May's Meanderings in Fabulous Fiction...

[AE35Unit]

Never read The Jewels of Aptor, but the only book of Delany's I could stand even a little bit was Nova. Not sure if that means you should check that one out or avoid it, since Delany fans would probably tell you to go read something hideous like Dhalgren, but maybe they know better about being Delany fans.

A: "The speed of light and page 300 of Dhalgren."
Q: "Name two things no human will ever reach."

Sounds like a challenge
I quite fancy Babel 17 or The Einstein Intersection.
But I did find his writing style a bit odd at times,and didn't get the vision scene at the end. Maybe Delany was stoned when he wrote it•••

 

[j d worthington]

Sounds like a challenge
I quite fancy Babel 17 or The Einstein Intersection.
But I did find his writing style a bit odd at times,and didn't get the vision scene at the end. Maybe Delany was stoned when he wrote it•••

Perhaps; but then again, Delaney's style is very pretentious (to many). It is consciously deconstructive in nature; one of his fascinations being the nature of language, its mutability and permutations as signifier, and so on. Another is the role of sf as modern myth; not infrequently the two are inextricably intertwined. The confluence of the two can be seen by the title of his book of sf criticism: The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction.

While this allows for some fascinating ideas to chew on (as in Babel 17, which is very much about -- that is, primarily focused on as a plot element, rather than using the text to examine while the actual elements of plot are something else -- language) and, at his best, some damned fine writing which requires mental mastication... nonetheless, quite a few people find it alienating.

 

[Connavar]

Never read The Jewels of Aptor, but the only book of Delany's I could stand even a little bit was Nova. Not sure if that means you should check that one out or avoid it, since Delany fans would probably tell you to go read something hideous like Dhalgren, but maybe they know better about being Delany fans.

A: "The speed of light and page 300 of Dhalgren."
Q: "Name two things no human will ever reach."

Oh lucky me i put back Dhalgren in the library bookshelf and choosed Nova instead as my first Delany book

I didnt even read Nova much. Too many library books then.

His writing style is challenge sure when you arent used to him. You thought his style was very wierd for SF atleast for what you expect.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Will wonders ever cease, after not finishing a book in six months, I've now finished two in just over a week. I do not see this continuing!

I've finished The Moon In Hiding by Teresa Edgington and loved it, but as always won't jump straight into the third.

A role of the dice means that the next book from the too read pile will be Peter F Hamilton: A Quantum Murder

 

[J-Sun]

Sounds like a challenge

Well, as disclaimer, the Dhalgren joke floats around on Usenet and elsewhere - I didn't make that one up.

While this allows for some fascinating ideas to chew on (as in Babel 17, which is very much about -- that is, primarily focused on as a plot element, rather than using the text to examine while the actual elements of plot are something else -- language)

That's part of my issue: it may be okay in criticism but it's grabbing the wrong end of the stick in fiction, to me. Not that Vance's The Languages of Pao is the greatest thing ever, but it's good and an example of having a book about language that doesn't get quite as lost in itself.

His writing style is challenge sure when you arent used to him. You thought his style was very wierd for SF atleast for what you expect.

It's not just his style in a purely linguistic/literary sense. His books don't evoke much appealing to me. Characters, settings, psychological foci, whatever. He's just playing a different game - seeing SF as purely a language game or a form of psychoanalysis or mythology or whatever. Kind of like Joseph Campbell is to John Campbell - Delany is to center-SF. Ideally, SF would be more about externality - the impacts of real or hypothetical technologies on real planets and people. We already have myth, fantasy, and language games if we want myth, fantasy, and language games.

But I can't really say - I only read a few books and no non-fiction of his and these are flash-impressions. I didn't find it compelling enough to explore it enough even for the purposes of attempted refutation. (If that makes any sense.)

Hm. Now that I think of it, it's like he was learning SF. Like a foreign language, speaking of "Notes on the Language of Science Fiction". Like an academic - an anthropologist - trying to pass as "one of them". But SF is just something you're raised in or you come to it and you just get it or you don't. You are of science fiction. You don't quite so consciously learn it and mimic it.

So his books come off as rather fake, to be frank. Like at the circus, where they put an elephant in a tutu and have it awkwardly dance about. Delany puts on SF and staggers about for hundreds of overweighted/overloaded pages.

I think Nova wears its tutu more gracefully than Babel-17 or The Einstein Intersection, though either are better than Dhalgren.

But, like I say, I dunno what I'm talking about.

 

[j d worthington]

Kind of like Joseph Campbell is to John Campbell - Delany is to center-SF. Ideally, SF would be more about externality - the impacts of real or hypothetical technologies on real planets and people. We already have myth, fantasy, and language games if we want myth, fantasy, and language games.

There's a certain amount of justice to the comparison to Joseph Campbell here, but not quite accurate. And Delaney's approach makes perfectly good sense when one views language as a form of artefact in connection with culture -- which is very much his approach, it seems to me.

