Here's 2 mixing genres: If U're a music fan U might really Njoy some of the following rock&roll novels, summa which R among my fave books in the world. Since the list is kinda short, I'll follow it up with other rock-music novels I'm aware of but haven't read or couldn't get thru (tho the reviews were good), & some Xcellent rock&roll short-fiction. & away we go....
* GLIMPSES, Lewis Shiner -- The BEST rock&roll novel EVER. Shiner's hero has the ability 2 hear & create great "lost" pop music that never quite Xisted in reality: The Beach Boys' SMILE, The Doors' CELEBRATION OF THE LIZARD, Jimi Hendrix's FIRST RAYS OF THE NEW RISING SUN. In order 2 create this music on tape, he slips in2 a sorta alternate reality (or is he hallucinating?) where he meets all these great musicians & plays a part in helping them finish their projects. The section on SMILE is especially fine: Shiner knows his stuff & doesn't mess up the Dtails. Meanwhile, the real-life crises Shiner's hero hasta face when he's not searching 4 lost music R real & Blievable (failing marriage, father dying, growing older). Vivid, gripping, moving. Great stuff.
* GOSSAMER AXE, Gael Baudino -- The 2nd-best rock&roll novel ever. When a harper from the land of Faerie is trapped in our reality without the love of her life (who's still on The Other Side), she forms a heavy-metal band as the most direct way 2 blast a hole Btween the realities & get her lost love back. Great in-a-band Dtails, moving stories of both our heroine & the women who join her band, & a marvelous happy Nding. Vivid, involving, Xciting, Mpowering.
+ ZEITGEIST, Bruce Sterling -- Recently reviewed here. A lovable con-artist comes up w/ a musical scam 2 fleece the Moslem world of millions of $$$ just B4 Y2K hits. But the conman loses control of his act & then the girls in his "band" start dying due 2 neglect. Outrageous, cynical, sarcastic -- but there's a happy Nding 4 all the good folks. Even the conman saves his soul. & it's laff-out-loud funny.
= THE ARMAGEDDON RAG, George R.R. Martin -- '60s group The Nazgul reforms but their tour Cms a front 4 all kinds of dark plotting. Some nice nostalgia & good group-rehearsal scenes, but the cloak&dagger/thriller plot lets down Martin (1 of my heroes) & his characters.
= ROCK CRITIC MURDERS, Jesse Sublette -- I've read this 3x & tho there's a good feel 4 Bing in a no-frills blues-rock band & the hot, dry, MT Texas setting is completely Blievable, there R no real suprises in the standard murder/private-investigator plot. It's just not Xciting enuf.
= THE MEMORY OF WHITENESS, Kim Stanley Robinson -- This shoulda bn better. A young Master Musician learns 2 play Holywelkin's Orchestra, a sorta giant keyboard/orchestrion-thing that creates magical music that can unite all peoples.... He goes on 2 tour the Solar System (sorta the Ultimate Tour) ... but gets sucked in2 a cloak&dagger plot involving sun-worshippers on Mercury. Kinda heavy-handed & disappointing, tho Robinson's written some other great stuff: "Green Mars," "Mother Goddess of the World," "Escape from Kathmandu," "Discovering Life," "The Lucky Strike," "The Part of Us That Loves," & the AMAZING "A History of the 20th Century, With Illustrations."
MY GHOD, I 4GOT ALL ABOUT:
+ THE COMMITMENTS, Roddy Doyle -- OK, I think the movie's better, but this is DEFinitely worth taking a look at. Doyle's got an odd writing style (I'M 1 2 talk?): Everything is shorthanded, he never uses quotes 2 show his characters R talking -- but the struggles of a band 4med "2 save Ireland thru R&B" R amusingly & involvingly Dtailed, & it's a quick read. Only a coupla minor complaints: The book Nds JUST AS IT'S GETTING REALLY GOOD (just like the film), & I don't think we ever quite HEAR the music The Commitments per4m. But 4 Ghod's sake, C the movie 2....
