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From: William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Clarke Award Finalists 1988
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2025 13:26:33 -0400
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Titus G wrote:
> On 11/03/25 14:49, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> On 3/10/2025 9:24 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Which 1988 Clarke Award Finalist Novels Have You Read?
>>> Drowning Towers (variant of The Sea and Summer) by George Turner
>>> Fiasko by Stanislaw Lem
>>> Ancient of Days by Michael Bishop
>>> Grainne by Keith Roberts
>>> Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H. F. Saint
>>> Replay by Ken Grimwood
>>> AEgypt by John Crowley
>>
>> Only the Lem.
>>
>> pt
> 
> Replay earned one star from me.
> 
> I thought that Keith Roberts' Pavane was brilliant but I have never
> heard or read any of his other novels. Fantastic Fiction lists many.
> Does someone please have a recommendation? Thank you.
> 
How embarrassing.

I was a huge Roberts fan, but somehow I stopped reading him about 1990. 
No idea why. So much to read, so little  time!

Next to Pavane, my favourite work of his is a novelette, 
"Weinachtsabend".  Very dark.

There's quite a bit of early work, when he was perfecting his trade 
and/or paying the bills.  The Anita series is about a teenage witch and 
her grandmother, "The Furies" is a Wyndham-style disaster novel, and so 
forth.  All very readable and he would still be remembered if he'd 
carried on in this vein.

"The Chalk Giants" is another linked set of stories, this time set 
around an apocalypse.  I read most of the stories as they came out in 
New Worlds so I'm not sure how they work when read all together.  For 
what it's worth, I liked them.

"Molly Zero" is written in second person.  I probably preferred it to 
anything except "Pavane" among his writings, but I am relying on old 
memories here as I've not reread it.

And aside from various short stories that, alas, is where my knowledge 
stops.


William Hyde