SERVANTS OF THE WANKH
Wonder if the US edition is called "Slaves of The Wrist"...?
Found this in a junk-shop in Psychbloke's Stokes Croft manor, this morning. Couldn't resist posting it. No tittering at the back, now.
(Title aside, some of Jack Vance's stuff is seriously underrated...good, solid SF Adventure fare)
Science Fiction used to be so much more fun back in those days. And I mean that in a resolutely Anti-Nostalgiac non-Camp way...
I wouldn't wipe my arse on most of the worthy toss that infests book-shops these days. Call that Sci-Fi...yaaaaaawn. 'Course, I blame Cyber-fucking-Punk (dreary, badly-dated, overwritten Eighties shite banged out by acne-riddled sociology nerds; it's the pop-literature equivalent to an LP by Bruce Hornsby & The Range...all gated-snares and twiddly-bits; wallowing like a pot-bellied hog in its own 'modernity'...) for the downfall of modern SF, same as Alan Moore and Frank Miller helped kill US comics...
Cyber-Punk proved to be a false dawn for SF and opened the floodgates for a bunch of spotty academic wannabes...even the name's a misnomer; maybe it should be called Cyber New Wave....New Wave as in Huey Lewis and The News, Cyndie Lauper, Billy Joel...music made by People Who Think They're Hip for People Who Definitely Aren't...but even the term New Wave makes it sound more interesting than it actully is...20+ years on, and Cyber-Punk is proving to be an anchor around the neck of Pop Culture, a permanently-engaged handbrake that's nearly as big as The Beatles. 'Nu' SciFi is dominated by Third Generation CP groupies, career-opportunist hacks and New Scientist subscribers (Warren Ellis, we've got your number, boyo!)...
Psychbloke and I were chewing the cud on this and similar topics in the pub last night...we both loath Science Fantasy/Sword & Sorcery, but love Moorcock, etc. Reclaim the best of yr past before the bastards resell it to you...
"Whatever happened to all the fun in the world?"
posted by I am not Kek-w @ 8:57 PM
8 Comments:
There's almost no escapism in science fiction anymore.. I love Peter F Hamilton & Alistair Reynolds, but it's almost as if they have to make everything scientifically plausible..they're all using the same types of starflight and weapon specs.
In Ralph Milne Farley's The Radio Man the lead guy misses the planet he's aiming for and hits Venus instead..which is inhabited by giant warring ants and bees. I think a few of the guys around now could do with a dose of Burroughs or Edmond Hamilton.
Moorcock's science fantasy was much more imaginative than it's contemporaries, and darker. No fucking hobgoblins and unicorns.
And when was the last time you saw a modern book with a good cover?
Wholeheartedly agree- but I do not remember contributing anything of use to this debate - as I recall I had entered a state of shambling sweaty incoherence long before we hit the Croft, but hey, it was good to see you man! Let's not wait for the Finns next time.....
(And we never made it to Kickers.....)
Did you ever read Drinking Saphire Wine by Tanith Lee? Wonderful hippy feminist S.F. utopian Non -sense!!! aa true joy... but wot do i know?
"...but wot do i know?" Well, quite a bit, mate, as it happens.
"And when was the last time you saw a modern book with a good cover?" Amen to that, Dom...too many fucking post-grad design students with Apple Macs...we need pie-eyed hippies fucked on skunk designing SF book covers...the sort of maniacs that do the covers for Finnish and US Psych and Acid-Folk rekkids!
"as I recall I had entered a state of shambling sweaty incoherence long before we hit the Croft..." Well, you made perfect sense to me! And you got yr photo taken by that psychology groupie...!!! Yeah, it was great to see you all too...I had a t'riffic time before, during and after the gig! Let's do it again sometime, but, er, differently!
with you on the cyberpunk comments...never yet managed to get through one...insufferably dull and obvious;pulling at strings of prescience that never really needed to be pulled...
Good titles though...
Confession time: I was partial to a bit of CP (Cyberpunk, not corporal punishment!) when it first started...can't bear Gibson's stuff now; it's awful. It's dated very badly...but his new stuff is crap too; overwraught & overwritten...
Still partial to some of Bruce Sterling's stuff, tho'...the rest though...it's all a bit Post Lou Reed Dadrock, ain't it? Old blokes wearing mirror-shades and yapping on about hacking...
I'm not sure if you even check up on this stuff anymore, but I'd just like to say that I kind of liked The Accidental Time Machine from Joe Haldeman. I know Forever War is a victim of this perpetual military-SF business, but ATM broke free from the present assault of military thugs, vampiric highlander romances, and environmental apocalypses. Not trippy, but not commercial, either.
HEY there, ISIYC...
One of the cool things about Blogger is the fact that it alerts you when old posts get some comment action...
Sadly, the only Joe Haldeman I ever read was The Forever War - so many years ago that it makes me blush - loved it at the time, tho no idea how well it's stood the test of time...I'll keep an eye out for The Accidental Time Machine - tips like that are always welcome! Thanks for dropping by!
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