1 My Best Man Cliff had a short story published here:

http://www.jerseydevilpress.com/?page_id=817

It's an end of times thing that morons might like.

2 Just read "They tell me I'm the bad guy", by  R.D. Harless. I thought it was great. Must be finished for full effect.

3 Sunday Morning Book Thread 08-12-2012: Old School Sci-Fi Edition [OregonMuse] I say nothing. Nothing!

4 Just wanted to note that I was first and didn't even make a big deal about it.

5 Plowing through "Fool's Errand" by Robin Hobb. Hobb is my favorite fantasy author by a wide margin. Errand is the 1st book in the third(!) trilogy of the series. This one follows the assassin from the first trilogy. He tried to retire But They Brought Him* Back In! *and his wolf.

6 Funny. I just started rereading E.E. "Doc" Smith's books. I was looking around at Amazon Wednesday, when I saw several of his books were free. Yep, it's dated and corny at times, but oh so much better than a lot of the touchy, feeley, weenie sci-fi out today.

7 I just watched a BBC adaptation of The Machine Stops on Youtube last week, made in the 60s.

8 Speaking of classic SF, reading a collection of James Schmitz Eternal Frontier. Good ol' Golden Age stuff. Really good writer. I also recommend The Witches of Karres.

9

Ah, maybe here I'll find something I've been looking for since I was a kid.  I know what it's like to read something at 14 that you can never forget.  In my school library I found a collection of sci-fi stories, and one I've never forgotten, but I've never been able to find again.  Maybe someone here knows it.

 

A group of men are in a big gymnasium - some are playing table tennis, some are reading, others are chatting.  They're part of an experiment.  The part of the brain that makes them sleep has been removed or suppressed somehow, and they're being studied to see how they manage without any need for sleep.  They mention that extra meals have been scheduled, to cover the extra 8 hours a day they'll now be awake.  As the story progresses, the walls of the room begin creeping closer and closer together.  The room gets smaller and smaller, and finally they're all sitting together in a circle like in a manhole, with a single lightbulb overhead.  The story ends with the scientists breaking down the door of the gymnasium to reach the men, who are all gathered together, immobile and unreachable in a tight little circle in the center of the huge room.  Of course, their minds have snapped from the inability to sleep and dream.  Does anyone else know what story this is and who wrote it?

10 Back in the day, my town library had an SF section in the children's section that had original Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein hardcovers from the 1950s and 1960s... must have read and re-read those books scores of times. A number of years ago, returned to the town library, to see if those books were still there... nope. No doubt dumped to make room for "Heather Has Two Mommies" or something equally important. *Sigh* And I *love* those old SF covers... still have magic in them in spite of their inaccuracies.

11 That sleep-deprivation story was "Manhole 69" by J. G. Ballard...

12 Star Wars didn't screw it up for me, I was well versed thanks to having been bitten repeatedly by the reading and adventure bug so that when SW came around it was more of a curiosity about the special effects with just a thin hint of a plot about revolution. Azimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Heinlein, Bradbury and AE VanVogt had already taken me so SW was merely a curiosity propped up by flashy gimicry.

13 The Heinlein juveniles and Analog magazine shaped my whole childhood and adolescence. I also became entranced by the great SF illustrators... Virgil Finlay really got under my skin in a slightly creepy way. Chesley Bonestell's painstaking spacescapes. My favorite was Kelly Freas, I own some signed work of his that's worth serious money now.

14 Please everyone remember to leave a review of books you get at Amazon, it helps a lot in sales, even if the review isn't really positive. Just having them lets people know the book is being bought and read.

15 Reading Bad Religion by Ross Douthat.

16 Stumbled onto a sample from the Heinlein Virginia Edition ( http://virginiaedition.com/collection.aspx ).  Just the sample has got fun stuff to read, like Heinlein's detailed critique of Niven/Pournelle's draft of Mote, plus some dynamite illustrations.  46 volume, leather bound, archival paper, set of ALL his books, short stories and lots of other unpublished stuff like key correspondence.  Only $1500.  Trying to figure which kid to sell for medical experimentation.

17 Am I just late to the party, or does that new NBC show Revolution look an awful like S.M. Stirling's Emberverse, only with the occasional firearm and a chance of bringing the electricity back?

18 Have had a number of discussion with people crazy over the Game of Thrones about the Foundation Trilogy by Asimov. I read it a really long time ago, but still remember how amazed I was that he was able to bring all the different threads together at the end in an incredibly satisfying manner. This is in complete opposition to Martin's chaotic introduction of characters, story lines out of whack with the time lines of other significant events and geographical locations that can't be found on the maps in the books or the descriptions of how you get there. I don't think he has any idea of where he is going with the story and is just making it up as he goes along. He even tells you he is not paying attention to these "minor" details so you can overlook how lame it all is. The first three books created an appetite to see where he was going,but then he just got lost and now is just wringing every dollar he can out of his celebrity.

19 One of the best Science Fiction authors you've probably never heard of due to his untimely suicide is H. Beam Piper.  Most of his best stuff is from the 40's and 50's. 

His short "He Walked Around the Horses" is classic.

This one is pretty good, too.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20121

20 All of the stories in this volume are good, but I think my favorite is The Cold Equations, which still brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. I have a vague memory it was filmed as part some 'Outer Limits' type sci-fi anthology series back in the 80s, but I don't know which one, and I'm too lazy to look it up.

The guy who wrote this story tried to make it as airtight as possible and actually fended off people who would come up with ways to save the girl by finding errors in either their plans or by making up something so a key part of their plan wouldn't work.

