Political prisoners are sent hundreds of millions of years back in time, in Robert Silverberg's excellent short novel Hawksbill Station (1968). New essay and podcast ep now up.

Prisoners of the past: Hawksbill Station (1968) by Robert Silverberg

A swift tale of political radicals trapped in the late Cambrian period

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Both these titles have been on my radar for eons now, so when I saw both at a bargain price yesterday I couldn’t resist snapping them up. Very timely too - I‘ve recently been resisting the urge to watch Nicolas Roeg’s ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’ until I’d had a chance to read Tevis’s fine novel… 🙂

Celebrating the legacy of author and scholar M.R. James, born OTD 1862. I first encountered the likes of ‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad’ and ‘The Treasure of Abbot Thomas’ in these now cherished Penguin paperbacks. Such archetypal works - little wonder he’s never been out of print…

Currently halfway through this extraordinary & captivating novel. As many have already pointed out, ‘hallucinatory‘ is certainly an apt description. A personal quest set against the backdrop of an ambiguous global disaster, with shades of Kafka & Ballard thrown into the mix. Beautifully written.

Next in line was one of Philip K. Dick‘s darkest stories, ‘A Little Something for us Tempunauts’, in which a failed time travel experiment results in its beleaguered travellers becoming trapped in a ‘closed time loop’. Certainly more ‘existential horror’ than your standard SF time-paradox tale…

Now & again I come across a story that takes me completely by surprise - today’s case in point was Frederik Pohl’s rather chilling ‘Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair‘, in which the dark nature of a family‘s visit to the titular Fair is gradually revealed. One that’s sure to lodge in the memory…

After a spate of reading more ‘boundary-pushing‘ stories, its a curious thing to revisit the more traditional fringes of the genre - including today’s reading of this 1974 Asimov tale, in which he outlined a challenge to the longstanding 3 laws of robotics. But then I‘ve always enjoyed variety… 🙂

Celebrating M. John Harrison, who is 81 today. Here’s the great man himself in the 1979 series ‘Time Out of Mind’, in an edition focused on the work of his friend & fellow author Michael Moorcock. Shortly after this I read his superb short story ‘Running Down’ and the rest, as they say, is history…

Just read this extraordinary tale from the ‘Warm Worlds and Otherwise‘ collection. Like ‘The Girl Who Was Plugged In‘, the story’s first person narrative voice makes few compromises, but is nonetheless wholly engaging all the way through to a rather grim ending. Arachnophiles will love this too. 🙂

For anyone who enjoyed Keith Roberts‘ 1968 novel ‘Pavane’, I can heartily recommend his other works. I’m currently dipping into this 1976 collection for example, which contains the brilliant ’The Passing of the Dragons’, a bleak character study set against a backdrop of interplanetary exploration.

Celebrating the legacy of renowned illustrator Virgil Finlay, born OTD 1914. Here’s a beautifully evocative piece (which I hadn’t come across before) representing J. G. Ballard‘s ‘The Crystal World‘, as advertised in a 1966 edition of ‘Things to Come’, the bulletin of the Science Fiction Book Club.

On to one of Aldiss’s ‘Acid Head War‘ stories. I still harbour a nostalgic fondness for the tales born of encountering them in my late teens - they were quite unlike anything I’d read before. The hallucinatory perplexity of 60s Philip K. Dick braided with Aldiss’s playful use of language. Wonderful.

A recent and very welcome acquisition. After reading ‘Inverted World, ‘A Dream of Wessex’, and several fine stories to date in his collection ‘Episodes’, I felt compelled to discover more…. Christopher Priest has fast become one of a handful of authors who has ignited the ‘completist gene’ in me. 🙂

I know it’s been commented on several times, but on reading Brian Aldiss’s fine introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of War of the Worlds, I’m struck again by the clever way in which Wells foreshadows the Martian’s demise by our own earthly ‘transient creatures’ in the very first sentence…

Hi Folks, new video 🎬! I take a look at what made PKD tick. Check it out 👀! #scifibooks #sciencefiction #booktube ##pkd 📚🪐💙 youtu.be/nhvQWi2b-ao

The Strange Mind of Philip K. Dick

YouTube video by SciFiScavenger

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Remembering Robert Sheckley, born OTD 1928. For years I only knew of his work through reading his early novel ‘Immortality Inc.’ (and very good it was too), but picking up the likes of these books has really highlighted the vast & varied extent of his wit & consummate story telling. Superb writer.

