Fantastika

Night of Knives – Ian C. Esslemont

books and books review, fantasy
Published on

Cover of Night of Knives


Night of Knives
Ian C. Esslemont
284 pages
published in 2005

I’m always wary of books set in another writer’s world. Normally therefore I would’ve skipped this book, as it’s set in Steven Erikson’s Malazan universe. But as it turns out this isn’t a book by a new writer using an established colleague’s world to make a name for himself, as Ian Esslemont was in at the creation of Malazan from the start. Erikson and Esslemont had first met in 1982 on an archeological ditch and recognising kindred spirits, set out to create their own fantasy world. Scroll down roughly two decades and Erikson is the first to get his part of the world published with Gardens of the Moon, but it was always the idea that Esslemont would follow. As Erikson says in the introduction, this is not fan fiction, but Esslemont’s part of the enterprise. Malazan is too big an universe for one writer, but two?

Night of Knives fills in the backstory to some of the plot twists not explained in Erikson’s novels, but nobody will mistake it for his own work. It missed the widescreen, epic feel of the Erikson books, being set in a single place during a single day and night. Night of Knives also misses the deep layer of allusion, hint and complexity Erikson loads on to his epics. It’s much easier to follow and much more straight forward; it might make a good starting point for people curious about Malazan.

Read more…

Prador Moon – Neal Asher

books and books review, science fiction
Published on

Cover of Prador Moon


Prador Moon
Neal Asher
248 pages
published in 2006

When I read The Voyage of the Sable Keech last year I dind’t realise at first it was part of a series of novels and quite late in the series too, which rendered it slightly more confusing than it needed to be. What I should’ve gotten instead is Prador Moon. It’s a prequel to the main series, set much earlier in its internal chronological order, doesn’t depend on knowledge of other books in it and is also a much simpler story altogether. Prador Moon is a straightforward tale of interstellar war, proper space opera. It all starts when the Polity, Asher’s star-spanning a.i.-cracy ruled from Earth central, comes up against the first alien race ever encountered by humans, the titular Prador.

Said Prador are a race of aliens looking something like a very large landcrab with slightly too many legs and which are very much a race of magnificent bastards, reveling in their evil. They can’t help it, biology makes them do it. A Prador’s life is full of danger, being reared in creches to serve their Father as loyal servants, stormtroopers and occasional food source, kept under control by pheromones. The biggest, meanest and most intelligent of the children become First Children, with some limited indepence and the potential to challenge their father’s supremacy. Whether there are female Prador is not mentioned. A Prador lives to conquer and subjugate and their whole society is built around conflict, which is why the first diplomatic meeting between humanity and the Prador was cut short when the ambassador didn’t surrender immediately, as was the ambassador himself…

Read More…

M. John Harrison recommends

fantasy
Published on 2 Comments on M. John Harrison recommends

Some good fantasy:

  • The House on the Borderland, 1908, William Hope Hodgson
  • The Wind in the Willows, 1908, Kenneth Grahame
  • The Great Return, 1915, Arthur Machen
  • From Ritual to Romance, 1920, Jessie L Weston
  • Nosferatu, 1922, dir FW Murnau
  • Mr Weston’s Good Wine, 1927, TF Powys
  • War in Heaven, 1930, Charles Williams
  • The Green Child, 1935, Herbert Read
  • At the Mountains of Madness, 1936, HP Lovecraft
  • At Swim-Two-Birds, 1939, Flann O’Brien
  • Fantasia, 1940, dir Walt Disney
  • The Journal of Albion Moonlight, 1941, Kenneth Patchen
  • That Hideous Strength, 1945, CS Lewis
  • The Martian Chronicles, 1950, Ray Bradbury
  • Mazirian the Magician, 1950, Jack Vance
  • E Pluribus Unicorn, 1953, Theodore Sturgeon
  • V, 1956, Thomas Pynchon
  • The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957, dir Jack Arnold
  • The Vodi, 1959, John Braine
  • The Alexandria Quartet, 1957-1960, Lawrence Durrell
  • A Fine & Private Place, 1960, Peter Beagle
  • The Stealer of Souls, 1963, Michael Moorcock
  • The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, 1963, Joan Aiken
  • I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, 1964, Joanne Greenberg
  • The Magus, 1966, John Fowles
  • All Along the Watchtower, 1967, Bob Dylan
  • Mooncranker’s Gift, 1973, Barry Unsworth
  • The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, 1974, dir Werner Herzog
  • Diamond Dogs, 1974, David Bowie
  • Ritual Animal Disguise, 1977, EC Cawte
  • Stalker, 1979, dir Andrei Tarkovsky
  • The Bloody Chamber, 1979, Angela Carter
  • The Fall of the House of Usher, 1981, dir Jan Svankmajer
  • Mythago Wood, 1984, Robert Holdstock
  • Halo Jones, 1984, Alan Moore & Ian Gibson
  • Rain Dogs, 1985, Tom Waits
  • Blue Velvet, 1986, dir David Lynch
  • The Mortmere Stories, 1994, Edward Upward & Christopher Isherwood
  • Jumping Joan, 1994, dir Petra Freeman
  • Institute Benjamenta, 1995, dir The Brothers Quay
  • The Voice of the Fire, 1996, Alan Moore
  • Lost Highway, 1997, dir David Lynch
  • Simon Magus, 1999, dir Ben Hopkins
  • The Dream Archipelago, 1999, Christopher Priest
  • Under the Skin, 2000, Michel Faber
  • Ratchet & Clank, 2002, Insomniac Games
  • The Carpet Makers, 2006, Andreas Eschbach
  • Peter & the Wolf, 2006, dir Suzie Templetonv
  • The Night Buffalo, 2007, Guillermo Arriaga
  • Night Work, 2008, Thomas Glavinic

