Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?

The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
334 by Thomas M. Disch
The Godwhale by T. J. Bass

I've read the Le Guin and the Bass, although I was aware of the other two.

Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novellas Have You Read?

Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg
A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin
On the Street of the Serpents or, The Assassination of Chairman Mao, As Effected by the Author in Seville, Spain, in the Spring of 1992, a Year of No Certain Historicity by Michael Bishop

All of them.

Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novelettes Have You Read?

If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund
The Rest Is Silence by Charles L. Grant
Twilla by Tom Reamy

The first and the last. I am not well read in Grant's work.

Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Short Stories Have You Read?

The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Engine at Heartspring's Center by Roger Zelazny
After King Kong Fell by Philip Jose Farmer

The Le Guin and the Zelazny.

Which 1975 Nebula Dramatic Presentation Have You Seen?

Sleeper by Woody Allen
Frankenstein: The True Story by Don Bachardy and Christopher Isherwood
The Fantastic Planet by Steve Hayes and Rene Laloux and Roland Topor
and Stefan Wul

Only the Woody Allen. All I remember is the scene with the VW Beetle.
I've never heard of the other two film. I don't know why this
category existed at this time.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

James Nicoll wrote:
> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>
> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

_Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
in _Dangerous Visions_?
Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
Lafferty [1]:

If the [short] stories break many of the "rules" of writing-
and they do, departing sharply at times from conventions of
characterization, pacing, and plot-then they do so at a
manageable length. The novels tend to sprawl, binding
together episodes less through elegant plot mechanics than
via other logics that are not always immediately evident.

Lafferty's toilet humor was the sprawl's last straw. It served to stop
the stool show:

"Fox-firk, I cast better lumps in the stool than the pack of
you can say in a night's talk," Thomas said angrily, "and I'm
called to do it now. Begging your pardons but I must go to
the henry. Or is it called the charles in this realm,
Emperor?"

"Call it what you wish, Thomas," the young Emperor said. And
then he winked at Evita a wink that was like lightning between
them, and Thomas caught it.

"What is the levity here?" he demanded still more angrily.
"Cannot an honest man go to the henry without being mocked?"

"It is only that there is a citizen of Goslar with an unusual
means of livelihood," the Emperor said. "It is a trade that
has been passed down from father to son. We will be listening
for the lilt of your voice, good Thomas." ...

And then came the high angry lilt of the voice of Thomas from
the little henry out back of the royal shack. All the
frustration of the ages was in that furious denunciation that
Thomas was loosening on someone.

Evita and the Emperor Charles and the green-robe and the man
who had lost his wife except her bones all went into spasms
of laughter.

Anyhow, PKD seems like a good alternative for my mp3 player.

Note.

[1] <https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/1571-reintroducing-r-a-lafferty-a-8220master8221-for-the-past-present-and-future/>

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

On 2024-03-18, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>
> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
> 334 by Thomas M. Disch
> The Godwhale by T. J. Bass
>
> I've read the Le Guin and the Bass, although I was aware of the other two.

Read all. _The Dispossessed_ is the only Favorite; the others
aren't close (I'm surprised the Bass is a Nebula nominee).

>
> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novellas Have You Read?
>
> Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg
> A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin
> On the Street of the Serpents or, The Assassination of Chairman Mao, As Effected by the Author in Seville, Spain, in the Spring of 1992, a Year of No Certain Historicity by Michael Bishop
>
> All of them.

Not the Bishop - the other two are quite good.

> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novelettes Have You Read?
>
> If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund
> The Rest Is Silence by Charles L. Grant
> Twilla by Tom Reamy
>
> The first and the last. I am not well read in Grant's work.

Likewise, though I'm not positive I read "If the Stars Are Gods" in novelette
form - I remember the novel.

>
> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Short Stories Have You Read?
>
> The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
> The Engine at Heartspring's Center by Roger Zelazny
> After King Kong Fell by Philip Jose Farmer
>
> The Le Guin and the Zelazny.

