From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V18 #220 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, December 16 2010 Volume 18 : Number 220 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Philip K. Dick and other questions [2fs ] Re: Philip K. Dick and other questions ["Mr.Eldritch" ] Re: PKD [grutness@slingshot.co.nz] Re: PKD [kevin studyvin ] Re: PKD [2fs ] Re: PKD [2fs ] Re: PKD [kevin studyvin ] Re: Philip K. Dick and other questions [djini@voicenet.com] Fwd: A.Word.A.Day--leptorrhine [2fs ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:47:21 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Philip K. Dick and other questions On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 1:15 AM, Danny Lieberman wrote: > All good suggestions made so far, > > personal faves include > > The Man In The High Castle (won the Hugo award) > The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch > Ubik > Confessions of a Crap Artist (non-SF and probably OOP) > The Transmigration of Timothy Archer > > Actually (and compared to the decade or so surrounding his death), much of Dick's stuff is in print, including "Confessions..." His non-SF stuff is, generally, nowhere near as brilliant as his SF work, and not where you'd want to start with his work - but well worth reading for fans. This one in particular edges close to his SF work...it just begins to hint at the "Phildickian" obsession with unstable/indeterminate realities... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 11:11:03 -0500 From: "Mr.Eldritch" Subject: Re: Philip K. Dick and other questions What about the book was it that he liked? If it was largely the unreliable narrator component, there are other books in that vein...so was it the SciFi, or would he be just as happy reading an Agatha Christie book where it turns out Poirot is the murderer? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 11:36:45 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Philip K. Dick and other questions On Mon, 13 Dec 2010, cgalbraith wrote: > So I'm a fan of Jonathan Carroll, Neil Gaiman and Lucius Shepard, > among others, who "posit worlds wherein magic is a sort of alternate > physics." (Nice wordage btw.) Would you place them as fantasy fiction > writers? Is Borges fantasy fiction? I'm curious because I have never > been able to read the dragon/elf etc., type books or even Tolkein or > Harry Potter, but I lap up this kind of writing - what I always heard > called "magical realism." I'm no expert ... but I don't see any experts answering, so you get me. "Magical realism" is a type of literary fiction[1] featuring fantasy elements, and it shades into pure fantasy with no clear border at any point. It might be better to consider "magical realism" a style that can be used in both literary fiction *and* fantasy (and SF too), but lots of people do seem to consider it a genre of its own. Sometimes I think the same work will be considered "magical realism" by someone who mainly reads literary fiction and "fantasy" by someone who mainly reads fantasy, simply because those readers have different mental labels. And yes, some people use the term to mean "any fantasy that I like, since *of course* I don't like fantasy," but you need not follow *them*. I'd say the vast majority of Neil Gaiman's work is definitely fantasy, and some of Borges' stories also count as fantasy. I haven't read enough Carroll or Shepard to have an opinion about their fantasticalicity. - --Chris [1] I wince a little when using "literary fiction" to mean "not fantasy, science fiction or horror," but a better term eludes me at the moment. ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:38:07 -0800 From: Rex Broome Subject: New R.E.M. song... ...is totally, brazenly and spectacularly pretty fairly sort of okayish. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:40:16 +1300 From: grutness@slingshot.co.nz Subject: Re: PKD >So I'm a fan of Jonathan Carroll, Neil Gaiman and Lucius Shepard, >among others, who "posit worlds wherein magic is a sort of alternate >physics." (Nice wordage btw.) Would you place them as fantasy fiction >writers? Is Borges fantasy fiction? I'm curious because I have never >been able to read the dragon/elf etc., type books or even Tolkein or >Harry Potter, but I lap up this kind of writing - what I always heard >called "magical realism." The usually defined difference is theat sf is possible but implausible; fantasy is impossible but plausible. It's a neat way of remembering it, but leads to the question of what is possible in an infinite (or close to it) universe. Sometimes it's simply a question of the terms used (if you call it "magic" it's fantasy, if you talk the same effects in terms of a scientific advance, even dodgy science, then you can get away with calling it sf). Then you have the whole field of magic-realism, which overlaps both (Borges, yes, and Bradbury is another master of this genre). As fras as PKD is concerned, I'm surprised no-one's mentioned "Martian Time-slip" yet... I'd also add that anyone wanting to explore sf starting with Dick might also enjoy reading some Alfred Bester and R A Lafferty as well. James - -- James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.- =-.-=-.-=-.- You talk to me as if from a distance .-=-.-=-.-=-. -=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time .-=- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:12:09 -0800 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: PKD > As fras as PKD is concerned, I'm surprised no-one's mentioned "Martian > Time-slip" yet... I'd also add that anyone wanting to explore sf starting > with Dick might also enjoy reading some Alfred Bester and R A Lafferty as > well. > > Starting with Dick is going to create a false impression of the quality of work available; he had a wealth of fascinating ideas, but he could hardly write his way out of a paper bag. Bester and Lafferty, on the other hand, were two of the most consistently interesting stylists the field has produced to date. Cordwainer Smith is right up there with them. