Saturday, August 1, 2009

Great Reading

Haven't talked much about the Books Nd of this thing. Here's a quick list of some Great Overlooked Reading just off the toppa my head. Mosta this is science fiction, fantasy & horror, w/ some occasional non-fiction (usually music-related) thrown-in, or whatever else grabbed me at the time. Novel & short-story collection titles R in UPPER CASE, story titles R printed in normal style....
Brian Aldiss -- TRILLION YEAR SPREE (Xcellent history of SF).
ALL MUSIC GUIDE TO ROCK.
J.G. Ballard -- The Cloud Sculptors of Coral-D, Venus Smiles, The Voices of Time, The Terminal Beach.
Lester Bangs -- PSYCHOTIC REACTIONS AND CARBURETOR DUNG, MAINLINES BLOOD FEASTS AND BAD TASTE (great rock music reviews from the '70s).
Neil Barron -- ANATOMY OF WONDER (capsule-reviews of 100's of SF novels, priceless).
Gael Baudino -- GOSSAMER AXE.
Ray Bradbury -- THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES.
John Brunner -- STAND ON ZANZIBAR, THE SHEEP LOOK UP.
Algis Budrys -- BENCHMARKS (great '60s SF book reviews!).
Pat Cadigan -- It Was the Heat.
Tim Cahill -- A WOLVERINE IS EATING MY LEG, JAGUARS RIPPED MY FLESH, PECKED TO DEATH BY DUCKS, BURIED DREAMS.
Robert Christgau -- CHRISTGAU'S RECORD GUIDES TO THE '70s & '80s (Xcellent & sometimes brutal record reviews).
John Clute -- STROKES ('70s-'80s book reviews), current on-line book reviews.
John Clute and Peter Nicholls -- THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION.
Roger Dean -- VIEWS (great '70s album art).
Samuel R. Delany -- EMPIRE STAR, THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION, We in Some Strange Power's Employ Move on a Rigorous Line.
Philip K. Dick -- THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH.
Richard DiLello -- THE LONGEST COCKTAIL PARTY (great memoir about working at the Beatles' Apple Records in the late '60s).
Cory Doctorow -- When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth.
Gardner R. Dozois -- YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION (HUGE annual collection of the field's best short stories), A Special Kind of Morning.
Harlan Ellison -- THE GLASS TEAT, THE OTHER GLASS TEAT (2 angry volumes of '60s-'70s TV criticism), THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON (best-of), Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes, Eidolons, From A to Z in the Chocolate Alphabet, A Boy and His Dog, 'Repent Harlequin!' said the Ticktockman, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, The Deathbird, Sleeping Dogs, Alive and Well and On a Friendless Voyage, Basilisk.
James Ellroy -- THE BLACK DAHLIA, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL.
Karen Joy Fowler -- The Faithful Companion at 40.
William Gibson -- NEUROMANCER, Burning Chrome, The Winter Market, Hinterlands, The Gernsback Continuum.
David Hartwell & Katherine Cramer -- YEAR'S BEST SF (annual collection of the field's best short stories).
Frank Herbert -- DUNE, CHILDREN OF DUNE.
Hipgnosis -- WALK AWAY RENE (great photos & hilarious stories about Dsigning album covers 4 '70s rock artists).
K.W. Jeter -- MANTIS.
Gwyneth Jones -- Red Sonia and Lessingham in Dreamland.
Jack Ketchum -- HIDE AND SEEK, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, SHE WAKES, OFF SEASON, JOYRIDE, THE LOST.
Damon Knight -- THE MAN IN THE TREE (1st 1/2).
Kathe Koja -- SKIN, THE CIPHER, THE BLUE MIRROR, BAD BRAINS, EXTREMITIES.
Jon Krakauer -- INTO THIN AIR.
David Leaf -- THE BEACH BOYS AND THE CALIFORNIA MYTH.
Edward Lee -- COVEN.
Ursula K. LeGuin -- Vaster Than Empires and More Slow, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
Graeme Leman -- Conversational Mode.
Ian MacDonald -- REVOLUTION IN THE HEAD (best book ever about the Beatles' music & their effect on society).
Barry N. Malzberg -- Le Croix (The Cross), THE ENGINES OF THE NIGHT (SF essays & criticism), essays & story-intros from his short-story collections, book reviews.
