Tor 2006
Paul D. Lusk
Tor
Year: 2006
[JAN]
Hardcover:
isbn: 0765303647 - The Crippled Angel : Crucible Book 3 - by Sara Douglass
(Tor Books)
isbn: 0765308630 - The Draco Tavern - by Larry Niven (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765312980 - Return to Quag Keep - by Andre Norton, Jean Rabe (Tor
Books)
isbn: 0765309718 - Shadows in the Starlight (Changeling) - by Elaine
Cunningham (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765309920 - Wolfblade (The Hythrun Chronicles: Wolfblade Trilogy,
Book 1) - by Jennifer Fallon (Tor Books)
Paperback:
isbn: 0765353563 - Alosha - by Christopher Pike (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765344440 - Darkwitch Rising : Troy Game #3 - by Sara Douglass (Tor
Fantasy)
isbn: 0812520025 - Kipling's Fantasy Stories - by Rudyard Kipling (Tor
Books)
isbn: 0765340763 - Memory - by Linda Nagata (Tor Science Fiction)
isbn: 0765314983 - An Old Friend of the Family - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor
Books)
isbn: 0765308851 - Tatja Grimm's World - by Vernor Vinge (Tor Books)
isbn: 0812520831 - Xanadu 2 - edited by Jane Yolen (Tor Books; Reprint
edition)
[FEB]
Hardcover:
isbn: 0765312271 - Crystal Rain - by Tobias S. Buckell (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765315025 - The Ghost Brigades - by John Scalzi (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765308894 - The Golden Hills of Westria - by Diana L. Paxson (Tor
Books)
isbn: 0765305704 - The Plot to Save Socrates - by Paul Levinson (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765304139 - Titan : Planet Novel #5 (The Grand Tour) - by Ben Bova
(Tor Books)
isbn: 0765314371 - Voidfarer : A Tale of the Moonworlds Saga - by Sean
McMullen (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765312069 - The Well of Tears : Book Two of The Crowthistle
Chronicles - by Cecilia Dart-Thornton (Tor Books)
Paperback:
isbn: 0765312158 - The Book of Ballads - by Charles Vess (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765314908 - The Carpet Makers - by Andreas Eschbach (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765350548 - The Iron Tree : The Crowthistle Chronicles, Book 1 - by
Cecilia Dart-Thornton (Tor Fantasy)
isbn: 0765354489 - The Ultimatum - by Susan Kearney (Tor Books)
isbn: 0812543459 - Where Crawls the Lizard? (Spider-Man, No 2) - by Marvel
Comics (Tor Books)
[MAR]
Hardcover:
isbn: 0765303302 - The Armies of Memory - by John Barnes (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765305240 - Phantom (Sword Of Truth) - by Terry Goodkind (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765313405 - A Shadow in Summer : Book One of the Long Price Quartet
- by Daniel Abraham (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765310260 - The Wizard Lord : Volume One of the Annals of the Chosen
- by Lawrence Watt-Evans (Tor Books)
Paperback:
isbn: 0812561708 - Master of the Cauldron (Lord of the Isles) - by David
Drake (Tor Fantasy)
[APR]
Hardcover:
isbn: 0765315289 - Cadmian's Choice : The Fifth Book of the Corean
Chronicles - by L. E. Modesitt (Tor Books)
isbn: 076531259X - The Fortress of Glass : The first volume of The Crown of
the Isles (Lord of the Isles) - by David Drake (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765313200 - In the Eye of Heaven - by David Keck (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765312883 - Wolf Hunting (Wolf) - by Jane Lindskold (Tor Books)
Paperback:
isbn: 0765352575 - Alector's Choice : The Fourth Book of the Corean
Chronicles - by L. E. Modesitt (Tor Fantasy)
isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda
Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
isbn: 0765352796 - Cowl - by Neal Asher (Tor Science Fiction)
isbn: 0765348683 - Harshini : Book Three of the Hythrun Chronicles - by
Jennifer Fallon (Tor Fantasy)
isbn: 0765353598 - Keeper of the Waters (The Guardian of the Boards) - by
Jenna Solitaire (Tor Teen)
isbn: 0765353261 - Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune - by Lynn Abbey (Tor
Fantasy)
isbn: 0765352656 - Warsworn - by Elizabeth Vaughan (Tor Books)
isbn: 1405033983 - Zootsuit Black - by Jon George (Tor)
[MAY]
Hardcover:
isbn: 0765312107 - Ardneh's Sword - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765315505 - The Baby Merchant - by Kit Reed (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765314533 - Beast Master's Quest (Beastmaster) - by Andre Norton,
Lyn McConchie (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765309300 - The Clan Corporate : Book Three of The Merchant Princes
- by Charles Stross (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765313634 - Conflagration - by Mick Farren (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765315181 - Crusader : Book Six of The Wayfarer Redemption - by Sara
Douglass (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765315629 - Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology : Stories of
Science Fiction and Fantasy - by Steven Savile, Alethea Kontis (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765313561 - Firebird - by R. Garcia y Robertson (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765313251 - Grease Monkey - by Tim Eldred (Tor Books)
isbn: 0312856849 - Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge (Tor
Books)
isbn: 0765312859 - Widdershins (Newford) - by Charles de Lint (Tor Books)
Paperback:
isbn: 0765349116 - The Dragon Quintet - by Tanith Lee, et al (Tor Fantasy)
isbn: 076531567X - The Hammer of Darkness - by L. E. Modesitt (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765352052 - The Hidden Family : Book Two of Merchant Princes - by
Charles Stross (Tor Fantasy)
isbn: 0765315300 - Mendoza in Hollywood : A Company Novel (The Company) -
by Kage Baker (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765342790 - Pilgrim : Wayfarer Redemption #5 - by Sara Douglass (Tor
Fantasy)
isbn: 0765313022 - Quag Keep - by Andre Norton (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765312808 - Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town - by Cory
Doctorow (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765347954 - The Stonehenge Gate - by Jack Williamson (Tor Science
Fiction)
[JUN]
Hardcover:
isbn: 0765314835 - Children of Chaos - by Dave Duncan (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765303485 - The Ghosts of Blood and Innocence : The Third Book of
the Wraeththu Histories - by Storm Constantine (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765311291 - The Lightstone - by David Zindell (Tor Books)
Paperback:
isbn: 076530998X - The Dark Mirror (Bridei Chronicles) - by Juliet
Marillier (Tor Books)
[JUL]
Hardcover:
isbn: 076531178X - Mistborn : The Final Empire (Mistborn) - by Brandon
Sanderson (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765306174 - The Space Opera Renaissance - by Kathryn Cramer, David
G. Hartwell (Tor Books)
isbn: 076531441X - The Tourmaline - by Paul Park (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765302217 - When Darkness Falls : The Obsidian Trilogy, Book 3
(Obsidian Trilogy) - by Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory (Tor Books)
[AUG]
Hardcover:
isbn: 0765315785 - The Cylons' Secret : Battlestar Galactica 2 - by Craig
Shaw Gardner (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765305437 - Druid's Sword : Troy Game #4 - by Sara Douglass (Tor
Books)
isbn: 0765301482 - Dzur (Vlad) - by Steven Brust (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765313898 - The Grays - by Whitley Strieber (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765313464 - Rifkind's Challenge - by Lynn Abbey (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765314657 - Shriek: An Afterword - by Jeff VanderMeer (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765314932 - Time for the Stars - by Robert A. Heinlein (Tor Books)
Paperback:
isbn: 0765315742 - House of Chains : Book Four of The Malazan Book of the
Fallen - by Steven Erikson (Tor Books)
isbn: 0765315475 - In the Company of Ogres - by A. Lee Martinez (Tor Books)
[OCT]
Paperback:
isbn: 0765343770 - Beyond the Hanging Wall - by Sara Douglass (Tor Fantasy)
[DEC]
Hardcover:
isbn: 076531584X - Mathematicians in Love - by Rudy Rucker (Tor Books)
James Nicoll
I will avoid spoilers
In article <Xns9723C472C89D...@69.28.186.121>,
Paul D. Lusk <pl...@radford.edu> wrote:;
>Here is Amazon is showing for Tor, 2006 (Science Fiction & Fantasy)
>
>Tor
>Year: 2006
>[JAN]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 0765303647 - The Crippled Angel : Crucible Book 3 - by Sara Douglass
>(Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765308630 - The Draco Tavern - by Larry Niven (Tor Books)
Short bar stories, in a universe where a fairly benevolent
alien race has run the galaxy for billions of years. Pleasant fluff,
with dark moments.
>isbn: 0765312980 - Return to Quag Keep - by Andre Norton, Jean Rabe (Tor
>Books)J
Why, God, Why?
On the one hand, this is clearly a labour of love. On the other,
it's a sequel to the worst book Andre Norton ever wrote. Plus it has a A
moment of fan-wankery that makes FALLEN ANGELS look subtle.
>isbn: 0765309718 - Shadows in the Starlight (Changeling) - by Elaine
>Cunningham (Tor Books)F
>isbn: 0765309920 - Wolfblade (The Hythrun Chronicles: Wolfblade Trilogy,
>Book 1) - by Jennifer Fallon (Tor Books)
>Paperback:)
>isbn: 0765353563 - Alosha - by Christopher Pike (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765344440 - Darkwitch Rising : Troy Game #3 - by Sara Douglass (Tor
>Fantasy)
>isbn: 0812520025 - Kipling's Fantasy Stories - by Rudyard Kipling (Tor
>Books)H
>isbn: 0765340763 - Memory - by Linda Nagata (Tor Science Fiction)
A young girl explores a world subject to sudden rearrangements
by "silver", which readers will spot as magical nanotech (the sort that's
infinitely maliable and doesn't have to worry about crap like energy
or heat), discovering some parts of her world's lost history in the
process.
It's been a couple of years since I read this (It was an April
2003 release so I would have seen it in 2002). I remember that it was
not really my thing but that it might appeal to people who liked VENTUS.
>isbn: 0765314983 - An Old Friend of the Family - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor
>Books)J
This is a Saberhagen Dracula book but I don't remember anything
beyond that. It's an early one and I find with this series, earlier is
better.
>isbn: 0765308851 - Tatja Grimm's World - by Vernor Vinge (Tor Books)
An analog of Analog encounters a strange, extremely competent
woman who reshapes her world as we might fluff up a pillow.
Minor, old Vinge (In general, the better a Vernor Vinge book
is, the more recent it is).
>isbn: 0812520831 - Xanadu 2 - edited by Jane Yolen (Tor Books; Reprint
>edition)
>[FEB]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 0765312271 - Crystal Rain - by Tobias S. Buckell (Tor Books)
Buckell is an author to keep an eye one.
This is set on a world that suffered a horrific war that
happened to pass the low tech regions of the system over (in much
the same way that a nuclear war in 1963 might have passed over Head
Smashed In, Alberta on account of having N nukes and NxY possible
targets), although the sudden loss of the upper end of the economy
had serious long term effects.
