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Category Archives: sf signal


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Something for the weekend, sir?

A meme, of course. Provided by SF Signal. And since I’ve been a bit rubbish – well, a lot rubbish – at posting here over the past couple of months, and the tumbleweed and cobwebs are starting to look unsightly, I have seized the opportunity given by the meme to generate some uncontroversial blog content… Well, uncontroversial for me, anyway.

I’m not entirely sure what a “book snob” is – that would be someone who likes good books, yes? Well-written books, yes? I certainly wouldn’t recommend a crap book to someone. Well, not without mentioning that it was crap, and only if they’d asked for something that was so narrowly defined the only book I could think of happened to be a crap one… Many of the books I’ve recommended below I really can’t recommend highly enough. They should be required reading.

Science Fiction
Sf is my genre of choice, so I’m well-practiced in answering some of these questions. Most are books I’ve mentioned before, some I’ve even written about or reviewed – and I’ve linked to my review, where one exists.

If I were to recommend a science fiction book to a new genre reader, it would be: The Wall Around Eden, Joan Slonczewski (my review)
If I were to recommend a science fiction book with lots of action, it would be: Against A Dark Background, Iain M Banks (my review)
If I were to recommend a science fiction book to a “book snob”, it would be: Coelestis, Paul Park (my review), or Kairos, Gwyneth Jones (my review)
If I were to recommend a science fiction book series I loved, it would be: The Marq’ssan Cycle, L Timmel Duchamp
The last science fiction book I read that was recommended to me and I liked was: Queen of the States, Josephine Saxton (my review)
The last science fiction book I read that was recommended to me and I finished but disliked was: What Lot’s Wife Saw, Ioanna Bourazopoulou (mentioned here)
The last science fiction book I read that was recommended to me and I didn’t finish was: Darkmans, Nicola Barker

Fantasy
I have a low opinion of epic fantasy, so I read very little of it – and then typically only when it’s either been recommended by someone whose opinion I value, or it was written by an author I already like. I will point out that “dislike” is probably too strong a word for my reaction to the Alan Campbell. I did quite enjoy it, but not enough to bother reading the rest of the series.

If I were to recommend a fantasy book to a new genre reader, it would be: A Princess of Roumania, Paul Park
If I were to recommend a fantasy book with lots of action, it would be: Wolfsangel, MD Lachlan (mentioned here)
If I were to recommend a fantasy book to a “book snob”, it would be: Evening’s Empire, David Herter (mentioned here)
If I were to recommend a fantasy book series I loved, it would be: Isles of the Forsaken / Ison of the Isles, Carolyn Ives Gilman (review here)
The last fantasy book I read that was recommended to me and I liked was: God Stalk, PC Hodgell (mentioned here)
The last fantasy book I read that was recommended to me and I finished but disliked was: Sea of Ghosts, Alan Campbell
The last fantasy book I read that was recommended to me and I didn’t finish was: King’s Dragon, Kate Elliott

Horror
I read very little horror, so most of these will be blank…

If I were to recommend a horror book to a new genre reader, it would be: The Facts of Life, Graham Joyce
If I were to recommend a horror book with lots of action, it would be:
If I were to recommend a horror book to a “book snob”, it would be: Viator, Lucius Shepard, or X,Y, Michael Blumlein
If I were to recommend a horror book series I loved, it would be:
The last horror book I read that was recommended to me and I liked was:
The last horror book I read that was recommended to me and I finished but disliked was:
The last horror book I read that was recommended to me and I didn’t finish was:


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Weekend meme-y thing

… in lieu of intelligent content. This meme appeared earlier today on SF Signal, with instructions to leave answers to the questions in the comments. But I’m doing it here instead because.

The last sf/f book I finished reading:
… was The Maker’s Mask by Ankaret Wells. This was a self-published novel and I forget where I first came across Wells’ name. Anyway, the description made the book seem like it might be fun so I bought a copy. And it is fun. It’s also a bit rough, and the ending somewhat abrupt – it’s the first book of a duology. Looks like I’ll have to get the second one so I can find out what happens.

