Obscurorant 2.0 » Books

Out of Nowheresville

The Silver Fox — Sat, 05 May 2012 01:37:11 +0000

Walton, Jo (2011). Among Others. NY: Tor Books. 304 pages.

Among Others is the tale, in the form of a diary, of young woman by the name Mori (short for Morwenna) Phelps. As the book opens Mori has run away from her mother following the death of her twin sister, and gone to live with her long-estranged father and his cold and distant family, who promptly pack her off to boarding school. Also she can do magic and talk to fairies.

Now that description may sound like the set up for your standard kind of YA fantasy novel, with a Chosen One who discovers hidden powers and an inevitable destiny to confront the Dark Lord and save the world, but you would be wrong. None of the above happens – in fact there is very little at all happening in Among Others. Mori navigates the strange currents of boarding school, and reads a lot of science fiction. A lot. Among Others is not about quests or confrontations or battles, it’s about what happens after those things happen. Mori herself notes:

“Tolkien understood about the things that happen after the end. Because this is after the end, this is all the Scouring of the Shire, this is figuring out how to live in the time that wasn’t supposed to happen after the glorious last stand. I saved the world, or I think I did, and look, the world is still here, with sunsets and interlibrary loans. And it doesn’t care about me any more than the Shire cared about Frodo.”

Please don’t get the idea that the lack of Big! Plot! Points! in Among Others makes for a dull or uninteresting read. Mori is an engaging diarist, whip smart and perceptive, but still a somewhat awkward teenage girl, trying to find her place in and come to terms with this strange world of adulthood. Also very interesting – at least for me – was the strong pull of the past generated by Walton’s Wayback Machine: the late 70s/early 80s setting of Among Others. Mori moves through a time I remember well, a time before the internet mainstreamed geek culture, a time when comic books and superheroes were decidedly not cool, let alone the subject of blockbuster films. Her perpetual hunt for new books to consume reminded me of my own. There was no Amazon (obviously), no huge bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Borders with shelf after shelf to browse, just your local, independent bookstore which if you were lucky had a decent selection of science fiction and fantasy*, and of course the library. And you learned about worthwhile books and authors by and large through word-of-mouth or your own experience.

Anyhoo, I highly recommend Among Others, and not just for the nostalgia.

*I was lucky. My local back on those days, the Voyager book store, had plenty of science fiction and fantasy available, as well as a fully stocked gaming section, which in those days meant loads and loads of Dungeons & Dragons (and lesser known role playing games) books and supplements, in addition to Avalon Hill wargames.

Confession (Harmony Rocket #4)

The Silver Fox — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:50:55 +0000

Anything I write about plans for reading this or that book by this or that author should be taken with a grain of salt, since I am very prone to getting lost in the wilderness of books and wandering off in an unanticipated direction. Caveat reader, or something like that, and with that here’s what I’ve been reading and plan to read. You’ve been warned.

On the non-fiction side of things I finished The Missing of the Somme feeling not as impressed as I thought I would be. Parts I found intelligent and moving, such as Dyer’s description of the moment of silence on the first Remembrance Day, but during others – the descriptions of sculptures on various memorials – I had to force myself to slow down and read every word. In a longer book I might have given in to temptation and skimmed but since Missing is less than 150 pages I decided I could lump it and read every page.

My current non-fiction read is Running the Books, and I’m enjoying it. Now, as far as fiction goes…

The Game of Thrones re-read proceeds at a leisurely pace and is likely to remain leisurely, at least until I reach the two most recent, and for me as yet unread, entries A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons.

I finished Downbelow Station and wanting to spend more time in the imagined future of Cherryh’s Alliance-Union universe I borrowed Merchanter’s Luck from the library and read it last weekend. I was able to do this because Merchanter’s Luck is ‘only’ about 200 pages long, and reading it filled me with nostalgia for the days when this, rather than the brick-size tomes that speculative fiction comes in today. Two of my favorite books from childhood, John Maddox Robert’s Space Angel and Nancy Springer’s The Silver Sun, were also this length, perfect for multiple re-readings. When I returned to both of these books in later years I was realized how easily the authors could have expended the length of either – The Silver Sun in could have been a trilogy easily – and I’m glad that for whatever reason (market forces maybe) that both Robert and Springer wrote ‘short’ books.* Sometimes I wish more authors of fantasy and science fiction would follow this practice.