The antagonists are still around and have a Cunning Plan,
not unlike the Schlieffen Plan as implimented by Aztecs, to unify
the upstart humans (or as many as they allow to survive) under
their rule. Not all the Old Tech is gone but the people who know
how to use it and where it is are rare and do not all have the
same agenda.
Definitely worth a look.
>isbn: 0765315025 - The Ghost Brigades - by John Scalzi (Tor Books)
This is the sequel to OLD MAN'S WAR, involving one of the
supporting characters from that book. The humans discover that they
have a traitor but their initial attempt to deal with the problem
leaves them with a clone of potentially dubious loyalty. The clone
becomes part of the Ghost Brigades (this universe's version of
child soldiers) and despite his unfortunate status tries with
some success to serve humanity as best he can.
What I took away from this is that I was right to distrust
the version of events told in the previous book.
Note: Scalzi is aware that a clone does not get the memories
of the original with their genes. There's other technology involved.
Decently written.
>isbn: 0765308894 - The Golden Hills of Westria - by Diana L. Paxson (Tor
>Books)
>isbn: 0765305704 - The Plot to Save Socrates - by Paul Levinson (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765304139 - Titan : Planet Novel #5 (The Grand Tour) - by Ben Bova
>(Tor Books)PikK
Hey, I just read this! This is one of Bova's Grand Tour books,
each set on a different world in the solar system, informed by recent
discoveries. Titan is a moving target these days, so it isn't that by
surprising that some of the details of our models of Titan changed
between Bova writing this and it seeing print. Part of the plot
involves problems with a rover probe on Titan while other parts
have to do with the problems inherent in trying to run a community
of humans in an environment that will kill them quickly if anything
goes wrong.
Bova is a workman-like author, not particularly outstanding,
but since this is much like the other GT novels, anyone who liked those
will like this.
It has a very annoying plot thread that manages to combine two
of my aleph null peeves: rare water, collected from a stupid place.
>isbn: 0765314371 - Voidfarer : A Tale of the Moonworlds Saga - by Sean en
>McMullen (Tor Books)
WAR OF THE WORLDS, McMullen-style. Amusing light fun.
>isbn: 0765312069 - The Well of Tears : Book Two of The Crowthistle age
>Chronicles - by Cecilia Dart-Thornton (Tor Books)
>Paperback:
>isbn: 0765312158 - The Book of Ballads - by Charles Vess (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765314908 - The Carpet Makers - by Andreas Eschbach (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765350548 - The Iron Tree : The Crowthistle Chronicles, Book 1 - by
>Cecilia Dart-Thornton (Tor Fantasy)
>isbn: 0765354489 - The Ultimatum - by Susan Kearney (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0812543459 - Where Crawls the Lizard? (Spider-Man, No 2) - by Marvel
>Comics (Tor Books)
>[MAR]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 0765303302 - The Armies of Memory - by John Barnes (Tor Books)-
>isbn: 0765305240 - Phantom (Sword Of Truth) - by Terry Goodkind (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765313405 - A Shadow in Summer : Book One of the Long Price Quartet
> - by Daniel Abraham (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765310260 - The Wizard Lord : Volume One of the Annals of the Chosen
> - by Lawrence Watt-Evans (Tor Books)
A young man volunteers for a position of some responsibility,
albeit a responsibility that might never come up during his term of
office: he is one of the checks and balances that keeps the system
of governance functioning.
The odds of him _not_ having to deal with a glitch in the system
were about a million to one (Note: not set in a PTerryverse).
No disrespect intended by the following: This reminded me a lot
of the sort of books David Duncan writes. This is a fairly straight
forward exploration of the implications of the world-rules Watt-Evans
has selected, told from the point of view of someone who is in a position
to need to learn what those implications are.
>Paperback:
>isbn: 0812561708 - Master of the Cauldron (Lord of the Isles) - by David
>Drake (Tor Fantasy)
>[APR]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 0765315289 - Cadmian's Choice : The Fifth Book of the Corean
>Chronicles - by L. E. Modesitt (Tor Books)D
>isbn: 076531259X - The Fortress of Glass : The first volume of The Crown of
>the Isles (Lord of the Isles) - by David Drake (Tor Books)
Every thousand years or so, magic waxes and terrible things
happen to civilization. Our heroes are trying to keep their civilization
from being smashed like all the previous ones.
In this one, a dead king comes back to life to fight an eldrich
horror. This is less good than it may seem.
This has the usual plot structure for these books (split the
group up, have them deal with various impediments before rejoining their
friends) but has a stronger element of tragedy than the previous books.
Really, really, not my thing. I have a hard time telling one
of these from another, because the plot structures are so formulaic.
>isbn: 0765313200 - In the Eye of Heaven - by David Keck (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765312883 - Wolf Hunting (Wolf) - by Jane Lindskold (Tor Books)
>Paperback:G
>isbn: 0765352575 - Alector's Choice : The Fourth Book of the Corean
>Chronicles - by L. E. Modesitt (Tor Fantasy)
>isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda -
>Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
This is SF, not Fantasy.
The best book with Niven's name on it in 30 years, which
says to me that Cooper is a person to watch.
This is rather A GIFT FROM EARTHish: an elite, operating out
of what they see as necesssity, is prepared to commit a terrible
atrocity to preserve humanity. The story is told from the POV of
one of the people who will pay the bill, someone who fairly reasonably
prefers not to see herself as an expendible crewmember.
>isbn: 0765352796 - Cowl - by Neal Asher (Tor Science Fiction)
Incoherent, awful time travel book.
>isbn: 0765348683 - Harshini : Book Three of the Hythrun Chronicles - by
>Jennifer Fallon (Tor Fantasy)
>isbn: 0765353598 - Keeper of the Waters (The Guardian of the Boards) - by
>Jenna Solitaire (Tor Teen)
>isbn: 0765353261 - Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune - by Lynn Abbey (Tor
>Fantasy)
>isbn: 0765352656 - Warsworn - by Elizabeth Vaughan (Tor Books)
>isbn: 1405033983 - Zootsuit Black - by Jon George (Tor)
>[MAY]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 0765312107 - Ardneh's Sword - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765315505 - The Baby Merchant - by Kit Reed (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765314533 - Beast Master's Quest (Beastmaster) - by Andre Norton,
>Lyn McConchie (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765309300 - The Clan Corporate : Book Three of The Merchant Princes
> - by Charles Stross (Tor Books)
This is Charles' take on LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN, informed
by a grasp of modern economics. It's a lot more fun than the word
economics may imply.
>isbn: 0765313634 - Conflagration - by Mick Farren (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765315181 - Crusader : Book Six of The Wayfarer Redemption - by Sara
>Douglass (Tor Books)
I just read this but by the mercy of god and a series of
head injuries I may live to forget it.
An overwrought weepy about a family of near-gods With Issues
and their struggle to save their world from rampaging time-demons. I
think the character of Faraday was lifted from one of the more cloying
Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
There's absolutely no reason that this story needed on the order
of 4000 pages to tell.
>isbn: 0765315629 - Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology : Stories of
>Science Fiction and Fantasy - by Steven Savile, Alethea Kontis (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765313561 - Firebird - by R. Garcia y Robertson (Tor Books)
Is this his Russian folklore influenced fix-up? If so, I liked it.
>isbn: 0765313251 - Grease Monkey - by Tim Eldred (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0312856849 - Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge (Tor
>Books)
Unfortunately Charles Stross's blurb for this is better than
what I will come up with. Bastard.
It's the future, which is better in most respects than the present.
The capacity for wide-wpread disruption has grown with the GDP but there
are people whose jobs it is to detect and prevent such things. Unfortunately,
definitions of what constitutes a threat differ.
Told from the points of view of various high school students, from
genuine teens to geezers on their second pass through life.
Features the most appalling information storage system that I
have read.
This would be a recent Vinge and therefore one of the better ones.
>isbn: 0765312859 - Widdershins (Newford) - by Charles de Lint (Tor Books)
>Paperback:
>isbn: 0765349116 - The Dragon Quintet - by Tanith Lee, et al (Tor Fantasy)
>isbn: 076531567X - The Hammer of Darkness - by L. E. Modesitt (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765352052 - The Hidden Family : Book Two of Merchant Princes - by
>Charles Stross (Tor Fantasy)
This is actually the second half of a novel, split in two in the
Great Sundering of Aught Three. Stross has restructed both halves to be
more like complete books.
This is the second half of a story about a young woman who learns
that she is part of a family that can walk between worlds. Unfortunately,
her lost family has as much grasp of modern economics as Louis XVI and all
the personal ethics of the Borgias. Complications ensue.
>isbn: 0765315300 - Mendoza in Hollywood : A Company Novel (The Company) -
>by Kage Baker (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765342790 - Pilgrim : Wayfarer Redemption #5 - by Sara Douglass (Tor or
>Fantasy)y
In this, the plot creeps ever so slowly towards a conclusion,
only to end on a cliffhanger. Faraday spends most of her time metaphorically
draped picturesquely across rocks.
>isbn: 0765313022 - Quag Keep - by Andre Norton (Tor Books)
The worst book Norton ever wrote, this is a fantasy based
on D&D, complete to tumbling Dice O Doom.
I cannot fathom why this has been reprinted.
>isbn: 0765312808 - Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town - by Cory
>Doctorow (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765347954 - The Stonehenge Gate - by Jack Williamson (Tor Science
>Fiction)
>[JUN]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 0765314835 - Children of Chaos - by Dave Duncan (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765303485 - The Ghosts of Blood and Innocence : The Third Book of
>the Wraeththu Histories - by Storm Constantine (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765311291 - The Lightstone - by David Zindell (Tor Books)
>Paperback
>isbn: 076530998X - The Dark Mirror (Bridei Chronicles) - by Juliet
>Marillier (Tor Books)
>[JUL]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 076531178X - Mistborn : The Final Empire (Mistborn) - by Brandon
>Sanderson (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765306174 - The Space Opera Renaissance - by Kathryn Cramer, David
>G. Hartwell (Tor Books)
Why didn't I see this? Oh, wait: this is far enough in the future
than I am not there yet.
>isbn: 076531441X - The Tourmaline - by Paul Park (Tor Books)
I love Paul Park's books. Most of them, anyway. Happy to
see a new one is coming.
>isbn: 0765302217 - When Darkness Falls : The Obsidian Trilogy, Book
>(Obsidian Trilogy) - by Mercedes Lackey, James Mallory (Tor Books)
>[AUG]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 0765315785 - The Cylons' Secret : Battlestar Galactica 2 - by Craig
>Shaw Gardner (Tor Books)raK
I missed this: I like parts of the new BSG but Craig Shaw Gardner
equals Kiss Of Death for me.
>isbn: 0765305437 - Druid's Sword : Troy Game #4 - by Sara Douglass (Tor
>Books)
>isbn: 0765301482 - Dzur (Vlad) - by Steven Brust (Tor Books)
Embarassing admission: not actually a Brust fan anyks)
more. Don't know why. All the Vlads blur together in my mind.
