Desparately seeking story

[morsla]

It's been ages since I read much fiction. I think it's partly due to no longer having travel time to and from work, but it's also because of a growing despair that good stories are getting harder to find.

I love Of Science and Swords, but their latest catalogue doesn't give me much hope for the state of my bookshelves. Either the store is cultivating a niche as premier supplier of legitimised Mary Sue fanfiction, or the whole fantasy/SciFi/horror market has already gone to hell. I really hope it's just the former.

aeliel and I have been playing the Mary Sue game - read a blurb out loud with the protagonist's name swapped out. It makes most new releases sound like part of a vast, vomit-inducing series, sprawling across space and time. Visit a world of wonder and imagination, where only our spunky brain-surgeon-vampire-hunter-private-detective-werewolf-starship-pilot-dragonriding-tomb-raider-archmage-princess can save the day against impossible odds! Surely there are still good books out there, floating atop the cesspit. Right?

...however, one major problem remains: Mary Sue, the only android survivor of blahblahblah's cybernetic empire. Outwardly indistinguishable from a human woman, Mary Sue has superhuman strength and speed, and perhaps even deadlier capabilities left unknown...

...Exorcism isn't a job, it's a calling - and a curse. Just ask Mary Sue, a woman who has a stronger aura than any Demon - or so she thought...

...Vampire Mary Sue has become a Watcher - one of the supernatural world's enforcers - even as she fights to control her vampiric rage. But if there is one thing Mary Sue has always been able to find, it's trouble...

...While vacationing in Tokyo, archaeologist Mary Sue is approached by a man who desperately needs her help. blahblahblah, the last descendant of an ancient warrior family, is trying to locate a stolen artifact...

...on the brink of civil war and mass starvation, the city turns to an inexperienced new Mistress, an orphan who has risen from the slums to claim the power of blahblahblah. Can Mary Sue harness her survival skills and save blahblahblah from ultimate destruction?...

And of course, a classic -

...follow Mary Sue from her beginnings as a travelling mage, to the tragic collapse of an elven empire, and on to a personal turning point that could have sent her down a path to corruption and darkness...

Yeuchh. When people start naming characters 'Dante Valentine' and 'Halcyon Blythe', I think I've accidentally wandered into a Mills & Boon catalogue.

Please, LJ - tell me what books and authors I should be looking for. Genre doesn't matter as much as decent writing - I'm happy to read outside my usual habits if it will lead me to a good story. Still, I'd like to believe that a publishing house somewhere is still producing some good speculative fiction though...

Comments

[aeduna.livejournal.com]

MattMatt started me off reading the Malazan books of the fallen which I was pretty impresed by. Um, Kate Elliot's stuff seems ok, if I can get the 2nd one back off someone. Avoid the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson like you would avoid the vomit of a rabid dog. ... apart from that i haven't read much new for ages - no public transport = no time to read.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

I think the Malazan website is broken - it seems to be an elaborate menu for arranging 404 errors at the moment :)

PT reading time was one of the few good things about working out in Burwood - I had almost four hours a day to read. I haven't managed to find a good way of riding and reading, though... damn traffic/pedestrians/immobile obstacles keep getting in the way.

[vass]

Jo Walton's Farthing: AU in which England made peace with Germany in WW2. Fucking *frightening*. Like a traditional English country house murder myster gone nightmarishly wrong. Written in one weekend in which Walton was very angry with current global politics. There's a sequel out in hardback, and she's writing a third and final book right now.

Also her other books, which are completely and utterly different, but all interesting and original.

Naomi Novik's Temeraire books. The first one's called either Temeraire or His Majesty's Dragon depending on if you get the US or UK editions. The second and third books are not quite as awesome as the first and fourth, but they're still awesome. It's like Patrick O'Brian's navy historicals, only with an air force on dragons. But still with real 19th-century politics, not as sugar-coated as the dragons might make it sound. Warning: she likes cliffhangers. First book: fairly self-contained ending, with a few respectable hooks dangling for the next book. Second book: cliffhanger. Third book: SHARP cliffhanger. Fourth book, which I just finished: ARGH HOW CAN SHE LEAVE IT THERE ARGH.

