The Early Days of a Better Nation

Saturday, July 17, 2010



The SFX Book Club

I've just had an acceptance for my fourth contribution to this series of 700-word reviews of SF classics: this time, it's on James Blish's Cities in Flight. You can read PDFs of all 49 of the series so far here, and they're pretty addictive. And if you're looking for a reading list of classic SF, this is a good place to start - though it could do with a lot more of (and by) women writers.

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6 Comments:

I'd love to see CJ Cherryh's "Downbelow Station" covered there, if there were more women writers covered!

They seem to have ascribed The Forever War to the reviewer rather than the writer. I can't see a contact email to let them know.

I read most of my SF in short-story form, under-represented in the list though I'm pleased to see Dangerous Visions there.

Very readable... I was slightly disturbed, though, to read the "Blood Music" article which concluded "Ken MacLeod’s last novel is out now in paperback."

SFX has spoken, Mr MacLeod. Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.

Optimistically, they might just be condemning you to write nothing but short stories, poetry, and the long-awaited collaboration with Tim Rice, "Fall Revolution: The Musical!"

Pessimistically, it could be they've decided you've had long enough and are planning to thin the herd to give some other writers a chance...

ejh - I'd quite like to read 'The Forever War by Geoff Ryman'. Of course he did Cambodia rather than Vietnam.

ajay - I could be alarmed, but I've had two novels published since then, so ...

>>'The Forever War by Geoff Ryman

You mean you haven't read it? It's brilliant.

Thanks for pointing out this error - a cut-and-pasting cock-up on my behalf. I will correct it now.

They Shall Have Stars refers to a past president as a cowboy on horseback with lots of charisma but not a brain in his head. When the novel was written Ronald Reagan had not yet even been governor of California.

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