My question is, if the girl got on the ship in the first place why didn't mission control notice an extra 80 to 100 lbs of mass on a ship that is being fueled to a level that it will have no fuel left over (kinda suicidal not to have a reserve of fuel, what if the pilot encountered difficulties in trying to land and had to burn fuel to avoid say, a major storm?) when it landed.

I have not read the story, but I did watch the episode of The Twilight Zone.

21 Reading Darkship Thieves by Sarah A. Hoyt. Fun read and Hoyt is very much on the conservative/libertarian end of the spectrum. My old-school sci-fi experiences are mostly of H.G. Wells. Completely missed the allegorical aspects at the time, so I'm not sure how I would feel after re-reading them.

22 Think I still have a few copies of the magazine "Fantasy & Science Fiction" which was mostly an excellent collection of short stories.  I need to revisit the attic to see if they are still readable.  IIRC, they had an excellent Heinlein story I have never seen elsewhere.

23 Here is "The Cold Equations" in full with comments by Jim Baen and Eric Flint on why the story is powerful even if some of the premise may be flawed.
http://tinyurl.com/5ty9od

24 Lately, I've been rereading some stories by two Old School authors who seem to have fallen off the cliff of obscurity: 1) R A Lafferty - wonderful author who wrote stories like nobody else. His style is a little hard to describe but imagine totally original humorous sf/fantasy stories with an invisible hard core of Catholic morality told in the manner of an Irish tall-tale and/or Indian folklore often with a high dose of whimsy. His books are all out of print now. His earliest story collections are his best work: Nine Hundred Grandmothers Strange Doings Does Anyone Else have Something Further to Add? Some of his stuff is online: Nine Hundred Grandmothers: http://tinyurl.com/9xncsje Slow Saturday Night: http://tinyurl.com/ogovxd That should get you started. See if you like it. He also wrote some fun novels: Fourth Mansions The Devil is Dead Arrive at Easterwine i wish someone would buy up all the rights to his fiction and re-issue it, even if only on the Kindle. The guy does not deserve his obscurity. 2) William Tenn Easier entry point than Lafferty- he wrote cynically humorous SF, mostly in the 50's, 60's-70's. He's an old school lefty, which means that he didn't hate America and is honest enough as a writer that he doesn't warp his stories so that they fit his politics. Recently, he had his SF short stories collected in two volumes: Immodest Proposals Here Comes Civilization Nothing of his is online, but if these titles intrigue you, check him out: Lisbon Cubed The flat-Eyed Monster Venus and the Seven Sexes His most famous story is probably "Child's Play" and the follow up, "Wednesday's Child". My favorite of his is: "The Brooklyn Project", which was probably used as the basis of that Simpson's Halloween show with time travel and the butterfly effect.

25

Currently reading "Inside the Criminal Mind" by Stanton Samenow.  The author is a clinical psychologist with a refreshing analysis that goes against the trendy sociological theories that criminals are the product of bad upbringing, or cold distant mothers, or too much TV, or bad education, or peer pressure or ADHD or "fill in the blank".  He maintains that criminals make conscious choices to be criminals.  He maintains that criminals think too highly of themselves, and the self-serving mindset is what results in the criminal acts.  So rather than lacking self-esteem they have too much.  (Link via my blog in my nick.)

26 I've got a book that I found in a library give away box several years ago. It's called "Before the Golden Age", it's by Isaac Asimov. It has some great stories from the 30's, including 1 by John W. Campbell Jr of Astounding fame( if you're old enough, you get it).

27 "Cold Equations" is one of those stories where the idea inside it is incredibly strong and thought-provoking, even though the execution is kind of lame. As someone else pointed out: the ship is stripped to the minimum of mass so that one girl's worth of extra kilograms will doom the mission, but there's a supply closet she can hide in? Of course the story was written before the space program, when Mercury capsules or the Lunar Module showed just what "bare bones" really mean.

28

Just finished "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zofon, excellent translation from Spanish, I didn't notice any obvious syntax problems so often found in translations.

This Author is one of my new favorites after this first read. I recommend this book to anyone.

I read it on Nook, it is also available on Kindle.

I won't give a synopsis, due to the fact I am not good at it w/out giving too much of the plot away.

 

Rough outline the setting is post Civil War Spain, and centers around an obscure Author and a boy/young man who finds one of his books and sets out on a search for the Author's story.

 

 

29 Two recommendations: A. E. Van Vogt's "The Weapons Shops of Isher" and Orson Scott Card's "Worthing Saga"

30 The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection: The Machine Stops
http://archive.org/details/machine_stops_librivox

Online: Twilight by John W. Campbell
http://www.american-buddha.com/eiseley.twilight.johnstuartcampbell.htm

31 Speaking of classic collections, I've just been rereading a copy of Famous Science-Fiction Stories, an anthology from 1957 edited by Raymond Healy. It's definitely another all-star collection.

Remember, this was 1957, the year of Sputnik, the dawn of the Space Age. Science fiction was making a bid for real respectability, and this was its Olympic dream team book. It was published by Modern Library, a real honest-to-god big-league New York publishing company, part of Random House. Very highbrow, or at least high-middlebrow back when that meant something.

So this book is the Greatest Hits compilation at the end of SF's "Golden Age." Lots of stories you've heard of but never see in print any more. One thing which comes through very VERY clearly is that SF writers back then were much more concerned with the idea rather than the execution. Really cool, mind-blowing concepts, average to sub-average writing. The number of stories with far-future people talking in 1940s "snappy patter" is kind of annoying.