Cory Doctorow's... well, try 0wnz0red and see what you think. Cyberpunk, written by someone who knows about programming. And if you like that, he's written lots more, and all his novels are Creative Commons licensed, and you can download them from his website.

I have also heard very good things about Charles Stross and John Scalzi, but haven't managed to read either yet.

There's a book of short stories by Ted Chiang, Stories of your life, which I also haven't actually read yet, but I bought it because I'd read the title story, and it was the best precognition story I'd ever read.

The guy from Of Science and Swords seems to think he has to review every single novel published by Baen. That or he has bad taste. :-(

[virtual-munkee.livejournal.com]

Ooh a call for decent reading! My fave sort of post. I saw you mentioned the words...SPECULATIVE FICTION. I may be going out on a limb here, but have you read anything by JG Ballard? Sure, a few people have heard about Crash, and Empire of the Sun...But Ballard TRULY shines in his short to novel-length fiction.

There is a great short story collection or two out there, I recommend just reading from the front. I have a favourite story..I will have to track it down...Anyways its about the sun going nova and the plants on earth all hyperaccumulating metals (ie gold leaves) to deal ....Super nerdy :P

Here is a review of one of his collections from polyester books online...

Complete Short Stories Vol 1, The Ballard, J.G.

"The Complete Short Stories of JG Ballard are required reading for all connoisseurs of Ballard's writing. This compilation brings together 96 short stories drawn from previous collections of Ballard's short stories, including The Voices of Time and War Fever, as well as four previously uncollected stories. The result is an exhilarating overview of Ballard's development as a short-story writer, from the singing orchids of Vermilion Sands in Prima Belladonna, completed in 1956, to the millennial anxieties of Report from an Obscure Planet, written in 1992. The Complete Short Stories confirm Ballard's stature as a craftsman of the short story, which often suits his surreal brilliance above and beyond later novels such as Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes. In his Introduction, Ballard reflects, "the short story is coined from precious metal, a glint of gold that will glow for ever in the deep purse of your imagination." Time and again, whether exploring the furthest reaches of science fiction, or the banal surrealism of English suburban life, Ballard's perverse insight lodges itself in your imagination, as he explores and often punctures what he refers to as "that over-worked hologram called reality". This collection will delight devotees, but it will also allow readers new to Ballard to experience a short-story writer of the stature of Borges, Bradbury or Edgar Allan Poe. "

[virtual-munkee.livejournal.com]

Ooh I also recommend his novels, The Crystal World and The Drowned World.

Have you read any Kurt Vonnegut? Cat's Cradle was pretty good.

Neil Gaiman's novels are FANTASTIC, OH MY American Gods was one of the best books I read this year! Bring on Stardust.

Hmm will think of more laters, my mom always swore by Alistair Reynolds...Definitely recommend him. And Greg Bear.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

I haven't read nearly enough Ballard, although I have a bunch of short stories. I love SF short story compilations... so many ideas to explore in so little space.

Greg Bear tends to make my head hurt (still haven't gotten around to finishing Diaspora), although I've liked most of his stories so far.

I read American Gods while travelling in the US, which was... odd. Especially when a huge storm was tearing through downtown while I was holed up on a couch reading the final conflict...

[virtual-munkee.livejournal.com]

damn i will have to dig up some recommendations!

but kurt vonnegut for sure :)

have u read ursula le guin's short stories/spinoff stories? she has some great scifi blended with fantasy stuff.

but i am being too obvious, i know!

*thinks*

[delwyn.livejournal.com]

If you're after fantasy and haven't read George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, I highly recommend it. On the SF front, Alfred Bester's work always needs more fans (unfortunately the author is no longer among the living) - grab The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man for starters. In either case, you're welcome to borrow these books from me :)

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

Have I hassled you about the Bordertown books yet?