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:16:59 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: PKD On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 5:12 PM, kevin studyvin wrote: > > As fras as PKD is concerned, I'm surprised no-one's mentioned "Martian > > Time-slip" yet... I'd also add that anyone wanting to explore sf starting > > with Dick might also enjoy reading some Alfred Bester and R A Lafferty as > > well. > > > > Starting with Dick is going to create a false impression of the quality > of > work available; he had a wealth of fascinating ideas, but he could hardly > write his way out of a paper bag. Well, I wouldn't say he's *that* bad...but yes, no one's going to confuse him with Don De Lillo as prose stylist. > Bester and Lafferty, on the other hand, > were two of the most consistently interesting stylists the field has > produced to date. Cordwainer Smith is right up there with them. > Weirdly, I've hardly read Bester or Smith...but hey! I was a huge Lafferty fan back in the late '70s of my peak SF fandom. And yes, the man could write crazy rings around about anyone. Just for sheer imagination (and, also, hashing utterly any lines between SF and fantasy), Lafferty is a fantastic read... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:20:14 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Re: PKD On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 4:40 PM, wrote: > So I'm a fan of Jonathan Carroll, Neil Gaiman and Lucius Shepard, >> among others, who "posit worlds wherein magic is a sort of alternate >> physics." (Nice wordage btw.) Would you place them as fantasy fiction >> writers? Is Borges fantasy fiction? I'm curious because I have never >> been able to read the dragon/elf etc., type books or even Tolkein or >> Harry Potter, but I lap up this kind of writing - what I always heard >> called "magical realism." >> > > The usually defined difference is theat sf is possible but implausible; > fantasy is impossible but plausible. The second half seems much more accurate to me than the first half - at least, as a global generalization. There is some SF that cares nothing for plausibility (most mainstream stuff, by which I mean yr Star Treks, etc.) but it seems to me that for a lot of it, once you grant the SF McGuffin, everything that follows thereafter can be quite plausible. Whereas fantasy doesn't usually even pretend to have any sort of rational, scientific basis - it is, just like the name on the label says, fantastic through and through. It might have rules or internal logic, but those rules and logic have nothing to do w/our laws of physics. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:37:17 -0800 From: kevin studyvin Subject: Re: PKD > Weirdly, I've hardly read Bester or Smith...but hey! I was a huge Lafferty > fan back in the late '70s of my peak SF fandom. And yes, the man could > write > crazy rings around about anyone. Just for sheer imagination (and, also, > hashing utterly any lines between SF and fantasy), Lafferty is a fantastic > read... > Word. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:25:33 -0500 (EST) From: djini@voicenet.com Subject: Re: Philip K. Dick and other questions Late response, sorry. Jill: Vonnegut, the earlier stuff - he got very, very depressed towards the end. There's also a reason Catch-22 is on so many lists - if he hasn't read it yet, he might try it. Also: Radio Free Albemuth is notable for the fact that it is being filmed with music by the list's raison d'etre. and carrie wrote: > > So I'm a fan of Jonathan Carroll, Neil Gaiman and Lucius Shepard, > among others, who "posit worlds wherein magic is a sort of alternate > physics." (Nice wordage btw.) Would you place them as fantasy fiction > writers? Is Borges fantasy fiction? I'm curious because I have never > been able to read the dragon/elf etc., type books or even Tolkein or > Harry Potter, but I lap up this kind of writing - what I always heard > called "magical realism." > It's also sometimes called the Weird or the New Weird. Basically, if you achieve a certain amount of literary merit (like Borges) they stop trying to label you. A lot of that is marketing-driven - there are shoppers who go to the "Literature" section of whatever big-box store they frequent who would never deign to look in the f/sf section... but not so much the other way around. Or at least that's the popular wisdom. Based on your brief list, if you haven't already, for some elfless fantasy you might try Catherynne Valente, Felix Gilman (probably start with The Half-Made World rather than Thunderer/Gears of the City), Jeff Vandermeer, and Kage Baker (she wrote both fantasy and science fiction - I like the fantasy more, but the time traveling cyborgs have their charms). Jeanne ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 15:27:14 -0600 From: 2fs Subject: Fwd: A.Word.A.Day--leptorrhine This word is not only fegly because it's close to "Leppo" - it's also fegly because it contains "LEP" - our Lauren's initials. - - Wordsmith.orgThe Magic of Words Dec 16, 2010 This week's theme Words made with combining forms This week's words exogamy ventifact tautology leptorrhine Make a gift that keeps on giving, all year long: A gift subscription of AWAD or give the gift of books - ------------------------------ Discuss Feedback RSS/XML - ------------------------------ [image: Bookmark and Share] [image: Facebook] [image: Twitter] [image: Digg] [image: MySpace] [image: Bookmark and Share] A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg Today's sponsors are: Orijinz , The Icicle Story , and MooT. See their messages at the end. leptorrhine PRONUNCIATION: (LEP-tuh-ryn) MEANING: adjective: Having a long narrow nose. ETYMOLOGY: From Greek lepto- (thin) + rhin (nose). Also see rhinorrhea(a runny nose). First recorded use: 1880. USAGE: "Like a horny sightless woman on a blind date, she begins to knead her heavy friendship-ring-laden fingers into my face. 'Leptorrhine nose ... kumquat-headed ...'" Paul Beatty; Slumberland ; Bloomsbury; 2008. Explore "leptorrhine " in the Visual Thesaurus. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. -William Proxmire, US senator, reformer (1915-2005) Last Call for Xmas delivery - Buy Orijinz! The word game that is a fantastic gift and fun to play over the holidays! The Icicle Story iPhone app A wonderful tale of friendship, discovery and the journey of life MooT - the Etymology and Semantics Game A great Xmas present for logophiles. Sponsored links Unsubscribe| Subscribe | Update address| Gift subscription| Contact us Books by Anu Garg ) 2010 Wordsmith.org - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.wordpress.com ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V18 #220 ********************************