Marginalia Plus
Aug. 11th, 2004 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentI sat down to write a review of River of Gods last night, but somewhere along the way it transmuted into a mammoth essay on different approaches to near-future science fiction, with reference so far to Mappa Mundi, Pattern Recognition, Transmission, Forty Signs of Rain, 'The Voluntary State' and the Accelerando stories. It's a bit out of control, and possibly completely unnecessary, and I really need some spare daytime sometime when I'm fully awake and can sit down and make sense of it all. Sigh.
This evening I will be trying to write that Angel-related fanzine article I've been promising![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
greengolux, mostly because I'm a bit worried that pikelet will beat me to the punch if I don't.
Elswhere, yet another SF movement shambles out of the undergrowth: Mundane SF, as pimped in this interview with Geoff Ryman (that also discusses his new, somewhat delayed novel, Air). Jonathan Strahan comments here, andninebelow responds here. My take is that it sounds partially tongue-in-cheek (in the manifesto they say that the undersigned are 'temporarily united'), partially like regular hard SF ('focusing on what science tells us is likely rather than what is almost impossible such as warp drives'), and partially like, well, the sort of stuff that Geoff Ryman writes, really. And although I'm not really ready to give up space opera just yet, the idea of 'earth is all we have' as the most likely forseeable future is hard to argue with.
And in other news:
Most recently read: In Springdale Town by Robert Freeman Wexler - but not in its original PS Publishing guise, in the Best Short Novels: 2004 anthology that arrived in the post today, courtesysdn (woohoo! Many thanks, etc). The collection is edited by Jonathan Strahan, who in his introduction to the story compares it to Bradbury; but as I read it my first thoughts were more along the lines of Lynch, or even The Prisoner. Two narrative strands: one third-person, one first-person. Two versions of the same town: one eerily abandoned, one an exemplar of American small-town life. Two versions of the same person: one an actor, one a lawyer? Maybe. It all adds up to a surreal fantasy about identity and alienation. For added postmodern value, the text is dotted with authorial margin-notes ranging from the vital (dispensing plot points) to the bizarre (a chart purporting to show the US mapped by body-weight). Recommended, obviously (and Wexler has a first novel out soon, Circus of the Grand Design, that I'll now be looking to pick up); but it's a little depressing that the first novella I picked out of the book is, alone, easily better than most of this year's Hugo nominees.
This evening I will be trying to write that Angel-related fanzine article I've been promising
greengolux, mostly because I'm a bit worried that pikelet will beat me to the punch if I don't.Elswhere, yet another SF movement shambles out of the undergrowth: Mundane SF, as pimped in this interview with Geoff Ryman (that also discusses his new, somewhat delayed novel, Air). Jonathan Strahan comments here, and
ninebelow responds here. My take is that it sounds partially tongue-in-cheek (in the manifesto they say that the undersigned are 'temporarily united'), partially like regular hard SF ('focusing on what science tells us is likely rather than what is almost impossible such as warp drives'), and partially like, well, the sort of stuff that Geoff Ryman writes, really. And although I'm not really ready to give up space opera just yet, the idea of 'earth is all we have' as the most likely forseeable future is hard to argue with.And in other news:
- Bookslut has a favourable review of Adam Roberts' short story collection, Swiftly. The Locus review was less glowing but still broadly positive. My copy (if Nightshade get organised) should hopefully be arriving Real Soon Now. This month, at least. Until then I have his new novel, The Snow, to review for Vector. Life is good (and if I can persuade them to let me do Trujillo as well, it'll be even better).
- The 'CSI effect' is giving legal professionals headaches: juries expect concrete scientific evidence even in cases where it is irrelevant or absent.
- Are the baby boomers going to miss out on life extension? Well, more than likely, yes.
- As with short stories, so with short films, I guess.
- Remember all the fuss about declining Nielson ratings in the States last autumn? It turns out that mabye the young guys didn't stop watching TV after all.
- Matthew Cheney reposts an interesting comment by Colleen Lindsey, China Mieville's 'personal PR machine'.
- And there are no words. Except, possibly, a hearty 'gah!'
Most recently read: In Springdale Town by Robert Freeman Wexler - but not in its original PS Publishing guise, in the Best Short Novels: 2004 anthology that arrived in the post today, courtesy
sdn (woohoo! Many thanks, etc). The collection is edited by Jonathan Strahan, who in his introduction to the story compares it to Bradbury; but as I read it my first thoughts were more along the lines of Lynch, or even The Prisoner. Two narrative strands: one third-person, one first-person. Two versions of the same town: one eerily abandoned, one an exemplar of American small-town life. Two versions of the same person: one an actor, one a lawyer? Maybe. It all adds up to a surreal fantasy about identity and alienation. For added postmodern value, the text is dotted with authorial margin-notes ranging from the vital (dispensing plot points) to the bizarre (a chart purporting to show the US mapped by body-weight). Recommended, obviously (and Wexler has a first novel out soon, Circus of the Grand Design, that I'll now be looking to pick up); but it's a little depressing that the first novella I picked out of the book is, alone, easily better than most of this year's Hugo nominees.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 11:54 am (UTC)*is jealous*
Have you read any of the Inhibitor sequence yet?
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 11:55 am (UTC)*whum* *whum*
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 11:55 am (UTC)(The new form of editorial prodding - waiting 'til they remember what they were going to do for you of their own accord, and then agreeing heartily.)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 12:09 pm (UTC)Well, if I manage to finish it by the geekend...
Have you read any of the Inhibitor sequence yet?
Um, no. I'll get there, honest.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 12:16 pm (UTC)I like CSI, but goodness, it can be a load of tosh. Last night Grissom noted that the terminal velocity of a falling corpse was 9.8 meters per second, and that people with elevated levels of iron in the blood conduct electricity.
Not to mention that every second episode involves blowing up the grainy pictures from a security camera until you can read the date on the newspaper...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 12:17 pm (UTC)Stabbity!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 12:22 pm (UTC)Baby Boomers and life extension...
By an interesting twist of fate, considering morbid obesity rates amongst their children and grandchildren...all the 'life extension' technologies that follow may only break even with whatever average mortality age Baby Boomers achieve. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 03:19 pm (UTC)Spooon!!!!!
---
This does bring up a point: Is the Sci-Fiction Fan the new Gay? Discuss.
Too bloodless...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-11 10:59 pm (UTC)But there's always the possibility that Andrew Butler at Vector might be interested in publishing such an essay, which would mean it isn't unnecessary at all.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 02:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 03:04 am (UTC)And the camera thing is just so sad... I'm just waiting for them to get the voice-recording out of a pot that the potter was making when he got shot. After all, not so different from an old gramophone recording with a wax cylinder :-b.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 03:48 am (UTC)Yes. ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 04:18 am (UTC)Re: Too bloodless...
Date: 2004-08-12 04:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 09:14 am (UTC)Typo, sorry, that's what I meant to write. But that makes it worse, because now it's not a velocity at all!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-12 11:16 am (UTC)Re: Too bloodless...
Date: 2004-08-12 11:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 10:30 am (UTC)But there is a List.
-- tom