Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 12:09:22 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Old School
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

>
>>>> herrimank at verizon.net 3/30/2005 7:32:18 PM >>>
>Okay Bill and I could not let this subject go on with out weighing in
on
>th=
>is subject.  We read hardly any new Science Fiction or Fantasy.

It is hard to kkep up, there's sooooo much being published, and even
using Sturgeon's Law, that still leaves far too many books

Just a random name: Richard Chwedyk
<.http://www.sfwa.org/members/chwedyk/> whose written a number of
stories, including three about living toy dinosaurs which in lesser
hands would be pretty saccharine.

 As
>we sat =
>and thought about what books would we recommend we decided we
>would try to =
>pick 3 a piece that stood out as really memorable reads.  After what
>seems =
>like tons of mediocore or regurgitated plot lines these are the ones
>that w=
>e remember.  I wonder why it is that it is the old stuff that for us
is
>sti=
>ll more exciting than most of the new stuff on the shelf today?

Some of the new stuff is just Extruded Plastic Fiction.  But, listen to
friends whose opinions you know.  Lots of stuff being published. I was
rathertaken with China Mieville novel Perdido Street Station, a novel
very much not for everyone.

>Anyway her=
>e are our choices: Bill chose ?Against Infinity? by Gregory Benford,
?
>The S=
>hores of Another Sea? by Chad Oliver and ?Clay?s Ark? by Octavia E.
>Butler.=
>  I read more Fantasy than Science Fiction but I have to put ?
>Silverlock by=
> John Meyers-Meyers? at the top of my ?If You Haven?t Read It You
>Should Li=
>st followed by , ?The Ship that Sailed the Time Stream? by G. C.
>Edmundson =
>and of course ?Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen? by H. Beam Piper.  These
>books for=
> us truly had and still have the ?Oh, Wow?  factor and after all these

>year=
>s we still remember scenes from these wonderful reads.=20
>
>On another note we also wonder why there is hardly any Science
>Fiction or F=
>antasy in Large Print.

Maybe audio books?  The Washington Post did a review of a few recently.
 The unabridged "Jonathan Strange" is on 24 cds and runs 32 hours.
Don't recall how they did the footnotes.

>  As Bill's vision gets worse I wish we could find
>so=
>me. If anyone knows of somewhere that we can find them please let
>us know. =

I'd suggest a librarian.  What they don't know, they know where to
look.

mjw

>=20
>Karey and Bill
>
>Karey