Dave Marsh -- BEFORE I GET OLD (Who biography), THE HEART OF ROCK AND SOUL (great reviews of Marsh's 1,001 greatest rock & soul singles ever), ROLLING STONE RECORD GUIDE (a book U'll B thrilled 2 throw across the room).
George R.R. Martin -- DYING OF THE LIGHT, WINDHAVEN (w/ Lisa Tuttle), With Morning Comes Mistfall, A Song for Lya, The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr, Night Shift, This Tower of Ashes, The Plague Star, Guardians, Nightflyers, Sandkings, The Way of Cross and Dragon, The Stone City, In the House of the Worm, Meathouse Man.
Bruce McAllister -- When the Fathers Go, Dream Baby.
Ian McDonald -- DESOLATION ROAD (1st 1/2), Vivaldi, Rainmaker Cometh, Toward Kilimanjaro.
John McPhee -- ASSEMBLING CALIFORNIA, RISING FROM THE PLAINS, BASIN AND RANGE, COMING INTO THE COUNTRY, THE CURVE OF BINDING ENERGY, JOHN MCPHEE READER.
Rick Moody -- The Albertine Notes.
Frederik Pohl -- GATEWAY, The Merchants of Venus.
Byron Preiss -- THE BEACH BOYS.
David Pringle -- ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SCIENCE FICTION (Xcellent reading guide!).
Dominic Priore -- LOOK! LISTEN! VIBRATE! SMILE! (scrapbook of articles about the Beach Boys' lost album SMILE, covers 30 yrs of rumors & Dtective work).
Alastair Reynolds -- Beyond the Aquila Rift.
Kim Stanley Robinson -- Green Mars, Discovering Life, A History of the 20th Century with Illustrations, Mother Goddess of the World, Escape from Kathmandu, Exploring Fossil Canyon.
Spider Robinson -- Stardance (w/ Jeanne Robinson), Unnatural Causes or The Guy We Couldn't Help, book reviews 4 Galaxy & Analog.
Joanna Russ -- THE TWO OF THEM, WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO.... (1st 1/2), '60's-'80s SF book reviews 4 The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
SALON.COM GUIDE TO CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS.
Jon Savage -- ENGLAND'S DREAMING (history of the Sex Pistols & the rise of Punk Rock).
Nicholas Schaffner -- SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS (Pink Floyd bio).
Lucius Shepard -- The Man Who Painted the Dragon Graiule, A Little Night Music.
Lewis Shiner -- GLIMPSES, Love in Vain.
Robert Silverberg -- DYING INSIDE, DOWNWARD TO THE EARTH, THE BOOK OF SKULLS, THE MAN IN THE MAZE, Hawksbill Station, To See The Invisible Man, Sundance, The Fangs of the Trees, Waiting for the Earthquake, A Thousand Paces Along the Via Dolorosa, We Are for the Dark.
Dan Simmons -- Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds, SONG OF KALI.
Norman Spinrad -- A Journal of the Plague Years, A Child of Mind.
Neal Stephenson -- SNOW CRASH.
Bruce Sterling -- HEAVY WEATHER, Dori Bangs, THE HACKER CRACKDOWN, Green Days in Brunei.
Bruce Sterling & Lewis Shiner -- Mozart in Mirrorshades.
Peter Straub -- IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW, KOKO, THE THROAT.
Hunter S. Thompson -- THE GREAT SHARK HUNT (best-of), FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL '72.
James Tiptree Jr. -- A Momentary Taste of Being, BRIGHTNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR, The Screwfly Solution, The Last Flight of Dr. Ain, On the Last Afternoon, The Only Neat Thing to Do, Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, Painwise.
John Varley -- STEEL BEACH, In the Hall of the Martian Kings, The Persistence of Vision, Bagatelle, Press Enter.
Kate Wilhelm -- Baby You Were Great, The Village.
Connie Willis -- All My Darling Daughters.
Roger Zelazny -- CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS, The Doors of His Face The Lamps of His Mouth, He Who Shapes, The Man Who Loved The Faioli, This Moment of the Storm, This Mortal Mountain, Lucifer, For a Breath I Tarry, The Engine at Heartspring's Center, Permafrost, Unicorn Variation, THE DOORS OF HIS FACE THE LAMPS OF HIS MOUTH AND OTHER STORIES.
...2 B Continued....

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