Just the Le Guin. I like Zelazny short stories but don't have the
collection this one was in.

>
> Which 1975 Nebula Dramatic Presentation Have You Seen?
>
> Sleeper by Woody Allen
> Frankenstein: The True Story by Don Bachardy and Christopher Isherwood
> The Fantastic Planet by Steve Hayes and Rene Laloux and Roland Topor
> and Stefan Wul
>
> Only the Woody Allen. All I remember is the scene with the VW Beetle.
> I've never heard of the other two film. I don't know why this
> category existed at this time.

Only the Allen

Chris

In article <20240318b@crcomp.net>, Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>
>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
>
>_Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
>everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
>partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
>in _Dangerous Visions_?
> Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
>novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
>plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
>can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
>Lafferty [1]:

[big snip]

I do not get the attraction of Lafferty at all.
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 3/18/2024 9:45 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>
> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
> 334 by Thomas M. Disch
> The Godwhale by T. J. Bass

All

> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novellas Have You Read?
>
> Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg
> A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin
> On the Street of the Serpents or, The Assassination of Chairman Mao, As Effected by the Author in Seville, Spain, in the Spring of 1992, a Year of No Certain Historicity by Michael Bishop

All

> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novelettes Have You Read?
>
> If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund
> The Rest Is Silence by Charles L. Grant
> Twilla by Tom Reamy

None

> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Short Stories Have You Read?
>
> The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
> The Engine at Heartspring's Center by Roger Zelazny
> After King Kong Fell by Philip Jose Farmer

All

> Which 1975 Nebula Dramatic Presentation Have You Seen?
>
> Sleeper by Woody Allen
> Frankenstein: The True Story by Don Bachardy and Christopher Isherwood
> The Fantastic Planet by Steve Hayes and Rene Laloux and Roland Topor
> and Stefan Wul

Sleeper, and Fantastic Planet

James Nicoll wrote:
> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>
> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
> 334 by Thomas M. Disch

Only these, and it took me thirty five years to finish the LeGuin. I
kicked myself when I realized how good it is.

And twenty years to get the reference in the title of Dick's novel.

> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novellas Have You Read?
>
> Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg
> A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin

Just these.

>
>
> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novelettes Have You Read?
>
> If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund

Only this.

>
> The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
> The Engine at Heartspring's Center by Roger Zelazny
> After King Kong Fell by Philip Jose Farmer

I recall none of them. I missed a Zelazny?

I thought it was physics and chess that obsessed me at this time. But
to account for reading so little I'm going to hypothesize a drug habit
that I have since forgotten.

William Hyde

James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <20240318b@crcomp.net>, Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>
>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
>>
>> _Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
>> everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
>> partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
>> in _Dangerous Visions_?
>> Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
>> novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
>> plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
>> can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
>> Lafferty [1]:
>
> [big snip]
>
> I do not get the attraction of Lafferty at all.

I can understand that, in general.

But not even "900 Grandmothers"?

William Hyde

On 3/18/24 5:46 PM, William Hyde wrote:
> James Nicoll wrote:
>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>
>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>> 334 by Thomas M. Disch
>
> Only these, and it took me thirty five years to finish the LeGuin.   I
> kicked myself when I realized how good it is.
>
> And twenty years to get the reference in the title of Dick's novel.
>
>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novellas Have You Read?
>>
>> Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg
>> A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin
>
>
> Just these.
>
>>
>>
>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novelettes Have You Read?
>>
>> If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund
>
> Only this.
>
>>
>> The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
>> The Engine at Heartspring's Center by Roger Zelazny
>> After King Kong Fell by Philip Jose Farmer
>
> I recall none of them.   I missed a Zelazny?

