I Got Tagged

Twice.

SFSignal has started a meme – The Top 48 Sci-Fi Film Adaptations.

Fred Kiesche (of the Signal and Texas Best Grok) tagged me.

Mike Glyer of File 770 tagged me too.

Does that mean I have to tag ten other people, or can I still get by with only five?

Is it possible to get tagged twice, or does one tag cancel out the other tag?  Anyway.  I’m honored by all this tagging and pass the honor on below.

Here’s the instructions for the meme-spreading:

Copy the list below.

Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book.

Italicize the movie titles for which you started the book but didn’t finish it.

Tag 5 people to perpetuate the meme. (You may of course play along anyway.)

Here’s my list:

1. Jurassic Park
2. War of the Worlds
3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4. I, Robot
5. Contact
6. Congo
7. Cocoon
8. The Stepford Wives
9. The Time Machine
10. Starship Troopers
11. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
12. K-PAX
13. 2010
14. The Running Man
15. Sphere
16. The Mothman Prophecies
17. Dreamcatcher
18. Blade Runner(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
19. Dune
20. The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
22. The Iron Giant(The Iron Man)
23. Battlefield Earth*
24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25. Fire in the Sky
26. Altered States
27. Timeline
28. The Postman
29. Freejack(Immortality, Inc.)
30. Solaris
31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32. The Thing(Who Goes There?)
33. The Thirteenth Floor
34. Lifeforce(Space Vampires)
35. Deadly Friend
36. The Puppet Masters
37. 1984
38. A Scanner Darkly
39. Creator
40. Monkey Shines
41. Solo(Weapon)
42. The Handmaid’s Tale
43. Communion
44. Carnosaur
45. From Beyond
46. Nightflyers
47. Watchers
48. Body Snatchers

*not science fiction because it’s Hubbard

 

I added the following: an underlined entry is NOT SF

And the editorializing on Hubbard was not included in the original. Just my (considered) opinion.

 

I have no italics because I finish reading whatever I’ve started – with literally one exception, and I’m not even going to foist the title of that horrible experience on you.

 

Opinions of the above stories?

 

Jurassic Park – ok – can’t stand Crichton’s overbearing anti-scientism

WotW – great, wonderful, Herbert George Rocks

I, Robot – Ike does this kind of thing best

Contact – Sagan rocks.  Most people missed the message at the end of the book:  there are always more questions and our job is to keep on asking them

Congo – meh

Stepford Wive – ok

The Time Machine – my man HGW again

Starship Troopers – all time fave.  If you start yapping about militarism and neo-fascism again I’m gonna hit you, hard.

HHGTTG – meh.  Sorry, I know people love this one, but I think Harrison and Russell do funny far better than Adams could ever hope to

2010 – decent sequel, Clarke’s done better: hey, why isn’t The Sentinel in this list?

Running Man – hate King, hate Bachman; you’ll get no reasonable consideration out of me on this one

Sphere – slow, dry, stupid, derivative, obvious and a waste of time

Dreamcatcher – forgettable

Blade Runner – PK Dick is brilliant. End of story, period, the end.

Dune – there was a time when I wanted all blue eyes.  First two novellas, excellent, everything else, mostly suitable for doorstops

Island of Dr. Moreau – HG, you’re hogging the limelight

Invasion of the Body David BrinSnatchers – Finney is good

Iron Giant – wonderful

Altered States – meh.  drugs are cool but, meh

Timeline – Crichton’s try at time travel. predictable

The Postman – Brin rocks

Freejack - meh

Solaris – Lem rocks big time

Memoirs – meh

Who Goes There – one of Campbell’s best ever

Puppet Masters – RAH again.  Just re-read it (unexpergated version), which is a clue

1984 – Orwell rocks

A Scanner Darkly – PKD again.  Uber rocks

Communion – Streiber is a nutball

Watchers – ok

Body Snatchers isn’t this a double entry?

 

I tag:

 

Bill the SciFi Guy

Heckler and Kochk

Gary Wolf of Roger Rabbit

John Whalen of Raygun Revival

Rick Novy

 

 

If I’m responsible for tagging another five, it’s gonna take a while.

 

 

 

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STEAMPUNK and TALES OF MOREAUVIA

The folks at Creative Guy Publishing have started shipping the first issue of TALES OF MOREAUVIA a shared-universe magazine devoted to a steampunk world.

Enjoying steampunk might seem to go against my professed love of classic science fiction, but consider – its spaceships and ray guns in the Victorian Era.

You can’t get more ‘classic’ than that.

The first issue features a story by Gary Wolf (Roger Rabbit/Space Vulture) and I’m looking forward to getting mine in the mail.

They’ve got a forum set up on the site – go visit.

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The No-Genre Sub-Genre Thing

Patrick Nielsen Hayden, author, editor, (TOR books) and one of the founders of Making Light (a googleplex of SF and other commentary) has issued a call to end the schisms within SF, Fantasy and Horror literature with the establishment of a new MOVEMENT.  He urges everyone to join the New Eclectics, a no-subgenre genre, where everyone is encouraged to mix and match – new wave psychedelic with steampunk, space opera with new weird – the more bizarre and seemingly impossible, the better.

The basic idea seems to be that the more the lines are blurred, the more difficult it will be to categorize individual works – or even individual authors – and the quicker everyone can get back to just enjoying what they like to read and write.

All of this is based on a call-to-arms issued by the founders of the ‘Mundane SF Movement’, that sub-genre which eschews the rest of the universe in favor of near-future Earth.

But its not the establishment of a new sub-genre name that has people going at each other. Who cares what category a book is shoved into – unless you happen to be looking for ‘something just like what you just read’?  No.  Sub-genres are useful for book-buyers, blurb-writers and library lists, academics and niche marketers, but not much else.  The thing that’s causing all the hubub seems to be the rote necessity of putting down all other genres in order to make a place for the new one.

Which leaves me in the clear, because I’ve not advocated anything other than the suggestion that people spend some time reading CLASSIC SF, a category that crosses and/or encompasses all of the sub-genres.

My criticisms have also been equally eclectic (to steal Patrick’s word); I’m generally negatively disposed towards NEW SF – which encompasses and crosses just as many subgenres as CLASSIC does.  The only difference being that classic denotes good and fun (for me) while new doesn’t (for me). 

Generally speaking.

Patrick points folks towards this piece by Richard Morgan (recent award winner) that calls for an end to all the bitterness, that I found interesting and mostly spot-on.  (I’m still trying to guess who the opening quotes were from.)

Going over TOR’sofferings, it looks as if PNH is backing up his plank; they seem to be publishing equal parts of whatever sub-genre you happen to be gaga for, including New Wave Golden Age Space Opera, at least in the form of Space Vulture.  (Had to get that in there, my autographed copy of the book just got back from authors Wolf & Myers.) 

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Plug for Space Vulture

I’m batting 1000!

Back in 1976, Jack Chalker handed me a copy of his first novel – A Jungle of Stars – and asked me to read it.  I thought it was excellent and I quickly became a Chalker fanboy, even to the point of winning a copy of the manuscript for Midnight at the Well of Souls at a WSFS auction.

It took thirty one years, but I was once again asked to read a book by the author, and again I thought it excellent. I’m now a Gary K. Wolf and Archbishop John Myers fanboy.

The book that author Wolf asked me to read is Space Vulture and it is an epic of space opera goodness.  You can read my full review at www.sfreader.com (Review).  There’s also a website for the book here. 

I can’t promise that every book the author personally asks me to read is going to be a great one – but the stats sure support that contention.  If you want to make sure your novel is a goodie, ask me to read it!

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