Literary Sampling and Remixing: Sterling & Gibson’s The Difference Engine

I’ve intended to get around to The Difference Engine for years on end, but never started in on it in earnest until this year, for reasons I can’t explain, really. I’ve had a copy all these years, but never quite gotten around to it. Anyway, I picked up an audiobook edition of the novel using one of my Audible credits, since I’ve been listening to audiobooks a fair bit while walking, or doing chores around the house, and I’m enjoying it immensely. I remember reading an interview with the authors in Science Fiction Studies many years ago, and being very curious about the method they …

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Swords Against Death by Fritz Leiber

Swords Against Death is the second of Fritz Leiber’s Lankhmar books, featuring the archetypal characters of Fafhrd  the barbarian and The Grey Mouser the rogue. The book includes stories spanning from 1940 to 1970… which I imagine, if you’re reading the book attentively and know this, would leave you watching for signs of change and development in the author’s writing style. As for me, it wasn’t really apparent to me, as I read the stories, that they were written across such a long span of years. That isn’t to say there weren’t shifts in tone and style, or that there …

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You’d Watch This Movie, Right? (Or Read This Comic?)

My wife was trying to figure out what to do with a weirdly-shaped canvas she’s planning to paint, and some riffing led to the ultimate pulp B-movie idea… well, for a certain audience, anyway. I’m thinking it’d be one of those neo-exploitation flicks, like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have resurrected. The image on the painting–a movie poster–features the following: Giordano Bruno, in a torn monk’s habit (with giant rippling muscles visible beneath), stetson, boots & spurs, poised with two sixguns in his hands and a cigar in his mouth, a grim look of determination on his face. Marie Curie, …

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Mission Child by Maureen McHugh, and Thoughts About Stretching the Limits of the Genre

I’ve loved Maureen McHugh’s writing since first contact. That was, like for many people, her debut novel China Mountain Zhang, a book I stumbled upon in the Chapters in downtown Montréal, I think sometime in 1999 or so… a couple of years before I left for Korea, where (back in the old days) I had to make do with reading whatever I happened to find. It was because Maureen was teaching a week at Clarion West in 2006 that I decided to take the plunge and go; it was because of China Mountain Zhang that I realized the kinds of stories that …

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Heathern and Terraplane, by Jack Womack

I’ve just read Jack Womack’s second and third novels (both of books set in his “Dryco” series) back-to-back. Longtime readers will note that I lauded the first novel in the series (in terms of series timeline) with lavish praise back in 2012. I also read the Womack’s first novel, Ambient, and it made a strong impression on me at the time, but that was years and years ago, and I’m due for a reread since I’m apparently trying to read all the Dryco books this year. (Actually, when I read Ambient, I wanted nothing more than to read everything else …

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The Genocides by Thomas M. Disch

When I read Thomas M. Disch’s 334 back in grad school, I found it didn’t make much of an impression on me, beyond its unremitting and overwhelming grimness. Perhaps the bleak grimness of graduate school distracted me from its finer points? I’m not sure, but I can say that the cruelty and bleakness of The Genocides has definitely made an impression on me: I have essentially devoured it over the last day-and-a-half.  

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Thoughts About You Bright And Risen Angels by William T. Vollmann, Flaws, and Envelope-Pushing

When my friend, fellow Poundian, and coworker Jason Silvis left South Korea–I think in 2005–he gave me a copy of William T. Vollmann’s You Bright and Risen Angels, I imagine probably because the SFnal elements and the sheer challenge of the book would appeal to me. He had given the book a good hard try, but–at least from the pencil markings he’d made–didn’t get very far into it. Having just finished reading the book, I can see why. It’s a flawed book, even for a first novel, and not easy reading by any stretch of the imagination… or, rather, I …

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On the Lovecraftian Mode

A while back, I found myself in a kind of Lovecraftian mode. I was writing specifically stories that sort of merged my own version of Lovecraft’s Dreamlands setting with his Cthulhu stories, the stuff set in a world like ours, but with a horrifying alien-god conspiracy hidden in its shadows. I’ve long felt like this would be an interesting synthesis, something Lovecraft might have gotten around to himself if he’d lived longer–and there are hints of it, here and there, in the Dreamlands stories–but which is, nonetheless, very much my own take on things. My crit group at the time …

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Cowboys in Space: A Mixed Metaphor

I’ve always wondered why people were so fascinated by stories of cowboys in space. For me, it’s always been a non-starter. Granted, maybe I’d like these stories better if I liked the characters and writing better, but the widespread for Firefly kind of baffles me, though of course we could chalk it up to different tastes with the writing, or my lack of fannish devotion to Joss Whedon. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to think in terms of why things do or don’t appeal to me… to figure out my own tastes, as it were. After all, I’ve liked very few …

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Some Links

One Good Turn: Eugie Foster is fighting lymphoma, and could use a hand, if you’re so inclined… she has some ebooks for sale, which will help her pay for her treatment. I picked up a couple, and figured I’d pass the word on while I’m at it. Literary: Ever been curious to check out Baudelaire? Don’t know which translator(s) most suit your tastes? FleursduMal.org is the site for you. You can read different translations of each of the poems from each edition, and make up your own mind! An interview with my friend Christine Lee Zilka and her coeditor at Kartika, …

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