Maybe "forgot" instead of "missed"? It's in the Zelazny collection "The
Last Defender of Camelot", and probably doesn't stand out much, given
that this collection also contains "He Who Shapes", "Auto-Da-Fe",
"Damnation Alley", "For a Breath I Tarry", and the title story (as well
as many others).

It's also pretty short - 7-8 pages. It starts "Let me tell you of the
creature called the Bork. It was born in the heart of a dying sun. It
was cast forth upon this day from the river of past/future as a piece of
time pollution. ..."

Tony

In article <utacp2$d4af$1@dont-email.me>,
William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>
>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>> 334 by Thomas M. Disch
>
>Only these, and it took me thirty five years to finish the LeGuin. I
>kicked myself when I realized how good it is.
>
>And twenty years to get the reference in the title of Dick's novel.
>
>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novellas Have You Read?
>>
>> Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg
>> A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin
>
>
>Just these.
>
>>
>>
>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novelettes Have You Read?
>>
>> If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund
>
>Only this.
>
>>
>> The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
>> The Engine at Heartspring's Center by Roger Zelazny
>> After King Kong Fell by Philip Jose Farmer
>
>I recall none of them. I missed a Zelazny?
>
You missed The Last Defender of Camelot collection?
--
My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

On 3/18/2024 2:49 PM, William Hyde wrote:
> James Nicoll wrote:
>> In article <20240318b@crcomp.net>, Don  <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>>
>>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>>> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
>>>
>>> _Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
>>> everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
>>> partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
>>> in _Dangerous Visions_?
>>>     Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
>>> novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
>>> plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
>>> can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
>>> Lafferty [1]:
>>
>> [big snip]
>>
>> I do not get the attraction of Lafferty at all.
>
> I can understand that, in general.
>
> But not even "900 Grandmothers"?
>
Sounds like someone is going to get loved to death.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

James Nicoll wrote:
> In article <utacp2$d4af$1@dont-email.me>,
> William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>
>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>> 334 by Thomas M. Disch
>>
>> Only these, and it took me thirty five years to finish the LeGuin. I
>> kicked myself when I realized how good it is.
>>
>> And twenty years to get the reference in the title of Dick's novel.
>>
>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novellas Have You Read?
>>>
>>> Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg
>>> A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin
>>
>>
>> Just these.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novelettes Have You Read?
>>>
>>> If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund
>>
>> Only this.
>>
>>>
>>> The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>> The Engine at Heartspring's Center by Roger Zelazny
>>> After King Kong Fell by Philip Jose Farmer
>>
>> I recall none of them. I missed a Zelazny?
>>
> You missed The Last Defender of Camelot collection?

I remember the other stories, but not this one. IIRC I never owned a
copy of that collection.

William Hyde
>

On 3/18/24 8:51 PM, William Hyde wrote:
> James Nicoll wrote:
>> In article <utacp2$d4af$1@dont-email.me>,
>> William Hyde  <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>>
>>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>>> 334 by Thomas M. Disch
>>>
>>> Only these, and it took me thirty five years to finish the LeGuin.   I
>>> kicked myself when I realized how good it is.
>>>
>>> And twenty years to get the reference in the title of Dick's novel.
>>>
>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novellas Have You Read?
>>>>
>>>> Born with the Dead by Robert Silverberg
>>>> A Song for Lya by George R. R. Martin
>>>
>>>
>>> Just these.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novelettes Have You Read?
>>>>
>>>> If the Stars Are Gods by Gregory Benford and Gordon Eklund
>>>
>>> Only this.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>>> The Engine at Heartspring's Center by Roger Zelazny
>>>> After King Kong Fell by Philip Jose Farmer
>>>
>>> I recall none of them.   I missed a Zelazny?
>>>
>> You missed The Last Defender of Camelot collection?
>
> I remember the other stories, but not this one.  IIRC I never owned a
> copy of that collection.
>

Let's see...this story originally appeared in also appeared in Analog
(July 1974), and also appeared in The Best Science Fiction of the Year
#4 (ed. by Terry Carr), and Nebula Stories 10 (ed. by James Gunn)
amongst other anthologies.

