[50 book challenge] Books 1:82.5
erithromycin
to count them as half books. This is, in part, because it's rare that I'll
actually read a whole one (ruthless required/additional reading triage
kata!).
001 Algebraist, The, Iain M Banks.
I'm still unsure what to make of it, to be honest, and it may merit
rereading later into my pile of unread. It sits uneasily as a post-Culture
novel, and while I don't think it spoils anything to wonder about the echoes
of Butlerian Jihad it's filled with, it saddens me somewhat that Banks seems
to have grown bored with the potential afforded to him by the Transhumanism
of the Culture. More humanism than I expected, in fact, after the
revelations contained within.
002* Shah of Shahs* Ryszard Kapuscinski
I like Kapuscinski's stuff, even though I've read only a little of it. His
speciality is fragmentary analysis of politcal downfall in the "third world"
(1945-1989), and SoS is his 27th revolution. His work on the end of Haile
Selassie's regime is similar in tone, not least, I suspect, because of the
ultimate similarities of the ends of Empire.
003 Who?, Algys Budrys
This is an acknowledged classic of the genre defined by Sturgeon as "a human
problem, with a human solution" brought about by science. I had not read it
before, in fact I picked up this copy on impulse from a zShop, I think. It's
excellent, if ultimately tragic. I've always liked Budrys' work, and,
looking back, I'm now somewhat surprised that I hadn't gotten around to this
earlier. My 'to read' pile currently includes a lot of things I've intended
to get around to for a while.
004 Asylum, Patrick McGrath
I became a fan of Patrick McGrath almost by accident. I discovered that
Cronenburg was making a movie called spider, so I bought the book, and loved
it. I hunted down Asylum when it was announced that it too was to become a
film. It's a staggering work. If I wanted to put on my pretentious hat I
would say that it's very similar to Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day in its
sense of melancholy inevitability, and I'll be quite interested to see how
it compares to Harris' Red Dragon which has been recommended to me and now
sits in my now marginally diminished 'to read' pile.
005 Pendragon 5th Edition, Greg Stafford
The roleplaying game of Arthurian adventure, heavily influenced by Mallory.
It's more complex than Prince Valiant, which I love, but it's easier to get
your hands on too. I'm looking forward to playing in a game of this at some
point in the future.
006 US Special Warfare Units in the Pacific Theater, 1941-45, Gordon Rottman
(Osprey Publishing).
I love Osprey because they have a narrow niche that they focus on with
knife-like efficiency. This is for a GODLIKE game that I intend to run at
some point in the future. It's also just really interesting reading if
you're one of those people interested in that sort of thing. Which I am.
007 Talent Operations Command Intelligence Bulletin No. 3: Marine Talent
Operations in the Pacific Theater, Dennis Detwiller
It's quite brief, but full of interesting ideas. The thing I like most about
GODLIKE is that it's an astonishingly brutal WWII game that just happens to
have superpowers in it. Ivey and Detwiller wrote a game where your only
chance to storm an emplaced bunker with machine guns and survive is to be
smart (really smart), lucky (really lucky), or bulletproof. That last one
isn't a guarantee either. Anyway, GODLIKE, in the Pacific. Just because you
can fly doesn't mean you won't get dysentery.
008 Anabasis, The Xenephon trans. Carleton L. Browneson
Ten thousand Greeks march from Greece to Persia to kick someone in, and then
march all the way back home again, kicking folk in along the way. I'm going
to need to investigate all manner of things in the University Library in
relation to this, because in addition to being a gazetteer, propaganda
piece, stirring adventure, autobiography, biography, and tactical
masterclass it also appears to be a condemnation of standing armies: They
keep rebelling, wanting to be fed, destroying things, and condemning their
leaders, and so on. The only way to deal with them seems to be to keep them
at war. Take note leaders of the free world...
