I’d be remiss to not say Charles Stross. He’s the first SF writer in a long time to give me the frission of reading HPL, PKD or WSB for the first time.
Warren Ellis Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 8:12 am
I dunno that Charlie Stross has a particularly “dangerous” vision. He has a gleefully nasty streak, the same sort of viciousness behind “Aye, And Gomorrah…” but he doesn’t really gutpunch you with it.Catching the baleful eye of Moon Rasputin is certainly the best thing to happen to me today.
I guess the thing for me, in regards to Dangerous Visions, is I came after it was a big deal. I read far more Campbell era scientifiction than would be healthy for a young man, and peppered amongst various anthologies (The Years Best Horror comes to mind, and if you're doing it right Sci-fi and horror can walk arm in arm) were bared bosoms, The Sex, etc. There wasn't a time for me where no-one dared to write Tarzan-Buggery like Farmer, or talking about sex and violence and existential horrors, but I suppose a lot more could be pinned on Bill Burroughs that Uncle Harley.
I have a hard time nailing really violent changes in seeing things, which I suppose at heart is the discussion. Semiotexte? The Starry Wisdom? Re-reading Dangerous Visions, the sculptor's story (I can't recall the title, and most of my books are in a secure location right now, but the gist is a refined mathematical formula both makes an item beautiful and weightless, rendering art a non-human pursuit.) is the only one that still has a punch for me. I'm not going to say that pioneering works in the field of Exploding Tits aren't a good read. There are a half-dozen or so Harlan Ellison stories that are in my DNA (well, mRNA). You could read "The Beast that shouted love at the heart of the world" or "Paingod" and bring me back from the dead. But there are a lot of Ellison stories that were basically "Jesus liek Sodomy. That's the punchline, hicks."
Twenty or thirty guys trying to shock you turns into The Aristocrats pretty fast. That's why I likened Stross to PKD, HPL, and WSB. It's been a while since I've read something that made me feel like the floor is waiting to pull itself out from under me. Maybe it's Stross' vibe that seems so close to Delta Green. Our world plus X.
HPL had our rational world exist because we don't comprehend how the universe works. PKD had people who were functionally insane trying to realize how reality functions. WSB has a magical-realistic world where dream logic holds sway and you can find yourself at the end of the world no matter which way you turn. It doesn't always seem like it, but I like to model things. Hold an idea, and rotate it in my head. So maybe that's why I find people who tell me the world isn't real dangerous.