>isbn: 0765313898 - The Grays - by Whitley Strieber (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765313464 - Rifkind's Challenge - by Lynn Abbey (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765314657 - Shriek: An Afterword - by Jeff VanderMeer (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765314932 - Time for the Stars - by Robert A. Heinlein (Tor Books)
>Paperback:
When did Tor pick up the RAH YA? I thought Baen was on a
never ending quest to rescue his girlfrien^H^H put horrible covers
on as many RAH books as possible.
This is a short novel about a teen who learns that he and
his brother are telepathic, then finds himself volunteering for a
long term interstellar mission: years in his frame of reference and
decades in Earth's.
I read and reread this as a teen. Although I could (and have)
pointed out various problematic elements to the book, I think a lot
of modern would-be YA SF writers could learn a lot from what made
RAH's YA fiction so compelling.
>isbn: 0765315742 - House of Chains : Book Four of The Malazan Book of the
>Fallen - by Steven Erikson (Tor Books)
>isbn: 0765315475 - In the Company of Ogres - by A. Lee Martinez (Tor Books)
>[OCT]
>Paperback:
>isbn: 0765343770 - Beyond the Hanging Wall - by Sara Douglass (Tor Fantasy)
>[DEC]
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 076531584X - Mathematicians in Love - by Rudy Rucker (Tor Books)
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Peter D. Tillman
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> Memory - by Linda Nagata (Tor Science Fiction)
>
> A young girl explores a world subject to sudden rearrangements
> by "silver", which readers will spot as magical nanotech (the sort that's
> infinitely maliable and doesn't have to worry about crap like energy
> or heat), discovering some parts of her world's lost history in the
> process.
>
> It's been a couple of years since I read this (It was an April
> 2003 release so I would have seen it in 2002). I remember that it was
> not really my thing but that it might appeal to people who liked VENTUS.
>
Well, I liked VENTUS, but didn't much care for MEMORY. It's a pretty
neat setup, an appealing combination of a half-understood high-tech
background, a likeable heroine, a nasty villain, and a Quest... So I was
having a good time until along about p.200 or so, I started realising
that nothing much had happened for awhile, except that the Evil Villain
(and/or his minions) was chasing the heroine (and/or her Faithful
Friends, and always with her Cute Doggie) through varying landscapes,
over and over again. I'm sorry to report that this is pretty much what
happens in the rest of the book. The ending's pretty soggy, too.
[from my review at SF Site, ims]
Her weakest novel yet, imo.
> Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda -
> >Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
>
> This is SF, not Fantasy.
>
> The best book with Niven's name on it in 30 years, which
> says to me that Cooper is a person to watch.
>
> This is rather A GIFT FROM EARTHish: an elite, operating out
> of what they see as necesssity, is prepared to commit a terrible
> atrocity to preserve humanity. The story is told from the POV of
> one of the people who will pay the bill, someone who fairly reasonably
> prefers not to see herself as an expendible crewmember.
And here's James' full review:
http://www.bookforumz.com/ftopicp-118773.html
AOL, basically. A cheerful, enjoyable book, though not without flaws:
"B/B+"
Yeah, Cooper is one to watch. I partic. liked a previous Niven collab,
"Ice and Mirrors", a taut, well-done thriller.
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
Book Reviews: http://www.sfsite.com/revwho.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-reviews/-/A3GHSD9VY8XS4Q/
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk//nonfiction/reviews.htm
Google "Peter D. Tillman" +review for many more!
Mike Schilling
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:dn4csk$ief$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>>isbn: 0765301482 - Dzur (Vlad) - by Steven Brust (Tor Books)
>
> Embarassing admission: not actually a Brust fan any
This one hasn't yet been published. (Come to think of it, that may not mean
*you* haven't read it yet.).
James Nicoll
Yeah, but even if I had read it, I might not remember reading
it. I don't know why, either. I have no good reason to be Brust-blind.
It set in around the time of DRAGON.
Gene Ward Smith
James Nicoll wrote:
> >isbn: 0765312980 - Return to Quag Keep - by Andre Norton, Jean Rabe (Tor
> >Books)J
>
> Why, God, Why?
>
> On the one hand, this is clearly a labour of love. On the other,
> it's a sequel to the worst book Andre Norton ever wrote. Plus it has a A
> moment of fan-wankery that makes FALLEN ANGELS look subtle.
I think it's great she is able to keep so actively writing these days.
Both the 2005 and the 2006 lists were loaded with her stuff.
>
> >isbn: 0765314983 - An Old Friend of the Family - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor
> >Books)J
>
> This is a Saberhagen Dracula book but I don't remember anything
> beyond that. It's an early one and I find with this series, earlier is
> better.
I think it's the first in the series in terms of when it was written,
and a good place to start on it.
> >isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda -
> >Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
>
> This is SF, not Fantasy.
>
> The best book with Niven's name on it in 30 years, which
> says to me that Cooper is a person to watch.
Great news! It's probably Cooper, but it would be nice if Niven found
his brain somewhere.
> >isbn: 076531584X - Mathematicians in Love - by Rudy Rucker (Tor Books)
Gotta love that title.
James Nicoll
Peter D. Tillman <Til...@toast.net_DIESPAMMERSDIE> wrote:
>In article <dn4csk$ief$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> Memory - by Linda Nagata (Tor Science Fiction)
>>
>> A young girl explores a world subject to sudden rearrangements
>> by "silver", which readers will spot as magical nanotech (the sort that's
>> infinitely maliable and doesn't have to worry about crap like energy
>> or heat), discovering some parts of her world's lost history in the
>> process.
>>
>> It's been a couple of years since I read this (It was an April
>> 2003 release so I would have seen it in 2002). I remember that it was
>> not really my thing but that it might appeal to people who liked VENTUS.
>>
>
>Well, I liked VENTUS, but didn't much care for MEMORY. It's a pretty
>neat setup, an appealing combination of a half-understood high-tech
>background, a likeable heroine, a nasty villain, and a Quest... So I was
>having a good time until along about p.200 or so, I started realising
>that nothing much had happened for awhile, except that the Evil Villain
>(and/or his minions) was chasing the heroine (and/or her Faithful
>Friends, and always with her Cute Doggie) through varying landscapes,
>over and over again. I'm sorry to report that this is pretty much what
>happens in the rest of the book. The ending's pretty soggy, too.
>[from my review at SF Site, ims]
>
>Her weakest novel yet, imo.
>
James Nicoll
Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
>
>James Nicoll wrote:
>
>> >isbn: 0765312980 - Return to Quag Keep - by Andre Norton, Jean Rabe (Tor
>> >Books)J
>>
>> Why, God, Why?
>>
>> On the one hand, this is clearly a labour of love. On the other,
>> it's a sequel to the worst book Andre Norton ever wrote. Plus it has a A
>> moment of fan-wankery that makes FALLEN ANGELS look subtle.
>
>I think it's great she is able to keep so actively writing these days.
>Both the 2005 and the 2006 lists were loaded with her stuff.
>
2005. Tor went to some trouble to make sure that she had a copy in her
hands of her final solo book before her death.
She has some advantages from POV of a publisher: she had a
huge backlist, mostly of the same quality (QK is an exceptional case),
so someone who liked one of her books would probably like the others
(I myself cannot stand the Witchworld books but her SF is ok). She was
by all accounts easy to work with (Perhaps too self-effacing to the
point that I cannot recall any anecdotes about her). The main draw-
back is that her older books are too short for today's market, which is
why they are often bundled together.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
wrote:
>>isbn: 0765310260 - The Wizard Lord : Volume One of the Annals of the Chosen
>> - by Lawrence Watt-Evans (Tor Books)
>
> A young man volunteers for a position of some responsibility,
>albeit a responsibility that might never come up during his term of
>office: he is one of the checks and balances that keeps the system
>of governance functioning.
>
> The odds of him _not_ having to deal with a glitch in the system
>were about a million to one (Note: not set in a PTerryverse).
Well, hey, there wouldn't be a _story_ if nothing went wrong.
> No disrespect intended by the following: This reminded me a lot
>of the sort of books David Duncan writes.
Why would I consider that disrespectful? Dave Duncan's got a pretty
good reputation. I haven't actually read any of his work, but maybe I
should -- you aren't by any means the first person to compare my
writing to his.
> This is a fairly straight
>forward exploration of the implications of the world-rules Watt-Evans
>has selected, told from the point of view of someone who is in a position
>to need to learn what those implications are.
Yup, that pretty much describes it.
--
Read the latest Ethshar novel online! http://www.ethshar.com/thesprigganexperiment0.html
Mike Schilling
> In article <Neklf.36424$6e1....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>,
> Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
>>news:dn4csk$ief$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>>>>isbn: 0765301482 - Dzur (Vlad) - by Steven Brust (Tor Books)
>>>
>>> Embarassing admission: not actually a Brust fan any
>>> more. Don't know why. All the Vlads blur together in my mind.
>>
>>This one hasn't yet been published. (Come to think of it, that may not
>>mean
>>*you* haven't read it yet.).
>>
>
> Yeah, but even if I had read it, I might not remember reading
> it. I don't know why, either. I have no good reason to be Brust-blind.
>
> It set in around the time of DRAGON.
That's news. I'd seen it described elsewhere as directly following Issola.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <1133893019....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
>>
>>James Nicoll wrote:
>>
>>> >isbn: 0765312980 - Return to Quag Keep - by Andre Norton, Jean Rabe (Tor
>>> >Books)J
>>>
>>I think it's great she is able to keep so actively writing these days.
>>Both the 2005 and the 2006 lists were loaded with her stuff.
>>
> Unfortunately, she died of congestive heart failure on March 17,
>2005. Tor went to some trouble to make sure that she had a copy in her
>hands of her final solo book before her death.
>
> She has some advantages from POV of a publisher: she had a
>huge backlist, mostly of the same quality (QK is an exceptional case),
>so someone who liked one of her books would probably like the others
>(I myself cannot stand the Witchworld books but her SF is ok). She was
>by all accounts easy to work with (Perhaps too self-effacing to the
>point that I cannot recall any anecdotes about her).
I have a couple, but not worth repeating here, except to mention that
twenty-some years ago she got a new agent (I believe her old one was
retiring), and he was absolutely horrified to find out how small her
advances were, and what kind of terms she'd been accepting --
apparently she felt it was unladylike to ask for any changes, or she
was just too shy, and her former agent was one of these "If you're
okay with it, I don't mind taking my percentage without doing any
work" types.
Her advances immediately tripled, and went up from there. Alas, that
meant she made enough money to attract swindlers, so she didn't
actually wind up keeping all the added income -- she was a very nice
person, too nice for her own good.
Nancy Lebovitz
James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>In article <Xns9723C472C89D...@69.28.186.121>,
>Paul D. Lusk <pl...@radford.edu> wrote:;
>
> Short bar stories, in a universe where a fairly benevolent
>alien race has run the galaxy for billions of years. Pleasant fluff,
>with dark moments.
How much of it is new?
>
>
(_Tatja Grimm_)
> Minor, old Vinge (In general, the better a Vernor Vinge book
>is, the more recent it is).
There aren't too many authors you can say that about.
