Fiction – Fantasy Interlude Part 2

When I wrote that the David Lindsay Violet Apple was a rarity, I didn’t realise that my edition which I paid $6.20 for in 1976, is now worth something like $150.00.  Something to remember when I’m down and out.

Anyway, that’s beside the point…

To continue and conclude, for now, the stray Fantasy books, among which there are Science Fiction titles, I present first up Sylvia Engdahl’s Enchantress From The Stars and its sequel The Far Side of Evil, highly regarded young adult fantasy/SF novels, published in the early 1970s.

Also in the juvenile fantasy category is Ursula Le Guin’s  Earthsea Trilogy. I have the three books in hard cover editions, published by Gollancz and acquired by me in 1974. Only The Farthest Shore is a first edition, the other two are second impressions, but as a set they look very handsome.

A couple of oddities to follow this well known series are John Fuller’s Flying To Nowhere, which won the Whitbread Best First Novel Award in 1983, and A Dark Horn Blowing by Dahlov Ipcar.

Sheri S Tepper’s Beauty won the Locus Award in1992.

In the above Sheri S Tepper link, which is an interview with the author, she mentions that one of her favourite books was Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright. Naturally I have a copy…though it is years since I last opened its covers.

The next two novels are once again oddities, and deal interestingly with gender. Childe Rolande, is a most unusual fantasy by Samantha Lee wherein the hero/heroine is a hermaphrodite, and Donald Kingsbury’s Courtship Rite set on a planet where polyandry is a way of life.

And finally for this post another Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy, The Fates of the Princes of Dyfed by Kenneth Morris, a Welsh fantasy based on the Mabinogion.

I’ll get back to general fiction in the next entry.

Science Fiction 36 – Roger Zelazny

This is the final post dedicated to Science Fiction, though there are more fantasy and science fiction books in my main collection on the large bookshelf to be revealed shortly.

Anyway Roger Zelazny is naturally the last due to his surname. I have a small collection of his books, including a complete set of the first Amber series and his Hugo winning novel Lord of Light and a few other novels.

Next – New Age Books

Science Fiction 35 – Gene Wolfe

This entry will be the penultimate Science Fiction post.

Gene Wolfe is the renowned author of The Book of the New Sun. I have already displayed my hard cover collection of this series, so the below editions are those acquired in paperback back when they were issued.

I can’t say that I’ve read Wolfe’s entire oeuvre, but I did also really like his series about the amnesiac soldier Latro - Soldier in the Mist and Soldier of Arete. I have yet to read the latest book in that series, Soldier of Sidon, having decided to wait for a mass market paperback edition when and if it is ever published.

As for the The Book of the Long Sun, which is set in the same universe as The Book of the New Sun, I have only read the first volume, Nightside the Long Sun and for whatever reason didn’t go on to the rest.

And to finish the authors whose names begin with W, here is Dave Wolverton’s, long out of print novel On My Way To Paradise simply because it has a great cover. It wasn’t a bad read either if I recollect.

Next – Roger Zelazny

Science Fiction 34 – Ian Watson, Stanley G Weinbaum, Kate Wilhelm & Connie Willis

A miscellany of books by authors whose names start with W...

Ian Watson is a British SF writer of note. I appear to have two of his books - The Gardens of Delights, with a fantastic cover showing a detail from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, and The Jonah Kit.

Stanley G Weinbaum died at the extremely young age of 33, but gained lasting fame for his remarkable short story A Martian Odyssey. It is contained in the following Best of Stanley G Weinbaum collection.

Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang, by Kate Wilhelm is a remarkable novel about the possible consequences of human cloning. Influenced quite a bit by Huxley’s Brave New World, it depicts a fascinating futuristic dystopia. It won the Hugo Best novel Award in 1977.

Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book was also a Hugo and Nebula winner. A wonderful and deeply moving time travel novel set in both the near future and in the Middle Ages during the time of the Black Death, it cleverly reflects the potential for a deadly viral epidemic, on the scale of the Black Death, in our present time and near future.

Also a time travel novel with a few of the same characters as the Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of The Dog, is a far more light hearted affair and a tribute to Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men In A Boat, surely one of the funniest and wittiest books ever written.

Lincoln’s Dreams is about parapsychology, metaphysical speculations, death, and love. A more recent novel, Passage, was inspired by reports from people who have had a near death experience. In this novel a neurologist has discovered a way to induce near death experiences artificially. Strangely, these induced near death experiences connect the volunteer to the Titanic on the night it hits the iceberg.

Next – Gene Wolfe

Science Fiction 33 – A E Van Vogt & Joan Vinge

Can’t say I’ve read all that much Van Vogt but I seem to have an elderly edition of The Weapon Shops of Isher.

As for Joan Vinge, she won the Hugo and Nebula awards for her novel The Snow Queen, a retelling of the fairytale set in the far future. I recently reread this book along with its sequels, World’s End and The Summer Queen and found them as enthralling as the first time I read them.

Next – Watson, Weinbaum, Wilhelm & Willis

Science Fiction 32 – Jack Vance

I’m drawing towards the end of my Science Fiction collection, now that I’m up to V.

And who better to start the V authors, than the wonderful Jack Vance.

Though I have only a small collection of Vance books, I recall reading them with pleasure.

There is a recent profile of Jack Vance on the New York Times site and it is well worth reading. (You’ll have to register to view it).

My collection of Vance is meagre - I’ve only got two books in the Dying Earth series, and the fantasy trilogy Lyonesse.

Next – A E Van Vogt and Joan Vinge

Science Fiction 31 – A Miscellany of S’s and T’s - Stewart, Sucharitkul, Tenn, Tevis, Tiptree & Trout

This entry will cover the rest of my collection of authors whose names start with “S” and all the authors whose names start with “T”.

The first of them under consideration is George R Stewart’s famous post apocalyptic novel Earth Abides. My copy of this book has fallen apart, but is still readable. The novel is regarded these days as a classic of the genre.

Then there is Somtow Sucharitkul’s Starship & Haiku. I can’t say much about this novel or even remember reading it.

Of Men & Monsters is a novel by William Tenn. William Tenn was the pseudonym of Philip Klass an American Science fiction writer known for his satirical stories. Of Men and Monsters is one of only two novels Tenn wrote. He is mainly known for his short stories.

Walter Tevis is one of the most underappreciated master novelists of the 20^th Century. His dystopian novel Mockingbird is one of my all time favorite books. Three of Tevis’ books were made into films – The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell To Earth. Besides Mockingbird and The Man Who Fell to Earth, his Science Fiction opus also includes Steps To the Sun and a collection of short stories, Far From Home.

I appear to have only one book by the mysterious James Tiptree Jr – Star Songs of An Old Primate, a collection of stories. James Tiptree Jr was the pseudonym of Alice B Sheldon who maintained her anonymity for many years. There was a well regarded biography of her published in 2006 by Julie Phillips entitled: James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon . She sounds to have been an interesting lady.

And finally.., the infamous Venus On The Half Shell by Kilgore Trout

Kilgore Trout is the creation of Kurt Vonnegut and appears in several of his novels.

Phillip Jose Farmer is the real author of Venus On The Half-Shell, though that was kept secret when the book first came out.

Next – Jack Vance