But they were learning. If modern writers stand on the shoulders of giants, this book is the giants. Look for it in used bookstores or library sales; a big gray hardcover.

32 Andre Norton (actually Alice Mary Norton)

Star Man's Son 2250 A.D.

Great read for anyone!!

33 Hmm, might as well use some of this untapped brainpower. I have been looking for the name/author of a short story I read in a compilation some years ago. In it, aliens attack earth but except for FTL and antigrav they are at about musket level tech. It seems in this story those 2 developments are easy to find and all other races find them and then stagnate but Earth never stumbled across them and so the national guard's M-16's chew them up.

34 Reading Marching With Caesar-Conquest of Gaul-- by RW Peake-- great fun and seemingly realistic

35

"The Far Arena" by Richard Ben Sapir.

 

Roman gladiator is poisoned after offending an emperor. Ends up frozen in suspended animation because he'd dumped in the North Sea. Wakes up in the future. 

36 27 I've got a book that I found in a library give away box several years ago. It's called "Before the Golden Age", it's by Isaac Asimov.

---------

One of my favorites. Sadly, mine was a cheap paperback that couldn't put up with as much reading as I gave it. Might still have most of the pages somewhere, if I looked in the right box...

37 http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv1ch08.html

I have been catching up on my world history.

There is a lot of 'modern' stuff in here. Forgetting  about the antisemitism, there is a lot of negative imagery bout the press that hasn't changed.

38 Loki:  "The Road Not Traveled" by Harry Turtledove.

39 "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates is my all time favorite short story. It eventually became the basis for movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

40 A couple of years ago I did some research and identified the first paperback editions of some of my favorite SciFi series, such as the Flandry books by Poul Anderson, the Retief books by Keith Laumer and the early Arthur C. Clarke short story collections.  I was able to find and purchase them, in excellent condition, on Abebooks.com.  You have to be a little careful with them, because of course they are now 40-50 years old (a few are 60+), but the combination of the classic cover art and the great smell of old paperbacks makes reading them (and re-reading them) a real pleasure.

Probably my favorite SciFi short story of all time is Superiority, by Arthur C. Clarke.  Although it was originally in Expedition to Earth, it is now available online.

41 Actually, Loki, it's "The Road Not Taken" but it is by Harry Turtledove. I believe I read it in one of the "There Will Be War" books.

42 Loved the old-school SF. At one point, Asimov edited a series of paperbacks for the best years, with each book representing one year, containing the best stories from that year. Still have the whole series, I think. It was a great way to discover the authors and to make sure you read the classic stories.

Some of those authors could get could get weird on you. I wound up viscerally deciding not to read any more Bester, after being weirded out by one book/story, can't remember which. And Van Vogt could be great (The Weapons Shops of Isher, which someone recommended above), or incoherent (lots of stuff), or both at the same time, as in a strangeish story called "Lost: Fifty Suns," which kept referring to "Dellian and Non-Dellian Robots" or something, which drove me crazy, because every time I saw the phrase, I thought "You don't care whether they're Dellian or not, so why not just say robots?"

And some could get cheesy. Jack Williamson, most famous for a stunning, must-read short story called With Folded Hands (later expanded into an entire book of substantially less quality), also wrote a series of Legion books (One for the Legion, The Queen of the Legion, and so on). Definitely cheesy (on completing his mission in the first book, the council renames our hero John Star, because, hey, new name, and maybe they were out of medals or something). But I really enjoyed them, and return to them often, wallowing in the cheese.

43 John Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" and it's sequel "The Sheep Look Up" both absolutely prophetic told in a way that is very unusual. He takes four different peoples stories, and the daily news, and jumps from one to another seemingly randomly but ultimately ties them all together.

44

My son and I just read a good book for older kids (probably 5th grade up) called Inside Out and Back Again, by Thainna Lai (sp?) Anyway it is the story of a little girl who leaves Vietnam toward the end of the war and ends up in Alabama. The first part (the book is written in free verse, and is a quick and easy to read) is about her life in Vietnam, and the second part is her experience as she tries to assimilate in Alabama.

 

 

I was afraid the book would make some overt political or racial points, but it didn't. It was a good story about being a refugee (the part about only taking one bag and having nothing to eat on the ship really made my son think about his own life) and a good story about trying to fit in at school when you are different. Anyway, I know some of the other parents here are often looking for good books for that age group so I thought I would recommend it.

45 "All of the stories in this volume are good, but I think my favorite is The Cold Equations, which still brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. I have a vague memory it was filmed as part some 'Outer Limits' type sci-fi anthology series back in the 80s, but I don't know which one, and I'm too lazy to look it up." It was on the '80s reboot of The Twilight Zone. It came from the final season (it only lasted three). I had a little DVD marathon of the show about three months ago and really enjoyed it, despite the inherent low-budget cheesiness of the productions. Interestingly, I didn't remember that one of the main writers (and head story editor in the later seasons) was George R.R. Martin, author of the "Game of Thrones" series. There were also a lot of quality directors, like William Friedkin ("The French Connection," "The Exorcist") and Wes Craven ("Nightmare on Elm Street," "Scream"). Plus, there were several actors who later became stars like Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman.

46 All of the stories in this volume are good, but I think my favorite is The Cold Equations, which still brings tears to my eyes every time I read it. I have a vague memory it was filmed as part some 'Outer Limits' type sci-fi anthology series back in the 80s, but I don't know which one, and I'm too lazy to look it up.
***
I remember seeing that episode - I can't remember who was in it, but I remember it being very powerful.