A great list and the best thing is that despite its variety and the hodgepodge of media represented here (books, comics, movies, even videogames) this still looks like a coherent whole, a list created from a (sub?)conscious aesthetic. If I could spot a theme here it’s of fantasy not as a creator of secondary worlds, independent of the real world, but of fantasy as a creative force playing with our own perceptions of reality. It’s also interesting to spot the omissions, partially deliberate as Harrison wanted to avoid ‘both the Tolkien-boomers and their Dark Other, the Peake “tradition”’.

McAuley on the essential fortyfour fantasy novels

fantasy
Published on

As a sequel to his list of fortyeight essential science fiction titles, Paul McAuley has now revealed a similar list of fortyfour essential fantasy and horror titles and he’s asking for help to bring the list up to fifty. Like the other list, it is to be used in teaching a creative writing class or something like that and there’s a not quite arbitrary cutoff year of 1984. Bolded are the ones I read, struck through the ones I don’t think belong. Notice by the way that both lists start with the same book.

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus MARY SHELLEY 1818
Tales of Mystery and Imagination EDGAR ALLAN POE 1838
A Christmas Carol CHARLES DICKENS 1843
Jane Eyre CHARLOTTE BRONTE 1847
The Hunting of the Snark LEWIS CARROLL 1876
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde ROBERT LOUIS STEPHENSON 1886
The Well At The World’s End WILLIAM MORRIS 1896
Dracula BRAM STOKER 1897
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary MR JAMES 1904
Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things LAFCADIO HEARN 1904
The Wind in the Willows KENNETH GRAHAME 1908
Jurgen JAMES BRANCH CABELL 1919
A Voyage to Arcturus DAVID LINDSAY 1920
The King of Elfland’s Daughter LORD DUNSANY 1924
The Trial FRANZ KAFKA 1925
Lud-in-the-Mist HOPE MIRRLEES 1926
Orlando VIRGINIA WOOLF 1928
The Big Sleep RAYMOND CHANDLER 1939
The Outsider and Others HP LOVECRAFT 1939
Gormenghast MERVYN PEAKE 1946
Night’s Black Agents FRITZ LEIBER JR 1947
The Sword of Rhiannon LEIGH BRACKETT 1953
Conan the Barbarian ROBERT E HOWARD collected 1954
The Lord of the Rings JRR TOLKEIN 1954-5
The Once and Future King TH WHITE 1958
The Haunting of Hill House SHIRLEY JACKSON 1959
The Wierdstone of Brinsingamen ALAN GARNER 1960
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase JOAN AIKEN 1962
Something Wicked This Way Comes RAY BRADBURY 1963
The Book of Imaginary Beings JORGE LUIS BORGES 1967
Ice ANA CAVAN 1967
One Hundred Years of Solitude GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ 1967
Earthsea URSULA LE GUIN 1968-1972
Jirel of Joiry CL MOORE collected 1969
Grendel JOHN GARDNER 1971
The Pastel City M JOHN HARRISON 1971
Carrie STEPHEN KING 1974
Peace GENE WOLFE 1975
Gloriana, or the Unfulfill’d Queen MICHAEL MOORCOCK 1978
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories ANGELA CARTER 1979
Little, Big JOHN CROWLEY 1981
The Anubis Gates TIM POWERS 1983
The Colour of Magic TERRY PRATCHETT 1983
Mythago Wood ROBERT HOLDSTOCK 1984

Like his science fiction list, this is interesting as it both shows a fairly consistent take on fantasy and horror, consistent with the earlier list, as well as some strong clues to his own influences. There’s a lot of pre-Tolkien British fantasy/weird fiction on the list, quite a few recognised literay classics as well as a fair smattering of intelligent genry fantasy, again mostly pre-Tolkien, and finally the sort of fantasy equivalent to New Wave science fiction like Moorcock’s Gloriana.

