GOOD WILL
YOU MARK BELOW.
ALL ALL RIGHT WITH LOVE AFTERWARDS
WHY NOT SAY YES
[ ] YES ( )

Totalitopia is the title of a John Crowley essay featured in this slender eponymous collection of articles, stories, and an interview. The one story most likely to stay with me is "Gone," which is framed with a science fiction conceit about extraterrestrial contact along the lines of Clarke's Childhood's End, although in every way smaller and cosier. The critical essay regarding the fantasy work of Paul Park was my first exposure, albeit at secondhand, to this author, and I'm now quite interested. The interview with Crowley by Terry Bisson is quite good.

I took this book along for reading on a long trip by airplane, and it fulfilled its purpose admirably.

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2017/09/review-of-totalitopia-by-john-crowley.h... ( )

A new collection by John Crowley! Time for celebration. Except, well, this is a collection of essays and columns and a couple of stories, plus an unpublished piece of fiction… although, to be fair, I’ll pretty much take any Crowley I can get. (And I wonder when the Incunabula anniversary edition of Little, Big is going to appear, it’s been going on a decade since I paid for it). There’s a review of Paul Park’s fiction, focusing on his Princess of Romania quartet and his last “novel”, All Those Vanished Engines. Much as I admire Crowley’s fiction, for me Park is the best sf novelist the US has produced – although Crowley is more than qualified to write about him. The fiction is a little too Americana for my tastes – much as I love All That Heaven Allows, fiction that evokes a similar atmosphere leaves me cold. The columns are good, and while their subjects may not necessarily appeal, they certainly act as good inspiration for pieces I want to write myself – I really must write something about why All That Heaven Allows is my favourite film, for example; I mean, I listen to death metal, I write science fiction… and my favourite film is a 1950s melodrama. Go figure. ( )