Howl’s Moving Castle was superb, and I’m filled with a kind of quiet but joyous satisfaction at all of the Diana Wynne Jones I have yet to read. I also finished Jo Walton’s Among Others, a book I enjoyed so much it deserves its own post.

Another subject that deserves its own post is Jo Walton’s column at Tor books, for pointing me in the direction of all sorts of great books and writers. The latest is Anthony Price, the author of the David Audley series of novels. Last year I read the bulk of Charles McCarry’s Paul Christopher and was looking for more in the same vein i.e well-crafted, literate spy fiction and so in a library feeding frenzy last weekend I picked up The ’44 Vintage, my current fiction read. It’s only about 200 pages, which I consider a good sign.

*I do wish Roberts would pen a worthy sequel to Space Angel.

Fool Such As I

The Silver Fox — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 02:10:41 +0000

You never know what piece of flotsam will call to life a long-slumbering memory. If you view these pictures of Libraries of the Rich and Famous and scroll down to the last one, you’ll learn that the library depicted is enormous (70,000 books worth $4 million) and belongs to noted academic Richard Macksey. Many years ago, as an appallingly clueless freshman, I enrolled in one of his classes. The exact name escapes me, but it was detective and mystery fiction, from its more traditional forms to The Crying of Lot 49 and Borges’ work. As I said above I was clueless. I never took another class with Mr. Macksey, never read Proust and needless to say never got anywhere near his famous library. Later in my collegiate career I demonstrated I still hadn’t learned anything by taking a class with Orest Ranum and again managing to remain ignorant of the man’s career and accomplishments and exactly how much one could learn from him.

I still plan to attempt Proust though, and maybe I can teach my children to be less oblivious of the opportunities life puts in your path.

Compositions For The Young And Old

The Silver Fox — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:45:12 +0000

My reading became extremely scattershot over the last week or so. Irritation with A Game of Thrones led me to pick up C.J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station, a book I previously attempted last spring in the wake of the Brain Incident. Now both are sitting on my nightstand, stacked atop two from the library, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, because the movie adaptation was excellent and I’ve never read anything by her before, and Jo Walton’s Among Others, which brings us full circle since it was some her writing that led me to try Cherryh’s work. These last two I haven’t started yet, but I couldn’t avoid the temptation to bring them home with me. The library is bad like that, and strolling through the stacks in the children’s room with Madeleine I kept noticing all sorts of titles I wanted to read – necessary to scout out good books for Madeleine and Dash to read when older. I also noticed that (Ursula) LeGuin and (Madeleine) L’Engle sit side by side on the shelves, ready for lucky first-time readers to discover them together, which I believe to be an excellent arrangement.

After all that, the non-fiction front feels like a bit of let down. I finished Storm of Steel, which despite being a slim volume seemed to go on forever, and moved on to The Missing of the Somme. I remain in the trenches.

I’ve also been thinking of more ‘lost’ books from way-back times. In both 3rd and 4th grade, my teachers read to the class. Some of these books I remember clearly, How To Eat Fried Worms for example, but I’m not having much luck in fully recalling some of the others. There was the one about a family of dolls, living in a dollhouse, who came to life when their owners were absent. This may have been The Doll’s House, by Rumer Godden, but I’d have to read it to be sure. Another book concerned the adventures of a child, or children, who discovered a mysterious grease that when applied, allowed perpetual motion in machines. I haven’t been able to track that one down, nor another story of which I have even vaguer memories: children using museum-piece civil war cannon to defeat the bad guys. I think maybe there was an island involved.

During the same years I also remember reading The Wolf King, by Ann Turnbull, and several entries in the Three Investigators series, which back then still had the Alfred Hitchcock name attached, or at least the editions I read still did. Mostly I remember liking it for the hideout the Investigators used, a trailer buried in the middle of a salvage yard.

Waiting For The Kill

The Silver Fox — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 03:17:27 +0000

There are certain books I could happily read over and over again. The Lord of the Rings comes to mind. I read it probably two dozen times by the time I reached junior high, and still return to its pages periodically.