It’s cutoff date means it misses a fair few important writers I would’ve put on my list (Glen Cook, Steve Brust, Mary Gentle, Steve Erikson, George R. R. Martin), as does its bias against genre fantasy (Stephen Donaldson for one). The one writer that really jumps out at me however, that fits the mood of the list is Avram Davidson, whose collection Or All the Seas with Oysters should be on it, as it’s an excellent collection by a master of the American fantasy tradition at the peak of his powers.

(The reason I struck out The Big Sleep is not that it’s a bad book, but it’s neither fantasy nor horror in my opinion.)

McAuley’s fifty fortyeight essential sf titles

science fiction
Published on 2 Comments on McAuley’s fifty fortyeight essential sf titles

Yesterday, Paul McAuley put up a list of what he thinks are the fortyeight essential science fiction titles. As per usual, I’ve bolded the ones I’ve read and struck through the ones I dislike.

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus MARY SHELLEY 1818
Journey to the Centre of the Earth JULES VERNE 1863
After London RICHARD JEFFRIES 1885
The Time Machine HG WELLS 1895
The House on the Borderland WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON 1912
We YEVGENY ZAMIATIN 1924
Brave New World ALDOUS HUXLEY 1932
Star Maker OLAF STAPLEDON 1937
1984 GEORGE ORWELL 1949
I, Robot, ISAAC ASIMOV 1950
The Martian Chronicles RAY BRADBURY 1950
The Dying Earth JACK VANCE 1950
Childhood’s End ARTHUR C CLARKE 1953
The Space Merchants CM KORNBLUTH & FREDERIK POHL 1953
Tiger! Tiger! ALFRED BESTER 1956
The Death of Grass JOHN CHRISTOPHER 1956
The Seedling Stars JAMES BLISH 1957
The Midwich Cuckoos JOHN WYNDHAM 1957
Starship Troopers ROBERT A HEINLEIN 1959
A Canticle for Liebowitz WALTER M MILLER JR 1959
Solaris STANSLAW LEM 1961
Hothouse BRIAN ALDISS 1962
A Clockwork Orange ANTONY BURGESS 1962
Cat’s Cradle KURT VONNEGUT JR 1963
Martian Time-Slip PHILIP K DICK 1964
Dune FRANK HERBERT 1965
The Crystal World JG BALLARD 1966
Flowers For Algernon DANIEL KEYES 1966
Lord of Light ROGER ZELAZNY 1967
Nova SAMUEL R DELANY 1968
Pavane KEITH ROBERTS 1968
The Left Hand of Darkness URSULA K LE GUIN 1969
Roadside Picnic ARKADY AND BORIS STRUGATSKI 1969
334 THOMAS M DISCH 1972
Dying Inside ROBERT SILVERBERG 1972
The Fifth Head of Cerberus GENE WOLFE 1972
Ten Thousand Light Years From Home JAMES TIPTREE JR 1973
The Forever War JOE HALDEMAN 1974
Inverted World CHRISTOPHER PRIEST 1974
The Female Man JOANNA RUSS 1975
Arslan MJ ENGH 1976
The Ophiuchi Hotline JOHN VARLEY 1977
The Final Programme MICHAEL MOORCOCK 1968
Kindred OCTAVIA BUTLER 1979
Engine Summer JOHN CROWLEY 1979
Timescape GREGORY BENFORD 1980
Neuromancer WILLIAM GIBSON 1984
Divine Endurance GWYNETH JONES 1984

An interesting list. You can’t really argue with it, as it is after all a personal list of essential titles. It is very New Wave orientated: Roberts, Ballard, Dick, Priest, Moorcock, Delany, Le Guin, Disch undsoweiter, but with some surprises. I wouldn’t have expected to see Starship Troopers on this list based on what else is on it. On the whole, for anybody who wants to get acquainted with this particular strand of science fiction: literary, somewhat gloomy and less interested in the hard sciences than the soft sciences, this would be a good start.

In terms of McAuley’s own writing this list also makes a lot of sense. You can see the influences at work in his own novels and stories.