Saturday, March 11, 2017

Michael Dirda reviews Scientific Romance: An International Anthology of Pioneering Science Fiction & Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction

Some time ago I encountered the essays of Michael Dirda a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post Book World. As someone who is surrounded by more books than I can read in my remaining years, and who purchases even more each month, I was delighted to read the essays of someone who admits he shares much the same hobby/failing/obsession/etc. A critic who still haunts library book sales and used book stores and discusses not just Spinoza, Dickens and Welty but also Dick, Lovecraft, Vance and Doyle. Who in his book Browsing: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books notes that he acquired a number of issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction form the 1960's at a library book sale and then discusses the contents noting for example that Carol Emshwiller is one of the greatest living writers of fantasy and science fiction.

So when I noticed that he had just reviewed two anthologies

Stableford's Scientific Romance: An International Anthology of Pioneering Science Fiction, January 2017 and Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction, by Lisa Yaszek and Patrick B. Sharp

I thought I would pass along the link.

79427c0a-fab2-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html?utm_term=.ec9a5b56de8f

Friday, March 3, 2017

New Arrivals, Moskowitz, Kornbluth, Wonder

Some new arrivals via ABE.

A rubbed and tattered but reasonably priced copy of

Seekers of Tomorrow, World Publishing Company

1961 (1966) cover (?)

I had always associated Moskowitz with early fandom and thought his book would be fannish boosetrism. I purchased it because my research indicated that he provided information on the writers first exposure to SF which I was interested in. However after reading his entry on Bradbury I found it fairly balanced so that was a bonus.

I also found that Moskowitz's definition of SF which first appeared in his history of early SF Explorers of the Infinite, quite useful and it is one I will probably use from now on, unless a better one presents itself.

"Science fiction is a branch of fantasy identifiable by the fact that it eases the "willing suspension of disbelief" on the part of the readers by utilizing an atmosphere of scientific credibility for its imaginative speculations in physical science, space time, social science. and philosophy."

My addition to anthologies continues. After the death of SF author Cyril Kornbluth (March 1958) this anthology was created as a memorial. Fredrick Pohl's discussion of it's genesis is available on The Way The Future Blogs.

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2010/12/mary-kornbluth-part-3-anthologist/

From Kirkus Review

An anthology has been assembled as a memorial to the late C.M. Kornbluth, by his friends and highly capable colleagues in the medium. Most of them are also familiar to this audience- Avram Davidson, Ray Bradbury, James Blish, Murray Leinster and Jack Williamson. Many of the stories are themed by travel to and survival in other worlds; there's the past too- Poul Anderson's The Long Remembering sends a man back to the Old Stone Age; for a touch of the grotesque, Frederik Pohl's cure of a compulsive consumer- The Man Who Ate the World; and a very nice twist to Theodore Sturgeon's That Low, as a failure specialist attempts to end his life.... Varied and versatile.

Doubleday, 1959, cover by Powers

From the introduction to Godlike Machines, by Jonathan Strahan, "There is something intensely science fictional about the very notion of a big dumb object, embodying as it does both the enigmatic sense of wonder of the best SF and the urge to understand, to examine and clarify."

I am always willing to go looking for that oft lost sense of wonder, and after reading Seam William's short story "Inevitable" in The New Space Opera 2, I was interested in his story "A glimpse of the marvellous structure (and the threat it entails) in this anthology, although the first story I read was "Hot rock" by Greg Egan (good).

Science Fiction Book Club, 2010, cover art Andrew Jones design Mathew Kalamidas.

Monday, February 27, 2017

The Loud Table - Jonathan Carroll

I have loved Jonathan Carroll since I first read his brilliant novel Land of Laughs some 30 years ago and I have read almost everything he has written since. His combination of fabulation, fantasy and horror is perfectly suited to his stories where our everyday urban world transforms into a reality that is anything but. So I was delighted to find that Tor had provided access to his story "The Loud Table".

As an old duffer myself I know that there are two pastimes we indulge in frequentely, the first is gathering with friends to talk for hours over meals or coffee, and once there, to discuss our faltering memories. Carroll has captured this wonderfully in a tale of one such group of friends in search of a new coffee spot, and his has done this in a tale that belongs very much within our jagged orbit. Great stuff.

http://www.tor.com/2016/11/02/the-loud-table/

And if you have not read anything by Jonathan Carroll, please give him a try.