#r.a. lafferty

[70sscifiart]

Raise your hands for Space Dolphin Saturday! Here's Ron Walotsky's 1977 cover for "Apocalypses," by R.A. Lafferty (with an annoying sticker), plus another slightly modified version.

[smbhax]

Cover illustration by Diane & Leo Dillon

Info from ISFDB

[grumpling]

The eye is robbed of impetus

By Fogs that stand and shout:

And swiftness all goes out from us

And all the stars go out.

(Lost Skies— O'Hanlon)

[incorrectlooneytunesquotes]

When you have shot and hunted an animal you have in some measure cwawified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite pwobwem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.

Elmer Fudd

[themonsterp]

We are in the middle of a great forgetting, and when we have forgotten enough, we will think we are discovering something new.—From Easterwine by R.A. Lafferty

[atlantic-riona]

Tagged some time ago by @lady-merian and @incomingalbatross - thank you!

Last Song I Listened To: I'm listening right now to Wishing Girl by Lola Marsh! I love the vibes of it.

Currently Watching: Tale of the Nine-tailed: 1938. It's so much fun, and I'm actually impressed how they're handling a second season, when the first season wrapped up so well. I especially love that it's focusing on the love between the two brothers, and on friendships.

Currently Reading: I started Past Master by R.A. Lafferty; it hasn't really pulled me in yet, though. Sci-fi is difficult for me to get into, and I recently finished two other Catholic sci-fi books, so I may just need some time to recuperate XD. I just finished reading Wet Behind the Ears by W.R. Gingell, and will probably be commencing a reread of the City Between series in another week or so (I swear I reread it every few months). Oh! And I've been reading the current manga adaptation of Unlimited Blade Works off and on, which is fun.

Current Obsession: Currently? Probably finishing Tale of the Nine-tailed and getting some actual writing done. (So far I've made...some progress on three WIPs. They're very different worlds, which helps, I think, because I can just rotate between them. We'll see.) In particular, I want more mythology content for In the Garden of An, but I would have to write it, and also it's not really relevant to the actual story, and it's more like...I don't have enough to actually craft a story, just vague concepts.

Tagging: @starwarmth @ru-tabega @hobbitsetal @eizneckam @fairytale-lights @cygnascrimbles @edgar-allan-possum @freenarnian @tsfennec

[solarmusick]

Ron Walotsky's 1977 cover for "Apocalypses," by R.A. Lafferty (slightly altered version)

[tashvi]

It's a Good Life by Jerome Bixby

Ginny Wrapped in the Sun by R.A. Lafferty

an incomplete list of unsettling short stories I read in textbooks

the scarlet ibis

marigolds

the diamond necklace

the monkey’s paw

the open boat

the lady and the tiger

the minister’s black veil

an occurrence at owl creek bridge

a rose for emily

(I found that one by googling “short story corpse in the house,” first result)

the cask of amontillado

the yellow wallpaper

the most dangerous game

a good man is hard to find

some are well-known, some obscure, some I enjoy as an adult, all made me uncomfortable between the ages of 11-15

add your own weird shit, I wanna be literary and disturbed

[sangennaro]

I recorded all the parts for these songs* between the hours of 2am and 5am. (*except some field recordings)

[fubarrebar]

I just reread "Thus we frustrate Charlemagne" by R.A. Lafferty, and it was a completely different story to the first time I read it. Has Epiktistec been messing with history again?

[rolameny]

i haven't done a backlog sf posting post in a while (first, second)

italo calvino: i literally only ever have the reaction of like. "damn. that's wild 👍" to calvino. there's a lot you can say about invisible cities and if on winter's night a traveler! however: damn. that's wild 👍

frederick pohl: i've only read gateway but i had a great time with it. i keep meaning to getting to more pohl and failing. sharp and human. would rate this one as "eating a fresh slice of lemon with the peel on [laudatory]"/10.

tanya huff: are you fucking kidding me lmao. i had a great time with the setup of valor's choice as "what's the daily life of a halo marine like?" and then it and its sequel just dive straight into like. catastrophic racism and pro-military sentiment. why do i keep reading military SF and getting surprised when it likes the military.

r.a. lafferty: i read one collection of his stories and loved it to pieces. like, immediate all timer. he has a real bouncy sense of rhythm, he refuses to get bogged down in detail, while he's stacking up absurdities to entertain you he'll sometimes slip a knife in your side and leave the room before you fully realize what he's done. need to read more lafferty.

madeleine l'engle: i had read a wrinkle in time before, but recently i came across a copy of an acceptable time and decided to see what she's like when she's less cosmic. turns out: the cosmic might have been what was holding l'engle up the whole time. this book is didactic. it's so christian. a character explicitly says "okay we all have to remember the noble savage trope is bad" and then the entire rest of the book is elbow-deep in the noble savage trope. madeleine!!!!! water you doing!!!!!!

[feotakahari]

I’m going to drop a rec here:

“It may be that I am the only one who sees the sky black at night and the stars white,” he had said to himself, “and everybody else sees the sky white and the stars shining black. And I say the sky is black, and they say the sky is black; but when they say black they mean white.”

Though as someone who sees the world much like the protagonist of the linked story, I resent its ending a little.

The spell showed you how another person saw you.

