The Kiwifarms Unofficial Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club

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crowabunga said:
Do you have a source on this? I recalled it from somewhere, used it as a piece of trivia once, and then couldn't find a source for the life of me, and it's been niggling me ever since.
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I haven't found anything specific (although he wrote a parody of HPL early on in his career). I'm pretty sure they never met (the parody was apparently based on a memoir written by Wandrei), but his early work is often reminiscent of HPL (and other influences of HPL) and on an occasion or two they were both published in the same issue of Weird Tales.

That was a really small, insular community and it would be surprising if they never encountered at least each other's work.
 
Haven’t cracked the book open yet, but just on the topic of Bradbury I read both Fahrenheit 451 and There Will Come Soft Rains in school and that absolute goon shit absolutely had something to do with my love of sci-fi.
There Will Come Soft Rains in particular is just haunting. And the Hound from Fahrenheit 451 is still the coolest and scariest police robot to me, it’s a robotic K-9 unit you are fucked if it’s after you.
And to me personally, sci-fi and short stories go together like ham and cheese.
 
I love The Strawberry Window. Greatest story ever but inappropriate for spooky month, it's the antidote to everything scary. Cthulhu? Azathoth? lmao don't care. Tell us again about the salmon.

I named my bike Genevieve (because it cost all the money had in the bank and now don't have, but who gives a blast in hell; also because Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris). The best Russian translator, (((Nora Gal))) -- most Commie sci-fi writers were men but most translators were women -- did an excellent job but mangled the title of the song so no one gets my clever reference, sadface.jpg.
 
Gonna start The October Country today. Work got crazy and I still had to finish the current litrpg junkfood novel I was consooming yesterday.

The dedication being to August Derleth gives me a good feeling though.
 
Finished the first October Country story. Good stuff.

Also finished Poul Anderson's "The Broken Sword" today.

This is one of the big modern fantasy works, almost as important as Tolkein or Robert E. Howard. It's a fairly short book with a slow pace. The book obviously mixes in tons of Scandinavian and Northern European folklore, story-telling tradition, and history. It's a wonderfully told story, with well-realized internal-logic. The atmosphere and detail are perfect. The only issue, if any, is that Anderson isn't the best at action scenes. However, everything is executed well. I'd call this one of the big masterpieces I've read this year, alongside "Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang" and "Dune". I'm surprised that Anderson wrote this so early in his career too.

It's incredibly easy to see the influence this novel has had on modern fantasy. Hell, I'd say that it sure captured Michael Moorcock's imagination and led to him creating Elric of Melnibone.

There are a lot of things to enjoy about this book. It's like a fine spirit. The detail is magnificently executed. The one thing I really like is that Anderson captures the early Christians as being stuck in this sort of "half-conversion" and paints a window into a time where pagan beliefs were fading away for Christianity. Yet, he still paints all the fantastic stuff as being effectively seperate and quasi-alien. A really good look into this "alien-ness" of the Fey was Skafloc's reaction to the tragic revelation that the undead gave him.

The characters are well realized, for the time they're given. I'll admit, I also thought of Link when I was reading the descriptions of Skafloc. Perhaps one could trace a line from those games all the way to this novel as well. Valgard is a very fun antagonist. I feel like every major character in the novel could have had an extended spinoff.

Great novel, but it's a slow burn. There's tons to appreciate about it. There's tons of allusions to Northern European myth, folklore, operas, and the like.

Poul Anderson peaked early in his career. Sheesh.
 
I reread one of the Xanth books the other day and somehow memory holed Piers Anthony being a fucking creep. I'm honestly surprised something crazy hasn't come out about him.
 
I bought the book on a whim after seeing the post in the community happenings thread. I'm a little surprised that this is horror and not science fiction, but I guess it makes sense being October and all.

I thought the first story was okay, but The Next in Line is just fantastic. Extremely well written with so many great evocative lines.
 
A-Stump said:
I reread one of the Xanth books the other day and somehow memory holed Piers Anthony being a fucking creep. I'm honestly surprised something crazy hasn't come out about him.
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He's a british man who moved to Florida for a long time and based Xanth's geography off of Florida.

I hear his very early "serious" SF stuff is alright, but he just went off the rails with everything else.
 
Finished The Dwarf and The Next In Line.

The Dwarf
This one was a little bit goofy. The final twist with Ralph seeing himself as the ugly dwarf didn't feel all that satisfying.

The Next In Line
This one was pretty good. It reminds me a little bit of Poe in that it's a character driving themselves mad until ultimately dying. Definitely sympathized with Marie in this one, especially having worked in a lab where medical research was done (nothing made me feel more mortal than seeing a brain shaved like truffle and examined under a microscope). I still dunno how I feel about Joseph and Marie's marriage because it seems like they were already quite at odds before the story began. She asked Joseph to not bury her in Mexico but he seemed to anyway - was he just glad to be rid of her?
 
I'm planning on reading one story from The October Country each night and so far, so good.

The Dwarf had a strong start but the ending was a big let down; I'd have taken the cliche ending any day.

The Next in Line was a definite page turner. The sequence in the catacomb was riveting, Bradbury really built the sense of panic as we follow Marie racing down the line of bodies and her descent into insanity was wonderfully feverish.
 
