March's Metaphorical Meanderings Metamorphosing Into Magical Manuscripts

[GOLLUM]

A somewhat oblique title for this month taken from the author's perspective....

Please post what you're reading in the month of March...

 

[Lord Captain Woden]

Finished Fahrenheit 451 this morning, really enjoyed it.

I'll be starting Emphyrio by Jack Vance at some point today.

 

[Fried Egg]

Whilst occasionally dipping into Robert Aickman's "Tales of Love and Death", I am reading Jonathan Carroll's "The Land of Laughs". I also hope to read a few more from Aleister Crowley's collection "The Drug" this month.

 

[Connavar]

Im still reading The Illiad because finally i have had a quiet week school,work wise and today i was in the library 4,5 hours having enjoyable effective session with Homer, Diomedes, Nestor, Hector and co. Im on page 277 now and the storytelling is getting more complex, interesting.

I find it fascinating to read the war scenes, its so brutal,so realistic and not glorifying as much i expected. Feels like an Anti-war story.

 

[Mangara]

Working my way through this. Its waaay better than the last book, and I've got much less to complain about so far. Just over half way through.

 

[Southern Geologist]

Still working on Before the Golden Age and The Skylark of Space. Took a break to start and finish Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Just started The Complete Roderick by John Sladek. Brilliantly, darkly satiric already, and I'm just on page two.

 

[Southern Geologist]

Roughly 2/3rds of the way through Before The Golden Age; just reached '35. I'm proud. I'm also surprised on how many authors I found myself looking up in hopes of finding more of their work. I'm also happy because much of it is available pretty cheap. On that note, does Jack Williamson have any short work that's on par with "The Moon Era"?

 

[j d worthington]

Oh, most definitely. Williamson was fairly prolific, and one of the best working in sf of the period (and well beyond). Look up his classic short story, "With Folded Hands", which was incorporated into the collection-cum-novel The Humanoids.... And you would almost certainly enjoy his series Legion of Space, which has been collected into an omnibus volume. Also, his fantasy Darker Than You Think, is considered one of the classics in the field.

Should you be interested:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Jack_Williamson

 

[Southern Geologist]

Oh, most definitely. Williamson was fairly prolific, and one of the best working in sf of the period (and well beyond). Look up his classic short story, "With Folded Hands", which was incorporated into the collection-cum-novel The Humanoids.... And you would almost certainly enjoy his series Legion of Space, which has been collected into an omnibus volume. Also, his fantasy Darker Than You Think, is considered one of the classics in the field.

Thanks. I immediately put Legion of Space on the high priority wish list when I found out that it was an early space opera. That's why I asked about his short work, specifically. (I do want to understand sci-fi as a field, but understanding space opera is particularly important to me.) I'll add The Humanoids to the high priority list, too.

 

[j d worthington]

Thanks. I immediately put Legion of Space on the high priority wish list when I found out that it was an early space opera. That's why I asked about his short work, specifically. (I do want to understand sci-fi as a field, but understanding space opera is particularly important to me.) I'll add The Humanoids to the high priority list, too.

I don't think you'll be disappointed in either. On the other hand, I found the late sequel, The Humanoid Touch, to be rather disappointing, both in the story and the actual writing. I might feel differently now, some thirty years later, but doubt I'll get around to it anytime soon to see....

By the way... though you probably would not want to buy it, given the price, you might look and see if a local library has a copy of E. Hoffmann Price's Book of the Dead, which is a collection of his memoirs about various sff writer colleagues. Williamson is one included, but there are a number of others you would probably also find of interest, and the reminiscences themselves are quite wonderful.

