I haven't read that, but alarm bells go off whenever I see anthropoidal cats or talking dogs in a story.

I've only read a couple of things by C.J. Cherryh. One was the first of the "Cyteen" books which I remember as being pretty boring. The second was a Hugo award winning short story called "Cassandra" that I thought was pretty good.




Are the reviews at Amazon astroturfed? Probably. On the other hand, I've decided that it is almost impossible to find good quality reviews that match my taste in literature. Sturgeon's Law says that 90% of everything is crap. The problem is no one can seem to agree on what the good 10% actually is. I also think that the average reader is no more discriminating than the average tv viewer. Some of the most popular authors churn out mediocre garbage year after year and millions of people eat it up.

Rating systems don't work when you have

1) Astroturfing
2) People viewing everything they read from a political angle
3) Mega fans of a particular genre or of a big name author who can't be impartial
4) Snobs infected with Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome who automatically say something is brilliant because they are afraid to admit that they don't understand it.
5) Idiots.


On top of all that, a lot of people have random irrational quirks that make or break a book or movie in their eyes. My dad hates movies that contain flashbacks for instance. I have a friend who hates movies that are snowy and/or darkly lit. Me? I hate stories that are full of squalor like Angela's Ashes or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.


The bottom line is: it's hard to find good things to read. My addendum to Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. 99.99% of critics are full of crap.







Next up:




It's not very good. This is the third Gemmel book that I've read and all three of them have featured the ancient trope where a man and woman hate each other at first sight only to fall madly in love soon after. This is also the third example of a major character having a past he is not too proud of going on a request to redeem himself. One of the things that I liked about the first book in the series that I read, Legend, was that it had a little bit of a mythical feel to it. This book is earthier; it's more violent and rape-y. The author also really overdoes the cynicism of the main character. We get it. There's no need for every sentence that comes out of his mouth to be something about how cold and dark the world is.



Next:




Meh. Worms of the Earth really didn't need a sequel. Bran Mak Morn is written as kind of a putz which doesn't help matters.


Next:


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Mennonite -

Have you checked out any of the Malazan stuff?

Based on your standards, I think you might find that it fits and is worthwhile.

Adrian Tchaicjovsky (spelling may be off) is someone I’ve found recently. I’m currently reading his Children of Time.

Found him with One Day this will all be Yours, which is an excellent novella.

K.J. Parker’s 16 Ways to defend a Walled City is also pretty excellent. One of the better things I’ve found the past few years.
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Both books by Tchaikovsky, Children of TIme, and Children of Ruin are great reads. He has a new one out that I haven't made time to read yet.
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I really liked both as well. And I hate spiders. Guy can weave a story.
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I really liked Children of Time, but I wasn't crazy about Children of Ruin. It wasn't bad, but it seemed like he was treading on some of the stuff he had already covered in the first book.



I've only read the first four Malazan books. Deadhouse Gates was definitely my favorite of the four. I really liked the Chain of Dogs stuff.

One Day All This Will Be Yours is actually a follow-up to a short story called “The Mouse Ran Down." It's completely different in tone but you might want to give it a read.

I've never heard of "16 Ways to Defend a Walled City." I'll add it to the list.
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I’ll check out Mouse ran down.

KJ Parker is pretty interesting. He kind of has a loose universe setting that he slightly reboots for each series he uses it in.

Malazan is worth circling back to. He gets better as it goes on. Midnight Tides is the last one where he adds a lot of new stuff, IMO.

If you enjoyed the Chain of Dogs, I think you’ll like the Bonehunters and Adjunct Tavore.
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My local bookstore guy says they are "the best books that I never recommend to anyone" because of how dense they are. He's read through the series multiple times over the years.
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I’ve been through them twice now and definitely got more out of it the second time around. They are indeed dense.
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I've read the series as a whole twice, several of the earlier books three times.

Last year I listened to the whole series on audio book and picked up things I missed while reading.

Definitely a dense series and well worth the time investment.
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Bow down: I am the Emperor of Dreams and the Necromancer of Language




I've just finished up a 6 volume collection of CAS stories and I have some thoughts.