+ HIGH FIDELITY, Nick Hornby -- *Grumble, grumble* ... This is a pretty-good "growing-up" novel, centered on a hero who owns his own used-record store & starts recording local bands on his own garage-based record label(!), but still won't accept responsibility, get married & act like "a real grown-up," according 2 his girlfriend. Funny, nicely observed & Xcellently written, very readable -- but I hated the Nding. I would not have married the girlfriend who 4ces the hero 2 grow up -- most guys would likely resent her 4 Bing so pushy. 4 me, the best things in the book R the off-the-wall record-store humor ("You can't possibly be taken seriously as a person without at least 5,000 albums in your collection"), the hero's ongoing Top 5 lists of The Best Rock&Roll Songs Of All Time (4 all possible occasions), & the long reminiscences about his previous girlfriends.
OTHERS I'M AWARE OF:
LITTLE HEROES, Norman Spinrad -- Something about "the old lady of rock and roll" helping 2 create an act that'll unite the country & possibly the world. Tried 2 read this fat novel a coupla x & couldn't get very far, but Spinrad knows his stuff & is almost always suprising 2 read.
SAY GOODBYE: THE LAURIE MOSS STORY, Lewis Shiner -- Based on GLIMPSES, this should also B great, but I've never Cn a copy 4 sale NEwhere. Supposedly this is about a fictional singer-songwriter who Didn't Quite Make It. Worth tracking down, I'm sure....
WRACK AND ROLL, Bradley Denton -- Gotta copy on my bookshelf & when I get 2 it I'll let U know. Looks a little like LITTLE HEROES. Some of Denton's short stories R outrageous & funny....
ECLIPSE, John Shirley -- A trilogy, something like a punk-rock apocalypse....
THE KILL RIFF, David J. Schow -- This is less a rock&roll story & more a horror novel. A father goes out 4 revenge against a heavy-metal band after his daughter dies at 1a the band's concerts. Schow was a talented & funny short-story writer, but tho the reviews of this novel were good, I couldn't get past the grim 1st chapter.
THE TEXTS OF FESTIVAL, Mick Farren -- An apocalyptic pulp-science-fiction novel, psychedelic & etc. Farren was a member of The Deviants & the Pink Fairies, was a rock critic, & co-wrote a song or 2 w/ Hawkwind.
TIME OF THE HAWKLORDS, Michael Moorcock & Michael Butterworth -- Speaking of Hawkwind, this book turns that British heavy-space-rock band of the '70s in2 heroes in their own adventure. If it captures the atmosphere of their albums it might B pretty cool. Moorcock co-wrote some songs w/ them & did a coupla guest vocals.
(+) THE BEAR, Rafi Zabor -- Is jazz OK in this list? Zabor's novel is about a saxophone-playing bear who practically turns in2 Charlie Parker when he hits the stage at New York jazz clubs. The 1st 1/2 of the book is pretty great, vivid & funny & involving, but when The Bear started onna long nationwide tour I just sorta drifted away, like I do w/ a lotta jazz....
...I've read reviews 4 rock novels Ntitled SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING and JAMBEAUX, but I have no idea who the authors R....
SHORT STORIES:
* "Stone," Edward Bryant -- An electronic-feedback technician in the stage crew 4 a future singer (a Janis Joplin-type) helps her commit suicide -- in the most public way possible. Intense & moving. Bryant's other music-related fiction that I've read ("Armageddon Between Sets," "Drummer's Star") is OK but a little thin, not up 2 the high standards of "Stone" or some of his other stories like the brilliant "Strata."
* "A Little Night Music," Lucius Shepard -- Xcellent. Shepard reviews a per4mance by a zombie rock&roll band. Cold & creepy.
* "Dead Air," Greg Egan -- Scary! Haunted goings-on atta late-nite rock&roll radio station. That'll teach the heroine 2 play such possessed old rock&roll songs as "Hands of Jack the Ripper"!
* "Preflash," John M. Ford -- A photographer can C people's futures, & 1a the jobs he does is shoot a video 4 an up&coming singer. Amazingly vivid & cinematic, the whole thing reads like a really good music video....