Noting that William F. Nolan was born OTD 1928, I was reminded that recently I finally caught up with Logan’s Run, the 1976 movie based on his best known novel. An enjoyable slice of 70s cinema, although I confess that the eerie ‘Carousel’ sequence that I saw as a youngster still gives me shivers… 🙂

Remembering Christopher Priest, born OTD 1943. Of the novels & stories I’ve read to date, each has left the kind of impact that entails they’ll be re-read with equal pleasure in later years. Oh, and I still feel that this sublime cover, like the novel it illustrates, is a thing of absolute beauty.

Now revisiting The Book of the New Sun and embarking on ‘The Claw of the Conciliator’, which should keep me happily engaged for the next week or two. And perhaps true to form, the second volume begins in a way that for me was completely unexpected - but that’s half the fun of reading this series….

One of the finest opening passages ever written. Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

This was exceptional. Unequivocally horrific though & a story that’s (as they say) not for the squeamish. Christopher Priest‘s early Grand Guignol masterpiece. In counterpoint, his afterword includes an anecdote about discussing a film version with Amicus, which ends up being absolutely hilarious!

I can well imagine that, in years to come, many of these would still sit very comfortably in my Top 10 most beloved books… Remembering John Wyndham, born OTD 1903.

A real pleasure to rediscover Ballard’s ‘The Reptile Enclosure’ after an interval of several decades. A tale which takes a fairly prosaic setting - a crowd sunbathing on a beach - but quickly turns the familiar inside out. And the intervening years has not blunted the impact of that final scene…

Finished Algis Budry’s 1960 novel ‘Rogue Moon’ today. Unremittingly bleak perhaps, but written with an urgency that engaged me right up to the harsh but poignant final chapter. I can appreciate it divides opinions, but this reader was very pleased to have undertaken this particular moon shot…

Today’s welcome arrival - Gene Wolfe’s ‘The Fifth Head of Cerberus’. The title alone has had me intrigued me for years 🙂 Unlikely to get to this anytime soon though, I’ve still a further three Book of the New Sun titles on the TBR list to savour first… Happy Days.

I‘ve yet to catch up with Jack Finney’s 1955 novel (reissued as a SF Masterwork some years ago I see), but I caught the 1978 adaptation the other night & thought it was tremendous. Donald Sutherland in suitably perplexed ‘Don’t Look Now’ mode too. And that film poster is a sublime piece in itself.

Back to Gibson’s ‘Burning Chrome’ collection today (a ‘gift that keeps on giving’ as they say, as the stories are uniformly excellent). This time it was the 1985 novelette ‘A Winter Market’, a sombre albeit beautifully crafted tale. And the use of Philip K. Dick’s term ‘Kipple’ raised a smile too 🙂

Dipped into this Masterworks edition today, starting with ‘Shambleau‘, a wonderful reimagining of the Medusa myth. And I can easily see why Northwest Smith is frequently pitched as the ‘Hans Solo’ of the Pulp Era. Colourful & highly evocative prose - will revisiting more (no pun intended 🙂) soon…

Future Revisitations@futurerevisited.bsky.social · last mo.

Just on the way out of the local bookshop & spotted this collection in the ‘bargain’ section. Having heard so many good things about Moore’s evocative writing style (and particularly the opening story ‘Shambleau’), I couldn’t help but pick this up. And at $2 it seemed a no-brainer anyway… 😀

Celebrating Cyril M. Kornbluth, born OTD 1923. His Hall of Fame tale ‘The Little Black Bag’, in which a future medical kit inadvertently falls into the wrong hands, is one of the finest of its type - smartly written, darkly satirical, & escalating abruptly to a truly tragic & horrifying ending.

Today’s selection from Aldiss’s ‘Complete Stories’ tome was this exceptional mood piece from 1966, later utilised as the opening chapter of his novel ‘Barefoot in the Head’. It’s a far cry from the unconventional nature of the later chapters though! Illustration here by the fabulous Keith Roberts 👍