009 Lord Valentine's Castle, Robert Silverberg
I reread this, and am rewriting my discussion as the last eight books I
added appear to have disappeared. I am displeased. This book was not as good
as I remembered it, and took too many pages to contain the few things that I
had retained in my memory. I much prefer the Torturer series by Gene Wolfe
(available as a Fantasy or possibly Science Fiction Masterwork in two
volumes in the series of the same name).
010 Stardroppers, The, John Brunner
Brunner has amazing ideas, but this is let down by the fact that it's
ultimately one of those 'subculture prove to have unheralded superpowers'
stories. I was tired of it before I got around to reading Slan, and it's
only the treatment of fads that makes this worthwhile. Still, when Brunner
writes I'm almost always tempted to read it.
011 The NEW Science Fantasy, impulse, ed. Kyril Bonfiglioli, ass. ed. Keith
Roberts
Short story magazine in novel form, monthly published in the past. Have
bought others in similar vein second hand, will continue to do so after
figuring out which ones I actually already own. Would buy similar thing if
came out now. Good Aldiss, reasonable Anderson, Ballard story with no good
idea therefore worthless, good Blish, good Harrison, something by Wilson, a
good Vance, and the first of Roberts' Pavane series, which I had read as a
novel and liked.
012 Lambda I and Other Stories, selected John Carnell
Penguin Anthology. Title story is weak, Hargreaves' "Tee Vee Man" is paean
to the skilled technology worker (in Space), others routine save "Routine
Exercise" by Malcolm - made into a career near enough for authors of Baen.
Moorcock story about a hero through space and time that isn't the Eternal
Champion (yet). Rackham story "The Last Salamander" good, reminded of "High
Tension", perils of power generation, also boredom inherent in waiting for
system failures.
013 Web, John Wyndham
The more Wyndham I read the less there is to look forward to. Nuclear weapon
testing, utopian dreams, post-colonialism, hexes. Excellent.
014 Doomsday 1999, Paul MacTyre
Post-apocalypse novel written by a Scot. Country reduced to labour camps and
a few hunters, watched over by the Emergency Powers and the Chinese. All
order breaking down. Mutant midges terrorise, boy and girl discover latent
powers, fall in love.
015 Ship of Shadows, Fritz Leiber
His SF is like his fantasy - it is all recognisable, but it is unmistakeably
different, and frequently better. Good short stories here, also novella 'The
Big Time' - sits uncomfortable with Haldeman's 'Forever War'.
016 Earth Unaware, Mack Reynolds
I like Reynolds' stuff. It is simple and straightforward and good. Here,
itinerant preacher develops astonishing powers. Civilisation suffers,
responds, is changed. The cover is a total lie.
017 Steam Powered Miniatures Combat, WARMACHINE, Privateer Press [Matt
Wilson et al]
I play Khador, who are every stereotype of Stalinist Russia crossed with
Finnish Nationalism and infamous Transylvanian nobility, earth tearing
warjacks that stand fifteen feet to the shoulder with steel sinews and axes
like safe doors, with magicks and witches arrayed against necromancers and
zealots who ride to war with tethered angels. The background feels right,
and the game is fast and fun. The models are a joy to convert too.
018 V for Vendetta, Alan Moore and David Lloyd with Steve Whitaker and
Siobhan Dodds
I like the graphic novel, but not the film.
019 Damage Land New Scottish Gothic Fiction, edited Alan Bisset
Some of it's quite good, but I already liked Ali Smith and Michael Faber.
There's one story that could be sfinal, but it isn't very good at that
either. All modern gothic too, and as such a little weak in places. Nothing
dates quite like it.
020 Dead Air, Iain Banks
It's good. I'd picked it up and someone told me about the way the main
character deals with a Holocaust Denier (denyer?). It's clever, but I still
haven't figured out why nobody seems to have noticed that Banks keeps
writing Romances. For certain values of 'boy' and 'girl', anyway.
021 Starsongs and Unicorns, Eric Norden.
It's a short story collection with a barbarian on the cover, but it's the
one about a time travelling Jewish physicist who goes back to kill Hitler
that's mentioned in the blurb. I don't think I've read a story that managed
to be so disturbing by virtue of existing. It's not the why, or the how, but
the ending. I'm shocked that he thought it wise to write it, to be honest.