* "The Winter Market," William Gibson -- The hero of this also shoots a video, sorta, centering on the driven heroine who thinks she's not much longer 4 this world. MayB this doesn't qualify as a music story really, but I can't C the video Bing done w/o music....
+ "The Music of the Spheres," Bradley Denton -- Turns out some rock&roll (Specially the REALLY addictive stuff) is a plot by aliens 2 take over the Earth.... Hilarious!
+ "Jeff Beck," Lewis Shiner -- An avg. everyday guy gets the chance 2 play guitar just as good as the legendary Jeff Beck ... but his new power does not make him happy....
+ "All the Way Up, All the Way Down," Robert Silverberg, part of his novel THE WORLD INSIDE -- Silverberg has a great vision of a future rock band, the instruments they'd play, what it'd B like 2 C them per4m. That's sorta background 2 the actual story, but it's worth reading just 4 what Silverbob does w/ the band. The rest of the story shows Silverberg's overcrowded urban world of 2281, & like the rest of the book the vivid setting sorta overwhems the events of the story.
+ "The Feast of St. Janis," Michael Swanwick -- Another Janis Joplin story. A future traveler visits the annual Feast, the climax of which is the sacrifice 2 the crowd of "this year's" Janis. Impressive, Dtailed, kinda shocking. Swanwick's 1st published story (1980). His only other solo "music fiction" story I've found, "In Concert," is 4gettable. But some of his other stories R great, like the brilliant "The Dragon Line" (an updating of Merlin, Arthur, etc.), mystical & moving "The Edge of the World," hilarious "Ginungagap."
+ "The Big Flash," Norman Spinrad -- A rock band Cms 2 B pointing the way toward nuclear Armageddon. The story has some intensity, & the Nding is grimly inevitable. But there R no real suprises here. When this was published in '69 it probly was a little shocking....
+ "The Song the Zombie Sang," Harlan Ellison & Robert Silverberg -- Classical music OK? The zombie only awakens 2 play keyboards in something like a classical production. Bn yrs since I read this, but Ellison & Silverberg's talents meshed well.
= "Touring," Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann & Michael Swanwick -- Spooky horror story, about how Buddy Holly, Richie Valens & The Big Bopper havta keep playing the same concert at Clear Lake, Iowa, over & over & over. & of course their audience R all dead 2....
...If NEbody has some suggestions, I'm always intrested in reading more good rock&roll fiction....
Showing posts with label Great reads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great reads. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Looking 4ward....
Along w/ William Gibson, Bruce Sterling was 1 of the firebrands of the mid-'80s "Cyberpunk" movement in science fiction. Sterling helped create a manifesto 4 "The Movement" in the intro 2 his at-times Xcellent MIRRORSHADES short-story anthology, & published the "house organ" of Cyberpunk w/ the outrageous mimeographed limited-edition fanzine CHEAP TRUTH.
In the pages of CHEAP TRUTH, Cyberpunk writers like Sterling, Lewis Shiner & Rudy Rucker published hilarious, scathing reviews of what they felt was boring, backward-looking SF -- while hiding Bhind terrible pen-names like "Sue Denim."
(U can find a complete run of CHEAP TRUTH posted on the 'Net, just look-up the title -- & it's worth it 4 the screamingly funny, at-times vicious reviews, & 4 the climax of the series, in which Sterling -- writing under the pen-name Vincent Omniaveritas -- is apparently killed in a cream-pie-&-water-pistol attack by the '80s cadre of traditional SF writers (("The Humanists")) upon the Austin, Texas, treehouse where CHEAP TRUTH was supposedly published....)
But all that was a long time ago. Since then, Sterling has Bcome a world traveler & won a coupla Hugo Awards 4 his short fiction, & his huge novel ISLANDS IN THE NET won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. His most recent novel was issued earlier this yr. But back in the days when he was a visionary revolutionary....
