Recent Reading, Autumn 2008

---------------------------------------------- Philip C. Jennings "Teddy Bug and the Hot Purple Snowball" © Far Frontiers, Winter 1986 The Bug Life Chronicles, 1989 --/ fourth place space sf story --/ wonder award --/ idea award --/ style award This story deserves a better exposure... wonderful romp through the Solar System inside a prisoner's mind, transplanted into a Charles Stross Lobster-like or Bruce Sterling's Shizmatrix robotic environment: clean, precise prose with good adventure plot. Reminds me of the classic "Delilah and the Space Rigger" by Heinlein. Minds transplanted into space mining robots... can perhaps be scifi subgenre of its own! So many stories are using this theme. Robert Sheckley, Alfred Bester - the list goes on. But this is an extremely entertaining short example. ---------------------------------------------- Roger McBride Allen Winged Mysteries—The Soviet Shuttles © Far Frontiers, Dec 1986 --/ cool article --/ rare find This is the most entertaining and interesting account of America's groping in the dark about the current (in 1986) Soviet space shuttle technology (as Roger McBride Allen points out "They steal nothing but the best technology") Well, the shuttles are no longer a mystery, of course, and we know how the whole shuttle era ended (see the detailed account in this DRB article: Rare Photos of the Russian "Buran" Space Program) - but this is very rare, paranoid take on the subject, and thoroughly enjoyable. ---------------------------------------------- Roger McBride Allen "Young As You Feel" © Far Frontiers, Dec 1986 --/ cool "mad scientist" sf story --/ wonder award --/ rare find The hilarious opening of that extremely rare story had me laughing, as it describes a two-year old kid "attacking" the parents in the most innocent way - the mess, the bother, the overall so-familiar situation... What develops next, is one of the more entertaining "mad scientist" plots in recent SF. Mind you, they don't write like that any more - this would be perfectly at home in the 1940s Astounding or "Thrilling Wonder" pulp: a youthfulness plague and "responsibility" cure. Good stuff, enjoyable. ---------------------------------------------- (click to enlarge) Robert E. Howard "The Frost King's Daughter" (also as "The Frost-Giant's Daughter" and "Gods of the North") (Conan series) © The Fantasy Fan, March 1934 Fantasy Fiction #1, Aug 1953 Fantastic Universe, Dec 1956 --/ fourth place f story --/ wonder award --/ style award --/ shock value --/ rare find If you only read one story by Robert E. Howard (let's say you have an aversion to the ferocious blood-and-guts "death metal" fantasy, which is really what Conan is all about) - then read this one. It has more fantasy elements than most other stories and reads like a shockingly good (and tautly, vividly written) piece of Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith. Violence is still there, but more as a background color and atmosphere. The vision of naked wicked snow witch haunting the battlefields is going to stay with you, after one reading; truly the definition of "haunting". ---------------------------------------------- Robert E. Howard "The Black Stranger" (nv) © written 1935; © Fantasy Magazine, March 1953 Echoes of Valor II, 1984 --/ rare find This is pretty flat written; a run-of-the-mill adventure (Howard's attempt at western background, with a long-winded battle-infused story unfolding pretty much forever) I can see why it was originally rejected by "Weird Tales". For completists only; the magazine itself though - "Fantasy", edited by Lester Del Rey, is a wonderful item, just check out the cover!.. ----------------------------------------------

Click to go to "Dark Roasted Blend" site