A Game of Thrones is not proving to be one of those books. I’ve embarked on the reread I mentioned a while back, and parts of the book are a struggle to get through the second time. The cartoon villainy of Queen Cersei and Prince Joffrey grates, as does Ned Stark’s stiff-necked plan of disaster for his family and Sansa’s medieval mean girl act. So I’m not loving Game as unreservedly as I do Tolkien’s work, although I am deriving enjoyment from the paying renewed attention to the story lines of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, two characters I believe will feature very prominently in the final volumes, as well as the Tyrion Lannister, the Omar Little of this saga.

Speaking of Tolkien and rereads, I can’t remember if I previously linked to this piece by Gene Wolfe on The Lord of the Rings. I was rereading it last week and was moved to track down the name and full text of the C.S. Lewis poem that Wolfe quotes. The name of the poem is Cliché Came Out of its Cage and I think the second part is as apt a summation of the ‘Northern Thing’ as any I’ve come across. I think that though the ‘Northern Thing’ runs like a cold, clear stream through Tolkien’s writing of Middle Earth, it flows closest to the surface in The Silmarillion, which is more akin to the old sagas than to a novel like The Lord of the Rings.

Anyway, here are the lines I’m referring to:

“Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond will break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand,
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs;
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).”

By way of comparison, here is an excerpt from The Silmarillion:

“Last of all Hurin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Hurin cried:”Aure entuluva! Day shall come again!” Seventy times he uttered that cry; but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, for the Orcs grappled him with their hands, which clung to him still though he hewed off their arms…”

Nor, despite Hobbits to mediate between the reader and Tolkien’s world, is the the sentiment missing from The Lord of the Rings. Call to mind Eomer before the walls of Gondor:

“…for he thought to make a great shield-wall at the last, and stand, and fight there on foot till all fell, and do deeds of song on the fields of Pelennor, though no man should be left in the West to remember the last king of the Mark. So he rode to a green hillock and there set his banner, and the White Horse ran rippling in the wind.

Out of doubt, out of dark to the day’s rising
I come singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope’s end I rode and to heart’s breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!

These staves he spoke, yet he laughed as he said them. For once more lust of battle was on him; and he was still unscathed, and he was young, and he was king: the lord of a fell people.”

In case you’re not a giant Tolkien nerd like myself, here’s what the man himself meant by the ‘Northern Thing:

“It is the strength of the northern mythological imagination that it faced this problem, put the monsters in the centre, gave them Victory but no honour, and found a potent but terrible solution in naked will and courage. ‘As a working theory absolutely impregnable.’ So potent is it, that while the older southern imagination has faded for ever into literary ornament, the northern has power, as it were, to revive its spirit even in our own times.It can work, even as it did work with the goðlauss viking, without gods: martial heroism as its own end. But we may remember that the poet of Beowulf saw clearly: the wages of heroism is death.”
-from Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics

Why You Been Gone So Long

The Silver Fox — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:27:06 +0000

In the end I caved and Dicken’s Christmas Stories is now living in my car until I have a chance to return it to the library. I have it mind to take another run at Mr. Dickens, maybe with A Tale of Two Cities, but that will be further down the road. Someday. Maybe. Perhaps. There are an awful lot of books out there, or on my shelves waiting my attention, that I know I will enjoy reading.

When my daughter started to take a strong interest in books, I began to cast my mind back to ‘lost’ books, dimly remembered books from my childhood and adolescence, faded away into vague memories until recalled to clarity through copious internet searching. For instance…

One of these lost books I could only recall as a picture book (maybe books) about a ghost living in a New England town that I would read when visiting my grandparent’s house in Salem. Turns out Robert Bright wrote a whole series of books about Georgie the ghost, of which my grandparent’s owned the first two, Georgie and Georgie to the Rescue. I hunted down a copy of Georgie (sadly all the books seem to be out of print) which Madeleine loved* and literally read to pieces.

A Google search of ‘Norway’ + ‘sleds’ + ‘gold’ returned to proper memory Snow Treasure, by Marie McSwigan, a story of Norwegian children smuggling gold out of their occupied country by sledding it past the German army. I read this book at least a dozen times when I was in grade school. Supposedly it was based on a true story, though there now seems to be some doubt about that. Snow Treasure is still in print, so I can look forward to reading to my kids when they’re old enough. I also dredged up from the recesses of my mind The Black Stone Knife, by Alice Lee Marriott, a book so forgotten it possesses no reviews on Amazon. But I loved it once, or at least read it many times. Not sure if I’ll introduce this one to Dashiell and Madeleine.