Hm. Now that I think of it, it's like he was learning SF. Like a foreign language, speaking of "Notes on the Language of Science Fiction". Like an academic - an anthropologist - trying to pass as "one of them". But SF is just something you're raised in or you come to it and you just get it or you don't. You are of science fiction. You don't quite so consciously learn it and mimic it.

He certainly wasn't learning sf... he wrote a fair amount of it before the books which garnered him notice, though nothing particularly notable. He was, on the other hand, a part of the New Wave movement, approaching the genre from a different angle (something which happens with this particular genre rather frequently, to be honest). As for the "Notes" aspect... no, not "notes" as in learning or copying, but as in addressing the central thesis that science fiction really does use a "different language" -- not so much the words themselves, as the way in which language is used; much more specialized, requiring a good deal more of the ability to grasp a world imaginatively in short compass and, in fact, to be able to understand varying worlds with different sorts of histories, backgrounds (evolutionary and physically), etc.; but also often having shadings of meanings which are specific to the genre; certain terms having become nearly shorthand to the informed reader, but which can be opaque to those first coming to the field.

This is not to say whether his work is good or not -- though, frankly, while I don't always find it to my taste, I do tend to find it very interesting and, as I noted, challenging in requiring me not only to actually think about what I'm reading, but to rethink my own conceptions of the purposes of storytelling and language at times -- but simply that it is a valid approach, if rather narrow in appeal (at least in terms of audience)....

 

[J-Sun]

There's a certain amount of justice to the comparison to Joseph Campbell here, but not quite accurate. And Delaney's approach makes perfectly good sense when one views language as a form of artefact in connection with culture -- which is very much his approach, it seems to me.

Yeah, language as a tool, though not made of wood/bronze/iron/etc. (The Campbell thing was intended to be a very loose analogy.)

He certainly wasn't learning sf... he wrote a fair amount of it before the books which garnered him notice, though nothing particularly notable. He was, on the other hand, a part of the New Wave movement, approaching the genre from a different angle (something which happens with this particular genre rather frequently, to be honest).

I didn't so much mean that - that these were amateur works - but that they were written more as a mainstream writer, who doesn't quite understand SF innately or intuitively, would write them. Like, as a child he didn't read SF in the sense of dreaming to be Spaceman Spiff but that this was something he encountered later or in the sense of dreaming to be Linguistic Larry. And, again, I don't mean to be characterizing him in a biographical sense - just trying to explain the effect on myself.

As for the "Notes" aspect... no, not "notes" as in learning or copying, but as in addressing the central thesis that science fiction really does use a "different language" -- not so much the words themselves, as the way in which language is used; much more specialized, requiring a good deal more of the ability to grasp a world imaginatively in short compass and, in fact, to be able to understand varying worlds with different sorts of histories, backgrounds (evolutionary and physically), etc.; but also often having shadings of meanings which are specific to the genre; certain terms having become nearly shorthand to the informed reader, but which can be opaque to those first coming to the field.

Right. I wasn't fixing on the "Notes" part but on the "Language of Science Fiction" part. It's precisely what you describe - the opacity to some of the SF language - that seems like it was opaque to him and he had to strive to make it clear in his own head on the receiving end... yet, he seems to have not succeeded in handling that language with clarity. On the sending end, he seems to embrace the opacity. Asimov speaks the "language of SF" with crystalline clarity and uses it to transparently illuminate most anything - Delany seems to use it to obfuscate inner space. I mean, to take the editor who shall be blamed for Dhalgren , Fred Pohl handles that SF language in his own writing with an easy familiarity, even when addressing inner space and departing from purely conventional styles as in Gateway.

This is not to say whether his work is good or not -- though, frankly, while I don't always find it to my taste, I do tend to find it very interesting and, as I noted, challenging in requiring me not only to actually think about what I'm reading, but to rethink my own conceptions of the purposes of storytelling and language at times -- but simply that it is a valid approach, if rather narrow in appeal (at least in terms of audience)....

Right. This basically boils down to him being one of the New Waviest authors there ever was and, despite my admiration of the Spinrads and Zelaznys and so on, I think New Wave at its extremes leaves SF altogether and becomes something else. Whether that is intended or not and whether that something else is worthwhile or not needs a different yardstick than most SF, just as most SF needs a different one from the ones used on the Faulkners and Nabokovs.

 

[j d worthington]

I'd say Delaney understood the language of sf quite well, and used it quite well... just in a vastly different way, and from a vastly different philosophical perspective, than is usual in genre fiction (but not necessarily in "mainstream" literature; especially the Modernists and post-modern schools....)

Incidentally, you might be interested to know that New Worlds printed a rather pungent review of The Jewel-Hinged Jaw when it was published; and Moorcock himself felt that the title (and, I gather from context, though this could be a mistaken impression on my part, the text) of "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" was pretentious.

Essentially, I'd say Delaney, while firmly within the grander view of sf, is not only an "acquired taste", but is likely to be simply one which is "unacquirable" to a fair number of readers in the genre.