47 Flowers for Algernon is the most depressing book ever written.  I'll never recommend it.

48 Here is the episode;

http://tinyurl.com/9hh64os

49 There is a lot of 'modern' stuff in here. Forgetting about the antisemitism, there is a lot of negative imagery bout the press that hasn't changed.
***
It is common place to call monsters like Hitler crazy...but they wouldn't be the monsters they were if they weren't very adapt at manipulating society.

Of course this is compounded by the leftist desire to make ever more powerful and insulated political offices for which they sort of men are "perfect" fits.

50
Slow Saturday Night:
http://tinyurl.com/ogovxd


I went to read it (it's actually called 'Slow Tuesday Night') and it's everything you say it is: whimsical, Irish, almost like a fairy-tale.

I liked it very much.

51 Jack Williamson, most famous for a stunning, must-read short story called With Folded Hands...

This one is in either the second or third book in the series I was talking about. It's another unforgettable story which I didn't mention because, hey, I had to stop somewhere, otherwise I'd have to mention all of them.

52 Question for you e-authors.....I have an acquaintance who recently launched an ebook on Amazon. Who sets the pricing - author or ecommerce site? How is that determined and can anyone just plop a book down on Amazon, et al or do they pick/choose? And, thank you in advance for any enlightenment you can shed.

53

Poul Anderson's The High Crusade was great.

 

One of my all time favorites is the Faded Sun series by C. J. Cherryh. Don't like her later stuff.

54

Still, now, and forevermore reading "The Rise and Fall...." 

 

Also reading a book about a girl's life in the Fundamentalist LDS church, in which she was some old fart's 4th wife, having a hard time imagining believing that I would end up in hell if I didn't marry the man assigned to me by my "prophet."  Sure, it's the only thing she's heard since she was a baby, but still ...."

 

Also toying with the idea of subscribing to that "Virginia Edition" deal.  I shouldn't, but I just might anyway as I cut my teeth on Heinlein and still love him.  "Citizen of the Galaxy" and "The Star Beast" are my favorites.

 

I'd swear I'm reading some other stuff but I can't recall what it is.  Oh, yeah, "The Obamas" is still here, still nauseating.  I need to organize my library books by due date so I don't miss out on anything good.

 

"The Cold Equations" is a moving story, but one that I cannot ever read is "It's a Good Life."  That is one effective piece of horror writing.

55 Among sci-fi stories I really enjoyed Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. Wish his works were available on e-book. Finishing up 1984 a how-to guide for liberals on government maintaining absolute power over the populace. Starting up on Anna Karenina a surprisingly enjoyable though long read.

56 After enjoying "They Tell Me I'm the Bad Guy," I looked around for more off-the-radar reading material. Found a really good one: a series of three books (one more coming this fall) called Monster Hunters, by Larry Correia. Basic idea is that monsters are real, most people don't know it, and there's this company, Monster Hunters International, that hunts them for the government bounties. The writing is good, and the story pulls you along. I liked these books a lot, and will certainly buy the sequel when it comes out in the fall.

These are Baen e-books, so you need a Kindle or some equivalent. One point to be careful about: if you look for Monster Hunters International, you will find the first book, which is $6. But if you look for Monster Hunters, you will find all three books in one virtual volume, for the same price, $6. So of course that's the one you want. Also, if you get it, try not to pay too much attention to the summaries of the three books. The summary for the third book tells you something you don't learn until toward the end of the first book, not a central plot twist, but something you're probably better off discovering while you read. And one last thing: the third book is not like the other two. The first two follow the same protagonist, but the third book is entirely focused on one major character from the first two books, and the central character from the first books does not even appear. It's a good book, but it might be useful to be prepared for this shift out of the usual paradigm.

Following the theme of hunting monsters, I just finished a book called The Fixer, $3.99 in electronic form from Amazon. Vampires and vampire hunting; the series is referred to as the "Lawson Vampire" books. It was decent, but not at Monster Hunters quality. I've picked up the second book, but I probably wouldn't have if had been $5.99 instead of $3.99. I'm not sure how far I'll make it with this series.

57 @51 Posted by: OregonMuse at August 12, 2012 12:42 PM (j6xkS) Glad you enjoyed "Slow Tuesday Night" (despite my title-fail). Lafferty's books are definitely worth tracking down. If you read enough of his stuff, you see a kind of shaggy shambling personal mythology running through them. Any of his stories involving the Institute of Impure Science are particularly fun.

58 I remember a SyFy channel remake of The Cold Equations where they changed the ending and the pilot jettisoned the cargo from the greedy corporation instead.

59 Tom Swift rocked. At least the 2nd series, which is all I'm familiar with.

60

57 The Baen e-books come in multiple formats.  I download the .rtf format files and read them in MS WORD.  They also have them in html format too.

They do not need a kindle to read.

61 Baen publishes pretty much all of their stuff in dead tree as well. They maintain the Baen free library which has a lot of good stuff in it. http://tinyurl.com/7g4zofw

They also publish some of their books with cds of ebooks and other material. These cds contains several ebooks apiece and contain many titles not available in their free library and often include reprints of classic science fiction stories and books. They allow copies of these cds to be hosted by a third party at:
http://tinyurl.com/8l49uyw

62 Here's an old school short story that made a real impression on me when I was a kid. http://aboutsf.podomatic.com/mobile_send?id=3429558 "Let The Ants Try" By Frederick Pohl. Written in 1948 I think.