Tony

On 19/03/24 10:49, William Hyde wrote:
> James Nicoll wrote:
>> In article <20240318b@crcomp.net>, Don  <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>>
>>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>>> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
>>>
>>> _Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
>>> everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
>>> partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
>>> in _Dangerous Visions_?
>>>     Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
>>> novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
>>> plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
>>> can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
>>> Lafferty [1]:
>>
>> [big snip]
>>
>> I do not get the attraction of Lafferty at all.
>
> I can understand that, in general.
>
> But not even "900 Grandmothers"?
>

I haven't finished a Lafferty novel and although I do not read many
short stories, many of Lafferty's short stories are brilliantly clever.
I don't like ghost stories, my favourites of his being con men tales
where the con man can be anything from a woman to a supernatural being.
If I read three in a row, the first is forgotten before the third is
finished!

I enjoy PK Dick and Flow My Tears which was a little confusing. In your
other post were you referring to the 'song"?

Titus G wrote:
> William Hyde wrote:
>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Don wrote:
>>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>>>
>>>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>>>> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
>>>>
>>>> _Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
>>>> everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
>>>> partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
>>>> in _Dangerous Visions_?
>>>>     Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
>>>> novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
>>>> plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
>>>> can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
>>>> Lafferty [1]:
>>>
>>> [big snip]
>>>
>>> I do not get the attraction of Lafferty at all.
>>
>> I can understand that, in general.
>>
>> But not even "900 Grandmothers"?
>>
>
> I haven't finished a Lafferty novel and although I do not read many
> short stories, many of Lafferty's short stories are brilliantly clever.
> I don't like ghost stories, my favourites of his being con men tales
> where the con man can be anything from a woman to a supernatural being.
> If I read three in a row, the first is forgotten before the third is
> finished!
>
> I enjoy PK Dick and Flow My Tears which was a little confusing. In your
> other post were you referring to the 'song"?

Lafferty's short stories work for me. Perhaps readers need to fragmen-
tize his longer novels to take thought timeouts between situations.
The idea density in his novels may be unsuitable for long audiobooks.
_Past Master_ may very well need to be read to appreciate it.
Lafferty's Hopp-Equation Space piques my interest. In the words of
leading Lafferty scholar Ferguson:

Thus [Lafferty] maps the navigation of Hopp-Equation Space
onto the navigation of Laffertian space; the journey becomes
a metaphor for reading, well, any of his novels really, but
for Past Master in particular.

And in Lafferty's own words:

The Law of Conservation of Psychic Totality will not be
abridged. There were four and a half years of psychic
awareness to be compressed into one month, and it forced
its compression into these intense and rapid dreams.

There is a great lot of psychic space debris, and when
one enters its area on Hopp-Equation flight one experiences
it. Every poignant thing that ever happened, every comic
or horrifying or exalting episode that ever took place,
is still drifting somewhere in space. One runs into
fragments (and concentrations) of billions of minds
there; it is never lost, it is only spread out thin.

My mind sees parallels between Hopp-Equation Space and the supra-
cosmos, orthogonal multi-verse exposition found in Perry Rhodan's
Die Meister der Insel Zyklus.

Danke,

--
Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

Titus G wrote:
> On 19/03/24 10:49, William Hyde wrote:
>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>> In article <20240318b@crcomp.net>, Don  <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>>>
>>>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>>>> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
>>>>
>>>> _Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
>>>> everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
>>>> partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
>>>> in _Dangerous Visions_?
>>>>     Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
>>>> novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
>>>> plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
>>>> can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
>>>> Lafferty [1]:
>>>
>>> [big snip]
>>>
>>> I do not get the attraction of Lafferty at all.
>>
>> I can understand that, in general.
>>
>> But not even "900 Grandmothers"?
>>
>
> I haven't finished a Lafferty novel

"Past Master" is short, but it was his first novel. I liked it 50+
years ago but then, I was a young teen at the time. Do not read it
expecting the Thomas More of the novel to be the Thomas More of history.
Lafferty was aware of this also. The older I get the less its
"message" (if there is such) appeals to me.