>
>
>>isbn: 0765312271 - Crystal Rain - by Tobias S. Buckell (Tor Books)
>
> Buckell is an author to keep an eye one.
>
> This is set on a world that suffered a horrific war that
>happened to pass the low tech regions of the system over (in much
>the same way that a nuclear war in 1963 might have passed over Head
>Smashed In, Alberta on account of having N nukes and NxY possible
>targets), although the sudden loss of the upper end of the economy
>had serious long term effects.
>
> The antagonists are still around and have a Cunning Plan,
>not unlike the Schlieffen Plan as implimented by Aztecs, to unify
>the upstart humans (or as many as they allow to survive) under
>their rule. Not all the Old Tech is gone but the people who know
>how to use it and where it is are rare and do not all have the
>same agenda.
>
> Definitely worth a look.
Thanks for the heads-up. There's remarkably little on the list that
looks promising.
Admittedly, some of it is by authors I haven't heard of that I might
like, but most of it seems to be authors or series I've written off.
>>isbn: 0765314908 - The Carpet Makers - by Andreas Eschbach (Tor Books)
I've reached the point where I not only hate Orson Scott Card, I'm ready
to hate anything he recommends.
I read the first section, a stand-alone story which exemplifies Card's major
crazinesses.
>>isbn: 0765303302 - The Armies of Memory - by John Barnes (Tor Books)-
I'll keep an eye out for that one.
>>isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda -
>>Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
>
> This is SF, not Fantasy.
>
> The best book with Niven's name on it in 30 years, which
>says to me that Cooper is a person to watch.
>
> This is rather A GIFT FROM EARTHish: an elite, operating out
>of what they see as necesssity, is prepared to commit a terrible
>atrocity to preserve humanity. The story is told from the POV of
>one of the people who will pay the bill, someone who fairly reasonably
>prefers not to see herself as an expendible crewmember.
Didn't Brenda Cooper write some fantasy novels quite a while ago?
>
>
>>isbn: 0765309300 - The Clan Corporate : Book Three of The Merchant Princes
>> - by Charles Stross (Tor Books)
>
> This is Charles' take on LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN, informed
>by a grasp of modern economics. It's a lot more fun than the word
>economics may imply.
I might follow the series. The first book wasn't bad, though kind of
diffuse.
>
>
>>isbn: 0312856849 - Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge (Tor
>>Books)
>
> Unfortunately Charles Stross's blurb for this is better than
>what I will come up with. Bastard.
>
> It's the future, which is better in most respects than the present.
>The capacity for wide-wpread disruption has grown with the GDP but there
>are people whose jobs it is to detect and prevent such things. Unfortunately,
>definitions of what constitutes a threat differ.
>
> Told from the points of view of various high school students, from
>genuine teens to geezers on their second pass through life.
>
> Features the most appalling information storage system that I
>have read.
>
> This would be a recent Vinge and therefore one of the better ones.
I'm looking forward to it, though I'm wondering about the world of "Rainbow's
End". Is there any explanation of why the kid hadn't had any previous
exposure to the pleasures of learning? (I'm hoping I remember the story
adequately.)
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://livejournal.com/users/nancylebov
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
Nancy Lebovitz
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 18:26:59 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>Nicoll) wrote:
>
>> She has some advantages from POV of a publisher: she had a
>>huge backlist, mostly of the same quality (QK is an exceptional case),
>>so someone who liked one of her books would probably like the others
>>(I myself cannot stand the Witchworld books but her SF is ok). She was
>>by all accounts easy to work with (Perhaps too self-effacing to the
>>point that I cannot recall any anecdotes about her).
>
>I have a couple, but not worth repeating here, except to mention that
>twenty-some years ago she got a new agent (I believe her old one was
>retiring), and he was absolutely horrified to find out how small her
>advances were, and what kind of terms she'd been accepting --
>apparently she felt it was unladylike to ask for any changes, or she
>was just too shy, and her former agent was one of these "If you're
>okay with it, I don't mind taking my percentage without doing any
>work" types.
>
>Her advances immediately tripled, and went up from there. Alas, that
>meant she made enough money to attract swindlers, so she didn't
>actually wind up keeping all the added income -- she was a very nice
>person, too nice for her own good.
Did her habitual niceness/compliance get echoed in her books?
James Nicoll
20 years ago, her primary publisher was Ace, right?
>Her advances immediately tripled, and went up from there. Alas, that
>meant she made enough money to attract swindlers, so she didn't
>actually wind up keeping all the added income -- she was a very nice
>person, too nice for her own good.
>
Well, crap.
Did she at least get her own cult of personality or was she
too shy for that?
James Nicoll
I know nothing of Andre Norton. However, I note two things:
A recurring plot device in the Witch World books is the
geas, where perfectly harmless* people find the fish hook of fate
dragging them through a plot that they otherwise might have prefered
to avoid. Free will plays a surprising small role in WW.
Her Time Trader novels for Tor are set in the original
continuity from the 1950s versions. The Baen TT novels were
rewritten to remove what were felt to be dated references.
James Nicoll
* Except for elfy-boy from one series, who was a total ass.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>>On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 18:26:59 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
>>Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>( Andre Norton )
>
>>
>>Her advances immediately tripled, and went up from there. Alas, that
>>meant she made enough money to attract swindlers, so she didn't
>>actually wind up keeping all the added income -- she was a very nice
>>person, too nice for her own good.
>
>Did her habitual niceness/compliance get echoed in her books?
>--
From the ones that come to mind (Murdock Jern, Dane Thorson), her heroes
were not rebels, but people forced into adventure by circumstances.
ted
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Not all that obviously, though her heroes were generally far from
cantankerous.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <31nbp1ppks0m2lkj0...@news.rcn.com>,
>Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
[Regarding Andre Norton]
>>I have a couple, but not worth repeating here, except to mention that
>>twenty-some years ago she got a new agent (I believe her old one was
>>retiring), and he was absolutely horrified to find out how small her
>>advances were, and what kind of terms she'd been accepting --
>>apparently she felt it was unladylike to ask for any changes, or she
>>was just too shy, and her former agent was one of these "If you're
>>okay with it, I don't mind taking my percentage without doing any
>>work" types.
>
> 20 years ago, her primary publisher was Ace, right?
It was somewhat more than twenty that she got the new agent, I think,
but yes, Ace was her publisher at the time.
>>Her advances immediately tripled, and went up from there. Alas, that
>>meant she made enough money to attract swindlers, so she didn't
>>actually wind up keeping all the added income -- she was a very nice
>>person, too nice for her own good.
>>
> Well, crap.
>
> Did she at least get her own cult of personality or was she
>too shy for that?
She did indeed have her own cult of personality, with some very nice
devotees. I'm not sure how much she actually _wanted_ it, though.
David Cowie
[Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge]
> Features the most appalling information storage system that I
> have read.
could you elaborate on that, or would it be a spoiler?
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 18074:51
James Nicoll
David Cowie <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:05:40 +0000, James Nicoll wrote:
>
>[Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge]
I missed that (Zones of Thought): This book is not
in that universe, because
SPECIFICS WARNING
the ZOT are specifically mentioned as a crappy idea from bad fiction.
>> Features the most appalling information storage system that I
>> have read.
>
>could you elaborate on that, or would it be a spoiler?
It's not a spoiler but telling you might reduce some of the
horror any right thinking person should have when the system is
first described.
James Nicoll
Nancy Lebovitz <nan...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <dn4csk$ief$1...@reader2.panix.com>,
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>In article <Xns9723C472C89D...@69.28.186.121>,
>>Paul D. Lusk <pl...@radford.edu> wrote:;
>>>isbn: 0765308630 - The Draco Tavern - by Larry Niven (Tor Books)
>>
>> Short bar stories, in a universe where a fairly benevolent
>>alien race has run the galaxy for billions of years. Pleasant fluff,
>>with dark moments.
>
I don't recall, sorry, and that's one of the ones I had to send back.
I don't note pub dates in reports and anyway, that's one of the ones that
I lost. Tor's website doesn't seem to say and the link that supposedly
leads to a site on Niven doesn't (but then, my predominantly Mennonite
high school's website is more up to date than Tor's. How many organizations
can say "We got our asses kicked by Anabaptists?").
I think there's one new one in there but I am not sure. Otherwise,
they span something like 30 of the 40 years Niven has been writing SF.
Gene Ward Smith
James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <1133893019....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
> Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
> >I think it's great she is able to keep so actively writing these days.
> >Both the 2005 and the 2006 lists were loaded with her stuff.
> >
> Unfortunately, she died of congestive heart failure on March 17,
> 2005.
Yes, but the point is it doesn't seem to have affected her output any.
James Nicoll
Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
>
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> In article <1133893019....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
>> Gene Ward Smith <gws...@svpal.org> wrote:
>
>> >I think it's great she is able to keep so actively writing these days.
>> >Both the 2005 and the 2006 lists were loaded with her stuff.
>> >
>> Unfortunately, she died of congestive heart failure on March 17,
>> 2005.
>
>Yes, but the point is it doesn't seem to have affected her output any.
>
will be revelations to you?
Charlie Stross
as <jdni...@panix.com> declared:
>>isbn: 0312856849 - Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge (Tor
>>Books)
>
> Unfortunately Charles Stross's blurb for this is better than
> what I will come up with. Bastard.
Dunno if they'll use it, but:
"Welcome to 2040. They've cured Alzheimer's and you're going back to
school. Bad news: so are the terrorists."
(Which might even be a spoiler for the first five or six pages ...)
> This would be a recent Vinge and therefore one of the better ones.
Scratch that: I'm voting this for best novel Hugo of 2006. And it'll
take something truly spectacular to shove it off the throne.
-- Charlie
Dr. Dave
Lawrence, I like your writing just fine, but "The Wizard Lord : Volume
One of the Annals of the Chosen" just screams "extruded fantasy
product!" to me.
Dave Tate
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Well, yeah -- I'm trying to make money, after all.
Wayne Throop
: Dave Duncan's got a pretty good reputation. I haven't actually read
: any of his work, but maybe I should -- you aren't by any means the
: first person to compare my writing to his.
It's true, you two "feel similar" to me also. In a good way.
Not identical, and I wouldn't get confused or anything, but similar.
Actually, come to think of it, I can't really think of two more similar
authors, to my eye. Hm. Maybe Zelazny and Brust, but I think lots
of people have looked at me funny when I say that. But I digress.
IMO, FWIW, YMMV, VWP, I would recommend his "Man of His Word" series.
You'd have to read the entire first trilogy to get to the payoff, so
if you happen not to like it, you'd be tempted to quit with nagging
unresolved issues, but even so. To be honest, I'm not sure why,
but it's probably one of my favorites of Duncan's, and in some ways,
"feels most like" LWE. Again, IMO, etc, etc.
For some reason I like the covers. Of the first trilogy anyways.
The second, not quite so much. The second trilogy ends with a nice
scene roughly something like (minor spoiler, don't have the exact quote)
"V pnyy hcba gur Tbq bs Erfphrf!"
"Gurer vf ab Tbq bs Erfphrf."