It seems that whenever anyone talks about Clark Ashton Smith they first have to offer a disclaimer about his overuse of purple prose. Well, who am I to buck tradition? At his best, Smith's magniloquence and use of archaisms can create prose poems that are simultaneously beautiful and grotesque:


The sand of the desert of Yondo is not as the sand of other deserts; for Yondo lies nearest of all to the world's rim; and strange winds, blowing from a pit no astronomer may hope to fathom, have sown its ruinous fields with the gray dust of corroding planets, the black ashes of extinguished suns. The dark, orblike mountains which rise from its wrinkled and pitted plain are not all its own, for some are fallen asteroids half-buried in that abysmal sand. Things have crept in from nether space, whose incursion is forbid by the gods of all proper and well-ordered lands; but there are no such gods in Yondo, where live the hoary genii of stars abolished and decrepit demons left homeless by the destruction of antiquated hells.



At his worst, you will find yourself stopping to pick up a dictionary three or four times per page to look up the meaning of some abstruse word. Invariably, those listings will be prefaced with words like Archaic, Formal, Literary, and Obsolete. The issue, for me, isn't that I don't know the meanings of the words (I don't), it's that, imo, he often makes poor word choices.

A few examples:

"Crepuscular" = "Twilight"
"Coadjutation" = "Help"
"Ramifications" = "Branching"
"Inenarrable" = "Indescribable
"Comestible" = "Food"
"Lepidopter" = "Butterfly"
"Cephaloid" = "Head-like"
"Archean gneiss" = "Rocks" .... I think.

Instead of adding to the tone of the story you end up being distracted by the silliness of outlandish synonyms being used for commonplace words. "The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter - it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."






Volume one is pretty weak. These are Smith's earliest stories, and while some of them have inventive ideas, the stories themselves just aren't very good. I will make note of a couple of interesting things though. One is the fact that Smith featured miscegenation in a few of these stories, which I think is pretty bold for pulp stories written in 1929 and 1930. "The Venus of Azombeii" is one such story which centers around a doomed romance between a white man and an African woman of mixed heritage. Another is "The Monster of the Prophecy" which ends with a human man falling in love with a very alien woman. It ends with this paragraph:

When it became known in Lompior that Alvor was the lover of Ambiala, no surprise or censure was expressed by any one. Doubtless the people, especially the male Alphads who had vainly wooed the empress, thought that her tastes were queer, not to say eccentric. But anyway, no comment was made: it was her own amour after all, and no one else could carry it on for her. It would seem, from this, that the people of Omanorion had mastered the ultra-civilized art of minding their own business.

A surprising sentiment from someone who was a frequent correspondent of Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard.


I would also like to note the "scientifiction" story "The Metamorphosis of the World." Smith was a fantasist but he had to make a living so he wrote a few sci-fi stories for the pulps that were basically fantasy stories with a few token science elements tossed in, sometimes satirically. Funnily enough, Smith (who loathed technology) actually wrote some interesting stuff here that includes solar power, a form of television, and most intriguing, the concept of alien invasion via global terraforming. Ironically, his story was rejected for being too scientific!


Tier one (Good):

None

Tier Two (Decent):

The Last Incantation (dark fantasy)

Tier Three (worth reading once):

The Venus of Azombeii (Horror, Romance)
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros (humorous Dunsanian S & S with a dash of Lovecraftian horror)


................................................



Tier one (Good):

None

Tier Two (Decent):


The Return of the Sorcerer (horror)


Tier Three (worth reading once):


The City of the Singing Flame (weird tale)
The Testament of Athammaus (sequel to Satampra Zeiros)

................................................





The story of a Druidic ancestor of Edgar Allan Poe and his attempts to return a book to his next door neighbor, an Easter egg painted like an ancient Greek Squidward.



Tier one (Good):

The Seed From the Sepulcher (horror)
The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis (sci-fi, horror)

Tier Two (Decent):

The Empire of Necromancers (dark fantasy)
The Double Shadow (dark fantasy)
The Colossus of Ylourgne (dark fantasy)

Tier Three (worth reading once):

The Maker of Gargoyles (horror)
The Nameless Offspring (horror)
Ubbo-Sathla (Lovecraftian horror)
A Vintage From Atlantis



.......................................






