A few weeks ago, we asked dozens of authors about the speculative books they considered The Most Iconic SFF Books of the 21st Century. We loved their responses, from modern classics to translated works to graphic novels to hidden gems.
But of course, readers had opinions! What about this book? How could that author not be in the top 10? It’s part of what we love about this community: a group of people who share a love for science fiction, fantasy, and horror from thousands of different angles, and who feel passionate enough about declaring their love for those books to come together to debate them from across the globe. We anticipated that people might want an outlet for these thoughts outside of social media, so we opened a poll asking for your input. And readers, you delivered!
We received well over 500 responses in the short time the poll was open. While the selections below are just a slice of that enthusiasm, we hope they show the diversity and fervor of SFF fans. Maybe you spot some favorites here. Maybe you get a new stack of recommendations for your shelves. Maybe you just take a minute to think about what the word “iconic” means to you. Either way… we hope you enjoy.
Jeff Harris’ talk at Critical Mass will be an overview of Stableford’s oeuvre. We will be meeting at 7:30pm November 20th, at the Minor Works Building, 22 Stamford Court, Adelaide. (If you are coming via Sturt St, there’s a walkway between the cafés at 50 and 52 Sturt Street)
Stableford produced so much that it is worth looking at the bibliographies at the above sites. The Wikipedia entry has links to interviews with BMS. Because they are done at different times you get sketches of the development of his career at different stages. It also has an excellent bibliography.
Because there is so much, yes, I am suggesting you can do your own research.
E. PUBLISHERS:
Places where Stableford’s books can be found. Mainly e-books, some are only available in print formats.
Not the most easy access to find Stableford’s books. It’s a long way down to the letter ‘S’ and there are lots of other authors with names beginning with an ‘S’. This is where you can find Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of Eternity (2009). Only available in paperback. But it’s worth it.
It also lists his anthologies and translations (which they call ‘adaptations’).
Snuggly Books:
Again you have to work down to S for Stableford. The only place for some of his last books. Plus anthologies and translations. A curiosity publisher. A title like Snuggly Tales of Femme Fatales feels simultaneously wrong and yet so perversely right.
F. A note about BMS:
Brian Stableford has been writing for fifty years. His fiction includes include eleven novels and seven short story collections in a series of “tales of the biotech revolution”; a series of metaphysical fantasies set in Paris in the 1840s, featuring Edgar Poe’s Auguste Dupin, most recently The Cthulhu Palimpsest; A Romance of Termination (2024); and a series of supernatural mysteries set in an artist’s colony, recently The Pool of Mnemosyne (2018). Recent novels independent of any series include Vampires of Atlantis (2016) and The Tangled Web of Time (2016). He also translates antique works from the French, with particular interests in the Symbolist and Decadent Movements, roman scientifique and the fantastique.
(Included to give a sense that Stableford was more than simply a science-fiction writer.)
G. Notes:
It is a quirk of my nature that give titles to talks like this; a way of putting things into one place conceptually. There are two jokes therein, well, sort of jokes. More like bits of irony. Another of my quirks.
Under the direction of HILOBROW editor Joshua Glenn, the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE series is reissuing notable proto-sf stories from the underappreciated era between 1900–1935.
“If we look at the volumes in the Radium Age series, we quickly see how relevant these books are, and continue to be. There’s dystopia, there’s totalitarianism, there’s nuclear war, there’s population control, there’s violent nationalism. But there’s also love, and resistance, and hope and humor. So we are very much in the same space as these books now in our present. And these books, if anything, often tell us more about where we are now in our current societal development compared to contemporary science fiction, which tries to imagine our far tomorrows.” — Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay, interview with Strange Horizons (June 2024)
“I believe in the importance of science fiction and fantasy to inform, explore and challenge society: where it is now,where it has been, and where it might go.” Alexandra Pierce
Alexandra Pierce has been reading science fiction and fantasy since childhood. She did time as a book reviewer for ASiF! (Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus) and Strange Horizons, and currently reviews for Locus Magazine as well as on her own blog. For a decade she was one third of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Galactic Suburbia. Alex co-edited two award-winning books, both with Australian indie publisher Twelfth Planet Press: Letters to Tiptree and Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E Butler.
In January 2024 Alexandra launched Speculative Insight, publishing two essays a month about issues and themes in science fiction and fantasy. Born in Adelaide, Alex grew up in Darwin, moved to Melbourne for uni, and now lives in Ballarat.
In person: we are meeting once more at Kappy’s, 1/22 Compton St, Adelaide. Turn up at 6:15 for a 6:30pm start on Wednesday, October 16th.
