FMK #16: Psi-fi

[melannen]

Sorry for dropping off the face of the internet - life has been coming at me pretty hard the last couple of weeks, and part of that is having to find entirely different scraps of time to use for writing internet posts.

Anyway, I have read Juniper Time and am mostly through writing a review of it, so that should go up soon. I also read Always Coming Home because it was becoming increasingly clear that in order to talk about the sort of stories I want to, I needed to have read it. I'm not sure what I think of it as a novel, but as worldbuilding it is amazing and still haunting me (also I now want to go "forget sedoretu AU just give me Kesh AUs of everything", of course.) I have also made progress on reading both Melusine (not sure if I actually like it, but finding it compulsively readable, also not nearly enough snake-women so far) and Discount Armageddon (like it okay, but not finding it compulsively readable, a++ on snake-woman though.)

I also saw Spider-Man and have to say I enjoyed it more than most of the other recent Marvel movies I've watched (partly, I think, because the stakes were lower and it could just be fun.) I am mostly in it for Karen, to probably nobody's shock, although I am way too invested in Michelle because she is basically 100% me in high school (I'm white, and we weren't a well-funded magnet school so we didn't go to the academic quiz championship because the advisor got arrested for dealing crack halfway through the year and the paperwork got screwed up. But other than that, spot on. So I am terrified they will ruin her for me of course. Also I mostly just want the YW crossover where Michelle and Murph and Vision team up to help Karen with her Ordeal.)

This week's theme is Psi-Fi, for no particular reason except that it's getting harder to patch together themes from what's left. :P

How FMK works, short version: I am trying to clear out my unreads. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide whether to keep it or not. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away immediately. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.

I pick a winner on Friday night (although won't actually close the poll, people can still vote,) and report results/ post the new poll on the following Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.

Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)

Poll #18572 FMK #14: SF In Translation

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27

View Respondents

Pebble in the Sky by Isaac Asimov (1950)

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F
8 (47.1%)

M
1 (5.9%)

K
8 (47.1%)

Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh (1988)

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F
10 (45.5%)

M
12 (54.5%)

K
0 (0.0%)

The Alien Way by Gordon R. Dickson (1965)

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F
5 (45.5%)

M
1 (9.1%)

K
5 (45.5%)

Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Engdahl (1970)

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F
11 (68.8%)

M
4 (25.0%)

K
1 (6.2%)

Mindflight by Stephen Goldin (1978)

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F
3 (33.3%)

M
0 (0.0%)

K
6 (66.7%)

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman (1993)

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F
5 (50.0%)

M
1 (10.0%)

K
4 (40.0%)

Telempath by Spider Robinson (1976)

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F
9 (52.9%)

M
1 (5.9%)

K
7 (41.2%)

Triplanetary by E. E. Smith (1948)

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F
7 (50.0%)

M
2 (14.3%)

K
5 (35.7%)

A Wizard and a Warlord by Christopher Stasheff (2000)

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F
5 (38.5%)

M
1 (7.7%)

K
7 (53.8%)

Today We Choose Faces by Roger Zelazny (1988)

View Answers

F
9 (75.0%)

M
2 (16.7%)

K
1 (8.3%)

Comments

[rachelmanija]

I adore Cyteen, once you get past the THREE unnecessary prologues. (No, I don't know why.) Telempath is, IIRC, about TWO completely unrelated apocalypses: a mutant virus causes everyone's sense of smell to become so acute that they go insane and kill each other (no, I don't know why) BUT LUCKILY it also enables them to evade the invading killer aliens who are gaseous and can only be detected by smell. Obviously I hope you read that one. ;)

I didn't really enjoy Enchantress From the Stars that much but it has a really fun central conceit: a girl from a high-tech world meets a boy from a low-tech world; her POV is written as sf, his as a fairytale.

[rushthatspeaks]

Triplanetary, despite being the first in the Lensman series in internal chronology, is a fix-up of short stories and was put together quite late in the series, so it's very much not the place to start. The place to start is Galactic Patrol.

I love Smith dearly, but I grew up on him; I can't remember not having read those books, which means I hit them somewhere before age six. I have less than no idea how he holds up nowadays.

[stardreamer]

I remember liking the Asimov, but I haven't read it recently enough to know if the Suck Fairy has been at it.

Robinson and Stasheff have not aged well IMO, and Smith even less so unless you can approach it as farce.

[the_rck]

The Stasheff book is part of a long series and falls quite late in the sequence. All of the Warlock/Grammayre (sp?) books come before it. It might be readable as a standalone, but I can't swear to it.

The Zelazny book has the virtue of being short. I read it in the 80s and don't remember much about it except that it got tangled up in my head with various cyberpunk books people tried to get me to like.

[the_rck]

You list Norton in your cut tag, but I don't see anything by her on the list. Mostly, I was curious as to which book of hers you were putting forward since so very many of her books could fit. Also, I have Opinions on a number of her books.

[hannah]

I'm so totally here for Kesh AUs.

[espresso_addict]

Not read any of this batch but interested if you were to review Always Coming Home in more detail.

My pile of unread books was augmented by the unfortunate happenstance of mixing the long-term unread with the bulk while putting a new floor in the study. I decided if it looked pristine and I had no recollection whatsoever of it based on the plot summary/first pages, I might as well class it as unread. I probably need a FMK poll of my own as I haven't made much progress on the heap this year.

[evil_plotbunny]

Cherryh seems to be very much a love her or hate her author, I adore her but ymmv.

Like others I wanted to like Enchantress from the Stars but didn't.

I also agree with the sentiment above - unless you really like novels cobbled together from short stories (I do), start with Galactic Patrol, not Triplanetary. There will be a point in the series where you want to throw the books against the wall due to the eugenics thread or gender politics, whether you do or not is up to you. I'm a firm believer that one can enjoy problematic texts and call them out on their problems at the same time.

I tend to like Roger Zelazny but I don't remember Today We Choose Faces at all.