HEAVY WEATHER (1994) is the only 1 of Sterling's novels I've bn able 2 get all the way thru. (Also tried HOLY FIRE & ZEITGEIST, & bogged-down within 50 pgs of the start on each; I can't read summa his short fiction either.) After a rough start, HEAVY WEATHER is almost crystal clear & nearly perfect. The story follows a group of storm-chasers (the film TWISTER was a dinner-time-TV-watching Classic at my house B4 I ever read this book, but the book coulda partly inspired the movie) as they use cutting-edge high-tech 2 track & study stronger-growing tornadoes roaming across an American Southwest heavily-damaged by Nature's revenge on Mankind.
1 scene early in the book shows Sterling's writing at its very best as R protagonist "borrows" a 1-man 'copter from the Storm Chasers & flies it over the group's camp -- the whole scene is beautifully written & U will C the camp & the surrounding landscape clearly in yr head: the movie's already right there waiting 2 get on-film.
The resta the book follows the Storm Chasers in their preparation 4 the coming of the Ultimate Storm -- & it does arrive. But, 4 me fatally, after Sterling spends the whole book building up 2 this Ultimate Scene, he strands all his characters off-stage where they can't C the Ultimate Destructive Spectacle that's going on outside. This Cms a fatal flaw 2 me, 2 build a book up 2 a big scene that Sterling either couldn't write or chose not 2.
& yet the book's worth the trip 4 the clarity of Sterling's writing & the sharp, direct way his mind works....
THE HACKER CRACKDOWN is non-fiction, about the federal govt's fight against computer hackers -- who seriously got the Feds' attn when they brot AT&T's long-distance svc crashing down back around 1990.
The book is outdated, but again Sterling's writing is crystal clear, & in addition 2 following a major national-security-related story, Sterling intro's U 2 a ton of intresting people: The bragging computer hackers, who never saw a flashy system they didn't wanna break-in2; & the fed investigators, many of whom come from a computer-geek background & R barely much more than hackers themselves. Sterling points out that 4 the hackers, even worse than the criminal charges is the Mbarrassment & their loss in status when the feds catch them & take away their bragging rights.
Sterling also includes a LONG history of the telephone bizness, the 1st "high-tech" system 2 unite the country & the world, & shows that there have bn telephone pranksters 4 almost as long as there's bn more than 2 phones in Xistence. Dated, but Xcellent.
Summa Sterling's short fiction is pretty great 2. His short-story "Dori Bangs" was 1 of the greatest short pieces of the '80s -- the life story of a person who never Xisted, the fictional daughter of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs -- & Sterling's incandescent writing makes 4 an amazing, positive, life-affirming piece of fiction. I remember his long story "Green Days in Brunei" as Bing pretty amazing 2 -- but I can't remember what the story's actually ABOUT....
In the pages of CHEAP TRUTH, Cyberpunk writers like Sterling, Lewis Shiner & Rudy Rucker published hilarious, scathing reviews of what they felt was boring, backward-looking SF -- while hiding Bhind terrible pen-names like "Sue Denim."
(U can find a complete run of CHEAP TRUTH posted on the 'Net, just look-up the title -- & it's worth it 4 the screamingly funny, at-times vicious reviews, & 4 the climax of the series, in which Sterling -- writing under the pen-name Vincent Omniaveritas -- is apparently killed in a cream-pie-&-water-pistol attack by the '80s cadre of traditional SF writers (("The Humanists")) upon the Austin, Texas, treehouse where CHEAP TRUTH was supposedly published....)
But all that was a long time ago. Since then, Sterling has Bcome a world traveler & won a coupla Hugo Awards 4 his short fiction, & his huge novel ISLANDS IN THE NET won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. His most recent novel was issued earlier this yr. But back in the days when he was a visionary revolutionary....
HEAVY WEATHER (1994) is the only 1 of Sterling's novels I've bn able 2 get all the way thru. (Also tried HOLY FIRE & ZEITGEIST, & bogged-down within 50 pgs of the start on each; I can't read summa his short fiction either.) After a rough start, HEAVY WEATHER is almost crystal clear & nearly perfect. The story follows a group of storm-chasers (the film TWISTER was a dinner-time-TV-watching Classic at my house B4 I ever read this book, but the book coulda partly inspired the movie) as they use cutting-edge high-tech 2 track & study stronger-growing tornadoes roaming across an American Southwest heavily-damaged by Nature's revenge on Mankind.
