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An Aside: Happy Birthday, Roy

1/8/2016

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An Aside on a Movie: The Martian 

12/10/2015

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I saw this movie a few weeks ago with my dear friend Shasta.  Ever since IO9 reported that this movie was "a love story to science," I knew I would love this movie... and I... loved this movie.

I think what I liked best about that is the entire thing doesn't feel like a science fiction movie.  Instead, it feels like a really great bio-pic, like Apollo XIII or Lawrence of Arabia.  Also, the inclusion of "Waterloo" was a personal present made just for me.*  

Thank you, The Martian.

*Don't ask.
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Index: 100 Great Science Fiction Books

8/12/2015

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Lessons for Writers:

Books 1-20      Books 21-40     Books 41-60     Books 61-80     Books 81-100

100 Great Science Fiction Books

334  by Thomas M. Disch
1984 by George Orwell

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A Case of Conscience by James Blish
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
A Mirror for Observers by Edgar Pangborn
After London: Wild England by Richard Jeffries

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delaney
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Berserker by Fred Saberhagen

Blood Music by Greg Bear
Bone Dance by Emma Bull
Brain Wave by Poul Anderson

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

Dreamsnake by Vonda M. McIntyre
Downward To The Earth by Robert Silverberg

Dune by Frank Herbert
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart 
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Engine Summer by John Crowley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Fourth Mansions by R.A. Lafferty
First and Last Men by Olaph Stapledon
For Love of Mother Not by Alan Dean Foster
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Galaxies by Barry M. Malzberg

Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
Hell's Pavement by Damon Knight
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Hot Head by Simon Ings
Hyperion & Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Juniper Time by Kate Wilhem
In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman

Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and Clayton Johnson
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Man Plus by Frederick Pohl
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison
Mefisto in Onyx by Harlan Ellison
Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

Mutant by Henry Kuttner
Neuromancer by William Gibson
No Blade of Grass by John Christopher
Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss
Nostrilia by Cordwainer Smith
Oath of Fealty by Larry Nolan and Jerry Pournelle

Orbitsville by Bob Shaw
Paris in the Twentieth Century by Jules Verne

Pavane by Keith Roberts
Permutation City by Greg Egan
Ralph 124C 41+ by Hugo Gernsback

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
Roadside Picnic by Arkday & Boris Stugatsky
R.U.R. by Karel Capek
Slow River by Nicola Griffeth

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Solaris by Stanislaus Lem
Time Pressure by Spider Robinson
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
The Bite of Monsters by Dennis O'Neil

The Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen

The Centauri Device by M. John Harrison
The Dancers at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester

The Disappearance by Philip Wylie
The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein
The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
The Drowning Towers by George Turner

The Female Man by Joanna Russ
The Embedding by Ian Watson

The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

The House in November by Keith Laumer
The Inverted World by Christopher Priest

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
The Many-Coloured Lands by Julian May
The Opuichi Hotline by John Varley

The Paradox Men by Charles L. Harness
The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner

The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber
The Unreasoning Mask by Philip Jose Farmer

Up The Walls of the World by James Tiptree Jr.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt

The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker
Way Station by Clifford D. Simak

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

What Entropy Means to Me by George Alec Effinger
When the Sleeper Wakes by H.G. Wells
Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy



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Books 81-100

7/31/2015

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Your Story must say something that is important for your reader, and you must pull your reader into a real place for them to hear it.  


Here's a synopsis of what I learned:

The Voyage of the Space Beagle -- Clever ideas, great; great writing, even better.
Paris in the Twentieth Century -- Camaraderie between characters creates affection in readers.
The Opiuchi Hotline  -- Background both grounds and deepens a story.
Cat's Cradle -- Nothing is off-topic as long as it doesn't waste your reader's time.
The Embedding -- Endings must pick up energy, not lose it.
The Fifth Head of Cerberus -- Stories can have secrets not revealed.
The Day of the Triffids -- Characters reflect the author's culture.  Beware.
The Doomsday Book -- Premise and Theme.  Learn it.  Love it.
The Disappearance -- Events can affect emotion; emotion affects characters.
When the Sleeper Wakes -- Too emotional characters don't work either.
The Cards of Grief -- Write like you are there.
We -- Describing human mind, heart, and soul is Story.
Lord of Light -- Style must include, not exclude.
Blood Music -- Flawed characters drive a story.
More than Human -- Suspense is better than violence.
The Sheep Look Up --  Don't create artificial situations to make an effect.
Juniper Time --  Packing makes or breaks a story.
The Many-Coloured Lands -- Gigantic battle scene endings can be tropes.
Ender's Game -- Get out of the way of your Story.  
Dune -- Have something to say in sentences that are not dead.
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#100: Dune by Frank Herbert

7/29/2015

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I first read Dune when I was in eighth grade.  That first time I read it, when I got to the end, I flipped it back over and read it again.  Then I read it again and again, once a year through my teens and twenties, perhaps twice in my thirties, and once in my forties for this "100 Great Books of Science Fiction List," and I have just read it again, at the half century mark of fifty.