I’m still trying to track down the name and author of a book set during the American Revolution, in New York City if I’m remembering correctly, featuring young adult, or maybe child, protagonists, spying for General Washington. I think. I maybe confusing it with another forgotten title set during the Revolution and taking place on the coast and involving small boats. Yeah, not a lot to go on there.

*So taken was Madeleine with Georgie that she named her stuffed cat Herman, after Georgie’s feline friend. This is a high honor, since very few of Madeleine’s numerous stuffed and toy animals have actual names, instead being addressed by such descriptive terms as ‘Black Dog’ or ‘New One Dog’ or ‘Bunny.’

Winter Beats

The Silver Fox — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:44:58 +0000

Here are two things you may not know about me.

1. I love Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It is my absolute, favorite holiday story, a position formed by multiple viewings of multiple versions of the tale courtesy of the UHF stations of my youth. It seemed then that at any point of the Christmas season one could sit down, turn on the tube, twist the dial, and tune into a Christmas ghost story, with dark and scary moments that stood out against the Rankin and Bass productions that littered the 70s. My 7th grade English teacher made the actual text assigned reading and I discovered I loved it as much as the movies, more in some cases, as I had never much cottoned to the musical adaption with Finney and Guinness. A few years later George C. Scott’s turn as Scrooge in the 1984 television film became for me the perfect Christmas special, not least because it adheres faithfully to Dickens’ original story.

2. Apart from A Christmas Carol, I have never read any of Dickens’ work. Not a single one of his books was ever assigned to me again, not in high school and not in college. Ten or so years ago I attempted Oliver Twist, but made it only halfway before succumbing to boredom and the allure of other, more appealing titles.

I offer up these two facts so that you might understand how it is I came to be wrestling with a copy of the Oxford Illustrated edition of Christmas Stories as we head into February. The book was on display at the library and I thought ‘Oh, I love A Christmas Carol. Surely I will love these other Christmas stories Dickens wrote.’

So far I can only say ‘not so much’. Over the course of several weeks I trudged through The Chimes, the second Christmas tale Dickens wrote (after A Christmas Carol.) It contained all the moralizing and none of the magic his first effort, failing to fulfill the story-teller’s first obligation: to entertain. The goblins (or ghosts – I’m still not sure who was doing what) of the Chimes are not the least bit interesting and pale in comparison to the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.

Christmas Stories remains on my nightstand and I tell myself I will continue the struggle, at least to the extent of attempting The Cricket on the Hearth, the next story in the book, but I do have piles of other books that are far more tempting. I think Dickens and I might just call it quits.

N.B. I have a tumblr blog, at least for now. We’ll see where it takes us.

Knockin On Mine

The Silver Fox — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:25:54 +0000

First order of business: today is International Beer Day. I trust you are all intent on doing your part.

Second order of business: NPR’s annual summer reading poll concerns fantasy and science fiction. You can help them whittle down the field to the top 100. Carl V. covers the flaws of the list pretty well, and also turns it into a meme of sorts, which I will indulge in. Play along at home if you’d like.

The entries I’ve read are in bold, with an * to indicate where I haven’t read all the extant titles in series. Anything underlined means the book in question in sitting in my vast to-be-read pile.