"Gurer vf abj!"
The first trilogy also ends with a nifty scene (after the climax rather
than right at it), depicted on the third cover. Luckily, you probably
won't understand the picture until you read the book, so it's not a spoiler.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
sigi...@yahoo.com
James Nicoll wrote:
> >isbn: 0765308630 - The Draco Tavern - by Larry Niven (Tor Books)
>
> Short bar stories, in a universe where a fairly benevolent
> alien race has run the galaxy for billions of years. Pleasant fluff,
> with dark moments.
He's been doing these for about thirty years now. The earlier ones are
better -- no surprise there -- but one or two of the new ones are OK.
> >isbn: 0765308851 - Tatja Grimm's World - by Vernor Vinge (Tor Books)
>
> Minor, old Vinge (In general, the better a Vernor Vinge book
> is, the more recent it is).
Completists will want it as Vinge's first or second take on the
question of how superintelligence might work. (I think "Bookworm,
Run!" might be the first. That's the one with the chimp with Google in
his head.)
> >isbn: 0812520831 - Xanadu 2 - edited by Jane Yolen (Tor Books; Reprint
> >edition)
Huh. I just picked up the first one.
> >isbn: 0765315025 - The Ghost Brigades - by John Scalzi (Tor Books)
>
> This is the sequel to OLD MAN'S WAR, involving one of the
> supporting characters from that book.
> Decently written.
Scalzi's weblog is pretty good.
The relationship between good blogging and good fiction writing remains
unclear. Data collection is in progress.
> >isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda -
> >Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
>
> The best book with Niven's name on it in 30 years, which
> says to me that Cooper is a person to watch.
That would be since... Mote? (I consider Mote a pretty good book,
despite the bad biology and the presence of Jerry Pournelle.)
> This is rather A GIFT FROM EARTHish: an elite, operating out
> of what they see as necesssity, is prepared to commit a terrible
> atrocity to preserve humanity.
That sounds more like RINGWORLD ENGINEERS.
> >isbn: 0765352796 - Cowl - by Neal Asher (Tor Science Fiction)
>
> Incoherent, awful time travel book.
Aw, it wasn't /that/ bad. Needed one more pass by the editor, but it
did punch the sensawunda button.
> >isbn: 0765353261 - Thieves' World: Enemies of Fortune - by Lynn Abbey (Tor
> >Fantasy)
Cripes. There's no killing TW, is there.
> >isbn: 0765312107 - Ardneh's Sword - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor Books)
Nor this one either... Hm, another series that's been going since the
1970s. With Draco's Tavern and Thieve's World, that makes three on
this list alone.
Why am I not seeing this as a good thing?
> >isbn: 0765313561 - Firebird - by R. Garcia y Robertson (Tor Books)
Hey, he's back. Didn't he go away for a while?
> >isbn: 0765313251 - Grease Monkey - by Tim Eldred (Tor Books)
> >isbn: 0312856849 - Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge (Tor
> >Books)
>
> Told from the points of view of various high school students, from
> genuine teens to geezers on their second pass through life.
Same future as that novella from 2000 or so? You know, California
school kids gearing up for the Singularity?
I was underwhelmed. Is the novel better?
> >isbn: 0765349116 - The Dragon Quintet - by Tanith Lee, et al (Tor Fantasy)
I haven't read her in forever. Is this any good?
> >isbn: 0765313022 - Quag Keep - by Andre Norton (Tor Books)
>
> The worst book Norton ever wrote, this is a fantasy based
> on D&D, complete to tumbling Dice O Doom.
>
> I cannot fathom why this has been reprinted.
You just said it. It's the First D&D Novel, man. Bad is beside the
point. It's like pointing out that _The Skylark of Space_ has silly
dialogue.
> >isbn: 0765347954 - The Stonehenge Gate - by Jack Williamson (Tor Science
> >Fiction)
I tried to read a piece of this in that one issue of Analog that I
bought as an experiment. Couldn't.
Still, good for him that he's still in there swinging.
> >isbn: 0765301482 - Dzur (Vlad) - by Steven Brust (Tor Books)
>
> Embarassing admission: not actually a Brust fan anyks)
> more. Don't know why. All the Vlads blur together in my mind.
Same here. I'm not sorry I read them, I might read another, but...
> >isbn: 0765314932 - Time for the Stars - by Robert A. Heinlein (Tor Books)
Heeyyyy. Probably my favorite Heinlein juvenile. (No, don't even.
This is an aesthetic and sentimental judgment, not really subject to
critical analysis.)
Great to see it back in print, but -- did I read this right?
Hardcover?
> I read and reread this as a teen.
Hey, m3 t00!
I did a book report on it for fourth grade.
> Although I could (and have)
> pointed out various problematic elements to the book, I think a lot
> of modern would-be YA SF writers could learn a lot from what made
> RAH's YA fiction so compelling.
Firm agreement. Story, story, story. Even bogged down with big chunks
of exposition; even with a clunky Caine Mutiny plot tacked on.
Were you shocked when ***** ***** died? I sure was.
-- What an eclectic list. Tor is the one with multiple editors, right?
Doug M.
Chuk Goodin
>> No disrespect intended by the following: This reminded me a lot
>>of the sort of books David Duncan writes.
>
>Why would I consider that disrespectful? Dave Duncan's got a pretty
>good reputation. I haven't actually read any of his work, but maybe I
>should -- you aren't by any means the first person to compare my
>writing to his.
I hadn't thought of it myself, but yes, that's a pretty accurate
comparison. And his stuff is good, too (although he does seem to have a
bit of a bug about prophecies).
--
chuk
James Nicoll
It's fantasy written with an SFnal mindset: "Here are the rules.
What are the consequences?"
Niall McAuley
>>Lyn McConchie (Tor Books)
I noticed that the 2005 list included:
>Hardcover:
>isbn: 0765313278 - Beast Master's Planet : Omnibus of Beast Master and Lord
>of Thunder - by Andre Norton (Tor Books)
which is the Good Old Norton. I assume this Quest thingie is a sequel by
McConchie?
--
Niall
David A Molnar
>>>isbn: 0765309300 - The Clan Corporate : Book Three of The Merchant Princes
>>> - by Charles Stross (Tor Books)
>>
>> This is Charles' take on LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN, informed
>>by a grasp of modern economics. It's a lot more fun than the word
>>economics may imply.
> I might follow the series. The first book wasn't bad, though kind of
> diffuse.
I just finished the second. I hadn't realized it was a split, which
explains why the ending is so abrupt. Even so, I didn't like it quite
as much as the first. There's one point in particular that bugged me,
in which the protagonists suddenly realize something crucial to the plot
and treat it as a new discovery...except one of them already pointed it
out to herself at the beginning of the first book. Sure, maybe she forgot
in the meantime (understandable given all that's going on), but it
was still jarring.
I'll probably read the third, though, to see if there's any kind of
resolution. Beyond that, we'll see.
-David Molnar
Wayne Throop
: cgo...@sfu.ca (Chuk Goodin)
: I hadn't thought of it myself, but yes, that's a pretty accurate
: comparison. And his stuff is good, too (although he does seem to have
: a bit of a bug about prophecies).
And gods. Lots of gods.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> James Nicoll wrote:
>
> -- What an eclectic list. Tor is the one with multiple editors, right?
Pretty much every publisher has multiple editors (though I think John
Ordover is the one-and-only SF editor guy at Phobos), but Tor has more
editors than everybody else put together. (Although lots of them are
"consulting editors," which means they can bring books to Tor, but might
only have one or two a year, if that.)
Unless you mean multiple editors *per book*, which nobody really does.
--
Andrew Wheeler
--
I have fallen to the dark side:
antickmusings.blogspot.com
James Nicoll
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>
>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>
>> -- What an eclectic list. Tor is the one with multiple editors, right?
>
>Pretty much every publisher has multiple editors (though I think John
>Ordover is the one-and-only SF editor guy at Phobos), but Tor has more
>editors than everybody else put together. (Although lots of them are
>"consulting editors," which means they can bring books to Tor, but might
>only have one or two a year, if that.)
>
>Unless you mean multiple editors *per book*, which nobody really does.
>
ObALIKELYSTORY: A LIKELY STORY, whose hapless protagonist has at
least three editors for his book over the course of the story. This
is, ah, not a good thing.
Nancy Lebovitz
>>
>> Minor, old Vinge (In general, the better a Vernor Vinge book
>> is, the more recent it is).
>
>Completists will want it as Vinge's first or second take on the
>question of how superintelligence might work. (I think "Bookworm,
>Run!" might be the first. That's the one with the chimp with Google in
>his head.)
I'm fond of having an sf magazine as the major cultural unifier.
Mike Schilling
>
> ObALIKELYSTORY: A LIKELY STORY, whose hapless protagonist has at
> least three editors for his book over the course of the story. This
> is, ah, not a good thing.
At least he has some fun with one of them.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Here is Amazon is showing for Tor, 2006 (Science Fiction & Fantasy)
>
> Tor
> Year: 2006
> [JAN]
> isbn: 0765312980 - Return to Quag Keep - by Andre Norton, Jean Rabe (Tor
> Books)
It has very little in common with _Quag Keep_ in style and concerns, and
it does seem odd that it suddenly exists now. But it is a perfectly
respectable fantasy novel in the modern style.
> isbn: 0765309920 - Wolfblade (The Hythrun Chronicles: Wolfblade Trilogy,
> Book 1) - by Jennifer Fallon (Tor Books)
I didn't manage to read as much of this as I wanted to, but I enjoyed
all I managed to read. Fallon had a nice grasp of interpersonal politics
here, and I found her people well-drawn as well.
> [FEB]
> Hardcover:
> isbn: 0765312271 - Crystal Rain - by Tobias S. Buckell (Tor Books)
I liked it, and I'll second most of what James said.
> isbn: 0765314371 - Voidfarer : A Tale of the Moonworlds Saga - by Sean
> McMullen (Tor Books)
This is a hell of a lot of fun. I like the way McMullen destroys stuff
(though it might be time for him to get a different plot, before his
planet completely falls apart from the strain).
> Paperback:
> isbn: 0765312158 - The Book of Ballads - by Charles Vess (Tor Books)
Vess is a wonderful illustrator, and this is a collection of old folk
ballads, adapted as comics scripts by various (generally pretty famous)
people and illustrated very well by Vess. Anyone with even the slightest
interest in folk music or folktales should own this.
> isbn: 0812543459 - Where Crawls the Lizard? (Spider-Man, No 2) - by Marvel
> Comics (Tor Books)
Tor is doing Marvel comics stuff now? I did not know that...
> [MAR]
> Hardcover:
> isbn: 0765303302 - The Armies of Memory - by John Barnes (Tor Books)
Just arrived on my desk today; it's the fourth and last in what I think
of as the Glum Planets series (_A Million Open Doors_ and so on). I
obviously haven't read it.
> isbn: 0765305240 - Phantom (Sword Of Truth) - by Terry Goodkind (Tor Books)
This is currently scheduled to be published in August, since Goodkind
hasn't turned it in yet.