1 scene early in the book shows Sterling's writing at its very best as R protagonist "borrows" a 1-man 'copter from the Storm Chasers & flies it over the group's camp -- the whole scene is beautifully written & U will C the camp & the surrounding landscape clearly in yr head: the movie's already right there waiting 2 get on-film.
The resta the book follows the Storm Chasers in their preparation 4 the coming of the Ultimate Storm -- & it does arrive. But, 4 me fatally, after Sterling spends the whole book building up 2 this Ultimate Scene, he strands all his characters off-stage where they can't C the Ultimate Destructive Spectacle that's going on outside. This Cms a fatal flaw 2 me, 2 build a book up 2 a big scene that Sterling either couldn't write or chose not 2.
& yet the book's worth the trip 4 the clarity of Sterling's writing & the sharp, direct way his mind works....
THE HACKER CRACKDOWN is non-fiction, about the federal govt's fight against computer hackers -- who seriously got the Feds' attn when they brot AT&T's long-distance svc crashing down back around 1990.
The book is outdated, but again Sterling's writing is crystal clear, & in addition 2 following a major national-security-related story, Sterling intro's U 2 a ton of intresting people: The bragging computer hackers, who never saw a flashy system they didn't wanna break-in2; & the fed investigators, many of whom come from a computer-geek background & R barely much more than hackers themselves. Sterling points out that 4 the hackers, even worse than the criminal charges is the Mbarrassment & their loss in status when the feds catch them & take away their bragging rights.
Sterling also includes a LONG history of the telephone bizness, the 1st "high-tech" system 2 unite the country & the world, & shows that there have bn telephone pranksters 4 almost as long as there's bn more than 2 phones in Xistence. Dated, but Xcellent.
Summa Sterling's short fiction is pretty great 2. His short-story "Dori Bangs" was 1 of the greatest short pieces of the '80s -- the life story of a person who never Xisted, the fictional daughter of legendary rock critic Lester Bangs -- & Sterling's incandescent writing makes 4 an amazing, positive, life-affirming piece of fiction. I remember his long story "Green Days in Brunei" as Bing pretty amazing 2 -- but I can't remember what the story's actually ABOUT....
Great cranky travel writing!
Tho he's gotta reputation 4 Bing cranky, travel writer & novelist Paul Theroux can B a lotta fun 2 read. Summa his travel writing is Xtremely vivid & funny, & (like John McPhee) after reading Theroux's books U almost feel like U don't need 2 go C summa the places he Dscribes. & summa them U wouldn't WANT 2 visit....
I got hooked on Theroux during 3 wks I spent in Greece in Summer 1991, broke & bored & working 2 hard. Dspite the gorgeous scenery all around me (which I couldn't afford 2 go get a closer look at), 2 fight the boredom I picked up Theroux's RIDING THE IRON ROOSTER, a 500-pg recap of his train trip across China in the late '70s. The book is Xhausting but vivid, & I started looking 4 more.
THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR recaps Theroux's 1st travel adventure, across Europe & Russia via the Orient Express in the early '70s. Tho not 2 long & quite vivid, cranky & funny, Theroux's loneliness gets 2 him, & the whole last 1/4 of the book is 1 long Xhausted return home.
Theroux's best travel book (of the 1's I've read) is A KINGDOM BY THE SEA, about his long WALK around the coastline of the island of Britain in the early '80s. It's (as always) vivid & funny & Dtailed -- he meets some very eccentric Brits, & gets himself in2 some amazing windswept, Ghod4saken locations -- not leaving out the gritty, dull, drab landscapes that surely Xist around the isles as well. The book made me love the British Isles (where I've never bn) even more.
FRESH AIR FIEND is a big collection of shorter pieces, & tho it's uneven there's some amazing stuff included -- among them R Xcellent reviews of other travel writers' works like those of Bruce Chatwin (Theroux makes him sound better than he is), & an overview of Apsley Cherry-Gerrard's THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD, which sounds like the Ultimate Travel Book: it's a recap of Cherry-Gerrard's walk across part of Antarctica in the early 1900's. There's also an intresting look back at Theroux's 1st few novels, written while he was a Peace Corps volunteer in East Africa in the early '70s.
