Hey, here's Rudy Rucker's latest e-zine, Flurb #13

Two recent books I got in mail last week :):)

By blackglove at 2012-04-02

By blackglove at 2012-04-02

phillip k dick is my favorite sci fi writer

Martian time slip is good, radio free albemuth everything is good that ive read of his

i really liked Asimov's foundation series as well

Wow. I see I'm joining this party a little late, but what the fuck? Science fiction is without a doubt my favorite genre in both literature & film. The drawback to SF in film is that fans are frequently given  short shrift as the perception is we will accept anything as long as it includes bug-eyed monsters & scantily clad space wenches.

But I digress.

I'd like to first establish that I am on board with Harlan Ellison's revised definition of SF as "speculative fiction" as this broadens the imaginary limits of the genre by opening possibilities outside the interstellar travel / alien invasion / dystopian society / post-apocalyptic / science gone awry tropes that dominated the genre many years. Not that there's anything wrong with exploring these domains. That said, my favorite SF novels are:

A Clockwork Orange - ANTHONY BURGESS

Logan's Run - WILLIAM F. NOLAN & GEORGE CLAYTON JOHNSON

A Canticle For Leibowitz -WALTER M. MILLER, JR.

The Sirens Of Titan - KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

Starship Troopers - ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

The Lathe Of Heaven - URSULA K. LE GUIN

Creatures Of Light And Darkness - ROGER ZELAZNY

The Road - CORMAC McCARTHY

Damnation Alley - ROGER ZELAZNY

The Lost Traveller - STEVE WILSON

Try Robert Rankin ! the Armageddon, the Musical (1990) series are great ! elvis , aliens, zombies all of that with a big sens of humor and non-sense !

they are quite rare to find in french translation... but i guess in UK or US...

Can't-stop-talking: If you're looking for a somewhat challenging author, try Tim Powers. He's kinda the Quentin Tarantino of SF/Fantasy. He takes historical facts and put them in a completely new context, but before that he drops you into the middle of the story and feeds you the beginning bit-by-bit. My favorite of his is Declare, which concerns a Cold War spy (no spoilers!), but I've enjoyed everything by this guy.

Oh, yeah, if anyone is into Philip K. Dick, his biography Divine Invasions, A Life of Philip K. Dickis at least as fascinating as anything in his novels. Also, for fans of the Blade Runner movie, the book about the making of the film,

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, by
Paul M. Sammon is too cool, and shows just how complex the making of an adaptation is.

'Lo, Mina. Forgot a couple o' titles. Hey, you like Pratchett, have you read his Nation? It's another book I should read every year. Non-Discworld, but perfect for both young adults and adults, really sweet. Also, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, fantastic comment on the fractal splitting of society into micro-tribes. As far as Vance goes, in high-school I read his Dragon Masters and The Last Castle, both novelettes and quite good.

SF has been my fave genre, until recently. Our real world is so much more interesting now w/ the Web, Twitter, etc. than any book. Also, there just aren't that many good authors out there. Bruce Sterling is probably my top author for yuks, and cool ideas (Distraction should be read by everyone), but even his last book was meh. Same for Neal Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson...

But here are my most reread books:

Distraction by Bruce Sterling

The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson

China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen F. McHugh

American Gods, by Neal Gaiman

The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner

Blood Music, by Greg Bear (novelette)

"We, In Some Strange Powers' Employ, Move On A Rigorous Line", by Samuel Delaney

Also, I've been rereading William Gibson lately, seems apt nowadays

Thanks for starting this column!

Dave

Snow Crash is one of, if not THE, best take on current American life. Stephenson nailed so many of our issues and the future. I reread it every year and am amazed by how owell it stands the test of time. 

BoweryDoll said:

It's so hard to pick!  But if I were stranded in a subway or a remote cave I would take Octavia E. Butler's Wildseed, Parable of the Sower, Lilith's Brood, Fledgling and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.  [BTW -- it's so nice to hear someone reading Lester Bangs.  Man, do we seriously need his perspective in these insane times.  I think the spectacle of American Idol, X factor and other shows of that ilk plus the state of music today (the industry as well as itunes' "Apple-opoly") would've made his head explode like the guys in Scanners]

You never heard of the novel Farenheit 451????!!!!.....you should run to get it!!!!:):)

Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books. Written in the early years of the Cold War, the novel is a critique of what Bradbury saw as issues in American society of the era.^[1]

The novel first began as an expansion of Bradbury's 1947 short story "Bright Phoenix" that was first published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1963.^[2] The short story was later reworked into The Fireman, a novella published in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. The novel was serialized in the March, April, and May 1954 issues of Playboy magazine. Bradbury wrote the entire novel on a pay typewriter in the basement of UCLA's Powell Library.

Over the years, the novel has been subject to various interpretations, primarily focusing on the historical role of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas. Bradbury has stated that the novel is not about censorship, but a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed of factoids, partial information devoid of context.^[3]

François Truffaut wrote and directed a film adaptation of the novel in 1966. At least two BBC Radio 4 dramatizations have also been aired, both of which follow the book very closely.

Mina said:

Never heard of him...

Couple of recent charity shop finds. One obvious, one not so obvious.

The Chris Foss cover on the Ursula K LeGuin was has sod all to do with the story exactly as I expected :)

ANY ASIMOV NOVELS :):)

i still got a pocket ofthe triffids somewhere here

High on the ranks is some P.K.Dick, but it's a draw between his more realworld novels and his way out sci-fi stuff of course.

As for Comics, one of my all time faves in future shocks is GIVE ME LIBERTY by Dave Gibbons and Frank Miller as well as HARD BOILED by GEOFF DARROW and Miller. And Otomo's AKIRA, that is too crazy. Early classics, but hard to beat.

I'll post some pictures later.

i loved reading these when i was 17 :)

Those are some rad looking paperbacks! I guess the inside lives up tp it.

Pim Scheelings said:

haven't read these in ages ;)