63 Wow. I almost wish I did NOT get a shout out last week, because my anthology of time travel stories <a href="bit.ly/chooseft">Finding Time</a> would be a lot more comfortable in this week's edition.

I think we're living in the golden age of SF. There are Gutenberg texts of all the masters of the first golden age, because copyrights were not renewed and since lapsed (e.g. H. Beam Piper). And the rest are on sale for the Kindle for less than a Starbucks coffee.

Add to this the fact that you can get rip-roaring tales like Ric Locke's Temporary Duty without some editor in Manhattan blocking the gateway. RIP Ric, we hardly knew ye.

I really love Sarah Hoyt's and Larry Correia's work. As well as Mark Van Name's Jon & Lobo series. We're living in the golden age. I'm telling ya.

Just goto Amazon's Kindle section and stay clear of the big six publishes and you'll be fine.

64 55 Also reading a book about a girl's life in the Fundamentalist LDS church, in which she was some old fart's 4th wife, having a hard time imagining believing that I would end up in hell if I didn't marry the man assigned to me by my "prophet." Sure, it's the only thing she's heard since she was a baby, but still ...."

---------

But you're not going to tell us *which* book? I've read and recommend Carolyn Jessup's "Escape", but I know there are others out there.

65 Oops, let's get that link right. Finding Time has some nifty artwork you might like, too.

66 #42

I'll be producing Kindle and nook versions of the 'There Will Be War' anthologies if I can ever get Jerry to make a decision on some of the stuff I've already assembled for him. The accounting can be a problem, due to the number of authors involved and not always having current contact info

67 #59

So they completely screwed up the story? The cargo was vitally needed medical supplies to treat a disease outbreak at a location where the girl's brother lived. She had stowed away trying to reach her brother.

68 #44

It was a technique Brunner lifted from John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy.

The two Brunner books are unrelated but another one of his that fits into the time period and style is 'Shockwave Rider.'

69 I'll recommend a whole series. The 35 titles in the Winston Science Fiction series. True they are what is now called teen literature, but a list of the authors  is truly first class. The books are a little formulaic; coming of age stories, but the worlds and societies depicted and problems encountered are first rate sci fi. My Catholic school's 7tth grade class library contained all 35 volumes and one couldn't wait to be a 7th grader so you could jump into them. also the cover art is among the finest of the sci fi genre.

70 Wow didn't realize Ric Locke had passed. Read his time left was extremely limited but that was fast. RIP.

71 #54 Have you looked at C.J. Cherryh's "Foreigner" series? Great stuff and fairly recent. "Downbelow Station" probably my favorite of her's.

72

Finally finished Dicken's Our Mutual Friend. It was interesting that he felt the need to add an epilogue to tell the readers that no he hadn't made the "big" mystery too easy because he'd never *meant* for it to be a big secret.  And here I was feeling all cool that I'd figured out the secret really early .

 

Heinlein's juveniles were a big part of my childhood/teen reading as well as Norton, Cherryh, and Bradley. I'd never realized how many female authors I'd read until just now. Somehow I managed to miss Asimov until adulthood, but enjoyed listening to them on tape.

 

Someone mentioned Burroughs and that intersects with my only exposure to Gore Vidal. It was a college English textbook in which Vidal claime that no female had ever liked Tarzan. Knowing nothing else about Vidal I instantly pegged him as an idiot who didn't know many females and, based on what's been said about him this week, it looks like I was right.  Just out of curiosity, how would the Horde classify Burrough's Pellucidar books?  Is it Sci-fi/ fantasy/ or just general heroic fiction?  

73 Speaking of sheep, greatest SF book titles ever: "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep" By Philip K. Dick (The movie "Bladerunner" was based on this book) "The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies Of The Apocalypse" By Robert Rankin. Robot humor in the form of a detective novel.

74 All free audiobooks @ librivox.org. I also include links to online texts.

H. Beam Piper. Oomphel in the sky. About two hours.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20649/20649-h/20649-h.htm
Funny satire of clueless liberal bureaucracy versus pragmatic military during an alien revolt.

H. Beam Piper. Five sci-fi short stories. About five hours fifteen minutes.
Includes two Paratime Police stories.

G. K. Chesterton. The club of queer trades.  About four hours fifty minutes.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1696/1696-h/1696-h.htm
The London adventures of the narrator and two unusual brothers; a bit of a satire on Sherlock Holmes. Great fun.

F. Marion Crawford. Man Overboard! About one hour forty-five minutes.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24584/24584-h/24584-h.htm
Ghostly revenge involving identical twins; strong nautical theme.

Ambrose Bierce. Present at a hanging and other ghost stories. About two hours.
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/prhg10h.htm
Ghost stories alternately weird, uncanny, ironic or sentimental. A final section has tales of mysterious disappearances.

Emily Dorothy Scarborough. Famous modern ghost stories. About nine hours forty-five minutes.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15143/15143-h/15143-h.htm
Fifteen stories by Blackwood, Poe, Chambers, Bierce, Andreyev & others.

Robert Smythe Hichens. Return of the soul. About two hours twenty minutes.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23419/23419-h/23419-h.htm
A tale of spirit possession and revenge.

Lacy Collison-Morley. Greek and Roman ghost stories. About two hours.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17190/17190-h/17190-h.htm
A scholarly commentary about stories from ancient Greek and Roman sources.

ghost_stories_001. About four hours forty minutes.
Ten stories by Blackwood, Stoker, Saki, Le Fanu, Nesbit & others.