Some of Theroux's novels R Xcellent 2, but some R just dry & MT -- THE BLACK HOUSE is a boring "atmospheric" chiller in which NOTHING HAPPENS. But MY SECRET HISTORY is brilliant, immediate, vivid & devastating -- tho it shows-up the writer as a real creep, a 10dency continued in MY OTHER LIFE, which has sections well worth skimming, but is awfully tuff 2 get All The Way Thru.... MOSQUITO COAST is also quite good, vivid, involving, even terrifying -- tho perhaps not quite as good as the movie made from it. There's also a creepy murder&sex-change-switcheroo novel called CHICAGO LOOP which is worth taking a look at -- at least it's short.
Theroux has dozens of other books, including sevral more volumes of travel writing I've bn looking 4. THE PILLARS OF HERCULES is about a canoe trip thru the Greek isles, & SUNRISE WITH SEAMONSTERS has Paul & his kayak paddling thru the 1,000 isles of Indonesia! But somehow I bogged-down about 50 pgs in2 his South American railway adventure, THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS....
Theroux can B cranky, but he's usually funny, & he has a sharp eye that doesn't miss much. Check him out....
I got hooked on Theroux during 3 wks I spent in Greece in Summer 1991, broke & bored & working 2 hard. Dspite the gorgeous scenery all around me (which I couldn't afford 2 go get a closer look at), 2 fight the boredom I picked up Theroux's RIDING THE IRON ROOSTER, a 500-pg recap of his train trip across China in the late '70s. The book is Xhausting but vivid, & I started looking 4 more.
THE GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR recaps Theroux's 1st travel adventure, across Europe & Russia via the Orient Express in the early '70s. Tho not 2 long & quite vivid, cranky & funny, Theroux's loneliness gets 2 him, & the whole last 1/4 of the book is 1 long Xhausted return home.
Theroux's best travel book (of the 1's I've read) is A KINGDOM BY THE SEA, about his long WALK around the coastline of the island of Britain in the early '80s. It's (as always) vivid & funny & Dtailed -- he meets some very eccentric Brits, & gets himself in2 some amazing windswept, Ghod4saken locations -- not leaving out the gritty, dull, drab landscapes that surely Xist around the isles as well. The book made me love the British Isles (where I've never bn) even more.
FRESH AIR FIEND is a big collection of shorter pieces, & tho it's uneven there's some amazing stuff included -- among them R Xcellent reviews of other travel writers' works like those of Bruce Chatwin (Theroux makes him sound better than he is), & an overview of Apsley Cherry-Gerrard's THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD, which sounds like the Ultimate Travel Book: it's a recap of Cherry-Gerrard's walk across part of Antarctica in the early 1900's. There's also an intresting look back at Theroux's 1st few novels, written while he was a Peace Corps volunteer in East Africa in the early '70s.
Some of Theroux's novels R Xcellent 2, but some R just dry & MT -- THE BLACK HOUSE is a boring "atmospheric" chiller in which NOTHING HAPPENS. But MY SECRET HISTORY is brilliant, immediate, vivid & devastating -- tho it shows-up the writer as a real creep, a 10dency continued in MY OTHER LIFE, which has sections well worth skimming, but is awfully tuff 2 get All The Way Thru.... MOSQUITO COAST is also quite good, vivid, involving, even terrifying -- tho perhaps not quite as good as the movie made from it. There's also a creepy murder&sex-change-switcheroo novel called CHICAGO LOOP which is worth taking a look at -- at least it's short.
Theroux has dozens of other books, including sevral more volumes of travel writing I've bn looking 4. THE PILLARS OF HERCULES is about a canoe trip thru the Greek isles, & SUNRISE WITH SEAMONSTERS has Paul & his kayak paddling thru the 1,000 isles of Indonesia! But somehow I bogged-down about 50 pgs in2 his South American railway adventure, THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS....
Theroux can B cranky, but he's usually funny, & he has a sharp eye that doesn't miss much. Check him out....
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....
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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