Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Science Fiction 8 - Chapman, Clarke, Compton, Cowper & Crowley

To finish off authors whose names begin with a "c" here is an odd assortment of the above mentioned authors.

First Stepan Chapman's Troika - truly one of the weirdest books I've ever read. It was sent to me by Jeff VanderMeer several years ago. It is one of those rare Ministry of Whimsy books.

chapman_troika
Next, the sole copy of an Arthur C Clarke book I have in my possession - The Fountains of Paradise.

clarke_fountains
Richard Cowper is a British writer and I was very fond of his Road To Corlay trilogy, sort of post apocalypse science fiction/fantasy. The first two books have lovely Don Maitz covers.

cowper_road cowper_tapestry cowper_kinship

This collection of short stories by Cowper also has a terrific cover by Don Maitz.

cowper_ships

D G Compton's Synthajoy somehow found its way into my collection. The cover is slightly psychedelic - try scrolling up and down and the circles spin.

compton_synthajoy

And lastly, to wind up the ''c's", John Crowley's early science fiction novels. John Crowley is one of my all time favourite writers and I first discovered his books with the SF novel Beasts in the mid 1970s. From then on I collected pretty well all of his works. I do indeed have a first edition copy of Little, Big on another bookshelf, and have prepaid for a copy of the 25th Anniversary edition, finally due this year, which is sure to be a very fine example of bibliophilic eye candy. For this entry however I will only display mass market paperbacks of The Deep, Beasts, Engine Summer and Great Work of Time.

crowley_deep crowley_beasts
crowley_enginesummer crowley_greatwork
Next - Phillip K Dick, Samuel Delaney etc.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Science Fiction 7 - Feminist SF Part 2

Sheri S Tepper is one of my favourite SF writers. She writes wonderful eco feminist novels and I always enjoy seeing any new book of hers. I have many of her books, but perhaps her most well known feminist fiction is The Gate to Women's Country, which besides featuring an interesting dystopia is very cleverly written, as are all of her books.

tepper_womenscountry
Another of her clever and fascinating books is in fact the Marianne trilogy which I have in an omnibus edition. They are wonderfully bizarre.

tepper_marianne
Six Moon Dance has an unusual dystopian society where men are forced to wear veils and serve the women who run all aspects of this society. The Family Tree is a lovely eco fantasy with a huge surprise half way through.

tepper_sixmoondance tepper_familytree

Next Grass, Northshore and Gibbons Decline And Fall

tepper_grass tepper_awakeners tepper_gibbon

I do have several more Tepper novels, but they can wait for another time.

Finally, as far as feminist science fiction goes - Women of Wonder, a collection of stories by women writers including Ursula Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, Kate Wilhelm among others.

womenofwonder

Next - continuing with authors whose names start with "c"

Science Fiction 6 - Feminist SF Part 1

Probably there is more feminist fiction within the Science Fiction genre than in the mainstream. I have always been quite a fan of feminist fiction and have quite a collection of feminist science fiction novels.

Foremost of these is Suzy McKee Charnas' Holdfast Chronicles. I have the first three novels and have yet to acquire the last in the series "The Conqueror's Child".

They are a terrific read, set in a future where women are enslaved, and how one woman, escaping into the the wilderness plots, and eventually carries out her revenge.

charnas_walk charnas_motherlines charnas_furies

Joanna Russ' best known book is The Female Man which I just realised must have been the inspiration for Sheri S Tepper's latest novel "The Margarets". I can't remember anything much about The Female Man, but having just read the wikipedia entry on the book, it suddenly struck me.

russ_femaleman russ_chaos russ_picnic


The Motherland Chronicles by Canadian writer Elizabeth Vonarburg are another feminist dystopian trilogy which began with The Silent City and also make for a good read.

vonaburg_silentcity vonaburg_mothersland vonaburg_reluctantvoyagers

Yet another trilogy... more lesbian fantasy than feminist science fiction, but quite enjoyable novels all the same.

Elizabeth A Lynn's Chronicles of Tornor

lynn_watchtower lynn_dancers lynn_northerngirl

And to finish off this entry - the strange, yet compelling Mutagenisis by Helen Collins

collins_mutagenesis
More feminist science fiction to follow - Sheri S Tepper etc.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Science Fiction 5 - Jo Clayton's "Diadem" Series

For some reason or another, I seem to have the complete Diadem series written by Jo Clayton. I obviously followed them from the first volume, published in 1977 to the last, published in 1986. Obviously i must have liked them. Actually I don't mind a bit of space opera, though I haven't read any books in that category for years.

So for your viewing pleasure here is the complete Diadem series, all nine volumes of them.

clayton_diadem1 clayton_diadem2 clayton_diadem3
clayton_diadem4 clayton_diadem5 clayton_diadem6
clayton_diadem7 clayton_diadem8 clayton_diadem9

Next - Feminist Science Fiction for a change

Friday, January 16, 2009

Science Fiction 4 - C. J. Cherryh

I'm going to rush through my collection of this author's books as I can hardly remember anything about them. I do recall first discovering C. J. Cherryh with her book The Gate of Ivrel and being impressed with a space opera she wrote, the title of which I cannot bring to mind. It might even be one of those I will display below.

Cover artists include the usual suspects - MichaeL Whelan, Gino D'Achilles & Don Maitz

cherryh_ivrel cherryh_shiuan cherryh_azeroth
cherryh_fadedsun_kutath cherryh_fadedsun_kesrith cherryh_fadedsun_shonjir

cherryh_hestia

cherryh_chanur cherryh_dreamstone cherryh_treeofswords
cherryh_brothers cherryh_sunfall cherryh_wave
Next - a past guilty pleasure - Jo Clayton's Diadem Series