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Michael Blumlein (1948–2019)

Author of The Brains of Rats

30+ Works 469 Members 15 Reviews

About the Author

Michael Blumlein practices and teaches medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.

Includes the names: Michael Blumlein, Micharel Blumlein

Works by Michael Blumlein

Associated Works

Black Swan, White Raven (1997) — Contributor — 584 copies
I Shudder at Your Touch (1991) — Contributor — 546 copies
The Big Book of Science Fiction (2016) — Contributor — 411 copies
Dark Love (1995) — Contributor — 251 copies
Semiotext(e) SF (1989) — Contributor — 248 copies
Full Spectrum (1988) — Contributor — 119 copies
Year's Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 1 (2014) — Contributor — 96 copies
Science Fiction: The Best of 2001 (2002) — Contributor — 95 copies
Interzone: The 1st Anthology (1985) — Author — 73 copies
The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2013 Edition (2013) — Contributor — 64 copies
Body Shocks (2021) — Contributor — 60 copies
Interzone: The 2nd Anthology (1987) — Contributor — 60 copies
The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories: Volume One (2016) — Contributor — 56 copies
Obsession: Tales of Irresistible Desire (2012) — Contributor — 54 copies
Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka (2011) — Contributor — 27 copies
Crossing the Border (1998) — Contributor — 21 copies
Asimov's Science Fiction: Vol. 33, No. 8 [August 2009] (2009) — Contributor — 17 copies
Omni Visions Two (1994) — Contributor — 14 copies
Die wahre Lehre — nach Mickymaus (1993) — Contributor — 4 copies
Das Blei der Zeit (1993) — Contributor — 1 copy

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Common Knowledge

Legal name
Blumlein, Michael John
Birthdate
1948-06-28
Date of death
2019-10-24
Gender
male
Nationality
USA
Birthplace
San Francisco, California, USA

Members

Reviews

I hadn't even heard of Mr. Blumlein before I read this. He was good (died in 2019, of the lung cancer he writes about in the title essay). Not sure how I missed him.
 
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Jon_Hansen | 1 other review | Dec 7, 2021 |
The full review is available at The Gray Planet.

Longer* by Michael Blumlein is a book I looked forward to based on hearing about it, and wanted to like. There turned out to be almost nothing to like.

The story presents itself as a science fiction puzzle story—an asteroid is captured and brought back to near Earth orbit and there is an object of interest (OOI) on it. Gunjita and Cav are scientists working for a pharmaceutical company on board an earth orbit station investigating a new drug for rejuvenation treatments. The pharmaceutical company, Gleem, is also a mining company and it is Gleem's mining probe that has brought back the asteroid. In addition to their responsibilities investigating new rejuvenation pharmaceuticals, they are also the scientists on scene to investigate the asteroid and the object it brings with it. Is it alien life or not?

Gunjita and Cav are also husband and wife, and have been for 60 years. But now, Gunjita has taken her second rejuvenation treatment and is young again, while Cav is delaying his and is in his 80s.

So, what happens? Well, it turns out the story is really about Cav and the reasons he wants to delay his rejuvenation and why. The asteroid, the development of a new rejuvenation drug, and the complex and presumably portent filled history of Cav and Gunjita and and old friend (Dashaud) and an unexplained historical event called the Hoax and a few other things are just throwaway ideas that allow Blumlein to fill pages in the book.

This still could have been a good story. The problem is, that Blumlein is not up to the task. He dumps page after page of exposition on us and it is boring. He attempts, in dialogue, to hint at complex relationships and personal histories filled with portent. The problem is that his dialogue is confusing and unclear, his hints are so vague they confuse rather than intrigue, and his puzzles—the asteroid’s possible harboring of life, and the possibility of a breakthrough in rejuvenation drugs—are discussed in simplistic dialogue with no substantial technical information imparted, and no resolution at all of any of the issues.

For some reason, I finished this book. I am sorry I wasted my time even though I skimmed much of it. I hoped at least for an interesting answer to the asteroid question, some insight into an alien life form. I got nothing. You won’t either. Avoid this one.
… (more)
 
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tbrown3131949 | 2 other reviews | Aug 20, 2021 |
A Locus review by Gary K Wolfe claims this is a collection of all of Blumlein’s fiction, which is not true. If anything, it’s a collection of his less obviously genre short fiction, although most of it was actually previously published in genre venues. It does indeed contain some of the stories also in What The Doctor Ordered (2013, USA), but with four additional ones – ‘Bloom’, ‘Y(ou)r Q(ua)ntifi(e)d S(el)f’, ‘Success’ and ‘Choose Poison, Choose Life’, but they appeared in Interzone, F&SF and Asimov’s SF, and ‘Y(ou)r Q(ua)ntifi(e)d S(el)f’ is original to this collection. Blumlein has been a favourite writer for many years, and I’ve championed his works whenever I could, but we lost him last year to cancer, and I can only be grateful he was held in high enough regard that pretty much all of his short fiction output has been collected over the years. His novels, however, are mostly out of print, and have been for a long time. The stories in All I Ever Dreamed are not heartland sf, and one or two hew closer to dark fantasy than science fiction. The three novellas are probably the strongest works. ‘The Roberts’ is available separately from Tachyon Publications, and is typical of Blumlein’s work: dense, intense and set somewhere at the intersection of science and technology and human relationships. ‘Success’, on other hand, does not use science and technology to fix a relationship, but to comment on it. The third novel sees three women, all named for flowers, each involved with a man, for better or for worse, on a desert island. There’s almost no obvious genre content, but the way the three narratives reflect on each other is cleverly done. Blumlein was a singular talent in science fiction, and there were, and are, few genre writers of his generation who matched his level of thoughtful rigour.… (more)
½
 
Flagged
iansales | Feb 9, 2021 |
UPDATED: Okay, I gave this book another try. Liked it much more, revisiting it in a different mood. But still not a favorite book. I feel like there was huge potential for exploring the impact of this new Sci-fi future in people (longevity), but it ended up really just being a very abstract fiction about someone choosing suicide.


ORIGINAL 2019-11-16 (2 stars):
Couldn't get further than 38% through this book. The main two characters' relationship problem is kind of interesting, but then the main plot line (the science/research they're up to) is just not compelling enough. I just wasn't hooked enough to know what would happen next.… (more)
 
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jzacsh | 2 other reviews | Sep 9, 2020 |

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Works
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Popularity
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Rating
½ 3.6
Reviews
15
ISBNs
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