Zoom details for Critical Mass Oct 16, 2024 6:30pm Adelaide, 7pm Melbourne/Sydney
Simon & Schuster have started selling epubs of short stories in their Start Classics series, as we can see in their selection of Walter M. Miller shorts.
Stableford produced so much that it is worth looking at the bibliographies at the above sites. The Wikipedia entry has links to interviews with BMS. Because they are done at different times you get sketches of the development of his career at different stages. It also has an excellent bibliography.
Because there is so much, yes, I am suggesting you can do your own research.
E. PUBLISHERS:
Places where Stableford’s books can be found. Mainly e-books, some are only available in print formats.
Not the most easy access to find Stableford’s books. It’s a long way down to the letter ‘S’ and there are lots of other authors with names beginning with an ‘S’. This is where you can find Sherlock Holmes and the Vampires of Eternity (2009). Only available in paperback. But it’s worth it.
It also lists his anthologies and translations (which they call ‘adaptations’).
Snuggly Books:
Again you have to work down to S for Stableford. The only place for some of his last books. Plus anthologies and translations. A curiosity publisher. A title like Snuggly Tales of Femme Fatales feels simultaneously wrong and yet so perversely right.
F. A note about BMS:
Brian Stableford has been writing for fifty years. His fiction includes include eleven novels and seven short story collections in a series of “tales of the biotech revolution”; a series of metaphysical fantasies set in Paris in the 1840s, featuring Edgar Poe’s Auguste Dupin, most recently The Cthulhu Palimpsest; A Romance of Termination (2024); and a series of supernatural mysteries set in an artist’s colony, recently The Pool of Mnemosyne (2018). Recent novels independent of any series include Vampires of Atlantis (2016) and The Tangled Web of Time (2016). He also translates antique works from the French, with particular interests in the Symbolist and Decadent Movements, roman scientifique and the fantastique.
(Included to give a sense that Stableford was more than simply a science-fiction writer.)
G. Notes:
It is a quirk of my nature that give titles to talks like this; a way of putting things into one place conceptually. There are two jokes therein, well, sort of jokes. More like bits of irony. Another of my quirks.
“The impish demon known as Beetlejuice has been dead for centuries, but he’s enjoyed a pretty long life in popular culture….. Even so, I wasn’t hankering for a sequel to the Burton movie, which might have turned out to be just another fan-servicing, nostalgia-milking cash grab.
Fortunately, there isn’t a whiff of cynicism to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Burton shows real affection for the first film’s characters and genuine curiosity about how they’re doing three decades or so later. Winona Ryder is back as Lydia Deetz, who escaped Beetlejuice’s clutches as a teenager; now she’s a paranormal expert with her own talk show.
Lydia has long since buried the hatchet with her artist stepmother, Delia — the sublime Catherine O’Hara. But she’s having a tougher time with her own teenage daughter, Astrid — that’s Jenna Ortega from the show Wednesday, whose creators, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, wrote this movie.
When Lydia’s father dies suddenly, the family reunites at their old Connecticut home for the funeral. It’s here that Lydia accidentally winds up summoning Beetlejuice, thanks in part to her sleaze of a fiancé, played by Justin Theroux. With a sudden whoosh, Beetlejuice is back — played by Michael Keaton with the same messy green hair, rotting teeth and mischievous streak as before.” — Justin Chang, from NPRs Fresh Air, writing about the movie in Beetlejuice is back, in a supernatural screwball sequel
“Juice … is a work of dystopian fiction, which is a sub-genre of science fiction. You heard that right: Tim Winton has written a science fiction novel. Moreover, he has embraced many of the genre’s conventions. It is exciting to see a writer of Winton’s longevity doing something new. His attempt to break new ground will be reason enough for many readers to pick up this book.
Climate change and the future
The novel is set hundreds of years in the future. Climate change has rendered large parts of the globe uninhabitable. The narrator lives with his mother in a remote outpost halfway up Australia’s west coast, where it is too hot to go outside during the day, so most activities are conducted during the night or early morning. In the summer, they must live underground for months at a time.
Much of what we would regard as modern technology has been erased by the collapse of civilisation, for reasons now mostly forgotten. However, the narrator learns that some of the powerful families from the 21st century have retained this technology and used it to retreat into hidden fortresses. He joins a resistance movement with the mission to wipe these families from the earth.”
Jeff Goldblum plays Zeus in this take on Greek Gods in the modern world. There is love, justice and vengence in this story of Riddy (Euridice, played by Aurora Perrineau) and Orpheus (Killian Scott). You’re probably familiar with the story, but this version includes bars, pubs and modern times — Orpheus is a rock star! Not to mention Poseidon, who’s known to turn up unexpectedly in your bathtub!
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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