Equinoctial, Old Hundredth, Roog and Chun the Unavoidable

September 23, 2019 12:37 AM

Equinoctial PDF by John Varley

Old Hundredth by Brian Aldiss

Roog by Philip K. Dick

Liane the Wayfarer by Jack Vance

Black Air by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Most Famous Little Girl in the World by Nancy Kress

The Detective of Dreams by Gene Wolfe

All but Equinoctial are courtesy of Free Speculative Fiction Online, an incredible resource of which I can only complain of one lack: Nothing by Ursula K. Leguin. But given the wealth of writers male and female, that is not a fatal flaw.

posted by y2karl (17 comments total)

See also Cryptic by Jack McDevitt.
posted by y2karl at 1:17 AM on September 23, 2019

What is this?
posted by Spritzu at 1:58 AM on September 23, 2019 [2 favorites]

It appears to be a post about an archive called "Free Speculative Fiction Online"
posted by thedaniel at 2:24 AM on September 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

Nice, thanks!
posted by Literaryhero at 4:27 AM on September 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

Surprising number of "Williams" represented

Conrad Williams (6)
Herb Williams (1)
Liz Williams (9)
Lloyd Williams (1)
Ralph Williams (2)
Robert Moore Williams (9)
Sean Williams (20)
Tad Williams (3)
Walter Jon Williams (3)
posted by sammyo at 4:29 AM on September 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

This is just to say that I was hoping for one (two?) more Williams.
posted by moonmilk at 4:53 AM on September 23, 2019 [2 favorites]

This is just to say
I have not
posted
the Williams
that wrote some things

And that you were
probably hoping
to see here.

Forgive me.
There were so
many Williams
already.
posted by Naberius at 5:57 AM on September 23, 2019 [11 favorites]

Roog!
posted by hypnogogue at 6:34 AM on September 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

It appears to be a post about an archive called "Free Speculative Fiction Online"

In part.
posted by y2karl at 7:24 AM on September 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

If you want more, I recommend archive.org. They have a tremendous amount-- they seem to specialize in nice clean scans.

There collection of If and Galaxy magazines are very valuable if you're interested in older sf.

Unfortunately, neither of their contents seem to show up if you just do an ordinary search.

I especially commend Costello, Hero by Theodore Sturgeon as fascinating for this era.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:31 AM on September 23, 2019 [2 favorites]

Nancy Kress predicted the jumpsuit fad of the late 2010s!
posted by exceptinsects at 10:03 AM on September 23, 2019

Surprising number of "Williams" represented

Clones.

This is just to say that I was hoping for one (two?) more Williams

There will be more clones soon.

Nancy Kress predicted the jumpsuit fad of the late 2010s!

Guess what the clones will be wearing.
posted by sexyrobot at 11:12 AM on September 23, 2019 [4 favorites]

One author turned out to be exactly the person I thought she might be -- Janis Ian. Now that was a blast from the past.
posted by y2karl at 12:25 PM on September 23, 2019 [1 favorite]

Two of my favorite stories in this list. Roog and Liane the Wayfarer.

I got to spend the day with Jack Vance at his house, along with a handful of other people. It was a few years before he died when I did a little work on the Vance Integral Edition. He was writing his last novel at the time, Lurulu. He would head off to write for a few hours a couple of times during the day.

Liane the Wayfarer was in his first book. I don't think he got any better as a writer over the years, though. He just started as good as you can get. There are at least a dozen books that he wrote that on any given day might be considered his best work.

Let me add two more from Free Speculative Fiction that I like: The Eyes Have It, by Philip Dick, and Allamagoosa, by Eric Frank Russell.
posted by Xoc at 8:53 PM on September 23, 2019 [8 favorites]

The Best of Eric Frank Russell is long out of print, but well worth picking up a used copy.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:59 PM on September 23, 2019 [2 favorites]

...A burly outdoorish man strode by them, and Tozzo saw that this was Jack Vance. Vance, he decided, looked more like a big game hunter than anything else . . . we must beware of him, Tozzo decided. If we got into any altercation Vance could take care of us easily.

-- from The Waterspider by Philip K Dick

That's for you, Xoc. I have a copy of that January 1964 If and cracked up when I read that paragraph. I share your assessment of Jack Vance. And Emphyrio is my favorite.

I have mentioned elsewhere that after seeing a very pricey two volume set of The Hainish Cycle which contained Ursula K. Leguin's Hainish novels, novelettes and short stories, I wrote via the Jack Vance website mentioned The Hainish Cycle and pitched the concept of a similar two to three volume set entitled The Gaean Reach by Jack Vance and wrote the concept had merit. (I couldn't help myself...)

And some weeks later got a very nice email from his son John thanking me for my input and said he and his associates were thinking about it. I was so giddy. That was neatest thing that happened to me since Johnny Guitar Watson left me two voicemails after I mailed him a fan boy letter plus gushy review of his last album that I wrote for The Rocket, a local music monthly.
posted by y2karl at 10:51 PM on September 23, 2019 [3 favorites]

See also The Genre Artist.
posted by y2karl at 11:46 PM on September 23, 2019 [2 favorites]