sci-fi/fantasy column

[rm]

My first piece is up:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976899202

Please come comment; the poetry guy as 87 (87!) comments on his piece.

Comments

[cookie-cm.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing the article via link. First I must comment on you photo, very striking, very sexy.
For reasons I am not quite in touch with, I shriek away from anything labeled 'sci-fi'. Likely from past experiences of what I have found to be dull stories, which seemed to read like bad romance novels - the same story - different names, etc. plugged in. The only books that caught my full attention, and then some, were read many, many years ago: The Chronicles of Amber and Warhound and the Worlds pain. It's been so long I may even have the title wrong. I ate them up, but to search for more seemed a feat that I just wasn't willing to tackle. I loved Lovecraft back in the day as well.

So, I dare ask the obnoxious, based on my far away past readings, can you recommend something? I also enjoy true mystery/crime, history, kink and the classics i.e. Hugo.

At this point in my life, I still feel like a juvenile and unexperienced reader, and I would love to mature a bit.

Thank you for your consideration :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Because of the turns the world has taken since it was written, it can seem a little quaint, but William Gibson's Neuromancer has solid characters, a detective-like tone and is convincing.

Elizabeth Hand's winterlong and Aestival Tide straddle the sci-fi/fantasy line very well. She's an amazing technician and you care about her characters. Takes place ina post-apocalyptic US where the Mall in Washington DC has become so overgrown it is called "the narrow forrest" and the Lincoln Memorial is believed to have been a god of the ancient Egyptians, "the Sorrowful Lincoln."

Want a Regency romance novel that isn't Regency and isn't really romance? Try Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint.

Want a big complicated love story involving the search for self and a creature hat can only be seen in its true form when it is engaging with someone else -- since it becomes what you desire? Clive Barker's Imajica. It's not horror, and his female characters can be a bit clunky , but it's really amazing.

Steve Erickson isn't a science fiction writer. But he's written some insanely strange and magical books, focused to various degrees on Sally Hemmings. Try Arc d'X, about the day falling between December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000 made up of all the moments that have ever been lost to memory. One of my absolute favourites. Compelling, tragic and strange.

How does one foster intelligence and what is the price of it? What must we subject children to to make them brilliant; what would you subject yourself to in order to rule a nation, or at least a political corporate conglomerate, as a teenager? CJ Cherryh's Cyteen.

[rm.livejournal.com]

OH, and if you like kink, run don't walk to Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Dart. While I had problems with a lot of the kink elements in it, the books comes together and is rather amazing inspite of itself.