 

[J-Sun]

Like j.d., I'd recommend The Humanoids, the Legion of Space trilogy, and Darker Than You Think as his big three. In terms of short fiction, Haffner is bringing out his complete works if buying multiple volumes at 50 bucks a pop floats your boat but you could probably find The Best of Jack Williamson in a used shop or, certainly, buy it online. It has an overview of 1928-54 and tacks on a '69 and '76 story - but this is a guy who kept writing and went on to win a Hugo in 2000 - he just doesn't have a decent (quantity/price) collection since that 1978 collection. While I respect and like Williamson, he doesn't always light me up like some of my very favorite writers but, despite just barely fitting into the 30s, 1939's "Nonstop to Mars" was a quintessential 30s-style blast. There's also The Early Williamson in my Pile which I'll read someday - it has 11 stories exclusively from 1928-33 with two overlaps from the TBO. There's also The Legion of Time (which has nothing to do with the Legion of Space) which, in one form, is a collection of two unrelated novellas usually billed as novels. That gets a mixed review from me but definitely has interesting aspects. Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods was a fixup of 70s stories which I didn't really like. Unless I'm forgetting something, I think that's about all I know about his collections.

If you're getting into the 30s space opera and since you don't seem to mind ebooks, don't miss trying Campbell's Arcot, Morey and Wade series of The Black Star Passes, Islands of Space, and Invaders from the Infinite (though I didn't really like the last one). Gutenberg also has The Ultimate Weapon (a space opera novella published dos a dos or even singly) and another story. FWIW, I blather about the series here and mention The Ultimate Weapon here.

 

[gully_foyle]

Finished In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, not really my genre but he was truly a master writer and when you watch the movie Capote you kind of wonder about him, his morals as well as his capacity to get to the humanity of what we'd normal just label a couple of vicious psychopaths. Interesting reflection on American culture in the early 60s and the nature of violence and justice.

Now reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I've noted Werthead's extensive review, which I shall in turn review when I have finished. So far it is YA fun. I was never really a gamer in the 80s, or that much of a fan of John Hughes movies (more John Waters), so it doesn't quite reverbrate the way people were promising it would.

 

[Southern Geologist]

By the way... though you probably would not want to buy it, given the price, you might look and see if a local library has a copy of E. Hoffmann Price's Book of the Dead, which is a collection of his memoirs about various sff writer colleagues. Williamson is one included, but there are a number of others you would probably also find of interest, and the reminiscences themselves are quite wonderful.

Thanks. I added that to the wish list and sent out an ILL request.

[stuff]

Compulsively helpful, as usual.

 

[Lady of Winterfell]

Working my way through this. Its waaay better than the last book, and I've got much less to complain about so far. Just over half way through.

That is my favorite book of the series so far. However, here in the states it is just one book. So I guess I should say A Storm of Swords in its entirety is my favorite book of the series.

I finished A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin. I enjoyed it, and will probably continue on in the series at somepoint. However, it didn't quite live up to my expectations. I had heard great things about this book, and LeGuin, but thought this fell a little short.

Now I'm reading Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds. I'm excited to get back to the Revelation Space universe.

 

[The Judge]

Just finished The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Great fun, plenty of adventure and action, some very funny lines, and an engaging narrator. It's the first of five of his novels/novellas/short stories in one not-very-large volume, and I'm looking forward to the rest.

 

[Lord Captain Woden]

Actually ended up reading Timescape by Greogory Benford. Overall I enjoyed it, although the science was a bit over described at times and I was having difficulty keeping up with it. But the I found the premise fascinating and I was really enjoying but I found myself skim reading a lot of the final twenty pages or so. Just seemed full of information and dialogue that needn't have been there.

 

[Randy M.]

I'm about four stories into Manly Wade Wellman's collection, Who Fears the Devil?, a pb I bought the year Dell reissued it, 1980, and wondering, why the hell didn't I read this years ago?

Numbskull, I.

Anyway, Wellman has a terrific way of choosing the right words and sentence structure for folksy without slathering it on, and John, his protagonist and narrator, is very likable. I've read a few of these before, years ago, and really do wish I'd read more of them sooner. Very enjoyable reading so far.


Randy M.

 

[Juliana]

Currently rereading A Storm of Swords in preparation for the GoT seaon premiere. My husband is reading it for the first time so its fun to discuss it together.

 

[Southern Geologist]

Still hammering away at Before the Golden Age and thoroughly enjoying it. I'm about 700 pages in or so. I've noted that most of these short stories are actually fairly long. Were they typically serialized chapter by chapter in the magazines or printed complete? (Must have been some long magazines, if so... )