Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

one of the things this group does is read & talk about books each month...novels, short stories, ect. Anyone up for reading & discussing books about SF (histories, fan histories, SF litcrit, ect)? keep in mind some of these books are expensive and/or hard to find, some can be had free on the web (both pirate and non-pirate editions on some of the long out of print stuff)

I guess I'd say I have mild interest -- that is, I'm interested, but despite my interest, I usually find this kind of reading either a little slow or downright grueling, which means I tend to read such books less frequently than novels or geared-to-the-layman nonfic. Which means that, since I already have some difficulties with making my reading schedule fit a group schedule, that'd probably be exacerbated with the meta-readings. (I'll probably get around to the Heinlein soon, but maybe not this month!) But introducing the nonfiction/theory side of things could make for some great discussions.

Maybe having more than a month lead time would help?

A few of the books on my TBR in this vein are Rhetorics of Fantasy, Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature, Frankenstein's Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction, and Critical Theory and Science Fiction. But I don't honestly seeing myself getting to any of these this calendar year!

long lead time is a good idea. :)

I'd be down.

Not sure books about SF are as much fun as SF Books :-)

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Cool! Our first book will be Up to Now: A History of Fandom as Jack Speer Sees It

you can get this for free legal download at www.efanzines.com

Is this about US fandom? That would bei far too specific and irrelevant to me :/

yes, US fandom...it is a quick read tho...what fandom are you a member of, i can find something revelent...this is only like 20 or so pages, just a starting book. :)

i have started a thread for Up to Now in the Book Discussions section of this group

I added Up To Now: A History of Fandom as Jack Speer Sees It to the Goodreads database and then our Group Bookshelf so it shows up on the Group Homepage as "Currently Reading".

Sweet! Thanks G. :)

I was a member of Germany's fandom. But I'm probably not interested enough in that specific topic.

we'll be readng stuff other than fandom stuff...

German fandom...read any Perry Rhodan?

Not really interested in fandom but I have read a decent amount about SF history and various works on the subject.

It might be more interesting to look at a specific topic from which people could draw on internet, their own reading of SF and fantasy and books on SF.

For instance if looking at an issue such as "what is SF" there might be 6 different books on SF brought up and each would enrich the discussion - as would different perspectives on people who read in the genre.

This also gets round the issue of individual books being difficult to get hold of, being out of print or expensive.

Spooky1947 wrote: "German fandom...read any Perry Rhodan?"
Yes, in the 80s I read some 200 of the weekly issues (that was the endless armada cycle). Probably most people here don't know about that series - since 1961, every week a new booklet with 64 pages about the continuing adventures of Mr Perry Rhodan and his friends appears. That is 2700 booklets establishing an enormous universe.
There is a huge fandom in Germany around that phenomenon.
But I've been more involved at that time in the fantasy/phantastic literature fandom.
Currently, I'm not following at all any fandom.

I used to stumble over piles of Perry Rhodan books in the second hand stores just like Doc Savage & others of that sort. I didn't care much for them, although I had a friend who collected all of both. I collected most of the Destroyer series.
;-)

I was actually given one as a present when I was very early teens, started trying to read it and worked out there was a lot of books before it in the series and gave up

Same here - when I figured out there were many Rhodan books, I gave up.

It takes only 2-3 booklets to get into the story flow. And it is best to start at 100er numbers, because they cycle every 50-100 booklets. But if you like to taste a bit of (modern) pulp, then go for it - it is really a universe in its own right: the Perrypedia contains 30,000 articles.

Perry Rhodan was reprinted in the usa by Forest J Akerman (4e)...only 130 or so were issued in paperback, that was back in the 70s...a few years ago they tried to star a usa Perry mag, but it lasted only a handfull of issues