LA Times critic Ed Parks has published his end-of-year round up for the newspaper, Favorite SciFi Books of 2007, and Eclipse One is the lead-off title! Parks discusses Andy Duncan’s remarkable “Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse” (1) and is enthusiastic about the book as a whole. He also says great things about another Night Shade book, Liz Williams Precious Dragon, which you should all check it immediately.
(1) Entry corrected to change my hamfisted late night conflation of “Ugly Chicken goes in Reverse” to the correct title. Gack. Thanks Jeff!
Jonathan: That’s Duncan’s “Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse” — a great story. Were you conflating it with Waldrop’s “Ugly Chickens,” another great one? Is there a chicken themed anthology in the offing?
Great anthology, Jonathan! A few comments…
1) ‘Ugly Chicken Goes in Reverse’: Howard waldrop’s first sequel. Years later, Paul Lindberl, hero of ‘The Ugly Chickens’, is now a ninja-type ornithologist in search of the last great auks reported in New Zealand [!] by Harlan Ellison.
2) The chicken plays a noble role in F&SF. Witness ‘Full Chicken Richness’ by Avram Davidson, ‘A Game of Chicken’ by Charles Coleman Finlay, ‘Chicken of the Tree’ by Juleen Brantingham, etc. etc. A fowl book, to be sure.
3) My favorite story? ‘The Drowned Life’ by Jeffrey Ford. The ending could’ve gone either way and in retrospect, I’m glad it closed the way it did. The Duncan, Shepard and Wilce stories also did it for me.
Thanks for the kind words. I’m not sure it’s ok for the editor to state preferences. but I have them and did like Jeff’s story a lot. Same for the Duncan and Wilce.
I’m still reading Eclipse, but the Jeff Ford story really was extraordinary.