I was flabbergasted by Dune when I first read it, and I am again, just now, finishing it again.  Not because  it isn't flawed (there are flaws); not because of the intelligent use of sense of smell to evoke reality (the spice, the smell of the sietch, the salt of Caladan's ocean); not because of the artful weaving of scenes which completely are their own creatures but create something much more cohesive and greater in my mind; not because of the powerful and realistic portrayals of women; not because of dozens of other reasons why Dune is the best book science fiction has ever produced.

No, I am stunned because, for the very first time, in the first chapter I realized that Frank Herbert had to be a Buddhist. There was no way he could not be.  No way...

I looked it up: yes, Frank Herbert had converted from Catholicism to Zen Buddhism in the Sixties.  The Catholic and Muslim overtones of Dune had always been overt, exotic, and delicious in a way other books don't seem able to embrace: but as I read on, I also realized that this book could not have have existed without this particular philosophical spine and musculature.  At certain points in the book, the characters speak (and oft become) koans.  

I am wondering what else Dune will give to me (that I previously had no idea was there) in my future readings.

When I first reviewed this in 2008 for this list (and lost the review), I remember saying that a book need not be perfect to be great.  This time, I am going to lift a passage from Thomas Merton, that I read just today.  (As an aside, Frank Herbert took six years to write Dune.  This may be why the other books in the series do not speak to me the way Dune does. I'm thinking they must have been written much for quickly.) 

"In any case it is depressing that those who serve God and love Him sometimes write badly, when those who do not believe in Him take pains to write so well.  I am not talking about grammar and syntax, but about having something to say and saying it in sentences that are not half dead. ...Imperfection is the penalty of rushing into print.  And people who rush into print too often do so not because they really have anything to say, but because they think it is important for something by them to be in print.  The fact that your subject may be very important in itself does not necessarily mean that what you have written about it is important."

Thank you, Thomas Merton.  And thank you, Frank Herbert.  Thank you so much.

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#99: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

6/26/2015

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I have read Ender's Game many times since it was first published, but I was worried about reading it this time.  I've seen the author twice at readings, and have always been thrilled by his brilliance and charisma, but his pugnacious attitude toward what is right and wrong has worn thin on me, as it has on so many. And there was the movie two years ago -- with its albeit flubbed ending -- that was in whole so gorgeous that it was a religious experience to watch. And just last month, one of the young tourists I met in Ireland said she had seen the movie, and tried the book, but it was just like the movie, so she wasn't going to bother.

I was worried.

The story of Ender's Game, a brilliant six-year old shipped off to space to train as a military commander, is as compelling as it ever has been.  It is an important story, and I think both its years and my own have not tarnished its need to be required reading.

Many people, Card included, have tried to analyze what makes this story great, but I think they all are, myself included, are wrong.  Card feels that the character of Ender speaks to everyone who feels like an indentured pawn in the world, and we are legion.  I remember when I reviewed this last (that review was lost), I felt that that the themes of "Excellence is the only authority" is such a cruel and inhuman standard that you cannot help but feel compassion for those crushed under its mandate.  So this time?  For writers especially?

For writers.  A Real Story transcends everything you know about writing and what you want to happen.  At a certain point, you just have to listen to what the Story is telling you, and write it down.  I thought I could see this happen in this book -- after a few chapters, I felt the author get out of the way of the Story.


Chip Delaney put it in strident terms: "You cannot master your Craft: you can only Submit to your Craft."  Naomi Shihab Nye put it a kinder way: "Believe in the work that is coming through you."   


Listen to the Story.  If nothing comes, just be patient.  It may insert itself while you are writing down words.  
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#98: The Many-Coloured Lands by Julian May

3/28/2015

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In the year 2050, a one-way worm hole provides an escape route for disgruntled humans back to the Pliocene. They are immediately enslaved upon their arrival -- by elfish aliens who have also settled there..

The only thing I remember from my original 2008 review of this book was that the Pliocene served as a basic backdrop for this story, and not much more: that still stands.  For this reading, I found this book was too long and paced too slowly, which I am sure continues with the remaining two books in the trilogy, The Golden Torc  and The Nonborn King.  This is a quest, so I think it is written strongly, but the genre throws me off, even clothed in science fiction rather than fantasy. 
Julian May, born in 1931, had written a lot of series, and is still writing!

I think the gigantic battle-ending on many stories (including ones I've written) is not needed, and gets to be too much of a trope.  I spared myself this time and skimmed through the last twenty pages.





