Science Fiction Reader

June102013

Darkover Landfall (1972)

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Darkover Landfall concerns the crew and colonists of a spaceship that is forced to crash land on Cottman IV, an inhospitable planet in orbit around a red giant. The crew become accidental colonists when the ship loses contact with Earth and they realize rescue is impossible.

The book introduces surnames, religious and cultural themes that echo throughout the Darkover series of books. This series spans millennia, as the ship’s descendants populate the world and develop unique cultures and psi abilities. Though Darkover Landfall is not the first book written in the series, in the Darkover timeline its events are the beginning for all that follows. - from wikipedia

Marion Zimmer Bradley Darkover Darkover landfall science fiction sci-fi books reading classic science fiction

May302013

fuckyeahsciencefiction:

fuckyeahaleph:

theweirdtales:

Isaac in the sky with muppets.

Asimov num fascículo da Muppet Magazine

I don’t know why this image makes me so happy, but I have a hunch that it’s the shoes. Yep, it’s the shoes.

isaac asimov the muppets

May132013

World Enough, and Time (1980)

by James Kahn

In a post-apocalyptic world 200 years from now, humans are a dying species. When Joshua’s wife is kidnapped by a gryphon and a vampire, he and his comrades—a centaur and an android—set out to rescue her across a surreal landscape filled with seemingly mythological creatures. But the explanation for the existence of these beasts is based in science, and informed by nightmare. And the odyssey isn’t over until they confront the evil cabal whose goal is nothing less than the extinction of the human race. - from Amazon.com description

James Kahn World Enough and Time science fiction fantasy books reading post-apocalyptic

8AM

syfycity:

Dune Books in The Simpsons S24E20.

The Simpsons Frank Herbert Dune

April92013

“The Word of Unbinding” (1964) [collected in The Wind’s Twelve Quarters]
“The Rule of Names” (1964) [collected in The Wind’s Twelve Quarters]
A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
The Tombs of Atuan (1971)
The Farthest Shore (1972)
Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (1990)
The Other Wind (2001)
Tales From Earthsea (2001)

Reading Chronology

Set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea, the story relates the education of a young magenamed Ged under the tutelage of his aunt (a village witch), as an apprentice to a wizard, at a school of wizardry, and finally through a quest of self-discovery. The tale of Ged’s growth and development continues in four subsequent novels, which are set a few years later and towards the end of his long life.

-from the wikipedia entry on A Wizard or Earthsea

Ursula K. LeGuin fantasy wizards mages A Wizard of Earthsea Earthsea The Tombs of Atuan The Farthest Shore Tehanu The Other Wind Tales From Earthsea books reading series

April52013

One of Gurney Halleck’s Tone Poems for Sad Times

jennaddenda:

“I remember salt smoke

from a beach fire

And shadows under the pines

Solid, clean… fixed -

Seagulls perched at the tip of land,

White upon green…

And a wind comes through

the pines

To sway the shadows;

The seagulls spread their

wings,

Lift

And fill the sky with

screeches.

And I hear the wind

Blowing across our beach,

And the surf,

And I see that our fire

Has scorched the seaweed.”

-Frank Herbert, Dune

Poetry in Dune suggested by clusterpod

Dune poetry

April42013

House

aoizumi:

A poem by Neil Gaiman

poetry Neil Gaiman tor

11AM

“3.

Perhaps the great error is believing we’re alone,

That the others have come and gone—a momentary blip—

When all along, space might be choc-full of traffic,

Bursting at the seams with energy we neither feel

Nor see, flush against us, living, dying, deciding,

Setting solid feet down on planets everywhere,

Bowing to the great stars that command, pitching stones

At whatever are their moons. They live wondering

If they are the only ones, knowing only the wish to know,

And the great black distance they—we—flicker in.

Maybe the dead know, their eyes widening at last,

Seeing the high beams of a million galaxies flick on

At twilight. Hearing the engines flare, the horns

Not letting up, the frenzy of being. I want to be

One notch below bedlam, like a radio without a dial.

Wide open, so everything floods in at once.

And sealed tight, so nothing escapes. Not even time,

Which should curl in on itself and loop around like smoke.

So that I might be sitting now beside my father

As he raises a lit match to the bowl of his pipe

For the first time in the winter of 1959.”

Excerpt from “My God, It’s Full of Stars” by Tracy K. Smith

Found in the book Life on Mars: Poems suggested by warbcasefiles

Poetry science fiction My God It's Full of Stars Tracy K. Smith books reading Life on Mars

April32013

Astrophobos

By H. P. Lovecraft

In the midnight heavens burning
      Thro’ ethereal deeps afar,
Once I watch’d with restless yearning
      An alluring, aureate star;
Ev’ry eye aloft returning,
      Gleaming nigh the Arctic car.

Mystic waves of beauty blended
      With the gorgeous golden rays;
Phantasies of bliss descended
      In a myrrh’d Elysian haze;
And in lyre-born chords extended
      Harmonies of Lydian lays.

There (thought I) lies scenes of pleasure,
      Where the free and blessed dwell,
And each moment bears a treasure
      Freighted with a lotus-spell,
And there floats a liquid measure
      From the lute of Israfel.

There (I told myself) were shining
      Worlds of happiness unknown,
Peace and Innocence entwining
      By the Crowned Virtue’s throne;
Men of light, their thoughts refining
      Purer, fairer, than our own.

Thus I mus’d, when o’er the vision
      Crept a red delirious change;
Hope dissolving to derision,
      Beauty to distortion strange;
Hymnic chords in weird collision,
      Spectral sights in endless range.

Crimson burn’d the star of sadness
      As behind the beams I peer’d;
All was woe that seem’d but gladness
      Ere my gaze with truth was sear’d;
Cacodaemons, mir’d with madness,
      Thro’ the fever’d flick’ring leer’d.

Now I know the fiendish fable
      That the golden glitter bore;
Now I shun the spangled sable
      That I watch’d and lov’d before;
But the horror, set and stable,
      Haunts my soul for evermore.

Suggested by cvoorhees

poetry science fiction horror H. P. Lovecraft Lovecraft

April22013

“Eight, sir; seven, sir;
Six, sir; five, sir;
Four, sir; three, sir;
Two, sir; one!
Tenser, said the Tensor.
Tenser, said the Tensor.
Tension, apprehension,
And dissension have begun”

From The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester

suggested by trenchcoatsheep

poetry science fiction alfred bester The Demolished Man