> [APR]
> Hardcover:
> isbn: 0765313200 - In the Eye of Heaven - by David Keck (Tor Books)
I'm reading this right now, and I'm very impressed. It's a relatively
realistic knightly fantasy novel set in an (invented-world) Dark Ages,
with not a hint of Arthuriana about it. (Well, except for a mythically
recurrent love triangle, but that would be a huge stretch to peg as
purely Arthurian.) If the end is as good as the beginning and middle,
it'll be one of the best fantasies of 2006. (Right now, it's seeming to
me like the book I hoped Gene Wolfe's last diptych would be.)
> isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda
> Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
A solid SF novel dealing with real problems that can't be solved through
technobabble, populated with believable characters. As others have said,
it's not fantasy.
> [MAY]
> Hardcover:
> isbn: 0765312107 - Ardneh's Sword - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor Books)
This is the first in a trilogy that is supposed to span the time between
_Empire of the East_ and _The Swords Trilogy_. I wasn't aware that there
was a crying need for such a thing, but there it is.
> isbn: 0765315629 - Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology : Stories of
> Science Fiction and Fantasy - by Steven Savile, Alethea Kontis (Tor Books)
What's interesting about this book is that there's a charity anthology
for Katrina that's out already, from some POD group or other. It might
be wonderful, but it looks like it's been thoroughly lapped by the real
world and the rigors of normal publishing schedules.
> isbn: 0765349116 - The Dragon Quintet - by Tanith Lee, et al (Tor Fantasy)
This is actually an anthology of five novellas, edited by Marvin Kaye.
Lee wrote one of them. (The others are by -- if I can remember --
Swanwick, Moon, Card and...I forget.)
> isbn: 0765313022 - Quag Keep - by Andre Norton (Tor Books)
The *original* "you can hear the dice rattling" novel! Accept no substitutes!
> [JUL]
> Hardcover:
> isbn: 0765306174 - The Space Opera Renaissance - by Kathryn Cramer, David
> G. Hartwell (Tor Books)
I'm looking forward to this one myself. I'll probably see it soon, too.
> isbn: 076531441X - The Tourmaline - by Paul Park (Tor Books)
This is the second book in the "Roumania" series.
> [AUG]
> Hardcover:
> isbn: 0765314932 - Time for the Stars - by Robert A. Heinlein (Tor Books)
I think I mentioned here recently that lots of Heinlein's books
(especially the juveniles) had been getting new editions recently. Well,
here's another data point.
> Paperback:
> isbn: 0765315742 - House of Chains : Book Four of The Malazan Book of the
> Fallen - by Steven Erikson (Tor Books)
Yay! This is my current favorite epic fantasy series, and so far I'm
managing to keep up with it...
Robert Sneddon
<m...@privacy.net> writes
>On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:05:40 +0000, James Nicoll wrote:
>
>[Rainbows End (Zones of Thought) - by Vernor Vinge]
>> Features the most appalling information storage system that I
>> have read.
>
>could you elaborate on that, or would it be a spoiler?
It'd be a spoiler. It's a shock when one of the viewpoint characters
runs into it at first and affects him greatly, causing him to do things
that advance the plot. It hit *me* in the gut, and I think it will
affect most readers the same way. The older you are the more likely it
is to have an effect. Afterwards, once the shock wears off and the
rational brain takes over again you can see the advantages of it, and
really there isn't a downside, truly really, but... <shiver>
--
My gmail account is nojay1 Robert Sneddon
Aaron Bergman
wrote:
> IMO, FWIW, YMMV, VWP, I would recommend his "Man of His Word" series.
> You'd have to read the entire first trilogy
...
> second trilogy
Where trilogy here means four books.
Aaron
James Nicoll
his current lover -and- his secret mistress all under one roof.
Boy, there has to be a _giant_ pony under that.
r.r...@thevine.net
Nicoll) wrote:
>>isbn: 0765313022 - Quag Keep - by Andre Norton (Tor Books)
>
> The worst book Norton ever wrote, this is a fantasy based
>on D&D, complete to tumbling Dice O Doom.
>
> I cannot fathom why this has been reprinted.
Because someone wrote a sequel? And heaven knows that, after reading
the sequel, they'd want to come back and read the first book.
Why anyone would want to write a sequel is left as an exercise to the
reader.
Rebecca
Wayne Throop
: Aaron Bergman <aber...@physics.utexas.edu>
: Where trilogy here means four books.
Oh foo, now I have to decide if I was intentionally making the
joke about how trilogies are getting so long these days, or
I was suffering a momentary mento, or I misspelled "quatra" as "tri".
I suppose I really should go with the first one, since I was looking
at the covers on the author's web site, and I'm pretty sure I can
count to four. When the image is right in front of me, I mean.
Or perhaps I should go with honesty? Hm.
Decisions, decisions.
Kurt Busiek
> :: Mon of His Word [...] first trilogy [...] second trilogy
>
> : Aaron Bergman <aber...@physics.utexas.edu>
> : Where trilogy here means four books.
> Oh foo, now I have to decide if I was intentionally making the
> joke about how trilogies are getting so long these days, or
> I was suffering a momentary mento, or I misspelled "quatra" as "tri".
"Tetra," surely?
kdb
--
Read an ASTRO CITY story for FREE, at:
http://www.dccomics.com/features/astro/
Wayne Throop
: Kurt Busiek <kurtb...@aol.comics>
: "Tetra," surely?
I think using tetra would be a bit fishy.
And don't call me... oh wait, you mean the *fish*'s name.
Never mind.
Damien Sullivan
>> >isbn: 0765308851 - Tatja Grimm's World - by Vernor Vinge (Tor Books)
>>
>> Minor, old Vinge (In general, the better a Vernor Vinge book
>> is, the more recent it is).
I re-read it recently, it was still fun. The one I'd like to read again is
_The Witling_.
>Completists will want it as Vinge's first or second take on the
>question of how superintelligence might work. (I think "Bookworm,
>Run!" might be the first. That's the one with the chimp with Google in
>his head.)
Yes. And Tatja was an example of a mostly biotech Singularity. (Vinge has
actually done very little with AIs waking up and eating everyone's brains,
it's mostly been brain-computer interfaces and groupminds.)
>> >isbn: 0765312107 - Ardneh's Sword - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor Books)
>
>Nor this one either... Hm, another series that's been going since the
>1970s. With Draco's Tavern and Thieve's World, that makes three on
Whoah!
Not much of a *series*, unless you're counting all the Swords books or I've
missed something... at least, I'm assuming this one is set earlier in time,
based on 'Ardneh'. I suppose there's no reason to assume anything about it.
If it's another Sword book... enh. The 8th Lost Sword book made me Unhappy.
"For thy pen, for thy pen, which hath wronged me..."
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>> isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda
>> Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
>
>A solid SF novel dealing with real problems that can't be solved through
>technobabble, populated with believable characters. As others have said,
>it's not fantasy.
*Why* does everyone say that?
Did anyone else read _Rainbow Mars_, the expansion of the time travel stories?
It was fun but I don't feel up to judging it.
>> isbn: 0765312107 - Ardneh's Sword - by Fred Saberhagen (Tor Books)
>
>This is the first in a trilogy that is supposed to span the time between
>_Empire of the East_ and _The Swords Trilogy_. I wasn't aware that there
>was a crying need for such a thing, but there it is.
A story linking the vapors of John Ominor to the other Emperor could have been
fun, but I think the last book kiboshed such a thing.
-xx- Damien X-)
Damien Sullivan
>her lost family has as much grasp of modern economics as Louis XVI and all
So, I don't know much about the actual reign. But I read Michael Pollan's
_Botany of Desire_ recently and one of the chapters was on the potato. Which
various enlightened despots thought was very cool and which they tried ramming
down the throats of their conservative peasants.
Except for Louis, who also thought it was cool, but had a different approach.
Instead of ordering people to use it, he tried to make it high status. E.g.
having Marie Antoinette wear potato flowers, and planting potatoes in a garden
which was heavily guarded. "No peasants allowed!" So when the guards failed
to show up at night the potatoes got stolen, the peasants figuring they must
be valuable if they weren't allowed to have them.
I wonder how much simplifying of the truth happened on the way to reality to
Pollan to my brain, but the glimpse of a Louis XVI who was trying to be a good
and subtle improvements king but not quickly enough for the times (or with
enough tax power to balance a budget, perhaps) was intriguing. Outwitting the
peasants, heh.
-xx- Damien X-)
sigi...@yahoo.com
Damien Sullivan wrote:
> Yes. And Tatja was an example of a mostly biotech Singularity. (Vinge has
> actually done very little with AIs waking up and eating everyone's brains,
Well, except for the Blight.
> >Nor this one either... Hm, another series that's been going since the
> >1970s. With Draco's Tavern and Thieve's World, that makes three on
>
> Whoah!
>
> Not much of a *series*, unless you're counting all the Swords books or I've
> missed something...
The Empire of the East trilogy is from the Nixon administration --
1971, give or take. The Swords books started around 1983 IMS.
The Swords and Lost Swords books are set in the same universe as EotE,
and stand in a sequel/prequel relationship. So I don't think it's too
much of a stretch to say they're in the same series.
See also: Thomas Covenant, yet again.
Doug M.
Nancy Lebovitz
Damien Sullivan <pho...@ofb.net> wrote:
>sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>>> >isbn: 0765308851 - Tatja Grimm's World - by Vernor Vinge (Tor Books)
>>>
>>> Minor, old Vinge (In general, the better a Vernor Vinge book
>>> is, the more recent it is).
>
>I re-read it recently, it was still fun. The one I'd like to read again is
>_The Witling_.
Also, it's interesting to see that his habit of using fantasy metaphors
and images in science fiction stories was in place *really* early.
Rich Horton
Sullivan) wrote:
>
>Did anyone else read _Rainbow Mars_, the expansion of the time travel stories?
>It was fun but I don't feel up to judging it.
I hated it. The ideas were cute, but the execution was dreadful. My
main problem was with the writing, on a sentence by sentence,
paragraph by paragraph level. It is truly horridly written, very
difficult to understand.
I really think Niven has all but lost his ability to write prose. The
only recent Niven stories I've been able to read (besides the very
short Draco Tavern stories) are those co-written with Cooper. So I
suspect she is doing something to the prose.
Charlie Stross
as <jdni...@panix.com> declared:
> In article <43962D02...@optonline.com>,
> Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
>>sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>Pretty much every publisher has multiple editors (though I think John
>>Ordover is the one-and-only SF editor guy at Phobos), but Tor has more
>>editors than everybody else put together. (Although lots of them are
>>"consulting editors," which means they can bring books to Tor, but might
>>only have one or two a year, if that.)
>>
>>Unless you mean multiple editors *per book*, which nobody really does.
>>
>
> ObALIKELYSTORY: A LIKELY STORY, whose hapless protagonist has at
> least three editors for his book over the course of the story. This
> is, ah, not a good thing.