Loosely-strung-together collection of novels and short stories, set in a shared world, written mainly by USian authors in the 90s. The premise: at some point in the eighties, between the punks and the venture capitalists, Faerie came back. The stories are set in the once-human city that stands where it happened, a place where runaways and rejects from both worlds tend to gravitate. High Tolkenian elves with silver hair don't just mix with sharehousing ratbags who'd be at home in a John Birmingham novel, they tend to be them. There are magic-powered motorbikes cruising down the main street, ghosts in abandoned alleys, and penicillin and healing magic for sale at the local Chinese grocery store. People hold ceildhs in abandoned warehouses with spellboxes running the lighting, and muttering the wrong insult to the wrong scruffy streetkid at the wrong time can get you turned into something really peculiar. I'd start here if I was you, and move on to here and then probably here - something makes me think you'd get on awfully well with the character named Orient.

The Book of Lost Things is oddly reminiscent of C.S. Lewis, does some very interesting things with fairytales and Bettelheimian theory, and comes with its own free explanatory notes in the back.

And finally, if you're willing to branch out to graphic novels, the Hernandez brothers have finally started releasing their back catalogue in collectable (and affordable!) book form.
Of their two separate series, the Palomar stories have always been my favourites, but Love and Rockets is more in the sci-fi, fantasy-influenced side of things. I'd still recommend them both, though.


Also, if you see thekit in the new year, demand to borrow one of his Christmas presents! I'll say no more for now.

[drwally.livejournal.com]

Vernor Vinge is kicking it for me these days.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about Vinge - I think I read some of his short stories years ago. Haven't picked up any of his novels yet, but anyone with that many Hugo awards must be doing something right...

[mousebane.livejournal.com]

My new authors for the year are Charles Stross and China Mieville.

I can lend you either the Atrocity Archives or Perdido Street Station from these authors.

[morsla.livejournal.com]

Ooh - I'd love to borrow Perdido Street Station. I tried to track it down in the mega-bookstores in Chicago and Toronto, but couldn't find a copy anywhere...

[mousebane.livejournal.com]

Alrighty I shall bring it on Wednesday night.

I shall be accosting another Ben soon to borrow King Rat and Scar from that author.

[cookie-dreams.livejournal.com]

Hey! No dissing the M&B! Their names are waaaaay less cringe-worthy than most of the SF&F out there. And don't get me started on pulp spec fic...

Have you read Scott Westerfeld? He's my find of '07. His books are kind of geared towards a YA/EA audience, but they're brilliant. Try 'So Yesterday' for a true-ringing account of the fucked-up-ness of our media (and getting creative with words) or the Uglies trilogy (which is four books, go figure), which is set in a dystopian world of enforced beauty standards and environmental destruction. Oh wait, that's now.

Also, if you haven't read Max Barry's 'Jennifer Government', you should. Again, society at its finest.

[aurellia.livejournal.com]

You realise that if I'd known you were between authors the other night...no, I'd still probably retreated to my room. But you would have been given a small stack of selections.

I'm a big fan of Golden Age Sci-Fi, James Schmidt and Christopher Anvil for example. I'm still trying to put my finger on what defines this area, but its hard. Plot is more important than technological details, f'r example. Spider Robinson is a good one for feeling good and thinking hard. And yes, everyone who likes to watch societies should read the Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin.

I guess you need to work out if you want to think, be inspired, or be entertained.

[virtual-munkee.livejournal.com]

love your style! i will jot down those names for sure. i've really only explored the outer edges of the Golden Age authors.

I really enjoy their humour, satire, wit expressed in their writings. it just feels like they were more open to possibilities of not just technologies, but also the human potential.

or maybe its just me :D

[vass]

And Peeps! morsla, read Peeps! It's a vampire novel where vampirism is caused by a parasite, and it's full of fun facts about humans and real parasites.