World in the Satin Bag

Guardian’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels Everyone Must Read: The Meme

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I stole this from Neth Space, though apparently SF Signal has done it as well (or they started it, or something of that nature). Here’s how it works: Bold the books you’ve read. Spread this list like a virus, only be nicer about it, because being mean isn’t nice, and you wouldn’t want to be not-nice, would you? Here is the list: Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958) Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951) Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000) Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987) Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984) Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987) Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987) Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007) Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995) Greg Bear: Darwin’s Radio (1999) Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956) Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992) Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960) Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966) Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871) Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960) Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982) Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912) William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959) Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979) Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872) Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957) Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988) Lewis Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984) Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000) Arthur C Clarke: Childhood’s End (1953) GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004) Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975) Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998) Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000) Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996) Samuel R Delaney: The Einstein Intersection (1967) Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962) Umberto Eco: Foucault’s Pendulum (1988) Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000) John Fowles: The Magus (1966) Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001) Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973) William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984) Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915) William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954) Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974) M John Harrison: Light (2002) Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) Frank Herbert: Dune (1965) Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943) Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980) James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998) Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932) Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995) Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959) Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898) PD James: The Children of Men (1992) Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885) Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001) Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925) Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966) Stephen King: The Shining (1977) Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953) Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864) Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961) Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920) Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008) Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005) Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994) Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954) Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992) Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006) Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007) China Miéville: The Scar (2002) Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997) Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960) David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004) Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988) William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890) Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987) Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995) Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969) Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003) Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970) Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993) Flann O’Brien: The Third Policeman (1967) Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991) Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996) Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818) Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946) John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932) Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995) François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34) Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000) Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988) Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943) José Saramago: Blindness (1995) Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000) Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818) Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989) Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937) Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992) Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897) Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996) Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court (1889) Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959) Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909) Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926) Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999) HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895) HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898) TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938) Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83) John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951) John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924) Well, I have read a pathetically small amount of these novels–seventeen. I apparently don’t read enough. How did you do?

World in the Satin Bag

Visitor Milestone: 50,000!

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Apparently I crossed my 50,000 hits milestone the other day. Not bad. Of course, it would be lovely if that were 50,000,000, but I’m not John Scalzi. In any case, thank you all for sticking around, visiting my blog, commenting, etc. I appreciate it. Here’s to another 50,000!

World in the Satin Bag

A Reading Challenge (by Decade)

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While I could probably do this challenge without having to select new books (since my reading list for school is from all over the place), I think that would be cheating and will simply sit out this time around. But perhaps some of you, my lovely readers, will get a kick out of trying this, so I’m going to post the link to the Decades Challenge and give you the basic layout of how it works: Read a minimum of 9 books in 9 consecutive decades in ‘09. Books published in the 2000’s do not count. Titles may be cross-posted with any other challenge. You may change your list at any time. There are a few other rules on the website, but those are the most important. If you’re interested in doing this, let me know in the comments and feel free to keep me updated on your progress. I’m curious what books people will pick! Anywho! Edit: A correction has been made. This challenge is for 2009, not for 2008. It would be rather difficult to do a challenge that happened last year, don’t you think? Problem solved!

World in the Satin Bag

Website Found: Secret and Complex Literatures

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I had at one point been mulling around in my head an idea for a young adult fantasy/science fiction novel centered around the Voynich Manuscript, a mysterious collection of pages written in an unknown and undecipherable language accompanied by bizarre illustrations. Presumably it’s one of those incredibly clever creations that we’ll likely never understand, since the person who wrote it died before it was found. The problem for me was finding a book that put all of the pages of the Voynich Manuscript into one place, but without all the writing of an author discussing it crammed between the pages or in the margins. With that in mind, I present to you Secret and Complex Literatures. What is it?Secret and Complex Literatures, which needs a different name, by the way, is a fascinating site filled with ancient texts, strange invented languages/alphabets, obscure and relatively forgotten elements of ancient writing, and, of course, the Voynich Manuscript. If you’re interested in invented languages by people other than Tolkien, particularly people you might not have known had invented languages, this is certainly a site for you. Why is it cool?Well, aside from the fact that it’s a site that puts all this wonderful stuff right in front of your face, it includes a section of thirty-six beautiful manuscripts, a page of ambigrams, a page of calligraphies/micrographies/calligrams, six palimpsest manuscripts, twenty-three variations of secret writings and invented languages, and much more (Voynich, for example). It’s all there. Fantasy fans will love this site, I imagine, because it puts all this wonderful stuff in one place; no need to Google search it (unless you want to know more about a particular item). The only downside is that much of the site is written in French, but that shouldn’t deter you. Give this site a look and let me know what you think!