1632, by Eric Flint
1984, by George Orwell
2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
The Acts Of Caine Series, by Matthew Woodring Stover
The Algebraist, by Iain M. Banks
Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers
Armor, by John Steakley
The Baroque Cycle, by Neal Stephenson
Battlefield Earth, by L. Ron Hubbard
Beggars In Spain, by Nancy Kress
The Belgariad, by David Eddings
The Black Company Series, by Glen Cook
The Black Jewels Series, by Anne Bishop
The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Bridge Of Birds, by Barry Hughart
The Callahan’s Series, by Spider Robinson
A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
The Cat Who Walked Through Walls, by Robert Heinlein
Cat’s Cradle , by Kurt Vonnegut
The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
The Change Series, by S.M. Stirling
Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
Children Of God, by Mary Doria Russell
The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny*
The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
The City And The City, by China Mieville
City And The Stars, by Arthur C. Clarke
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
The Coldfire Trilogy, by C.S. Friedman
The Commonwealth Saga, by Peter F. Hamilton
The Company Wars, by C.J. Cherryh*
The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
Contact, by Carl Sagan
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks*
The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
The Day of Triffids, by John Wyndham
Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison
The Deed of Paksennarion Trilogy, by Elizabeth Moon
The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester
The Deverry Cycle, by Katharine Kerr
Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany
The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
The Difference Engine, by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
Don’t Bite The Sun, by Tanith Lee
Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
Dreamsnake, by Vonda McIntyre
The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
Earth, by David Brin
Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart
The Eisenhorn Omnibus, by Dan Abnett
The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock*
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
Eon, by Greg Bear
The Eyes Of The Dragon, by Stephen King
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
The Faded Sun Trilogy, by C.J. Cherryh
Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser Series, by Fritz Leiber
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
The Female Man, by Joanna Russ
The Fionavar Tapestry Trilogy, by Guy Gavriel Kay
A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
The First Law Trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie
Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
The Foreigner Series, by C.J. Cherryh
The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
The Gaea Trilogy, by John Varley
The Gap Series, by Stephen R. Donaldson
The Gate To Women’s Country, by Sheri S. Tepper
Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
The Gone-Away World, by Nick Harkaway
The Gormenghast Triology, by Mervyn Peake
Grass, by Sheri S. Tepper
Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End of The World, by Haruki Murakami
The Heechee Saga, by Frederik Pohl
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
The Hollows Series, by Kim Harrison
House Of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski
The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
The Incarnations Of Immortality Series, by Piers Anthony
The Inheritance Trilogy, by N.K. Jemisin
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
Kindred, by Octavia Butler
The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss*
Kraken, by China Mieville
The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
Last Call, by Tim Powers
The Last Coin, by James P. Blaylock
The Last Herald Mage Trilogy, by Mercedes Lackey
The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
The Lathe Of Heaven, by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore*
The Lensman Series, by E.E. Smith
The Liaden Universe Series, by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
The Lies Of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch
Lilith’s Brood, by Octavia Butler
Little, Big, by John Crowley
The Liveship Traders Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
Lord Of Light, by Roger Zelazny
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord Valentine’s Castle, by Robert Silverberg
Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees
The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson*
The Man In The High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
The Manifold Trilogy, by Stephen Baxter
The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
Memory And Dream, by Charles de Lint
Memory, Sorrow, And Thorn Trilogy, by Tad Williams
Mindkiller, by Spider Robinson
The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
Mordant’s Need, by Stephen Donaldson
More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon
The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
The Naked Sun, by Isaac Asimov
The Neanderthal Parallax Trilogy, by Robert J. Sawyer
Neuromancer, by William Gibson
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
The Newsflesh Triology, by Mira Grant
The Night’s Dawn Trilogy, by Peter F. Hamilton
Norstrilia, by Cordwainer Smith
Novels Of The Company, by Kage Baker
The Number Of The Beast, by Robert Heinlein
Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
On Basilisk Station, by David Weber
The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
Oryx And Crake, by Margaret Atwood
The Otherland Tetralogy, by Tad Williams
The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
Parable Of The Sower, by Octavia Butler
The Passage, by Justin Cronin
Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
The Prestige, by Christopher Priest
The Pride Of Chanur, by C.J. Cherryh
The Prince Of Nothing Trilogy, by R. Scott Bakker
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge
Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
Replay, by Ken Grimwood
Revelation Space, by Alistair Reynolds
Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban
The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist*
Ringworld, by Larry Niven
The Riverworld Series, by Philip Jose Farmer
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
The Saga Of Pliocene Exile, by Julian May
The Saga Of Recluce, by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman*
The Sarantine Mosaic Series, by Guy Gavriel Kay
A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick
The Scar, by China Mieville
The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
The Shattered Chain Trilogy, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Sirens Of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
The Snow Queen, by Joan D. Vinge
Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
Song for the Basilisk, by Patricia McKillip
A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin*
The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis
The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
The Stainless Steel Rat Books, by Harry Harrison*
Stand On Zanzibar, by John Brunner
The Stand, by Stephen King
Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
Stations Of The Tide, by Michael Swanwick
Steel Beach, by John Varley
Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
The Swordspoint Trilogy, by Ellen Kushner
The Tales of Alvin Maker, by Orson Scott Card*
The Temeraire Series, by Naomi Novik
The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
Tigana , by Guy Gavriel Kay
Time Enough For Love, by Robert Heinlein
The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
To Say Nothing Of The Dog, by Connie Willis
The Troy Trilogy, by David Gemmell
Ubik, by Philip K. Dick
The Uplift Saga, by David Brin
The Valdemar Series, by Mercedes Lackey
VALIS, by Philip K. Dick
Venus On The Half-Shell, by Kilgore Trout/Philip Jose Farmer
The Vlad Taltos Series, by Steven Brust
The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vurt Trilogy, by Jeff Noon
The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
The Watchmen, by Alan Moore
Watership Down, by Richard Adams
The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak
We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin
The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan*
When Gravity Fails, by George Alec Effinger
Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
World War Z, by Max Brooks
The Worm Ouroboros, by E.R. Edison
The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony*
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, by Michael Chabon