In my misbegotten past, as a technical author working for
$EVIL_SOFTWARE_MULTINATIONAL, at one point we were working on an OS
release that eventually shipped more than two years late (on an original
18 month timetable). The techpubs department ran to about fifty people
and I'm convinced half of 'em were engaged in make-work the whole time,
to ensure they weren't laid off. The jobsworths included some editors
who should have known better. Editors were, of course, management-level
employees, and writers ... weren't. Trust me, you do not want to find
yourself writing a software manual at a company where your senior editor
is (a) your line manager (b) technically illiterate and (c) afraid of
not putting enough work on the timesheets to justify their continued
employment. Which is how come I ended up writing and re-writing a
roughly 500 page manual that was edited EIGHTEEN TIMES by AT LEAST FOUR
DIFFERENT EDITORS. (I'm no longer precisely sure how many it was -- it's
all a hideous blur.)
Sorry about the hysterical shrieking and self-mutilation, but *nothing*
I've ever encountered in the commercial publishing world even comes
close. It was very good training for the dot-com-deathmarch-to-IPO that
I later survived, but I suspect it reduced my sanity points to something
asymptotically approaching zero for the duration, and accounts for why I
wrote so little fiction during the first half of the nineties.
-- Charlie
James Nicoll
Damien Sullivan <pho...@ofb.net> wrote:
>acwh...@optonline.com wrote:
>
>>> isbn: 0765351293 - Building Harlequin's Moon - by Larry Niven, Brenda
>>> Cooper (Tor Fantasy)
>>
>>A solid SF novel dealing with real problems that can't be solved through
>>technobabble, populated with believable characters. As others have said,
>>it's not fantasy.
>
>*Why* does everyone say that?
>
If you look just after Cooper's name, it says (Tor Fantasy).
Apparently Amazon has it misfiled.
Mike Schilling
"Rich Horton" <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:66mdp19urqkjahq39...@4ax.com...
Say, writing every word of it.
sigi...@yahoo.com
Rich Horton wrote:
> >Did anyone else read _Rainbow Mars_, the expansion of the time travel stories?
> >It was fun but I don't feel up to judging it.
>
> I hated it. The ideas were cute, but the execution was dreadful.
Starting with the fact that they put the novella at the beginning.
-- If you haven't read these stories... Niven wrote a bunch of time
travel shorts set in the same universe. Taken all together, they
weren't quite long enough to make a decent book. So, when the time
came to collect them, he wrote a novella, which is about 40% of the
final book by page count.
But... the novella assumes you've read all the short stories! The
characters, the concepts, the universe... none of them are explained.
It's very clearly intended as a sequel.
But they put it /first/ in the book. Which must have scared off a lot
of potential new readers, and also, well, _made no frickin sense_.
> main problem was with the writing, on a sentence by sentence,
> paragraph by paragraph level. It is truly horridly written, very
> difficult to understand.
Hmm. Could you give a cite?
-- I had reason to reread Niven's story "Neutron Star" recently.
You know what? That is one well written short story. It's tightly
plotted, the descriptions are vivid, the pacing is exactly right, and
the writing at the sentence-paragraph level is just fine. Yeah, the
physics don't quite work, but you know what? That story was the first
to actually explain tides to me in a way that made sense. (I was, hm,
fourteen or so.) And it's even got a nice crisp punch line.
Niven was a good writer, back then. He really was.
N.B., this is not meant to be another "what the heck happened to Niven"
thread. I'm just saying.
Doug M.
Christopher J. Henrich
Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
> On 6 Dec 2005 13:29:07 -0800, "Dr. Dave" <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>
> >ObCurmudgeon: Do all Tor authors use the same random title generator?
> >
> >Lawrence, I like your writing just fine, but "The Wizard Lord : Volume
> >One of the Annals of the Chosen" just screams "extruded fantasy
> >product!" to me.
>
> Well, yeah -- I'm trying to make money, after all.
Looking through a catalog of office furniture, I found that some of it
was finished in "dragonwood."
Now there's an EFP title that I might want to read.
Actually it was "light dragonwood," and was an inoffensive light wood
finish. Office Max got it wrong. True dragonwood must be intensely
dark, with brilliant red highlights; and it utterly dominates any room
but the very largest. (Perhaps not the best choice for an office.)
Mike Schilling
<sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133970105....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Rich Horton wrote:
>
>> >Did anyone else read _Rainbow Mars_, the expansion of the time travel
>> >stories?
>> >It was fun but I don't feel up to judging it.
>>
>> I hated it. The ideas were cute, but the execution was dreadful.
>
> Starting with the fact that they put the novella at the beginning.
>
> -- If you haven't read these stories... Niven wrote a bunch of time
> travel shorts set in the same universe. Taken all together, they
> weren't quite long enough to make a decent book.
Nowadays, perhaps. I used to own a paperback that was all of the Svetz
stories. _The Flight of the Horse_, I think it was called..
James Nicoll
<sigi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>-- I had reason to reread Niven's story "Neutron Star" recently.
>
>You know what? That is one well written short story. It's tightly
>plotted, the descriptions are vivid, the pacing is exactly right, and
>the writing at the sentence-paragraph level is just fine. Yeah, the
>physics don't quite work, but you know what? That story was the first
>to actually explain tides to me in a way that made sense. (I was, hm,
>fourteen or so.) And it's even got a nice crisp punch line.
>
>Niven was a good writer, back then. He really was.
>
period, four* were nominated for the Nebula and one** won the Hugo.
* Becalmed in Hell, World of Ptavvs, Bordered in Black and Neutron Star.
** Neutron Star.
Chuk Goodin
>>>> No disrespect intended by the following: This reminded me a lot
>>>>of the sort of books David Duncan writes.
>>>
>>>Why would I consider that disrespectful? Dave Duncan's got a pretty
>>>good reputation. I haven't actually read any of his work, but maybe I
>>>should -- you aren't by any means the first person to compare my
>>>writing to his.
>>
>>I hadn't thought of it myself, but yes, that's a pretty accurate
>>comparison. And his stuff is good, too (although he does seem to have a
>>bit of a bug about prophecies).
>
> It's fantasy written with an SFnal mindset: "Here are the rules.
>What are the consequences?"
Yes, and that's my favourite kind of fantasy. His book _The Cursed_ is an
especially fun example of that (and it's also a stand alone novel). Plus
for added bonus points, he's Canadian! (Or at least he lives here
now...good enough.)
--
chuk
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>In article <ni3cp1dfd6if6pc3u...@news.rcn.com>, Lawrence
>Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>
>> On 6 Dec 2005 13:29:07 -0800, "Dr. Dave" <dt...@ida.org> wrote:
>>
>> >ObCurmudgeon: Do all Tor authors use the same random title generator?
>> >
>> >Lawrence, I like your writing just fine, but "The Wizard Lord : Volume
>> >One of the Annals of the Chosen" just screams "extruded fantasy
>> >product!" to me.
>>
>> Well, yeah -- I'm trying to make money, after all.
>
>Looking through a catalog of office furniture, I found that some of it
>was finished in "dragonwood."
>
>Now there's an EFP title that I might want to read.
Oh? Okay -- how _much_ might you want to read it?
--
Read the latest Ethshar novel online! http://www.ethshar.com/thesprigganexperiment0.html
Konrad Gaertner
>
> On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 16:41:27 GMT, "Christopher J. Henrich"
> <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>
> >Looking through a catalog of office furniture, I found that some of it
> >was finished in "dragonwood."
> >
> >Now there's an EFP title that I might want to read.
>
> Oh? Okay -- how _much_ might you want to read it?
Make it an Ethshar book with a sorceror protagonist, and I'll pay
twice what I gave you for _The Spriggan Mirror_.
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: gae...@aol.com
http://www.livejournal.com/users/kgbooklog/
"I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."
-- James Nicoll
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<kgae...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 16:41:27 GMT, "Christopher J. Henrich"
>> <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Looking through a catalog of office furniture, I found that some of it
>> >was finished in "dragonwood."
>> >
>> >Now there's an EFP title that I might want to read.
>>
>> Oh? Okay -- how _much_ might you want to read it?
>
>Make it an Ethshar book with a sorceror protagonist, and I'll pay
>twice what I gave you for _The Spriggan Mirror_.
Oh, dear.
You aren't in any hurry, I hope?
William George Ferguson
<gnmc...@eircom.ten.invalid> wrote:
>"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message news:dn4csk$ief$1...@reader2.panix.com...
>>>isbn: 0765314533 - Beast Master's Quest (Beastmaster) - by Andre Norton,
>>>Lyn McConchie (Tor Books)
>
>I noticed that the 2005 list included:
>
>>Hardcover:
>>isbn: 0765313278 - Beast Master's Planet : Omnibus of Beast Master and Lord
>>of Thunder - by Andre Norton (Tor Books)
>
>which is the Good Old Norton. I assume this Quest thingie is a sequel by
>McConchie?
McConchie is one of the better 'Andre Norton and...' collaborators. She's
written (if I'm remembering right) 3 'sequels' now to the original two
Hosteen Storm books, as well as four Witch World books, starting with Key
to the Keplian. She gets the 'Andre Norton' style and voice fairly well,
but tends to fairly obsessively pair off the main characters (Norton had
no problems in not pairing up the boy and girl at the end of the book,
even in her last novel, Three For Scorpio, she didn't do it).
In her first Arzor book (Beastmaster's Ark), she creates a MaryS...
heroine to pair off with Hosteen Storm (who was remarkably devoid of
romantic interest in the Norton's two books). In the second book
(Beastmaster's Circus), she introduces another heroine to pair of with
Hosteen's half-brother Logan. I can't wait to see if she's going to pair
off Pa Cartwri..., I mean Brad Quade, in this one.
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
Aaron Denney
> On Wed, 7 Dec 2005 09:08:33 +0000 (UTC), pho...@ofb.net (Damien
> Sullivan) wrote:
>
>>
>>Did anyone else read _Rainbow Mars_, the expansion of the time travel stories?
>>It was fun but I don't feel up to judging it.
>
> I hated it. The ideas were cute, but the execution was dreadful. My
> main problem was with the writing, on a sentence by sentence,
> paragraph by paragraph level. It is truly horridly written, very
> difficult to understand.
Agreed. Very, very klunky.
--
Aaron Denney
-><-
frisbie...@yahoo.com
Maybe not for YOUR office....
Howard Brazee
>The Empire of the East trilogy is from the Nixon administration --
>1971, give or take. The Swords books started around 1983 IMS.
>
>The Swords and Lost Swords books are set in the same universe as EotE,
>and stand in a sequel/prequel relationship. So I don't think it's too
>much of a stretch to say they're in the same series.
While they are much later in the same universe, they are so loosely.
One can like either swords or EotE without liking both. The Earth is
different, the myths are different, the style is different.
John F. Eldredge
Incidentally, Hosteen Storm's name was a mistake on Andre Norton's
part. I am sure someone eventually pointed it out to her at some
point after the first book was published, but she had to keep the
character's name for consistency.
From what I have read elsewhere, "Hosteen" is not a given name.
