[nesfa-reading-group] suggestions for future reading

[Richard Schwartz]

WesI read Ford's Dragon Waiting (1983) last month and liked it very much. RichardOn May 30, 2022, at 3:04 PM, Wesley Brodsky <wesbrodsky at alum.mit.edu> wrote:I think Louis asked, but thank you anyway.________________________________________From: reading-group <reading-group-bounces at lists.nesfa.org> on behalf of cjhi newcastle2.com <cjhi at newcastle2.com>Sent: Monday, May 30, 2022 2:44 PMTo: M NESFA Reading GroupSubject: [nesfa-reading-group] suggestions for future readingAt the last session, Wes asked me to come up with 3 suggestions. Herewith:Stand on Zanzibar (John Brunner, 1967). The first of the doorstops I mentioned in my leadup to the discussion of a couple of his later works; his only Hugo winner, and in his opinion his best work. Set in a more advanced 2010 than we got to (and more chaotic, but don't ask me about 2022), and written as a mosaic (ref Dos Passos's USA, if anyone still knows that work) with labels, so following main/sub/context lines isn't hard. Main line is two characters, one chasing rumors of a breakthrough in genetic modification and the other returning to his ancestry by bracing a small African country against its larger neighbors.The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (Patricia McKillip, 1974). A breakthrough book not so much for the author (first non-YA book) as for fantasy, which was mired in gaudy heroism (this was the era of the series some of us called "The Sword of Sha-Na-Na"); still sometimes miscalled YA on account of its publisher, but it isn't. Sybel is the latest of a line of hermit mages, collecting control over the titular beasts, and doesn't think much when an infant is dumped on her doorstep in the aftermath of a faraway battle; a decade later, the unsettled battle causes come to her, leaving her with stark choices. Winner of the first World Fantasy Award for best novel, ahead of a couple of much better-known figures. McKillip died just a few weeks ago<https://www.tor.com/2022/05/11/patricia-a-mckillip-1948-2022/>; this is a good intro to her work. Commentary (with possible spoilers) at https://www.tor.com/2022/03/31/the-price-of-power-in-the-forgotten-beasts-of-eld-by-patricia-mckillip/Growing up Weightless (John M. Ford, 1993) Six people on the cusp of legal adulthood, against a mid-ground of tangled politics (finding water turned out to be much harder than Heinlein thought), in what Wolfe called the best book set on the Moon since The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Also not YA despite  (and rarely mislisted as such). Ford was Boskone GoH in 1997; like all of his novels this resembles his other novels only in involving some of his major interests (here, gaming and trains) while telling a great story in several layers. (See if you notice the plotting trick he pulls off without making a show of it.) Ford died way too young and there was confusion about his estate; Tor is now reprinting everything they can get the rights to (he did a couple of brilliant and just-as-unique(*) original-StarTrek novels as work-for-hire, so those may not come out), and Amazon says the new printing/e-ing will be out on 27 Sep 2022.And just for fun: The Alteration (Kingsley Amis, 1976). Amis was a frequently snarky mundane writer who upset the British writing establishment with his first book (about a non-U grad student at a toffy university) and upset Princeton a few years later when he chose to answer his invitation to guest-lecture by talking about SF(*), which was a major interest. He co-edited several anthologies (with snarky comments about people who tried to dis SF) and wrote three very assorted genre novels(**); this is set in a version of 1976 which begins with a couple of members of the papal music faculty listening intently to a brilliant boy soprano, to consider whether he should remain a soprano. Assorted implausible in-jokes (typical of many uchronias) decorate a serious and IMO plausible story.(*) later collected as New Maps of Hell -- much of it is dated now but it's an excellent study of its time.(**) the other two are a contemporary ghost story and a technothriller-on-the-side/CHip_______________________________________________reading-group mailing listreading-group at lists.nesfa.orghttps://listsmgt.nesfa.org/mailman/listinfo/reading-group
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