Welcome to Litsy!

Six months later we were married at a lavish ceremony in the most exclusive of the studio chapels. Over 200 guests attended, joining a huge hookup of television screens, & the service was conducted by a priest renowned for his mastery of the split-screen technique. Prerecorded films of Margaret & myself taken separately in our own sitting rooms were projected against a cathedral interior & showed us walking together down an immense aisle. (c1977)

Anyone want to join me for my Second Annual Science Fiction and Fantasy February? Or as I like to call it "SF&FF". Last year during the month of February I only read SFF. I'm planning to do that this February as well. If you want to join in just tag any of your SFF posts #sfff

Too many of his short stories involve a male narrator at "Vermillion Sands" observing yet another beautiful but ultimately crazy and/or homicidal woman. I get it, it's pulp, but Ballard is capable of better--and that's in here, too ("Storm Bird, Storm Dreamer", "End Game", "The Lost Leonardo", "The Illuminated Man" for starters). Given Ballard's inventiveness though, was not expecting such a thoroughly beaten dead horse.

Belated #reccomendsday and a #tbt ! When I moved back to NYC in 2009, I worked at a B&N. This had just come out in hardcover - it was a beast. I have yet to read all of them 😂. But Ballard, and these stories, had a tremendous effect on me, and on my own fiction. They really pushed back on the ideas I had about what genre/science fiction could be - and I still carry that with me. (Also: ❤️ his no nonsense approach to the craft of writing is 🔥)