Included in 'New Maps' is a Ronald Reagan cut-out paper doll and the delightful 'Seven Unexplained Mysteries of Our Time (With Explanations).' If you were to mix Dave Barry's humor with Georges Perec's limitless ingenuity, you'd still fall short of the actual John Sladek.įor most of science fiction's history, its beating heart could be found in its fanzines. Together these wide-ranging collections gather stories, essays, book reviews, journalism, poems, playlets, recipes, comics and numerous other Sladekian oddments. Dick) deadpan satire ('Arachne: The Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac') intricate locked-room mysteries (featuring detective Thackeray Phin) a wonderfully entertaining study of pseudoscience ('The New Apocrypha') and the brilliant 'Roderick, or The Education of a Young Machine' and 'Tik-Tok,' the latter a tour de force of gallows humor, reminiscent of the film 'Kind Hearts and Coronets.'Īs you might guess, 'New Maps: More Uncollected John Sladek,' edited by David Langford (Ansible Editions), is a companion volume to 'Maps' (2003). Sladek, who died in 2000, produced the best parodies in sf (try 'Solar Shoe-Salesman,' which sends up Philip K. Wolfe and Le Guin's work typically exhibits a cool, almost classical perfection, but John Sladek could hardly restrain his restless and kaleidoscopic genius. Editor David Streitfeld, compiler of many of the best volumes in this 'Last Interview' series, opens and closes the book, with a superb introduction and its very final, intimate conversation. Le Guin, who discusses books, writing, life and much else in 'The Last Interview and Other Conversations' (Melville House). Among Wolfe's many admirers was the late Ursula K. His four-part masterpiece, 'The Book of the New Sun,' sometimes looks like fantasy, sometimes like science fiction, but there's no uncertainty about its magnificence - it is a work that repeatedly takes your breath away. Gene Wolfe, who died on April 14 at age 87, was one of the greatest American writers of his generation, period.

Centipede press book of the new sun