Wait, are you hearing or reading Lightfoot's line as "...a ghost that you CAN'T see," then? We are amateur Lightfoot Studies scholars over here--my son is named Gordon after him--but I'm not sure of the line
Ah! I don't think the site is official as in endorsed by the late musician himself, though. Sorry to derail. I salute your monthly ghost-story side project.
We can be Thought-Free June pals. I hope in July I have enough brain juice to remember that I really want to read Astounding now. What an incredibly strange knot of dudes.
The Dreams Are Stuff is Made Of was largely greeted, inside the field, with comments to the effect of "Gosh, Tom can write, but he's sure full of sh*t sometimes."
Disch was a really fine writer, and a pugnacious critic who was often (in my opinion) wrong, but almost always entertainingly so. He was sometimes apparently difficult to deal with (I never met him myself) especially in his last few years, after his partner Charles Naylor died. My favorite among his novels is Camp Concentration, though On Wings of Song is also very highly regarded. He was a first rate poet as well.
Foundation is a British magazine so I think it can be hard to find. I subscribed for a few years but let it lapse.
I like Disch's essay in On SF about how much he hates Ray Bradbury—"Consider this description (from 'The Night'): 'You smell lilacs in blossom; fallen apples lying crushed and odorous in the deep grass.' Ordinarily apples don't fall when lilacs blossom, but in Bradbury's stories it's always Anymonth in Everywhereville." That's brutal. I think that kind of specificity is lacking when he's trying to take down Le Guin or Vonda McIntyre. There I just feel like, he finds them annoying and doesn't really want to deal with them but they're a little too big to ignore.
And I like how loyal he is to Poe, even if saying Poe is the founder of science fiction is kind of insane. Critics should be a little insane! (I'm working on it.)
You're the second person to say Camp Concentration is his best novel so I'll probably make it the next one of his I read. I actually have one of those double novel paperbacks where one is a novel of his and the other one is Le Guin (amusingly). But I can't remember what the novel is. I have a copy of CC on my Kindle though.
Yes, I think he's got a point about Bradbury -- I think he was somewhat overpraised in the science fiction field because he was one of the first writers within the pulp tradition to really try to write "good prose", and sometimes he overdid it, but the readers lapped it up.
I have that Disch/Le Guin Ace Double -- Mankind Under the Leash and Planet of Exile. Decent but not special work by each writer, in my opinion -- and those were both their second novels, so they were still developing. I somewhat desultorily collect Ace Doubles, and review them too. (https://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2018/10/ace-double-reviews-38-mankind-under.html)
Wait, are you hearing or reading Lightfoot's line as "...a ghost that you CAN'T see," then? We are amateur Lightfoot Studies scholars over here--my son is named Gordon after him--but I'm not sure of the line
I still hear it as "a ghost that you can see" most of the time but according to the official website, it's "can't": https://gordonlightfoot.com/IfYouCouldReadMyMind.shtml
Ah! I don't think the site is official as in endorsed by the late musician himself, though. Sorry to derail. I salute your monthly ghost-story side project.
Thanks for the very kind mention! Unfortunately I think "Crane Brother" might be my final form.
I would like to attain Nileshood one day.
We can be Thought-Free June pals. I hope in July I have enough brain juice to remember that I really want to read Astounding now. What an incredibly strange knot of dudes.
oh yeah you should. but you're gonna get real bummed by the end lol.
Audrey Hive Rise!!!!!!
i'm breaking patterns and getting so good at pilates
the Best Buy name drop in the last 30 seconds has rewired something
I love that thing, I don't know what to call it, it's like an outro bridge? "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" does it too.
maybe a coda? and The Other Side of the Door!
The Dreams Are Stuff is Made Of was largely greeted, inside the field, with comments to the effect of "Gosh, Tom can write, but he's sure full of sh*t sometimes."
Disch was a really fine writer, and a pugnacious critic who was often (in my opinion) wrong, but almost always entertainingly so. He was sometimes apparently difficult to deal with (I never met him myself) especially in his last few years, after his partner Charles Naylor died. My favorite among his novels is Camp Concentration, though On Wings of Song is also very highly regarded. He was a first rate poet as well.
Foundation is a British magazine so I think it can be hard to find. I subscribed for a few years but let it lapse.
I like Disch's essay in On SF about how much he hates Ray Bradbury—"Consider this description (from 'The Night'): 'You smell lilacs in blossom; fallen apples lying crushed and odorous in the deep grass.' Ordinarily apples don't fall when lilacs blossom, but in Bradbury's stories it's always Anymonth in Everywhereville." That's brutal. I think that kind of specificity is lacking when he's trying to take down Le Guin or Vonda McIntyre. There I just feel like, he finds them annoying and doesn't really want to deal with them but they're a little too big to ignore.
And I like how loyal he is to Poe, even if saying Poe is the founder of science fiction is kind of insane. Critics should be a little insane! (I'm working on it.)
You're the second person to say Camp Concentration is his best novel so I'll probably make it the next one of his I read. I actually have one of those double novel paperbacks where one is a novel of his and the other one is Le Guin (amusingly). But I can't remember what the novel is. I have a copy of CC on my Kindle though.
Yes, I think he's got a point about Bradbury -- I think he was somewhat overpraised in the science fiction field because he was one of the first writers within the pulp tradition to really try to write "good prose", and sometimes he overdid it, but the readers lapped it up.
I have that Disch/Le Guin Ace Double -- Mankind Under the Leash and Planet of Exile. Decent but not special work by each writer, in my opinion -- and those were both their second novels, so they were still developing. I somewhat desultorily collect Ace Doubles, and review them too. (https://rrhorton.blogspot.com/2018/10/ace-double-reviews-38-mankind-under.html)