I read "Arrive at Easterwine" in a state of extreme sleep deprivation. I
loved it. Rereading it while awake, not so much. I am better at doing
cryptics when I am tired than when I am alert. Perhaps that is relevant.

I find myself unable to describe any of his other novels, some of which
I liked but many of which I liked only locally as in "nice paragraph,
but what does it have to do with the rest of them?".

and although I do not read many
> short stories, many of Lafferty's short stories are brilliantly clever.
> I don't like ghost stories, my favourites of his being con men tales
> where the con man can be anything from a woman to a supernatural being.
> If I read three in a row, the first is forgotten before the third is
> finished!
>
> I enjoy PK Dick and Flow My Tears which was a little confusing. In your
> other post were you referring to the 'song"?

Yes. I just thought Dick was being poetic.

The funny part was that I had on vinyl a fair amount of John Dowland's
work, but not his most famous piece. So I had no idea that Dick was
referencing that remarkable music.

William.

In article <20240319a@crcomp.net>, Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>Titus G wrote:
>> William Hyde wrote:
>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>> Don wrote:
>>>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>>>>> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
>>>>>
>>>>> _Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
>>>>> everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
>>>>> partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
>>>>> in _Dangerous Visions_?
>>>>>     Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
>>>>> novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
>>>>> plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
>>>>> can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
>>>>> Lafferty [1]:
>>>>
>>>> [big snip]
>>>>
>>>> I do not get the attraction of Lafferty at all.
>>>
>>> I can understand that, in general.
>>>
>>> But not even "900 Grandmothers"?
>>>
>>
>> I haven't finished a Lafferty novel and although I do not read many
>> short stories, many of Lafferty's short stories are brilliantly clever.
>> I don't like ghost stories, my favourites of his being con men tales
>> where the con man can be anything from a woman to a supernatural being.
>> If I read three in a row, the first is forgotten before the third is
>> finished!
>>
>> I enjoy PK Dick and Flow My Tears which was a little confusing. In your
>> other post were you referring to the 'song"?
>
>Lafferty's short stories work for me. Perhaps readers need to fragmen-
>tize his longer novels to take thought timeouts between situations.
>The idea density in his novels may be unsuitable for long audiobooks.
>_Past Master_ may very well need to be read to appreciate it.
> Lafferty's Hopp-Equation Space piques my interest. In the words of
>leading Lafferty scholar Ferguson:
>
> Thus [Lafferty] maps the navigation of Hopp-Equation Space
> onto the navigation of Laffertian space; the journey becomes
> a metaphor for reading, well, any of his novels really, but
> for Past Master in particular.
>
>And in Lafferty's own words:
>
> The Law of Conservation of Psychic Totality will not be
> abridged. There were four and a half years of psychic
> awareness to be compressed into one month, and it forced
> its compression into these intense and rapid dreams.
>
> There is a great lot of psychic space debris, and when
> one enters its area on Hopp-Equation flight one experiences
> it. Every poignant thing that ever happened, every comic
> or horrifying or exalting episode that ever took place,
> is still drifting somewhere in space. One runs into
> fragments (and concentrations) of billions of minds
> there; it is never lost, it is only spread out thin.
>
>My mind sees parallels between Hopp-Equation Space and the supra-
>cosmos, orthogonal multi-verse exposition found in Perry Rhodan's
>Die Meister der Insel Zyklus.
>
>Danke,
>

As I recall, if you like the Lafferty shorts and not the novels,
_Space Chantey_ may be sort of an in-between point, having been
half of an Ace-Double.