The last sf/f book I did NOT finish:
I tend to finish books that I start and rarely bale on them. I remember giving up on The Windup Girl about fifty pages in, after finding its racism and its use of the sex slave trope offensive. But that was a while ago. More recently, I gave up on Spitfire Girls by Carol Gould, which is not genre. It was so badly written, with arbitrary head-hopping, inconsistent internal chronology, and frequent references to things and events which were neither described nor foreshadowed.

The last sf/f book(s) I bought:
I bought a bunch of new books by favourite authors recently from a certain online retailer. These were: Marauder, Gary Gibson; Shaman, Kim Stanley Robinson; Proxima, Stephen Baxter; On the Steel Breeze, Alastair Reynolds; and Evening’s Empires, Paul McAuley. On order but yet to arrive are Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie, and Sea of Ghosts, Alan Campbell, which Martin Petto persuaded me is worth reading (even though I don’t like epic fantasy).

The last sf/f book I bought that I already owned:
That would be The The Book of Being by Ian Watson. It’s the third book of a trilogy, and I had all three in paperback. I replaced the first two with first edition hardbacks a while ago, but only recently found a copy of the third book. More recently, I purchased a signed first edition of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Escape from Kathmandu even though I have it in paperback, but that has yet to arrive.

The last sf/f book I shared with someone:
I’m taking this to mean the last book I wrote about on my blog or something… which makes it A Spaceship Built of Stone, an excellent collection by Lisa Tuttle which I reviewed for SF Mistressworks – see here.

The last sf/f book I raved about:
I can’t remember the last time I was really evangelical about a genre book. Back in April, I remember being complimentary about Rosemary Kirstein’s The Steerswoman’s Road, as I’d just read the second part of it (it’s an omnibus), The Outskirter’s Secret, to review on SF Mistressworks – see here. And in January, I was very impressed by Joan Slonczewski’s The Wall Around Eden – see here; so much so that I mentioned it in a Locus Roundtable – see here. But I’ve not really been blown away by a genre novel since Katie Ward’s Girl Reading last year, and that was published as literary fiction anyway…

The last sf/f book I did not enjoy at all:
Hull Zero Three, Greg Bear. Which, astoundingly, was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award. Was not impressed at all. Before that, The Silkie by AE van Vogt, for which I had low expectations but it failed to meet even those. See here for my comments on both.


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More on 100 great sf stories by women

SF Signal have taken my idea of a list of 100 Great SF Stories by Women and run with it… and today they’ve posted one of their Mind Melds on that very subject. They extended the criteria to include fantasy and horror as well as novel-length fiction. And they’ve invited a host of interesting people to contribute (including, er, me). There’s lots of excellent suggestions for reading material, so go check it out.


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Groupthink at SF Signal

Yesterday, SF signal posted one of its regular Mind Melds – see here – this time on the subject of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, totalitarianism and total war. And I contributed to it. I sort of riffed about dystopias, which wasn’t entirely on topic but never mind.

I mentioned several relevant sf novels, including Anthony Burgess’s 1985, Alastair Reynolds’s The Prefect, Frank Herbert’s Hellstrom’s Hive, Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. But I wish I’d remember to mention Adam Roberts’ multi-award-winning Jack Glass, which pretty much demonstrates one of the points I was trying to make. The second and third parts of the novel feature the daughters of one of the super-rich families which effectively run the Solar System, a situation not that far removed from our current situation. Everyone else, of course, gets to live in abject misery and poverty in order to fund the super-rich’s lifestyles. I’ve said before that our current lords and masters appear to be taking Dickens as a model rather than Orwell, and Jack Glass is a good illustration of that.

And in the comments to the Mind Meld, I also sort of got accused of being a Nazi. Apparently pointing out that Nineteen Eighty-Four doesn’t really map onto the current political climate is a form of Godwinism. Er, no. It’s not a way to stifle argument, it’s simply pointing that if you believe Orwell’s book is relevant to the twenty-first century then your argument is wrong. Which, of course, has nothing to do with Nazis.


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It’s all about movies…

This month’s VideoVista is now up, with my reviews of excellent Israeli thriller Ajami (review here), heavy-handed noir The Racket (review here), and sub-standard low-budget thriller Choose (review here).

Also up today is SF Signal’s Mind Meld: Movie Novelizations That Are Actually Good, in which I explain why I don’t think novelizations are a very good idea, and lots of other people actually address the topic.