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The Coolest Alien (and Human Being) Ever.

3/28/2015

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An Aside: The Last Books of the Science Fiction Reading List

11/22/2014

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Why, oh why could I not find a book for #98?  It’s really the last book I had to choose, because #99 will be Ender’s Game and #100 will be Dune. My original choice was Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates – because fellow Clarionite Stephen Gaskell literally gave me the book out of his hands when I expressed completely ungracious horror at the thought of receiving another copy of Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed – but that book about time travel is really more of fantasy, and the convoluted sentences were throwing me.  I cracked open a book Chris had bought, The Child Buyer, but I don’t really have the wherewithall to read a book written as a congressional transcript.

So, I found myself cruising the internet searching for a last book.  A book about the moon?  I haven’t read any moon books in this entire list, which is odd really.  What about that Moon story I loved as a little kid?  What was the title?  I don’t remember, and I can’t find it.

John Christopher?  The White Mountains trilogy?  Rats, I already read him!  Richard Sawyer?  Venus of Dreams?  Darwinia?  One of the authors I’ve already passed up, like David Brin?  No, no, no.  Oh my, cruising around, realizing the weight of this last book, like it is some immense choice, like it has to sum up everything that has transpired, like I will never read science fiction again.

I hit an old internet “Best 100" list and saw an author I had never noticed before, named Julian May.  Who is he?  Wikipedia: she was born in 1932, wrote thousands of articles for World Book, wrote hundreds of stories, quite a few science fiction books, and was loyally involved in the World Con community: a true, working writer who never really broke away from the pack.  Someone like the rest of us.

So when I had finally given up looking for the perfect book for this spot, I found it.  I ordered it with the dread Amazon One-Click  I am giddy with expectation.

Oh, and thank you, Stephen Gaskell

... This is an aside because, although I did read all 100 books between 2005 and 2008, I had a computer malfunction that meant I could only find an old document, which was missing the reviews of the last three books.  So... although I am actually on Book 41 of the Fantasy List, I will take this next month to read The Many-Coloured Lands, Ender's Game, and Dune, so that this list is finally complete.

It's a perfectly wonderful way to spend the holiday months, I assure you.
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#97: Juniper Time by Kate Wilhem

11/22/2014

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The cover of this book was intriguing and wistful, and I could just make out the name of the artist: Gerry Daly.  He also did the cover for A.E. Van Vogt’s The Space Beagle.  (It then dawns on me that I was never curious as to what “A.E.” stood for, because I wasn’t too thrilled with the book.  Alfred Elton, in case anyone was wondering.)

Juniper Time is about linguistics, drought, Native Americans, aliens, and a collapsing society with barrio “New Towns” that are as chilling as anything I’ve read.  There is a nod to East Lansing, because of Kate Wilhelm’s involvement with Clarion.  I really liked the pacing in this book, except for the last two chapters, which were very rushed.  I thought at times this book took itself a little too seriously, even with the dystopic themes at hand.  Everyone’s life has a light moment here and there.

I think pacing is going to be a real challenge in my next book, trusting my story and characters and not rushing them too much.  This book showed both great and poor pacing, and speed definitely detracts.  But if you’re too slow, the book bogs down.  It’s a quandary.

                                                         Kate Wilhem is a such a powerful writer.  Visit her here.

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    This Page
    I read "100 Great Science Fiction Books" from 2005 to 2008, and they are described here, along with what I thought might could be good lessons for writers, gleaned from each.  Here is the INDEX for 100 GREAT SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS. 

    Me
    I write science fiction to make my head happy and fantasy to make my heart happy.  Neither of these are making money, but they make me happy, dammit it.