I started The October Country today, after picking up my mom's copy.
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And I was pleasantly surprised to find this dank dwarf art.
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But, for the story itself... It made me think about lolcows, and how us farmers treat them. Would Aimee have been better off just letting the lil guy do his thing? Yes, but her heart was in the right place. Was Ralph bad for ordering a new mirror? ...not technically, but he knew what he was doing. It's like the people that fuck with cows, "for their own good", by reporting their accounts and shit. Sure, it can look totally innocent from an outside perspective, but if you know what's really going on...

i also imagined the dwarf as Cyraxx, and that was fun
 
anliteralidiot said:
I started The October Country today, after picking up my mom's copy.
View attachment 7994015
And I was pleasantly surprised to find this dank dwarf art.
View attachment 7994020
But, for the story itself... It made me think about lolcows, and how us farmers treat them. Would Aimee have been better off just letting the lil guy do his thing? Yes, but her heart was in the right place. Was Ralph bad for ordering a new mirror? ...not technically, but he knew what he was doing. It's like the people that fuck with cows, "for their own good", by reporting their accounts and shit. Sure, it can look totally innocent from an outside perspective, but if you know what's really going on...

i also imagined the dwarf as Cyraxx, and that was fun
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it's kinda strangely fitting that Kiwis get to read this one.
 
If you want a genuine horror story about AI that is probably coming, try With Folded Hands by Jack Williamson.

You may think a novel(ette) about the inevitable consequences of AI would be pretty recent, but no, this is from 1947.

And it does not involve malevolent AI. It involves AI that care about us so much that it reduces us to pets to keep us from hurting ourselves.

This is actually way more terrifying than Skynet. Because the AIs would be doing this for our own good.

1947.

Not like we haven't been thinking about this for a while.
 
anliteralidiot said:
Would Aimee have been better off just letting the lil guy do his thing?
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She would have been better off trying to extend a hand in friendship rather than in pity. Ralph was right in that he didn't need the capacity to indulge his delusions at home by himself.

Aimee wanted the quick bleeding heart white woman victory where she does a nice, but ultimately low-effort, gesture and gets to feel good about herself 'fixing' someone she doesn't even understand. She thinks she understands Bigelow because she read some of the pulp stories he cranked out but instead of using that as a stepping stone to get to know him better, she just made up her mind about what he needed.

tbh I think both Aimee and Ralph were equally guilty because neither of them treated the dwarf like a person

There's a quote I highlighted that really shows how Aimee sees the dwarf as more of a inspirational object rather than a person:
“It’s because I know he’s different,” she said, looking off into darkness. “It’s because he’s something we can never be—you and me and all the rest of us here on the pier. It’s so funny, so funny. Life fixed him so he’s good for nothing but carny shows, yet there he is on the land. And life made us so we wouldn’t have to work in the carny shows, but here we are, anyway, way out here at sea on the pier.
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"He should be working in the carny shows but isn't it so inspiring that he's doing real people things? And even though we work in the carny shows too, we're here for a different reason. We're not made for this place, not like he is. That's why it's so remarkable that he is doing things that only normal people like us should be doing!"

maybe I'm just reading too much into it though
 
AnOminous said:
If you want a genuine horror story about AI that is probably coming, try With Folded Hands by Jack Williamson.

You may think a novel(ette) about the inevitable consequences of AI would be pretty recent, but no, this is from 1947.

And it does not involve malevolent AI. It involves AI that care about us so much that it reduces us to pets to keep us from hurting ourselves.

This is actually way more terrifying than Skynet. Because the AIs would be doing this for our own good.

1947.

Not like we haven't been thinking about this for a while.
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If I do remember correctly, that short story got turned into a novel in the '40s, and then Williamson proceeded to make a sequel to that novel in the 70s.

I need to check all three out. The novella has been collected a lot of times, so any random kiwi can luck into it at a used bookstore.

Fcret said:
She would have been better off trying to extend a hand in friendship rather than in pity. Ralph was right in that he didn't need the capacity to indulge his delusions at home by himself.

Aimee wanted the quick bleeding heart white woman victory where she does a nice, but ultimately low-effort, gesture and gets to feel good about herself 'fixing' someone she doesn't even understand. She thinks she understands Bigelow because she read some of the pulp stories he cranked out but instead of using that as a stepping stone to get to know him better, she just made up her mind about what he needed.

tbh I think both Aimee and Ralph were equally guilty because neither of them treated the dwarf like a person

There's a quote I highlighted that really shows how Aimee sees the dwarf as more of a inspirational object rather than a person:


"He should be working in the carny shows but isn't it so inspiring that he's doing real people things? And even though we work in the carny shows too, we're here for a different reason. We're not made for this place, not like he is. That's why it's so remarkable that he is doing things that only normal people like us should be doing!"

maybe I'm just reading too much into it though
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The lesson of "don't milk the cows" is as old as dirt, eh?

It's a wonderful little story that has some pretty dark implications if you spend time thinking about any of them. Bradbury's pretty skilled at that.
 
Old King Koaleamos said:
Strangely haven't heard you sperg about R. A. Lafferty but I figure it's because his shit's really scarce. He's got some downright whacky and strangely based stuff.
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I'm oddly unfamiliar with most of his stuff, even though he published a lot in Galaxy, one of the early magazines I read cover to cover in library collections. I mean I know it, but I never really got obsessed with him.
 
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