World in the Satin Bag

Show Review: Stream Episode One

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I’ve been fascinated by the push for web-based television shows (not web-extensions of TV shows, but original works placed on the web in small 3-5 minute episodes). The recent incarnation is Whoopi Goldberg vehicle Stream. The show has only one episode up at the moment, which is the one I’m reviewing, but the description of the show is quite intriguing: Thanks to a drug she took when she was seventeen, moments from various points in Jodi’s life become intertwined, effectively letting her experience two moments at once.Jodi has spoken with her future husband; she’s visited the psychiatric ward where she will reside in her twenties, and she has come face to face with a vision that will haunt her throughout her life.Ultimately, Stream is about a woman who spends a lifetime wrestling with her personal demons, and gathering the strength to face her worst fears.Stream snaps back and forth through three phases of Jodi’s life: her past as an intelligent but headstrong teen; her present in a psychiatric facility, and her future as an adult clinging to a normal life after years of tribulation.The story unfolds in and around New York City, as we travel with Jodi from the wealthy suburban home of her youth to the nebulous world of an institution, and the unforgiving streets of the South Bronx. The first episode of this mind-bending psycho-thriller clocks in at three minutes and thirty seconds, but immediately establishes, or tries to at least, the basic premise: that Jodi can experience time as if it were stationary; she can experience her past and her future together.The production quality is decent and thankfully aims for a more minimalist approach than a clouded CG-infested approach. It also seems like this is a series that is well cast, what with Whoopi Goldberg at the head and a collection of unknown, but seemingly capable actors and actresses supporting her.I should say that I’m a Whoopi fan. I don’t know why, but I enjoy Goldberg’s movies. Stream is, for me, another of her projects I intend to stick with. It’s hard to judge this series effectively on one episode, but after seeing it I can say that I am interested. I want to know more about Jodi, about how she ended up the way she is, and where she will end up when this is all over.Give the first episode a look and let me know what you think. It’s only a few minutes out of your day and you might find yourself as interested as I am in the end.

World in the Satin Bag

The Haul of Books Volume Three

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I have more books to show the world. The books in this post are part of the huge box my friend gave me while she was packing to move, and there should be two or so posts more of this stuff before I run out of the freebee books. Of course, with school already started I have plenty of other books to show you all, but that will come at another time. For now, here’s this edition’s haul:First up are Starman by Sara Douglass and Broken Blade, King of Shadows, The Western King, and Kingmaker’s Sword by Ann Marston. The latter group are apparently Scottish semi-fantasy, which sounds interesting to me!And then there are March Upcountry by John Ringo and David Weber, Requiem For the Sun and Prophecy by Elizabeth Haydon, and The Woad to Wuin by Peter David. If you look closely in this picture you can actually see the edge of the box from whence these books came.Thoughts on any of these books are certainly welcome!Expect at some point in the relatively near future–once my last school book comes in from wherever it’s coming from–there will be a collection of posts dedicated to my reading list for this quarter. I thought last quarter was bad, but this quarter is certainly kicking my butt. Twenty-eight books to be read in about ten weeks. You do the math…

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