75 I can't remember the title of my favorite anthology.  I do remember some of the stories, like Elvis saving the earth from a meteor (by having people on one side of the earth jump from chairs at the same time) or the woman who loses things when she curses.  I think there was also one where a woman switched bodies with her daughter's fiancee.  It was edited by one of the famous scifi authors and a woman, I believe.

It was probably the first anthology I ever read, but it remains the one that I remember most aside from single author collections.

I'm working on A Princess of Mars and some other books right now.  It's amazing that I never heard of Burroughs as an author before recent times. 

76 R.A. Lafferty's "Fourth Mansions" is one of my favorites, but I can't explain exactly why.  It's more Fantasy than Sci-Fi, but reminiscent of Zelazny in interesting ways.  It also reminds me, in tone, of some of Tim Powers.

Tenn was fun, too.  Didn't he write a novel where humans basically lived in 'walls' like mice, in a world ruled by 'bigger' entities? 

77 Have you looked at C.J. Cherryh's "Foreigner" series? Cherryh is a goddess. Even her borderline "Fantasy" stuff is good.

78 Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.

79

Don't know how to do the linky thing, but if you want to sort of keep up with what's happening in SF I would recommend David Langfords 'Ansible'. It's a monthly publication from a guy in England, but he keeps up on the SF stuff. If nothing else, he notes who has died, authors, actors, etc...

 

Was always a fan of Lafferty. Came across a book of his yrs ago about the end of the Roman Empire. Not a novel, and very, very interesting.

80 > 6 Funny. I just started rereading E.E. "Doc" Smith's books. I was looking around at Amazon Wednesday, when I saw several of his books were free. Posted by: joethefatman™ (@joethefatman1) Squeel! Of those, Spacehounds is a good start for someone interested in Smith. Not part of a series and is an excellent example of what he's all about.

81 65, Anachondra, that's it.  I couldn't remember the title and I was too lazy to get up and go look - it's Sunday morning, after all.  I can't recall if I got it because of the book thread or because of just the subject matter as I've read at least one other like it.  "Escape" by Carolyn Jessup.

82 Those images remind me of the Tom Swift books I read when I was a kid.

83 Cherryh, one panel at Project A-kon we used the Chanur series to try and beat sense into one budding writer.  I was in the audience watching it all play out.  There was Jody Lynn Nye, her husband, Lee Martindale, plus a few more up at the table.

So this tall gangly blond guy in the second row stands up to ask a question.  He wanted to know their opinion on explanatory prologues.  Nye's husband Bill Fawcett was saying no prologue.  One of the other authors was very emphatically negative also, especially for a new writer like this guy.  But he persists by saying his universe is complicated and he needs to explain things.

So they start giving him advice on how he should do that exploration/explanation of his universe via his story.  Let the readers discover it.  And Cherryh is mentioned because of her description of prologue as a congealed indigestible lump.  The guy is not buying it, he is fully married to his wonderful prologue.  So someone in the audience brings up Chanur and how Cherryh used Tully the human as alien to find out about the culture of Chanur.

As far as I know that guy is still petting his precious prologue.

84 What was the name of the story that has characters allegedly travel back in time, but their adventures are deliberately ludicrous and anachronistic (e.g. a woman talks to the fictional Ben-Hur)?  It turns out that while they really do disappear from the present, they escape into the "past" of their own imagination.

85 I have a vague memory it was filmed as part some 'Outer Limits' type sci-fi anthology series back in the 80s, but I don't know which one, and I'm too lazy to look it up. People mentioned the TZ reboot, but most people forgot / never knew about the X Minus One radio version of this story. Godwin is accused of having borrowed the plot from Al Feldstein, but EC Tubb and Arthur C Clarke also write similar stories even earlier. Also, Damn Morning People! This is my freaking subject and by the time I see it it's a dead thread!

86 #84

It's a risky thing. If you have the skills you can come up with a way to do it that disguises what it is. But the circumstances of the story have to fit and that takes some thought that many wannabes cannot muster.

Since there is no gaming thread, Frys is having a contest to win a 3DS XL.
http://bit.ly/frys-nintendo3dsxl

87 As far as I know that guy is still petting his precious prologue. Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 03:50 PM (Pyl/0) You know what I say when someone asks me about their terrible writing idea? "Knock yoself out." Like I need *competent* competition? Obviously it's different if they're not "stuck on stupid," I like sharing good ideas with talented people, but it's not like there aren't enough writers, if someone wants to know himself out of the race, more power to him.

88

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 03:50 PM (Pyl/0)

 

Loved the Chanur universe. That's where I got the word I use for those of indeterminat sex which I no longer remember how to spell at all but Cherryh created to deal with a male/female/neutral/ race that changed under stress.

89 @77 ...Tenn was fun, too. Didn't he write a novel where humans basically lived in 'walls' like mice, in a world ruled by 'bigger' entities? Posted by: JorgXMcKie at August 12, 2012 03:07 PM (290l2) "Of Men and Monsters" It's in the "Here Comes Civilization" anthology volume. I think it's his only novel. It's a fun read.

90 #77

Sounds more like the 1989 'Men Like Rats' by Rob Chilson. It's a tale where humankind not only lost to the aliens, the aliens barely noticed we existed. They turn Earth into a shipping hub in their interstellar Fed Ex system, with humans surviving as vermin stilling food and water from packages when they can.

