From: "Kent williams"
quoted 22 lines Heh. Yeah the book is perhaps my favorite Ursula K. Leguin novel. Though
> Heh. Yeah the book is perhaps my favorite Ursula K. Leguin novel. Though
> "The Left Hand Of Darkness" and "The Disposessed" are crucial as well.
> The newer film version (or TV show, whatever) I thought was quite nice, though
> it got critically slagged. I've not seen the PBS original.
> While I'm completely off topic I might as well give my top Science Fiction
> author list, in no particular order:
> Jonathan Lethem -- start with "Gun, With Occasional Music"
> James Morrow -- "Towing Jehova"
> Melissa Scott -- Anything by her but "Dreaming Metal" is cool
> David Foster Wallace -- "The Infinite Jest" -- an alien chest-burster of
> a novel, without a doubt.
> Linda Nagata -- pretty far out there. As far as hard sci-fi goes, she's
> written some doozies.
> Greg Egan -- wicked stuff, especially "Schild's Ladder"
> Tim Powers -- Houdini, Ghosts, People Addicted to Smoking Ghosts...
> and it gets weirder than that...
> Philip K Dick -- naturally ...
> Joan Sloncewski -- "A Door Into Ocean" Great characters ... weird science
> Sherri Tepper -- a Big Thinker, a Good Writer, with loads of kickass novels.
> I won't even mention the obvious current darlings like William Gibson,
> Bruce Sterling, Neil Stephenson etc, because they're good, but you already
> know.
On the off-topic topic:
Odd fact:
Ursula K. LeGuin went to High School with Phil Dick: she 'graduated' one
year ahead of him.
Nice list.
A few to add to the list:
James Blaylock - another Orange Co. magician; along with Tim Powers ('Stress of Her Regard'!!!),
hung out with Phil Dick and talked 'shop'. 'Land of Dreams', 'Last Coin', 'The Digging
Leviathan'
Rudy Rucker - 'Software', 'Wetware', 'Freeware', 'Hacker and the Ants'; funny and smart: very
smart.
Tom Disch - 'Genocides', 'Camp Concentration', 'The Businessman'. His early stuff,
'Genocides', 'Camp Concentration' is more SF. The recent works are brilliant, cruel, magic.
Jack Womack - often neglected in discussions of 'cyberpunks', this guy has seen the future:
'Random Acts of Senseless Violence'.
Jeff Noon - writes books that take place in an alternate near-future Manchester, where people
do 'feathers': psychedelics delivered on some sort-of a feather-thingy: Noon's stuff is very
'magical'. ;) 'Vurt' and 'Pollen' are his first two and both get into the feather thing,
'Vurt' more-so. 'Pollen' is the Persephone trip, but done 21st Century foxy!
(***!!!IDM content alert!!!***)
Noon's 'Needle to the Groove' is very cool: some kids in a band: dj and musicians:
the remixes are created by running the sound through a liquid, which is enclosed in
an orb in the mixing board, and remixing is done simply by shaking up the liquid
in the ball: no two remixes are the same! But that isn't the ~really~ cool part:
the liquid can be injected. Into the blood. Of music makers.
"And we are the dreamers of the dream." ;)
Greg Bear - Speaking of blood and music, 'Blood Music'! Wow! Crazy: Bear ends the
world like no other sf writer has before: turns the end inside-out! The noosphere as a
noose!!!
For the Dick-heads on-list:
here's why PKD looked at the Essene fish and had his 'pink light' experience:
he was doing this very same thing at the time!:
http://paulwilliams.com/Pkds.jpg
=seek=
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org
For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org