And, as I noted above, I'm not a fan of Delaney's work (hence my reading relatively little of it), but I do find it intriguing and worthwhile when I do (in general). He interests me, more than "appeals" to me; a more cerebral connection than an emotional one....

 

[dask]

SHOWCASE PRESENTS STRANGE ADVENTURES VOLUME ONE. Over 500 pages of "shiny jet-pack future" sf stories originally appearing in DC's Strange Adventures comic from the mid 1950s. Sure, these tales will garner few Hugos but if you, like me, never grew up, they'll slip through the back door without banging it shut. You'll also gaze upon some of the most stunning sf art ever by the likes of Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Sy Barry, and Sid Greene. Enjoyable.

 

[j d worthington]

Have moved on to vol. 2 of Charles Skinner's Myths and Legends of Our Own Land; some fascinating things in there; some quite fantastic, some rather romantic (in both senses of the term), and some genuinely eerie....

 

[Rosemary]

Just finished re-reading Memories of Ice by Erikson. I've picked up on parts that were a bit puzzling at least. It is a book filled with battles, traitors and plenty of emotion. Needed the tissues again!

 

[AE35Unit]

Last night I started on Space Time and Nathaniel, a collection of themed but not linked stories by Brian Aldiss

 

[j d worthington]

Last night I started on Space Time and Nathaniel, a collection of themed but not linked stories by Brian Aldiss

I thought I recognized that piece of cover art.... An odd collection, that; some quite good pieces in there, some which I found rather forgettable....

 

[AE35Unit]

I thought I recognized that piece of cover art.... An odd collection, that; some quite good pieces in there, some which I found rather forgettable....

I've read the first two so far. I loved the first one,T. Good little dilemma there. And the thing I love about such stories as opposed to hard SF is that they're not so much of their time. In other words when reading it you have no idea that it was written in the late 50s! Most sf from that era reads like its from the 50s but Aldiss when on form is timeless! Ballard is similar in that way.

 

[Lobolover]

Well, inb ook form am now reading Gustave Meyrink's "The Golem" , after having read three other Meyrink novels . J.D., you mentioned apreciating some hints, so here are a few concerning the first three .

"The Green Face" (1916) is Meyrink's second novel . It has for most part alot of theosophicaly-mystical talk, but many an eerie scene and dialogue preceding and following these , as well as the form of Chidher Grün , the man with the gren face , who "wanders the earth ever since the moon is in the sky" .

"Walpurgisnacht" (1917) is his third and it concerns an actor who wanders seemingly without an own identity, taking on the form of those long past and acting as such in the presence of their acquiatances . The nightmare and delirium the entiere city is engulfed with , involving blood , revolution and a certain young man being crowned the "Emperor of the World" , are certainly marvelous, and the book is mostly free of any mysticism or the like .I recomend that as well .

"The white Dominican" (1921) is his third book and I realy can't rightly recomnd it . While I like some oneor two ideas , and it has a nice madness scene in there to , the whole book ploughs on without plot, deep laden with symbolical and long worded theosophical and mystico-phylosophical discusions , and can't even handle the person of an other worldly entity as leading the spiritualist movement properly , so I would not realy recomend this one at all .

As for his short stories, I can only recomend the masterfull "Master Leonhard" as I am yet to find a new colection, which won't compromise chiefly of two or so of the darker sort and ten or so of the light headed /hearted farcical comedy stories , like one where a profesor so vehemently explains that it is simply impossible for an automobile to ever work under any circumstances that the car his student came to visit him in suddenly malfunctions . Only one of those the humouristic stories I read in full , anyway , but a litl long-winded .

 

[Pyan]

The Jewel in the Skull - the First Book of Hawkmoon, by Michael Moorcock.

Yes I know. j.d. - but people keep enthusing about it, so I thought I'd give it another try...

 

[j d worthington]

The Jewel in the Skull - the First Book of Hawkmoon, by Michael Moorcock.

Yes I know. j.d. - but people keep enthusing about it, so I thought I'd give it another try...

Neither my favorite nor among Moorcock's best, by any means; but it does have some very nice things about it now and again, such as the fact of Hawkmoon already being where he is when we first see him; or the concept of the jewel itself (and, incidentally, the "web" in the machine is highly reminiscent, iirc, of certain descriptions of the multiverse itself, which adds an interesting connotation there....)

 

[Tillane]

Decided to take a break before starting Abercrombie's Last Argument Of Kings (yes, it's that dubious principle of "too much of a good thing"). Instead, I'm blitzing through M. John Harrison's Light.

 

[Connavar]

Slaugtherhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Havent finished a Vonnegut book yet. Read alittle Deadeye Dick before and changed my mind and got this library book to try him for real.

Im hoping this book will be good enough read to get me going reading sf books again. My reading mind is very fickle i can read certain type of books at one time and other times i cant force myself.

 

[Omphalos]

Halfway through Ralph 124C 41+. I had read it years ago, and apparently forgotten that the first two hundred pages or so are lead up to the story.