91 #73
"Just out of curiosity, how would the Horde classify Burrough's Pellucidar books? Is it Sci-fi/ fantasy/ or just general heroic fiction?"

I'd call it what it was called back then, romantic fiction. Nowadays that would probably be called more of an heroic fiction/fantasy story. You can get that from Amazon for free for Kindle @ http://amzn.to/TvHyLz. I know this because I was talking to my wife about it Friday.

#81
Squeel!
Of those, Spacehounds is a good start for someone interested in Smith. Not part of a series and is an excellent example of what he's all about.

And here I was thinking I was the only fan of his stuff left!

92 #11 - Thanks, Golem, for answering my question about the sleep-deprivation story.  Typical, I had to run out right after posting it, so I didn't see until now that an answer came 6 minutes after I posted the question!  I knew the morons wouldn't let me down.  Now I'll be able to hunt down that story and read it again.

93 Merovign, now that I think on it.  He probably got a vanity publisher for that book.  So his apartment is now taken up with ten boxes of the hardcover version while he has to squeeze past them to reach the kitchen for his cereal.  And no one in his family is talking to him because for five years running he has given away copies as gifts.

Polliwogette, Cherryh has produced some interesting books and truly alien cultures.  Faded Sun is an interesting one.  Where humanity has to battle these aliens and finally wins out.  So the aliens freak and try to wipe out their mercenaries fearful the humans will hire them.  Boils down to three people trying to survive and along the way humanity is handed a double-edged sword that we hope has the wisdom to handle properly.

Well back to writing, cranked out over 2000 words this morning on story.  731 of them after I thought I was going to bed but muse said 'write!'

94

Posted by: joethefatman™ (@joethefatman1) at August 12, 2012 04:17 PM (MnSla)

 

I like Smith too. Wish I still had the books that I used to, but too many moves and a false assumption of being able to find them again have betrayed me.

95 Well back to writing, cranked out over 2000 words this morning on story. 731 of them after I thought I was going to bed but muse said 'write!' Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 04:24 PM (Pyl/0) You Go Girl! I liked the IRC channels we had for NaNoWriMo. We had little timed competitions.

96 Local writers group we we do that.  Random subject and write for 15 minutes.  Or write 500 words for next meeting on random subject.  One of those assignments, I wrote it and the realized it could be longer.  So it grew into a six chapter story while another writer's story actually got put in a short story collection.  Got many stories in the 500 to 1500 range I should clean up and go e-book.  But that area is still very alien to me.

Mystery/crime story set in the 1930s.  I might as well be writing reverse science-fiction.  Have to explain in the story how a rotary phone works and sounds.  Anyway got the next three scenes sketched out mentally and need to write them down.

97 Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 04:40 PM (Pyl/0) I have so many "bad medicine days" now I don't write much. Or I get distracted when I *do* have energy, and end up writing all over the Cool Facts thread. (sigh) I should be writing and not posting, but I have the attention span of a dried trout right now. The local writing group I fail to attend meets across town twice a month.

98 And I probably don't help things with your attention span with all the cosplay links. 

A dried trout, that is so uncool.  Not swell at all.  Shame you can't make those meetings, but I am in same boat.  Been about two months and now our usual hangout closed down.  Coffee shop that dabbled in books and such.  And not enough paying customers.

99

#85 Posted by: Pete in TX at August 12, 2012 03:58 PM (tky9G)

Disappearing Act by Alfred Bester.

100 Shame you can't make those meetings, but I am in same boat. Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 04:48 PM (Pyl/0) Darned leaky lifeboats.

101 Yeah leaky boats stink.  Either bail or sink.

Burning up the word processor today, almost 3,500 words and still going.

102 Thanks for the link to "Rare and Beautiful Visions." I'd never heard of Noel Sickles but I was so impressed with the illustration he did for "Rocket to the Moon" that I Googled some of his other work. Wow. How did a talent like that become obscure?

103 Burning up the word processor today, almost 3,500 words and still going. Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 06:04 PM (Pyl/0) Awesome! I need to put my daily goal board back up.

104 How about pin-up artist Peter Driben?  He also did the illustration work for The Maltese Falcon movie.

http://www.americanartarchives.com/driben.htm

105 Well I am finally hitting my stride on this story, just 12,000 words behind though.  Working on fixing that.

106 Cordwainer Smith was unique, probably my favorite SF author. "Scanners Live In Vain" is a GREAT short story but "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" is just stunning. #53 Calyx- As far as I know anyone can put a (properly formatted) e-book on Amazon and set their own price subject to min and max limits based on the royalty option chosen (35% or 70%). I just went live with my first ebook on Amazon. It is a collection of haiku. If anyone's crazy for haiku drop me a line ( rkenney121@gmail.com ) and I'll send you the link.

107

#100

 

Thanks, DKCZ!

108 There was a sequel to The Cold Equations called The Warm Equations in which the passenger's  and pilot's legs as well as the passenger's arms managed to reduce the weight by just enough.  to allow them to survive. Regeneration or artificial limbs were advanced enough to work after they landed.

109

I'll try Foreigner.

Cherryh did some great stuff. Faded Sun was life changing for a young impressionable boy.

Loved the Morgaine series, as well as the Chanur one.

Baen has a writer's forum, kind of. People can post parts of works in progress and get feedback. At least they used to. Haven't been to their board in a long time.

110 Invictos, I kept waiting on Morgaine kri Chya to appear at Stargate Command and inform them she is closing the Quhl gate.