It was expensive, but not so expensive that it didn't find its use. If you were in the burgher class it was expected that you would experience it a few times in your life. One of those was before marriage.

Cordelia went in with great trepidation. She was sure that Aldwin was right for her, but less sure that she was right for him.

And then, two hours later, once it was all over, they had to talk about it, in a way that Aldwin loved to talk about everything.

"There was a sweetness to him," said Aldwin. "But now I worry, only lightly, that you think I make more concessions than I really do. There was more romance to him, I suppose. Very lovey, which I suppose is good."

"Well, that's good," said Cordelia.

"Is something the matter?" asked Aldwin.

"No," said Cordelia. "You can go on."

"I need some time to stew," said Aldwin. "We talked a lot, but I do fear that we got tangled in tangents. I think we could have been good friends, actually, if he were real, though ..."

"Yes?" asked Cordelia.

"He was intelligent, but I knew more than him, which I suppose is an artifact of the spell. He didn't know all the things that I knew, he knew all the things that you knew, except you don't expect me to know much about textiles, so some of those things that you knew were barred from him, and that meant that he sat at the intersection of our domains of knowledge." Aldwin looked at the ceiling for a moment. "I do wonder if there's a way around that."

"Perhaps," said Cordelia.

Aldwin looked back down at her. "Is something the matter? You haven't said what your experience was like. Was she pleasant?" He grinned at her, a winning grin that had made her fall in love. It was heartbreaking.

"Aldwin, I'm ... not sure that I can do this," said Cordelia.

His grin turned to a frown. "Why not?" he asked. "I love you, you should have seen that."

"Aldwin, she was perfect," said Cordelia.

"You're perfect," said Aldwin. He laid his hand on hers.

"No, Aldwin, I'm not," said Cordelia. "And when I've heard you say that before, I've always thought that it was you being poetic, but I met her now, the me that lives in your mind, and she is perfect, she has none of my blemishes, none of my flaws, she's kind and gracious and intelligent and funny."

"My dear, you're all those things," said Aldwin. "That's why I'm marrying you."

"But I'm not those things," said Cordelia. "My version of you, did you think that he was handsome?"

"I suppose it didn't occur to me," said Aldwin. He looked to the ceiling again and considered that. "His hair was a bit curlier, and his nose somewhat broader, but no, I think he looked like me."

"The woman I saw was a goddess," said Cordelia. "I can't compare to her."

"You are her," said Aldwin.

"Won't you believe me when I tell you that I'm not?" asked Cordelia. "And if we follow through on the engagement, and you marry me, how can I help but worry that you'll figure that out one day and leave me?"

Aldwin frowned at her. "Is that what this is about?" he asked. "You think my love is fickle? It hadn't even occurred to me to ask my other whether he was wavering."

"I think you're brilliant and handsome," said Cordelia. "But I looked at her, spoke with her, and kept thinking to myself that I couldn't live up to her. I yelled at her and she calmly defused my anger. When I cried, she comforted me."

"It was really so bad?" asked Aldwin, raising his eyebrows. He had very expressive eyebrows, it was something that Cordelia had always found herself appreciating.

"I fear that you don't actually know me," said Cordelia. "You don't see the ugly, twisted, miserable creature that I am."

"Come now," said Aldwin. He seemed befuddled. "Perhaps I think more highly of you than you think of yourself, but I won't have you talking so poorly of my bride-to-be."

"It's how I felt, next to her," said Cordelia, looking down. She had tears in her eyes. It was undignified. Her other would have never.

Aldwin moved closer to her and tilted her chin up. She looked at him, blinking away her tears, which rolled down her face and made her lip salty. His eyes, that saw her so.

"My sweet, we have our entire lives to get to know each other better," said Aldwin. "I will love you no less if you falter, if you yell, if you cry, if you flop around and fail. If we do this again, ten years from now, I expect that I'll have the same rosy view of you, overly rosy, in your estimation. That's love. That's what it is."

But of course for her, that wasn't true at all. He'd said as much, he'd spoken to his other, he'd seen a more or less accurate portrayal of himself. Didn't he see that? Or would he realize it only later? She wasn't sure. Did she not love him? Is that what it meant? She thought that she loved him.

"I do love you," said Cordelia.

"Good, because we're getting married soon," said Aldwin. He patted her on the hand. "Come, let's dry those tears and find someplace to eat."

She let herself be led for the rest of the day, and returned to herself within half an hour, letting the shadow cast by the spell slide off her, joking with him, engaging him in his interests, putting on a smile that she didn't entirely feel.

But that night, as she lay in bed, the image of the goddess, the woman she was not and could not become, would not leave her mind.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

R.A. Lafferty - Nine Hundred Grandmothers - Ace - 1970 (cover art by Leo and Diane Dillon)

[lysxandre-archived]

He stomped and pawed and went off bull-bellowing: “It don’t make a damn how it began, you fool! It might not have to end!” so loud that the hills echoed back: “It don’t make a damn—you fool.”

Nine Hundred Grandmothers - R.A. Lafferty

[jacobwren]

When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.

R.A. Lafferty, Golden Gate and Other Stories

[70sscifiart]

Leo and Diane Dillon’s 1968 cover art for Past Master by R.A. Lafferty