Tier one (Good):

None


Tier Two (Decent):

The Dark Eidolon (Dark fantasy. Very imaginative)



Tier Three (worth reading once):

The Ice-Demon (S & S. Not bad but nothing groundbreaking)
The Isle of the Torturers (Dark Fantasy. Similar but slightly inferior to two other CAS stories)
Genius Loci (horror)
The Dweller in the Gulf (Sci-Fi, horror. Similar but inferior to Yoh-Vombis)
The Beast of Averoigne (Dark fantasy, horror)
The Disinterment of Venus (Horror, touch of humor)
The Charnel God (Dark Fantasy)



...............................





Tier one (Good):

The Chain of Aforgomon (Fantasy, horror)


Tier Two (Decent):

Necromancy in Naat (dark fantasy)
The Garden of Adompha (horror, dark fanasy)
Mother of Toads (horror)
The Death of Malygris (sequel to The Last Incantation)
Schizoid Creator (Light horror. humor. Reminds me of a couple of Robert Sheckley stories)


Tier Three (worth reading once):

The Black Abbot of Puthuum (S & S. Not bad but nothing groundbreaking)
The Last Hieroglyph (fantasy. Interesting idea. Needed more plot/character motivation)
Xeethra (dark fantasy. Needed a stronger ending)






Unless you are a hardcore fan this volume is skippable. This is a collection of stories that Smith wrote as a teenager and some other oddities like a short play and an early draft of his most famous poem The Hashish Eater.






How I'd rank the stories:


01 The Seed From the Sepulcher
02 The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis
03 The Chain of Aforgomon
04 The Dark Eidolon
05 The Last Incantation
06 Necromancy in Naat
07 The Colossus of Ylourgne
08 The Empire of Necromancers
09 The Double Shadow
10 The Return of the Sorcerer
11 The Death of Malygris (sequel to The Last Incantation)
12 The Garden of Adompha
13 Mother of Toads
14 The Dweller in the Gulf
15 Schizoid Creator
16 Ubbo-Sathla
17 The City of the Singing Flame
18 The Beast of Averoigne
19 A Vintage From Atlantis
20 The Maker of Gargoyles
21 The Disinterment of Venus
22 The Venus of Azombeii
23 The Charnel God
24 The Black Abbot of Puthuum
[Reply]

A few short stories by Edmond Hamilton:

The Monster-God of Mamurth (An A. Merritt homage)
The Man Who Evolved (inspired the crappy Outer Limits episode "The Sixth Finger")
Fessenden's Worlds
He That Hath Wings
In the World's Dusk (A Clark Ashton Smith homage)
What's It Like Out There?


All of these had the potential to be very good, the basic ideas are very interesting, but the writing ain't that hot.


Next:

City of the Living Dead by Fletcher Pratt & Laurence Manning

The earliest story that involves a form of virtual reality? It's an ok story, but there are some completely random racist things shoe-horned into it that are just bizarre. Just totally out of the blue and with nothing to do with the story. Very weird.

Next, more crappy Hugo nominated short stories:

Still Life by David S. Garnett
Dinner in Audoghast by Bruce Sterling
The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance
Hong's Bluff by William F. Wu
Buffalo by John Kessel
Press Ann by Terry Bisson
Dog's Life by Martha Soukup
Little Dog Gone by Robert F. Young
The Good Pup by Bridget McKenna
The Wedge by Isaac Asimov
Once a Cop by Rick Raphael
Rat Race by Raymond F. Jones

Also:


The Coon Suit by Terry Bisson
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Next were a few H.P. Lovecraft stories:

The Curse of Yig
The Man of Stone
The Outsider (Feels like CAS)
The Horror at Martin's Beach (cool idea)
The Festival


I think I've read or listened to all of Lovecraft's stuff. His writings were (obviously) incredibly influential and he also did a lot to encourage a lot of young authors like Robert Bloch in their own early efforts, and I give him all the credit in the world for that. The thing is a good chunk of his output just isn't very good. He's probably got 8 to 12 stories that have memorable elements but he only managed to turn those interesting pieces into cohesive and satisfying stories a handful of times, imo.