"It was a damned dumb kid we had meddling with our equipment,"
Bramble complained. "But so far we've figured out a purpose
for everything he did, except the equivalent-day recorder
now, and the Dong button."

The Dong button was just that, a big green button with the
word Dong engraved on it. You pushed it, and it went dong.
Well, that was almost too simple. Shouldn't here not be a
deeper reason for it? And the small instruction plate over
it didn't add much. It read: "Wrong prong, bong gong."

"There's no more to the button than is apparent?" Roadstrum
asked Crewman Bramble.
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Snip
On 20/03/24 09:15, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> As I recall, if you like the Lafferty shorts and not the novels,
> _Space Chantey_ may be sort of an in-between point, having been
> half of an Ace-Double.

That is the novel I began, but didn't get very far through, after it was
suggested here a long time ago, perhaps by you?
I have "Archipelago" to read and the opening chapters were as
entertaining to begin as his short stories are.
Many of his Kindle novels are only NZ$2 at Amazon Australia but I
noticed this hard back for NZ$560.96c; just to the right of the Kindle
price of NZ$10.74c,
https://www.amazon.com.au/Lafferty-Orbit-R-ebook/dp/B01DT74Q2I/
Surely a misprint?

On Wed, 20 Mar 2024 16:56:44 +1300, Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> wrote:

>Snip
>On 20/03/24 09:15, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> As I recall, if you like the Lafferty shorts and not the novels,
>> _Space Chantey_ may be sort of an in-between point, having been
>> half of an Ace-Double.
>
>That is the novel I began, but didn't get very far through, after it was
>suggested here a long time ago, perhaps by you?
>I have "Archipelago" to read and the opening chapters were as
>entertaining to begin as his short stories are.
>Many of his Kindle novels are only NZ$2 at Amazon Australia but I
>noticed this hard back for NZ$560.96c; just to the right of the Kindle
>price of NZ$10.74c,
>https://www.amazon.com.au/Lafferty-Orbit-R-ebook/dp/B01DT74Q2I/
>Surely a misprint?

[https://www.amazon.com/Lafferty-Orbit-R/dp/0962382485/ref=sr_1_1?crid=17NXFD7GG456L&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.tC5kXouiVgK-Nbx8Zjr4eRqw1KoWscOYSWoHYf5xpz7GjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.yqs5pdd8S_OWyf4tVaHjJ4pmq2Lildo04x2PWqntxuw&dib_tag=se&keywords=Lafferty+in+Orbit&qid=1710949594&s=digital-text&sprefix=lafferty+in+orbit%2Cdigital-text%2C120&sr=1-1-catcorr]
has it for $1,045.53 in hardcover. Kindle or PB not available.

Apparently, it is something of a collector's item.

I saw slightly lower prices on Amazon Australia, but that could be
because they are in (presumably) Australian dollars.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

Titus G wrote:
> Snip
> On 20/03/24 09:15, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>> As I recall, if you like the Lafferty shorts and not the novels,
>> _Space Chantey_ may be sort of an in-between point, having been
>> half of an Ace-Double.
>
> That is the novel I began, but didn't get very far through, after it was
> suggested here a long time ago, perhaps by you?
> I have "Archipelago" to read and the opening chapters were as
> entertaining to begin as his short stories are.
> Many of his Kindle novels are only NZ$2 at Amazon Australia but I
> noticed this hard back for NZ$560.96c; just to the right of the Kindle
> price of NZ$10.74c,
> https://www.amazon.com.au/Lafferty-Orbit-R-ebook/dp/B01DT74Q2I/
> Surely a misprint?

This sort of thing does happen. For years, David Wishart's "The Lydian
Baker" was only available as a (cheaply produced) paperback for $360. My
second year statistical mechanics book, a $7 hardback, was on sale for
$510, while Nathan Divinsky's "Rings and Radicals" (a mathematics book,
despite its title) was on sale for about a hundred times my purchase
price - and someone on this group offered to buy it from me even so.

