Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Titus G <noone@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Clarke Award Finalists 1988
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2025 16:51:33 +1300
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 51
Message-ID: <vqr0c5$2e9ba$2@dont-email.me>
References: <vqmp6f$pse$1@reader1.panix.com> <vqo4rb$1l70u$1@dont-email.me>
 <vqoc9v$1m2a6$2@dont-email.me> <vqproj$23806$1@dont-email.me>
Reply-To: noone@nowhere.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2025 04:51:34 +0100 (CET)
Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="d9aef799576b54e34fc056d729d66ee1";
	logging-data="2565482"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org";	posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/T9W0RcHjFzqaGZQondl0p"
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101
 Thunderbird/102.11.0
Cancel-Lock: sha1:ULGNoYATc3/J+mw0LXzVD3ZqAQQ=
Content-Language: en-AU
In-Reply-To: <vqproj$23806$1@dont-email.me>

On 12/03/25 06:26, William Hyde wrote:
> 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.

Thank you for the detailed reply. I couldn't find Weinachtsabend easily
so have a copy of Molly Zero instead, thank you.