What really frustrates me is that some of his best stories have terribly weak endings. Take The Call of Cthulhu for instance. Everybody loves Cthulhu, right? But in the end of this story the omnipotent undying elder god gets his ass ran the **** over by a Norwegian schooner and then disappears. Similarly disappointing is the sorcerer Watley getting taken out by a dog in The Dunwich Horror. Even worse than that Lovecraft wrapped up two (maybe three) stories by having a bolt of lightning come out of the blue and kill the bad guy. Doing that once is inexcusable, doing it multiple times is, well, I'm not sure what adjective to use to describe how bad that is.


My top three Lovecraft stories:

The Shadow over Innsmouth
The Rats in the Walls
The Thing on the Doorstep

All three of those are very good, imo.


Tier two:

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Dunwich Horror
The Colour Out of Space


I also kind of like Polaris and The Outsider. I'm not sure I'd recommend them, but they appeal to me for some reason.



Next:

Soldier, Ask Not by Gordon R. Dickson
Where Is the Bird of Fire? by Thomas Burnett Swann
Death Sentence by Isaac Asimov
I, Rocket by Ray Bradbury
Far Centaurus by A. E. van Vogt
[Reply]

I've finally reached the end of my long trek through all of the Hugo nominated short stories. Well, almost. There are three stories that I haven't been able to find online:

Ray Bradbury "Hollerbochen's Dilemma"
John C. Wright "An Unimaginable Light"
Martha Soukup "The Story So Far"


None of them look very promising, but if anyone knows of a place to read any of them online for free I'd be grateful.


FWIW, of the 300 plus stories that I read, these are my favorites:


(chronological order)

Tier one:

Jerome Bixby "It's a Good Life"
Theodore Sturgeon "A Saucer of Loneliness"
Arthur C. Clarke "The Star"
Daniel Keyes "Flowers for Algernon"
Theodore Sturgeon "The Man Who Lost the Sea"
Roger Zelazny "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"
Bob Shaw "Light of Other Days"
Harlan Ellison "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
C. J. Cherryh "Cassandra"
Elizabeth Bear "Tideline"

Tier two:

Alfred Bester "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed"
Larry Niven "Not Long Before the End"
David D. Levine "Tk'tk'tk"
Tim Pratt "Impossible Dreams"


This isn't necessarily my final list. I've got about a half-dozen stories I'm going to give a second read.
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Theodore Sturgeon wrote a lot of crappy stories. Here are ten of them. He's written a handful of stories that I really like, but the vast majority of his stories feel like a combination of a hacky 1940s sci-fi writer who doesn't know much about science and the writings of a middle aged dude desperately trying to fit in to late 1960s youth culture. Which I guess is what he was. A good chunk of his middle and late period stories just feel like sub par attempts at writing sophisticated "adult" stories for New Yorker type magazines.


And truthfully, after reading 11 volumes of his collected works as well as reading some of his correspondence Sturgeon seems like a flake and a bit of a creep. Ted's the kind of guy who'd write you a nice letter about the nature of love chock full of words like "gestalt" and "syzergy" and at the end you'd realize that he's telling you he's banging your sister.


Next:





This is part one of a trilogy of stories designed to cap off the novel-verse continuity that is no longer compatible with the modern Trek shows. It's probably going to suck for three reasons:

1) Modern Trek is rubbish
2) The current novel continuity was pretty good during the reign of the previous editor Marco Palmieri but have been on a steady decline since his departure several years ago.
3) This novels author, Dayton Ward, while occasionally writing something good has a tendency to pad his books with pointless, sometimes totally unrelated, recaps of previous Trek novels and episodes.

But since I've read hundred of Trek books leading up to this I might as well finish it off.
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Pretty good list of SciFi books. Lots of essential classics on here. Not as sure about some of the newer content listed as I haven't read most of it.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells, and the rest of the Murderbot series is damn good though. I liked it enough that after I read it all on ebook, I bought hard copies to display in my library.

https://bookriot.com/the-most-influe...=pocket-newtab
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