William Hyde

On Wed, 20 Mar 2024 16:24:24 -0400, William Hyde
<wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

>Titus G wrote:
>> Snip
>> On 20/03/24 09:15, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
>>> As I recall, if you like the Lafferty shorts and not the novels,
>>> _Space Chantey_ may be sort of an in-between point, having been
>>> half of an Ace-Double.
>>
>> That is the novel I began, but didn't get very far through, after it was
>> suggested here a long time ago, perhaps by you?
>> I have "Archipelago" to read and the opening chapters were as
>> entertaining to begin as his short stories are.
>> Many of his Kindle novels are only NZ$2 at Amazon Australia but I
>> noticed this hard back for NZ$560.96c; just to the right of the Kindle
>> price of NZ$10.74c,
>> https://www.amazon.com.au/Lafferty-Orbit-R-ebook/dp/B01DT74Q2I/
>> Surely a misprint?
>
>This sort of thing does happen. For years, David Wishart's "The Lydian
>Baker" was only available as a (cheaply produced) paperback for $360. My
>second year statistical mechanics book, a $7 hardback, was on sale for
>$510, while Nathan Divinsky's "Rings and Radicals" (a mathematics book,
>despite its title) was on sale for about a hundred times my purchase
>price - and someone on this group offered to buy it from me even so.

After replacing my falling-to-pieces /Arabic Grammar/ (ISBN
0-486-44129-6) (W. Wright) in 2004, I tried replacing the
similarly-delapidated /An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek/ (CDF
Moule), but the price was simply outrageous.

And both were paperbacks, BTW.

Even in the latter half of the 60s, the recommended pattern was: buy
the book used from the book store before the course and sell it back
afterwards -- in effect renting it for the course.

The pursuit of scholarship is very expensive.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

On 20/03/2024 15.24, William Hyde wrote:

> while Nathan Divinsky's "Rings and Radicals" (a mathematics book, despite its title)

What else would it be? Chemistry?

--
Michael F. Stemper
If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much
more like prunes than rhubarb does.

Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 20/03/2024 15.24, William Hyde wrote:
>
>>   while Nathan Divinsky's "Rings and Radicals" (a mathematics book,
>> despite its title)
>
> What else would it be? Chemistry?
>
Clearly, a history of subversive political organizations!

I might have thought the same but it was part of a U of Toronto series
of books on mathematics, all with distinctive covers.

I wasn't taking that sort of algebra, but for 98 cents, how could I not
buy it?

William Hyde

On 3/21/2024 3:11 PM, William Hyde wrote:
> Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> On 20/03/2024 15.24, William Hyde wrote:
>>
>>>   while Nathan Divinsky's "Rings and Radicals" (a mathematics book,
>>> despite its title)
>>
>> What else would it be? Chemistry?
>>
>  Clearly, a history of subversive political organizations!
[snip]

To quote _Never Say Never Again_ (1983):

> [Sean Connery:] I am to eliminate all free radicals

> [Pamela Salem, who died a month ago:] Oh... Do be careful.

On Thu, 21 Mar 2024 13:25:40 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 20/03/2024 15.24, William Hyde wrote:
>
>> while Nathan Divinsky's "Rings and Radicals" (a mathematics book, despite its title)
>
>What else would it be? Chemistry?

Having sat in Divinsky's second year calculus class (1974) that would
surprise me...

