On my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the #StarShipSofa podcast (Episode 774), I discuss four recent works about #ScienceFiction that are perfect for your 2026 #TBR list.
#Biography #History #OctaviaButler #JulesVerne #VintageSF #StarTrek #Books #Bookstodon #OctaviaEButler #SFF

Here is the link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starshipsofa-774-caren-gussoff-sumption/id166360307?i=1000746000785

#Books and #stories completed in August:

2024-08: 19 ss | 03 nvt | 01 nva | 08 nov⁰

The Spot of Life - Austin Hall (nov) {Spot 2} ●●●○○ #SFF

What's It Like Out There? - Edmond Hamilton (ss) ●●○○○

As Good as New - Charlie Jane Anders (ss) ●●●●○ #reading

Off Course - Mack Reynolds (ss) ●●●○○

The Price of Vengeance - Gina Marie Wylie (nov) {alt-Kalvan 3} ●●●●◐ #AltHist

Ultima Thule - Mack Reynolds (nvt) ●●●○○ #ScienceFiction

Grover: Case #C09 920, “The Most Dangerous Blend” ⬖ Edward Edmonds (ss) ●●◐○○¹

A Field of Sapphires and Sunshine ⬖ Jaymee Goh (ss) ●●●◐○

Roswell - Sonny Whitelaw, Jennifer Fallon (nov) {SG-1 #9} ●●●●○ #Stargate

The Fifth Dimension - Clare Winger Harris (ss) ●●○○○

Mercenary - Mack Reynolds (nvt) ●●●○○

Red Stuff - John Wyndham (ss) ●●●○○ #ClassicSciFi

Heavenly Dreams of Mechanical Trees ⬖ Wendy Nikel ●●●○○

Summer Frost - Blake Crouch (nvt) ●●●●○ #AI

The Seeds from Outside - Edmond Hamilton (ss) ●◐○○○

Screams of the Past - Ralts Bloodthorne (nov) {Behold: Humanity! 08} ●●●●◐ #HFY

After a Judgment Day - Edmond Hamilton (ss) ●●●○○

First Through Time - Rex Gordon (nva) ●●●◐○ #TimeTravel

The Menace of Mars - Clare Winger Harris (ss) ●●●◐○

Exile - Edmond Hamilton (ss) ●●●◐○

A Runaway World - Clare Winger Harris (ss) ●●●○○

Under the Northern Lights ⬖ Charlotte M Ray (ss) ●●●◐○

Nudist Resort Murder - Kalusna Rose (nov) ●◐○○○ #mystery

Evolutionary Monstrosity - Clare Winger Harris (ss) ●●○○○

Midsummer Night's Heist ⬖ Commando Jugendstil (ss) ●●●●○

He That Hath Wings - Edmond Hamilton (ss) ●●◐○○

The Jupiter Plague - Harry Harrison (nov) ●●●◐○ #SciFi

Tabula Rasa - J Ishiro Finney (ss) ●●○○○ #biopunk

Time and Time Again - H Beam Piper (ss) ●●●◐○ #reincarnation

When the World Shook ⬙ H. Rider Haggard (nov)² ●●◐○○ #vintageSF

Time Crime - H Beam Piper & John F Carr (nov) ●●●◐○ [Piper original, extended by Carr to better hook up with his sequels] #ScienceFiction

Riot of the Wind and Sun ⬖ Jennifer Lee Rossman (ss) ●●●◐○ #SolarPunk

_____

#Reading was down this month, I'm not sure why. Maybe five months of elevated reading times after getting the Kobo Sage and installing KOReader is just wearing off. Instead of doing two full novels each week and filling in with shorter works, I'll try doing just one.

_____

[0] Previous months:
2024-07: 22 ss | 03 nvt | 02 nva | 09 nov
2024-06: 19 ss | 04 nvt | 03 nva | 09 nov
2024-05: 20 ss | 08 nvt | 02 nva | 07 nov

⬙ = Atlantis and Lemuria: 13 Classic Tales
⬖ = Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers

[1] Another #koReader first. Longest title, at 49 characters long: Grover: Case #C09 920, “The Most Dangerous Blend”. This meant stretching a 106-screen (39p in original epub) over five days. I'll just shorten calendar names henceforth; in this case that would have been "Dangerous Blend" at two days wide.

[2] H Rider Haggard's _When the World Shook_ (1919) was very similar to Erle Cox's _Out of the Silence_ (1919 serialized, 1925 novel).

_Shook_ has two people, a young woman and an older man, found underground in crystal coffins; they were in suspended animation from 250,000 years ago, the man claims. The man was a ruler, and expresses a desire to wipe out the lesser civilization of today, as he did those who refused to bow to him in the past. The woman and the man who found her fall in love. Both ancient individuals die in the end.

_Silence_ had a man find an underground metal chamber. After getting past the booby traps, he awakens a young woman from ancient, pre-catacylsmic times. (The older man is later found in another sphere.) Again, the older man plans to rule Earth, and the woman falls for the modern man. Both ancient individuals die in the end.

I liked _Out of the Silence_ better. No third of the book wasted in setup. It also has more of a point: Both the ancient young woman and the old man are casually racist against "the coloured races," but the narrator is not, and it's clear the point is to highlight how European colonists are mistreating indigenous Australians.

_When the World Shook_ has the young woman sacrificing herself to save the world, and the man she loves. It turns out that, when suspended, your soul is free to be reincarnated. The modern man who found her contains the soul of the man she loved, whom her father had killed because he was a commoner leading the revolt of the masses against the "Children of Wisdom" who ruled them. And the modern man's wife, who died early in the book, was the most recent receptacle of the ancient woman's soul.

Oh, by the way, the word "Atlantis" shows up exactly once in the novel, and only in a "I heard of another place that was destroyed and submerged beneath the waves" sense. It's not used to describe where the sleepers came from.

Massive

le 18 juillet 1983 à la nuit tombante deux vaisseaux éclaireurs se posèrent sans bruit dans une clairière de la forêt de Tronçais dans le Cher. L'un deux fut presque immédiatement gobé par un busard Saint-Martin, l'autre, accueilli par les stridulences d'un Capricorne du chêne, eut à peine le temps de repartir vers sa base sur Titania.
Devant le danger l'invasion massive qui devait suivre fut annulée in extremis.

#octobrèves
#vintageSF