Rather, it is a salutation used by a Navaho-speaker when addressing an
older man. The equivalent would be an Anglo character with the first
name "Mister".
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
ste...@uneedspeed.net
a protege of Zelazny's, as were Jon Walter Williams and Neil Gaiman?
Or am I going senile?
Steve
Damien Sullivan
Depends what you mean by protege. Certainly Brust hugely looks up to Zelazny
and thinks he was a Best Writer (I think) and the POV of Vlad and maybe Jack
Agyar feels a lot like Corwin and other protagoniss of Zelazny. First Person
Smartass. And To Reign in Hell got a nice blurb from Zelazny.
-xx- Damien X-)
Mike Schilling
"Damien Sullivan" <pho...@ofb.net> wrote in message
news:dn9u6c$1if$3...@naig.caltech.edu...
And Brust sometimes talks about the collaboration he was planning to do with
Zelazny had Z. lived longer.
Mike Ralls
>> This would be a recent Vinge and therefore one of the better ones.
>
>
> Scratch that: I'm voting this for best novel Hugo of 2006. And it'll
> take something truly spectacular to shove it off the throne.
Really? Without any big spoilers can you say what made you like it so much?
Thanks,
Mike Ralls
http://mikesbooknotes.blogspot.com/
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy
from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a
precedent that will reach to himself. When men yield up the privilege of
thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. I love the man
that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and
grow brave by reflection. If there must be trouble, let it be in my day,
that my child may have peace."
Thomas Paine
Charlie Stross
> Charlie Stross wrote:
>
>>> This would be a recent Vinge and therefore one of the better ones.
>>
>>
>> Scratch that: I'm voting this for best novel Hugo of 2006. And it'll
>> take something truly spectacular to shove it off the throne.
>
> Really? Without any big spoilers can you say what made you like it so much?
Okay, no spoilers:
1. There's no mention of the "S" word anywhere in it. Which strongly
implies he's consciously breaking away from his previous territory.
Which is a Good Thing. Arguably, there isn't even any AI in it (although
that question is left ambiguous at the end).
2. Quality of characterization is improved over previous novels. He's
got some memorable monsters, and even manages to make them sympathetic.
No simple black or white dualism, no baddy with motives as evil as the
Emergency this time round (even though what they're trying to do is
absolutely horrifying, by implication). He's learned to use a lighter
brush.
3. On a technological/world-building level, his near-future
extrapolation is very solid indeed. Slightly less sure about the political
side, and he doesn't seem to have noticed any signs of climate change --
but the network infrastructure is great, and the bits of his world that
we see hang together well. It's a believable, forty-years-hence
post-9/11 world.
4. There are little touches of humour and hidden easter eggs that not
everybody will get. (Look, a family where the parents are called Bob and
Alice is suspicious enough; when an interrogator called Eve turns up,
this is a howling sign pointing to certain background details.) This is
a novel where knowing what's going on under the hood of the
world-building makes for more enjoyment: I reckon it's going to achieve
cult following among the information-technologically literate.
On the downside:
5. I thought the ending -- specifically, Robert's fate -- was a little
bit too happy, given the climactic events that preceeded it. On the
other hand, the reasons given were plausible in context.
In summary: good characterisation, good world-building, very tight plot,
says something interesting and new about the human condition under
circumstances that will arise at some time in the near future (medical
advances permitting), weirdly: fits the mundane SF manifesto. And it's
his best novel yet, as a novel.
-- Charlie
Damien Sullivan
[Rainbow's End]
>advances permitting), weirdly: fits the mundane SF manifesto. And it's
>his best novel yet, as a novel.
The what? Oh, this?
http://mundanesf.com/default.asp?id=2&mnu=2
I like the spirit, but they jump from "FTL unlikely" to "interstellar trade
unlikely" (fine) to "interstellar colonization unlikely" which I think is
rather a different level, and then seem to winnow things down to staying on
Earth. While that's a possible future I think it's rather less compelling
than "no interstellar trade", especially when they declare robotics, virtual
reality, and nanotechnology open for exploration, since those technologies
make interplanetary activity a lot easier. (VR doesn't make space access
easier, but might make crammed colonies more habitable. Why bother? Perhaps
because you want to get away from Earth governments in the non-VR aspects of
your life. Anyway.)
And I'm not blown away by their chosen 'old' books. Now, Learning the World
or Alastair Reynolds as examples of 'mundane' interstellar... (well, Reynolds
isn't that mundane, but parts are close.) (I guess LtWorld has too many
aliens, though there the oddity of that was an explicit point.)
In between, I guess, is the stuff James wants and only Ben Bova writes...
-xx- Damien X-)
Ord...@aol.com
Charlie Stross wrote:
> Stoned koala bears drooled eucalyptus spittle in awe
> as <jdni...@panix.com> declared:
>
> > In article <43962D02...@optonline.com>,
> > Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
> >>sigi...@yahoo.com wrote:
> >>Pretty much every publisher has multiple editors (though I think John
> >>Ordover is the one-and-only SF editor guy at Phobos), but Tor has more
> >>editors than everybody else put together. (Although lots of them are
> >>"consulting editors," which means they can bring books to Tor, but might
> >>only have one or two a year, if that.)
> >>
> >>Unless you mean multiple editors *per book*, which nobody really does.
> >>
Well, first off, I'm not the only SF Editor at Phobos - I work with my
wife, Carol Greenburg, long-time freelance editor. We also use an
unusual process - I do the story edit on the books, and Carol works
behind me doing the line-edits.
However, no editor works alone. At the very least, copyeditors
contribute an unseen, unheralded, and unsung but sometimes absolutely
vital part of the editorial process. It's amazing how many great
writers and fantastic editors will still fail to notice that if its'
been raining for three days, the horse's hooves should not be kicking
up dust as the hero rides into town, or how many great storytellers
slip up on grammar or accidental swap the names of characters halfway
through a book
How many of you know what's wrong with the phrase opening gambit? (It's
redundant, because a gambit -is- an opening). And so on.
Then there are proofreaders who oftentimes catch flawed typsetting that
could be a real embarassament - think of "the most beatufiful woman in
the swamp" turning into "the moss beautiful woman in the swamp" and how
easy that would be to miss.
Gene Ward Smith
Damien Sullivan wrote:
> I like the spirit, but they jump from "FTL unlikely" to "interstellar trade
> unlikely" (fine) to "interstellar colonization unlikely" which I think is
> rather a different level, and then seem to winnow things down to staying on
> Earth.
The obstacles to intersteller colonization are large ones.
Damien Sullivan
Not nearly as large though, and even less so given the technologies they allow
themselves to posit. "Robotics" and "humanity limited to Earth" just don't go
together that well. For that matter, they seem to rule out extensive space
habitats or terraforming. "Earth is all we have."
They also lump "radio communication between star systems" in with "alien
invasions" and "flying saucers".
-xx- Damien X-)
Joe Bernstein
<jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately,
You know you've been reading rasfw too long when, while reading a
post by James Nicoll, just seeing this word alone is enough to
induce laughter out loud.
-- JLB
Wayne Throop
: You know you've been reading rasfw too long when, while reading a post
: by James Nicoll, just seeing this word alone is enough to induce
: laughter out loud.
Conditioned response.
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Mike Schilling
news:11343...@sheol.org...
> :: Unfortunately,
>
> : You know you've been reading rasfw too long when, while reading a post
> : by James Nicoll, just seeing this word alone is enough to induce
> : laughter out loud.
>
> Conditioned response.
The prototypical Nicoll story (my very favorite bit of which is "I must have
lost my presence of mind")
http://www.monologues.co.uk/004/Bricklayers_Story.htm
(This story, by the way, long predates "Pig in the City").
Anthony Nance
Mike Schilling <mscotts...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"Wayne Throop" <thr...@sheol.org> wrote in message
>news:11343...@sheol.org...
>> :: Unfortunately,
>>
>> : You know you've been reading rasfw too long when, while reading a post
>> : by James Nicoll, just seeing this word alone is enough to induce
>> : laughter out loud.
>>
>> Conditioned response.
>
>The prototypical Nicoll story (my very favorite bit of which is "I must have
>lost my presence of mind")
>
>http://www.monologues.co.uk/004/Bricklayers_Story.htm
>
Wile E. Coyote, soooooper bricklayer.
- Tony
Alexey Romanov
This story is often told by a Russian comic. His tagline is
<rot13>"Guvf pbhyq bayl unccra va Ehffvn."</rot13>
Nix
> Of his first dozen stories, published over about a two year
> period, four* were nominated for the Nebula and one** won the Hugo.
>
>
> * Becalmed in Hell, World of Ptavvs, Bordered in Black and Neutron Star.
Oh, yes. I still have nightmares whenever I read _Bordered in Black_.
What a creepy, creepy story. (Most of his more recent stuff has changed
the spelling a bit and gone in for crappy, crappy stories instead.)
--
`I must caution that dipping fingers into molten lead
presents several serious dangers.' --- Jearl Walker
David McMillan
> :: Unfortunately,
>
> : You know you've been reading rasfw too long when, while reading a post
> : by James Nicoll, just seeing this word alone is enough to induce
> : laughter out loud.
>
> Conditioned response.
Apropos of nothing, I work with someone named Pavlov, who is indeed a
distant relative of the Dr. He's a good sport about it, though,
probably in part b/c so few people pick up on the reference.
David McMillan
Now I suddenly have an image of James Nicoll, as the protagonist of
that URL, but SFnally upgraded -- a beanstalk, a few cable-linked
cargo pods, just a little sub-Tunguska collateral damage....
Ord...@aol.com
Even interplanetary trade is unlikely within the solar system. A quick
look around our neighborhood fails to show anything worth the cost of
going back and forth to get. It's interesting how many SF fictional
universes require the assumption that space travel and/or star travel
is quick and cheap, and that there are things out there it is worth
going back and forth to get. Again limiting out vision to the solar
system it seems we have our choice between -really hot rocks- and
-really cold rocks- and that's about it.
Now let's move past reality and assume a civilization on Mars that is
about at our level. While a visit back and forth might occur once or
twice, the rest of the trading would most likely be in information -
after all, what could they have there they couldn't radio us the
chemical formula for, or the designs for, or the manufacturing process
for - or vice-versa? Either we have the natural resources on hand to
build it or we don't - what could be worth it to the Martians for us to
ship them oil, or them to ship us <fill in the blank>, when it costs
billions of dollars, minimum, for us or them to do so?
So the barrier to even interplanetary trade is very high - either the
cost of interplanetary cargo flights has to come -way- down, the value
of what can be found there go -way- up, or both.
See, the analogy on which so much of SF is built - that to the European
colonization of the world via wooden ships - is false. The wooden
ships were cheaper -and- multi-purpose (a warship and a trading ship
and an exploring ship were basically the same things, they had
thousands of them lying around and could redirect a few - and lose a
few - without losing much). Also wind power was free, if you'll pardon
me, as the air, while in space even the air isn't free.
So it's not that there will -never- be interstellar travel, but the bar
is -really- high and the core "manifest destiny" analogy just isn't
true.