On 19/03/2024 20:15, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <20240319a@crcomp.net>, Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:
>> Titus G wrote:
>>> William Hyde wrote:
>>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>> Don wrote:
>>>>>> James Nicoll wrote:
>>>>>>> Which 1975 Nebula Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
>>>>>>> Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _Flow_ was read by me. As you can personally attest, PKD isn't for
>>>>>> everyone. Yet he seems to mostly work for me. Presumably PKD's
>>>>>> partially New Wave, given the appearance of "Faith of Our Fathers"
>>>>>> in _Dangerous Visions_?
>>>>>>     Speaking of ambiguous utopia, yesterday a different New Wave
>>>>>> novel was jettisoned by me half way through for failure to follow a
>>>>>> plot, or plotlessness. A leading Lafferty scholar (how many authors
>>>>>> can claim their own personal scholar?) warns as much in his Intro to
>>>>>> Lafferty [1]:
>>>>>
>>>>> [big snip]
>>>>>
>>>>> I do not get the attraction of Lafferty at all.
>>>>
>>>> I can understand that, in general.
>>>>
>>>> But not even "900 Grandmothers"?
>>>>
>>>
>>> I haven't finished a Lafferty novel and although I do not read many
>>> short stories, many of Lafferty's short stories are brilliantly clever.
>>> I don't like ghost stories, my favourites of his being con men tales
>>> where the con man can be anything from a woman to a supernatural being.
>>> If I read three in a row, the first is forgotten before the third is
>>> finished!
>>>
>>> I enjoy PK Dick and Flow My Tears which was a little confusing. In your
>>> other post were you referring to the 'song"?
>>
>> Lafferty's short stories work for me. Perhaps readers need to fragmen-
>> tize his longer novels to take thought timeouts between situations.
>> The idea density in his novels may be unsuitable for long audiobooks.
>> _Past Master_ may very well need to be read to appreciate it.
>> Lafferty's Hopp-Equation Space piques my interest. In the words of
>> leading Lafferty scholar Ferguson:
>>
>> Thus [Lafferty] maps the navigation of Hopp-Equation Space
>> onto the navigation of Laffertian space; the journey becomes
>> a metaphor for reading, well, any of his novels really, but
>> for Past Master in particular.
>>
>> And in Lafferty's own words:
>>
>> The Law of Conservation of Psychic Totality will not be
>> abridged. There were four and a half years of psychic
>> awareness to be compressed into one month, and it forced
>> its compression into these intense and rapid dreams.
>>
>> There is a great lot of psychic space debris, and when
>> one enters its area on Hopp-Equation flight one experiences
>> it. Every poignant thing that ever happened, every comic
>> or horrifying or exalting episode that ever took place,
>> is still drifting somewhere in space. One runs into
>> fragments (and concentrations) of billions of minds
>> there; it is never lost, it is only spread out thin.
>>
>> My mind sees parallels between Hopp-Equation Space and the supra-
>> cosmos, orthogonal multi-verse exposition found in Perry Rhodan's
>> Die Meister der Insel Zyklus.
>>
>> Danke,
>>
>
> As I recall, if you like the Lafferty shorts and not the novels,
> _Space Chantey_ may be sort of an in-between point, having been
> half of an Ace-Double.
>
> "It was a damned dumb kid we had meddling with our equipment,"
> Bramble complained. "But so far we've figured out a purpose
> for everything he did, except the equivalent-day recorder
> now, and the Dong button."
>
> The Dong button was just that, a big green button with the
> word Dong engraved on it. You pushed it, and it went dong.
> Well, that was almost too simple. Shouldn't here not be a
> deeper reason for it? And the small instruction plate over
> it didn't add much. It read: "Wrong prong, bong gong."
>
> "There's no more to the button than is apparent?" Roadstrum
> asked Crewman Bramble.

I've wondered whether a button on a spaceship
in _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_,
which space refugee Arthur Dent unnecessarily
presses, causing a sign to light up saying
"Please do not press this button again",
actually did anything else.

It also crosses my mind only now to wonder
how Arthur, who has a telepathic fish living
in his ear for the purpose of language
translation, can read anything. Including
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

Maybe the button extracts the definition of
written language from the button presser's
brain, and to press it again brings about
na hasbeghangr pbafrdhrapr gb gur cerffre. :-)