111 Wow, Anna, good catch. I never made the connection. That would be awesome.

112

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 07:26 PM (Pyl/0)

 

I never heard of the Morgaine series. It has similarities to SG-1?  Has anyone else read her Yngvie (I think that's how it's spelled) series?  Based on Russian folk-lore.

113 Kris Neville's short story "The Forest of Zil," from Best SF: 1967...about a world-forest responding to Terran intrusion by retrospectively cancelling the time-line of Homo Sapiens, sending a creeping amnesia back along the time axis. I live surrounded by an oak forest and ever so often their rustling leaves makes a faintly remembered sound. "On a distant planet covered by trees, the forest moves in the warm sunlight to the motion of the gentle breeze, making their soft sounds, zil, zil, zil."

114 Polliwogette, the Morgaine series if four books.
Gate of Ivrel, Well of Shiuan, Fires of Azeroth, and Exile's Gate.

Across the galaxy are alien gates that can take you to any planet that has a gate.  Supposedly they are creations of the Qhal.  But they are also a trap since one can travel through time using them.  So humans sent out a team to shut the gates down.  Morgaine is the last survivor of that team when Gate of Ivrel opens.

'When Thiye ruled in Hjemur
Came strangers riding there,
And three were dark and one was gold,
And one like frost was fair.

Fair was she, and fatal as fair,
And cursed who gave her ear;
Now men are few and wolves are more,
And the Winter drawing near.'
- From the opening of Gate of Ivrel

115

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 07:59 PM (Pyl/0)

 

Thanks, yeah that *does* sound a lot like SG-1. Are the books still available?

116 Amazon has all of them, and Faded Sun.

117 Amazon has listed for $8.99 a book that collects the first three books.  It is called the Morgaine Saga.  Only 5 left in stock.

As for a copy of Exile's Gate on Amazon.  That is pretty grim since have to look under used.

Reason why Exile's Gate is not included is because that one book equals the size of the other three books combined.

118

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at August 12, 2012 08:16 PM (Pyl/0)

 

Thanks, figured it was worth finding out if they were even still in print before looking further.

119 Howdy folks late to the thread.  Back mnto the re-read stuff. Late because I read Da Vinci Code and then watched the movie. I had remebered that the movie followed the book except that they had to shorten the movie.


I remembered incorrectly. 

120 Need to write, spending all day syncing files and setting up software and interruptions and anticipating interruptions. (sigh)

121 #53 - Anyone can sell eBooks on Amazon, and can set their own prices (although Amazon tries to encourage you to set your prices in a certain range). Anyone can also sell print-on-demand books on Amazon (Amazon's CreateSpace division prints them). I think there may be some morality limits that, if crossed, can get you suspended as an author, but they are pretty lax.

Amazon does have a publishing branch that offers writing contracts to the "best"/most successful writers around, but that is a separate division and you have to be picked to join.

122 I loved science fiction, still do. In my late teens I was an addicted reader, I would read 5 or 6 books a week, almost exclusively science fiction. Reading these older stories set my imagination afire, I dreamed of man's adventures in space travel. I was tremendously excited about the lunar program and landings on the Moon. I watched every one. Alas, then the disappointment began to set in. Seeing all the grand dreams slowly being made unachievable by budget cuts and politicians with the foresight of a garden slug. Now at the age of 69, I realize I will almost surely be dead by the time man goes to Mars if we ever do.. We don't even have a man rated launch vehicle anymore. Every other space faring country is surpassing us, we, the people that took the human race to another planet in 3rd place now, how sad. All the hubbub about Curiosity landing on Mars, though a great accomplishment, was not using new ideas or technology. The Russians were using the rocket motor braking system for hard landings on soil instead of water 25 years ago, remember? Curiosity itself is mostly a larger version of the two smaller rovers already on Mars, it has some more sophisticated experiments, but not really new space faring technology. What is really depressing, if we had continued the space program at the pace the lunar program was pursued, we could have landed a man on Mars 25 years ago. We probably would have a Martian colony by now and the human race would be an interplanetary society. Oh, and by the way, vampires and werewolves have nothing to do with science fiction, just sayin'.

123 FYI The Cold Equations was made into an inferior movie -- not an episode of a series -- in which the touchy-feely sci-fi of today flinched from the tragedy which the young girl stowaway brings on herself. Tant pis, as the French say...

124 Well, this is definitely a dead thread now but I am going to recommend a series of books by Alexi Panshin all of which include "Rosinante" in the title. They are hard science fiction about the construction crew on an O'Neil colony beyond the orbit of Mars that takes ownership of the project when the North American Union which had been paying for it starts to fall apart. The only place I ever saw the books was in a Science Fiction book store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

125 "Cold Equations" belongs on my list of SF Stories to Remember, along with "In Hiding," "A Wind Is Rising" (Robert Sheckley under a pen name -- the heroes have to deal with a planet where winds blow at 200 miles an hour all the time), "The Long Watch" by Heinlein (Kiplingesque heroism on the moon), and Larry Niven's "Wrong Way Street" (a time-travel nightmare).  Oh, and Gordon R. Dickson's "On Messenger Mountain."

Many years ago Terry Carr edited an anthology called "Science Fiction for People who Hate Science Fiction," and it has a lot of grand stories in there, including the Bradbury story "A Sound of Thunder" -- the first story, I think, about that "butterfly effect" -- and Clarke's "The Star."

126 Yes! Read this very book. Many times. It still affects my thinking to this day. I think I loaned it to someone, should get another copy..... And YES Star Wars sucked! Sci-fi, as opposed to science fiction.