That sense of wonder--have we lost it?
Oct. 27th, 2005 05:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaGreat stuff from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
supergee about the Sense of Wonder.
I suppose I like fantasy well enough that when SF steps over the line of reality, I hop over along with it. Supergee mentions the great PKD. Another SF author who segues into fantasy sometimes is Rudy Rucker. I'm a great fan of Rucker, as well as of PKD. _Master of Space and Time_ is difficult to find, but it's my favorite Rucker. The book does have some kinda explicit sex in it near the end, so if that's a turnoff, you might take that into consideration; the science is really cool, as is the writing. (He has a dry, droll wit. Reminds me of Douglas Adams in a way, though in a way it doesn't. *grin*) Also note that Rucker has written nonfiction--popular math/science. Worth a look.
If you'd like to try a Phil Dick book, you could start with one of his more "normal" ones, the one about the world in which Japan won WWII. It's the one he won the prizes for, _The Man in the High Castle_. Alternate history buffs, take note. I also like _Ubik_ (which made Time Magazine's list.) Not to be taken internally. You could start there, too.
But I'll always keep copies of _Time Out of Joint_, _Flow My Tears_, and _Now Wait For Last Year_ handy. I used to love _Confessions of a Crap Artist_ and its unreliable narrator, but lately I've gotten grossed out by the ending and have decided that he had the narrator act too psychotically out of character with what he did to all those animals. I think it's because I'm getting so ancient, but I just can't stomach bad things happening to animals in books any more. I guess I was just spooked young by Bambi and Old Yeller and that Red Pony in Steinbeck. Maybe this is a phase, and I'll go back to loving that crazy mainstream novel (it's the only one of Dick's mainstream works published during his lifetime.)
Remember, though, that Phil can be like the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When he's good, he's very, very good. But some of the other books were kind of pounded out and not really revised and polished a bunch, so you might run across some prose that doesn't shine. Fair warning. Skip a few lines, and the awkwardness will probably clear up.
His novels are actually one long meta-novel. That's kind of cool, in itself.
If you read the Sense of Wonder post: Rhinos are neat, but unicorns are cooler. I still think that the unicorns just missed the Ark somehow. Why couldn't the mosquitoes have? Oh, yeah, they breed in water and they fly . . . dang.
supergee about the Sense of Wonder.I suppose I like fantasy well enough that when SF steps over the line of reality, I hop over along with it. Supergee mentions the great PKD. Another SF author who segues into fantasy sometimes is Rudy Rucker. I'm a great fan of Rucker, as well as of PKD. _Master of Space and Time_ is difficult to find, but it's my favorite Rucker. The book does have some kinda explicit sex in it near the end, so if that's a turnoff, you might take that into consideration; the science is really cool, as is the writing. (He has a dry, droll wit. Reminds me of Douglas Adams in a way, though in a way it doesn't. *grin*) Also note that Rucker has written nonfiction--popular math/science. Worth a look.
If you'd like to try a Phil Dick book, you could start with one of his more "normal" ones, the one about the world in which Japan won WWII. It's the one he won the prizes for, _The Man in the High Castle_. Alternate history buffs, take note. I also like _Ubik_ (which made Time Magazine's list.) Not to be taken internally. You could start there, too.
But I'll always keep copies of _Time Out of Joint_, _Flow My Tears_, and _Now Wait For Last Year_ handy. I used to love _Confessions of a Crap Artist_ and its unreliable narrator, but lately I've gotten grossed out by the ending and have decided that he had the narrator act too psychotically out of character with what he did to all those animals. I think it's because I'm getting so ancient, but I just can't stomach bad things happening to animals in books any more. I guess I was just spooked young by Bambi and Old Yeller and that Red Pony in Steinbeck. Maybe this is a phase, and I'll go back to loving that crazy mainstream novel (it's the only one of Dick's mainstream works published during his lifetime.)
Remember, though, that Phil can be like the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When he's good, he's very, very good. But some of the other books were kind of pounded out and not really revised and polished a bunch, so you might run across some prose that doesn't shine. Fair warning. Skip a few lines, and the awkwardness will probably clear up.
His novels are actually one long meta-novel. That's kind of cool, in itself.
If you read the Sense of Wonder post: Rhinos are neat, but unicorns are cooler. I still think that the unicorns just missed the Ark somehow. Why couldn't the mosquitoes have? Oh, yeah, they breed in water and they fly . . . dang.
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Date: 2005-10-27 04:46 am (UTC)I am a fan of alternate-history, though (from Diana Wynne Jones to The Alteration) so perhaps I'll do what you suggest and tackle High Castle first.
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Date: 2005-10-27 10:50 am (UTC)Note: I suspect that some of what you consider fantasy, he considered realism.
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Date: 2005-10-28 04:14 am (UTC)And then bats eat them. Anything that makes bats happy is all right with me. If only I could figure out how to train my own little squadron of cuddly bats to fly around Mitzi and me at the barn, eating skeeters. Especially me--she is inoculated against West Nile!
I don't read fantasy much at all, or SF, but I still have those "wonder" times. Sometimes I just have to stop and hug myself and think "wow!" They're less common as I get older, but that seems tomake them more precious.