/ Joachim Boaz / 11 Comments

M. John Harrison’s collection The Machine in Shaft Tent (1975) contains one of the more humorous inside flap advertisements I have encountered:

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Don’t worry, I certainly intend to “see tomorrow today!”  I’ll be disappointed if I can’t!

The others are a strange blend…  From Edmund Cooper’s apparently anti-Free Love/60s culture Kronk (1970) to a delightful collection of another one of my favorite years of SF.

Also, I seldom accept advanced reader copies due to my limited time/limited interest in newer SF/and incredible mental block when it comes to, how shall I say it, outside forces guiding my central hobby which tends to take me in a variety of directions solely on whim.  But, Gollancz was nice enough to send me their new omnibus collection of 1970s Michael G. Coney novels (amazon link: US, UK).  Not only did I enjoy Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975) but I recently reviewed and loved Coney’s bizarre and original Friends Come in Boxes (1973).  With two out of two successes it’s hardly like I wouldn’t buy his work on sight anyway (another one of my requirements when accepting AVCs)….  I will review two or three of the novels in the omnibus one at a time over the next few months.

Thoughts?

1. The Machine in Shaft Ten, M. John Harrison (1975)

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(Chris Foss’ cover for the 1975 edition) Continue reading →

Guest Post: Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm (1976)

/ Joachim Boaz / 30 Comments

The first in my Kate Wilhelm’s SF Guest Post Series (original announcement and post list) comes via Admiral Ironbombs (twitter) who blogs, rather compulsively, on Vintage SF and other things over at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed, & Creased.   Check out his site if you haven’t already!

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(Ed Soyka’s cover for the 1977 edition)

Won the 1977 Hugo Award for Best Novel

Won the 1977 Locus Award for Best Novel

Nominated for the 1977 Nebula Award for Best Novel

Before Joachim asked me to write a review as part of this guest post series, I didn’t know much about Kate Wilhelm. (That being the point, of course, a way to raise awareness of lesser­-known but deserving authors.) I knew Wilhelm was the wife of famed editor­critic Damon Knight, I’ve seen other SF bloggers write glowing praise for her novels, and I’ve enjoyed a few of her short fiction in the not too distant past. But I’m Continue reading →

Update: Kate Wilhelm Guest Post Series Announcement

/ Joachim Boaz / 2 Comments

Kate Wilhelm is most widely known for her Hugo- and Locus-winning,  Nebula-nominated, fix-up novel masterpiece Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang (1976).  However, this linked series of novellas (her favorite form) was already the product of a long and fruitful career starting with somewhat standard pulp in the late 1950s.  By the late 1960s and early 1970s her SF took on psychologically heavy and often devastatingly effective themes with great success: for example, in 1972 she was nominated for an astounding four Nebulas (winning none of them).

Most of her critical success focused on shorter forms which might be the reason why other than Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976) little of her work has remained firmly entrenched in the SF canon.  Which is a crying shame as she is easily one of the most regularly brilliant writers I have encountered.

Thus I have rounded up my normal suspects from across the vintage SF blog sphere for my second guest post series! The first covered the work of Michael Bishop.  As always, I have no idea whether they like her work or not but the purpose is to expose my readers to the range of her amazing visions.  I will place links to their twitter accounts (if they have them) and Continue reading →