    Last Publication
    YARR! A SPACE PIRATE ANTHOLOGY!
    by Martinus Press

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    Categories

    All
    1984
    334
    A Canticle For Leibowitz
    A Case Of Conscience
    A.E. Van Vogt
    After London: Wild England
    Alan Dean Foster
    Alas
    Aldous Huxley
    Alec Effinger
    Alfred Bester
    Alien
    Alternate History
    Alternate Universe
    A Mirror For Observers
    Anthem
    Apocalype
    Apocalypse
    Arkday & Boris Strugatsky
    Arthur C. Clarke
    A Wrinkle In Time
    Babel-17
    Babylon
    Barry M. Malzberg
    Beggars In Spain
    Berserker
    Blood Music
    Bob Shaw
    Bokonon
    Bokononism
    Bone Dance
    Brain Plague
    Brain Wave
    Brave New World
    Brian Aldiss
    Bring The Jubilee
    Buddhism
    Catholic
    Catholicism
    Cat's Cradle
    Chalicothere
    Charles L. Harness
    Childhood's End
    Chip Delaney
    Christopher Priest
    Clifford D. Simak
    Competent Man
    Cordwainer Smith
    C.S. Friedman
    Cyberpunk
    Damon Knight
    Daniel Keyes
    Dan Simmons
    Dennis O'Neil
    Douglas Adams
    Downward To The Earth
    Dream Snake
    Dune
    Dystopia
    Earth Abides
    Edgar Pangborn
    Emma Bull
    Ender's Game
    Engine Summer
    Euthanasia
    Eutopia
    Fahrenheit 451
    Fall Of Hyperion
    Far Future
    First And Last Men
    Flowers For Algernon
    For Love Of Mother Not
    Foundation
    Foundation Writer
    Fourth Mansions
    Frank Herbert
    Frederick Pohl
    Fred Saberhagen
    Fritz Leiber
    Galaxies
    Genetic Engineering
    Gene Wolfe
    George Alec Effinger
    George Clayton Johnson
    George Orwell
    George R. Stewart
    George Turner
    Grass
    Greg Bear
    Greg Egan
    Hal Clement
    Harlan Ellison
    Harry Harrison
    Heinlein
    Hell's Pavement
    Henry Kuttner
    H.G. Wells
    Hinduism
    Hot Head
    Hugo Gernsback
    Hyperion
    Ian Watson
    Ice 9
    In Conquest Born
    Isaac Asimov
    Islam
    James Blish
    James Tiptree Jr.
    Jane Yolen
    Jerry Pournelle
    J.G. Ballard
    Joanna Russ
    Joan Slonczewski
    Joe Haldeman
    John Brunner
    John Christopher
    John Crowley
    Johnn Crowley
    John Varley
    John Wyndam
    Jr.
    Jules Verne
    Julian May
    Juniper Time
    Karel Capek
    Kate Wilhem
    Keith Laumer
    Keith Roberts
    Kim Stanley Robinson
    Kurt Vonnegut
    L.A. Lafferty
    Larry Nivan
    Leonard Nimoy
    Linguistics
    Logan's Run
    Lord Of Light
    Lycidas
    Madeleine L'Engle
    Make Room! Make Room!
    Man Plus
    Marge Piecry
    Mars
    Mefisto In Onyx
    Michael Crichton
    Michael Moorcock
    Milton
    Mission Of Gravity
    M. John Harrison
    More Than Human
    Mutant
    Mythology
    Nancy Kress
    Nanotechnology
    Neal Stephenson
    Neuromancer
    Nicola Griffith
    No Blade Of Grass
    Non-Stop
    Nostrilia
    Oath Of Fealty
    Octavia Butler
    Olpah Stapledon
    Orbitsville
    Orson Scott Card
    Pat Frank
    Pavane
    Permutation City
    Philip Wylie
    Phillip Jose Farmer
    Phillip K. Dick
    Play
    Pliocene
    Poul Anderson
    Ralph 124C 41+
    Ray Bradbury
    Red Mars
    Richard Jefferies
    Riddley Walker
    Roadside Picnic
    Robert Heinlein
    Robert Silverberg
    Robots
    Roger Zelazny
    R.U.R.
    Russell Hoban
    Russian
    Samuel R. Delaney
    Science Fiction
    Shakespeare
    Shape Shifters
    Sheri S. Tepper
    Sietch
    Simon Ings
    Slow River
    Snow Crash
    Solaris
    Space Travel
    Spice
    Spider Robinson
    Spock
    Stanislas Lem
    Stephen Gaskell
    Stephen King
    Telepathy
    Thanatos
    The Andromeda Strain
    The Bite Of Monsters
    The Cards Of Grief
    The Centauri Device
    The Dancers At The End Of Time
    The Day Of The Triffids
    The Demolished Man
    The Disappearance
    The Doomsday Book
    The Door Into Summer
    The Drowned World
    The Drowning Towers
    The Ebedding
    The Female Man
    The Fiften Head Of Cerberus
    The Forever War
    The House In November
    The Inverted World
    The Left Hand Of Darkness
    The Man In The High Castle
    The Many-Coloured Lands
    Theodore Sturgeon
    The Opiuchi Hotline
    The Paradox Men
    The Prestige
    The Sheep Look Up
    The Unreasoning Mask
    The Voyage Of The Space Beagle
    The Wanderer
    The Year Of The Quiet Sun
    Thomas Merton
    Thomas Pinchon
    Time Pressure
    Time Travel
    Up The Walls Of The World
    Ursula LeGuin
    Utopia
    Vonda M. McIntyre
    Wales
    Walter M. Miller
    Ward Moore
    Way Station
    We
    What Entropy Means To Me
    When The Sleeper Wakes
    Wild Seed
    William F. Nolan
    William Gibson
    Wilson Tucker
    Woman On The Edge Of Time
    Yevgeny Zamyatin

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