My votes? Well certainly Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), Howard, Martin, Leiber and Heinlein (Starship Troopers). Still undecided about my remaining five votes. Some work I would consider essential to the genre (Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword) is missing from the field, and as Cal pointed out some authors have multiple works listed.

Get Behind Me

The Silver Fox — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 02:08:39 +0000

I think I’m going to have put aside Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Three or so months ago I mentioned I might pick it up as my next non-fiction read, and I did, and I have made little progress since. I don’t think the fault is with the book itself. Rebecca West is a fine writer, and the subject matter, the tangled skein of history in the Balkans, from the days of the Roman Empire to coming of the Second World War, is of great interest to me. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is giant book, a veritable tome at 1200-odd 8 by 5 pages, and I haven’t been able to muster the enthusiasm necessary for the task. After hundreds of pages traveling with Leigh Fermor I might have temporarily had my fill of middle Europe. Or it may just a matter of literary mood. It happens. Sometimes you’re just not in the right frame of mind for a particular book and must put it aside for a later date. Maybe when the leaves fall I’ll give it another shot. In the meantime perhaps I’ll take up the Astaire biography (also mentioned previously) as my non-fiction read, or maybe attack the glut of New Yorkers staring down at me from atop one of the living room bookcases.

Speaking of Leigh Fermor, he passed away, scant weeks after I mentioned my enjoyment of his work. Those who wish to get a better impression of the man and his extraordinary life can read Anthony Lane’s fine profile, which has been set loose from behind the New Yorker firewall. This article mentions the existence of a manuscript for volume three in Fermor’s account of his 1933 walk from London to Constantinople, a volume that would take readers from the Iron Gates of the Danube to journey’s end on the Bosporus. I dearly hope it sees the light of day.

On the fiction front I’m reading House of Chains, the fourth in Steve Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen. These are grand times to be a fan of fantasy and science fiction. In addition to the authors mentioned in the linked article, Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss and Scott Lynch are doing outstanding work. I would recommend any fans of the genre seek out their work. Me, I’m shortly going to be spending a lot of time with George R.R. Martin. With the publication of A Dance With Dragons I can finally get around to reading its preceding volume A Feast For Crows, patiently waiting on my shelves since 2005. And while I’m at it, since I haven’t ready anything in the Song of Fire and Ice sequence since 2000, when the third volume was published (ten years ago) I might as well start from the beginning and re-read the entire shebang from word one on page one of volume one.

Is That Your Zebra?

The Silver Fox — Fri, 27 May 2011 01:56:01 +0000

The whole thing started innocently enough, as these things usually do, with a trip to the library. It was intended to be a quick trip and it was a quick trip, but somehow I managed to exit the library with three new books. At least they were borrowed, not bought. I picked up Eye of the Red Tsar, which is what Graham Greene would’ve termed an ‘entertainment,’ this one set in Russia following the revolution with a plot swirling about the murder of the Romanovs. I finished most of it before the weekend was over.

I also grabbed Empire of the Summer Moon, non-fiction about the final days of the Comanche, and The Dead Republic, the last volume of what was marketed as ‘The Last Roundup,’ although that moniker is absent from this book. All of the books are in a tangled pile on my nightstand, now threatening to overwhelm the lamp. One can refer to a sleuth of bears, a murder of crows or a parliament of owls – what would be an appropriate collective noun for a stack of books?