words and images
The fiction we now call Fantasy is largely a mid-twentieth century invention with roots in older mythologies. Here I want to look at some novels from the Dark Ages of the genre, the 1960s and early 70s, rooted explicitly in the Dark Ages of Europe. All of them are far too good to forget.
Finding a good new-to-me writer and series is always a delight and I’m celebrating my discovery of Aaronovitch and The Rivers of London by putting them in the context of some books I’ve known much longer.
A mash-up of Fleming – Deighton – Le Carre spy novels and Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos? Why not? And some cubicle-life workplace humour for light relief? Sure. The result won’t be to everyone’s taste but some of us will find it to be great (gory, gruesome) fun.
Continue reading “Magical London – Gaiman, Stross and Aaronovitch”
This is a collection of mini-reviews of science fiction and fantasy books which I liked enough to recommend but haven’t reviewed at length, often because I couldn’t find time. It began as a string of comments to an identically-titled post on Green Path which now continues independently as Environmental Science Fiction.
The most recent additions to the collection are at the top; dates given are the dates reviews were added.
The Year’s Best SF Vol 2 • Tales from the Inner City • Anthropocene Rag • Zen Cho • Every Version of You • The Scar • Babel • The Year of the Jackpot • Children of Memory • Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits • Reconstruction • The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida • The Anomaly • Flyaway • From Here On, Monsters
This fat volume published by Saga presents ‘the best SF short stories published in 2020’ in the opinion of its expert editor, Jonathan Strahan, and I’m not going to argue: it’s a terrific collection. Nearly thirty authors, newbies to veterans, explore our most pressing current concerns (race, gender, AI, social justice, climate change) by projecting them into possible futures. Others have fun with future crime or the implications of hard science.
Bonuses are an outline of what happened in SF publishing and a critical overview of the best novels and novellas of the year. I was pleased that so many of my own favourites rated well. Let’s see: Anthropocene Rag, The Order of the Pure Moon, Flyaway, The Ministry for the Future, Agency, and books by Wong, Tchaikovsky, Johnson and Doctorow.
This volume’s only negative is a small one, its totally generic title. There must be hundreds of collections called The Year’s Best Science Fiction, with various subtitles, so include the editor’s name in your search for it. To add to the confusion, ‘Volume 1’ (which I’m sure was just as good) is actually the previous year’s collection from the same editor and publisher. (14.3.25)
Shaun Tan’s Tales (2018) will probably be shelved amongst children’s books in your local library or bookshop. They are variously whimsical and surreal, gentle enough not to frighten small children, and they are generously illustrated with his own paintings, which are sometimes more important than the text. But don’t be deceived: they are subtle, profound fables about our relationship with the animal world. Buy the book for a child by all means, but be sure to read it yourself. (8.3.25)
Alex Irvine’s Anthropocene Rag (2020) is a roadtrip, somewhat in the manner of Spinrad’s People’s Police, through territory explored by Cory Doctorow, William Gibson and Greg Egan among others.
One of the lovely things about the first few weeks after Christmas, at least in my corner of the world, is having lots of new books to read. This year was a little different, however, because I found myself with an odd pair of books, loving both of them but unable to read either of them straight through.
The yellow one is nonfiction. Rovelli is a theoretical physicist working on loop quantum gravity. The fact that a physicist could publish a book – any book – with such a title attracted me to him, and to it, immediately.
There Are Places turned out to be a collection of his newspaper articles, three to six pages each, on science, history, philosophy, religion and politics. Every single one was a pleasure to read – calm, lucid and enlightening – but I couldn’t read the book straight through. Continue reading “Garner and Rovelli”
A friend passed this very old, battered copy of Magic and Mystery in Tibet my way amongst others she was discarding recently. I found it fascinating as an historical artifact and impressive in an intrepid-traveller kind of way.
The author, Alexandra David-Neel, was part of the early Western engagement with Asian religion, along with the theosophists (whom she knew well).