'The Curse of the Mohndoro Nkabele or The Revenge Of Stanley G. Weinbaum' is
really good, and quite funny too. He appears to enjoy picking on Harlan
Ellison. The Hitler story aside, it's a solid and fun collection, full of
proper little science fiction stories with twist endings. They are among my
favourite kind of things.
022 Planet of the Damned, Harry Harrison
This is one of those stories that could have been written about a lost
island or a hidden tribe before we found all that sort of stuff. Instead,
it's a planet. It's Harry Harrison, and it has a lantern jawed smart guy
kind of a hero. It's one of those Galactic Police Solve A Problem books. I
like 'em, but mainly as bus reading.
023 War Games, Brian Stableford
This is good stuff, and quite timely, in that it focuses on a small conflict
on a backwards desert planet that invokes Themes and Greater Issues. I think
I have read other Stableford, and intend to dig them out. It's just, I look
at my bookcase and I think, how did I read so many books? Then I remember I
am getting older, and having less time to read books. That just makes me ask
it all the harder. I suspect, though, that I did spend less time on the
internet. I probably spend just as much time reading. Well, looking at
pictures anyway.
024 Microcosmic God And Other Stories From Modern Masterpieces of Science
Fiction, Edited Sam Moskowitz
This collection has a Sturgeon, a Simak, a Wyndham, a Van Vogt, a Bradbury,
and a Farmer, and I hadn't read any of them before, which is good, and
they're all excellent, which is even better. It's a gem of a collection, and
I bought it knowing only that the cover was awful. I love it when this
happens, and it's finds like this one that keep me haunting secondhand
bookshops.
025 The Land of a Million Elephants, Asa Baber
It has a nice cover and was "first serialized in Playboy". Kurt Vonnegut
liked it, it says so on the cover. It's okay, in a "book about the Vietnam
War/military mindset that isn't Catch-22" kind of a way. Except it gets all
magical realist at the end, and is quite sad, which saves it. It could maybe
have done with some pictures of naked girls though.
026 Sirius, Olaf Stapledon
The biography of a dog who is as smart as a man. Stapledon writes alien very
well, if I remember correctly, but Sirius is always not just not like man,
but not quite like man, except when he's clearly dog.
027 Sword In The Stone, The, TH White
It's an Armada Lion, and was a bus book for a couple of days, and I really
enjoyed it. It's a great read, full of nice ideas and all sorts of charming
anachronisms. It is full of character, and bounces along jauntily. I'm quite
sorry that the film that was based on it did not induce me to seek it out
before, because it is so much better than my (admittedly hazy) recollection
of that slice of Disney.
028 New English Library Book of Internet Stories, The, Edited Maxim
Jakubowski
Half of the stories are about sex, and few are very good. What is amusing is
that it's from 2000, and as such is hopelessly out of date. What is more
amusing is that other collections of short stories I have read recently that
are five or eight times as old have not dated as badly. I think it says more
about how they are read.
029 Foresight War, The, Anthony B. Williams
Someone is catapulted through time to the past, specifically 1933. They are
a historian specialising in the Second World War. He wakes up, laptop and
calculator in hand, knowledge in mind, near Crystal Palace. The timeline of
the war is changed. Then they discover that the Germans have a "throwback"
too. What's criminal is that this appears to have been vanity published,
possibly because of it's appeal to a narrow market. The real shame is that I
can see this working as a film, a star-studded ensemble cast kind of job.
Not that that matters, as that's not terribly likely. It's well written,
pleasingly paced, though it does show the quality of its research on its
sleeve, and I may be more tolerant of that than others.
030 13 Great Stories of Science Fiction, Edited Groff Conklin
Another secondhand collection, full of excellence. I think I'd read Lion
Miller's "The Available Data on the Worp Reaction" before, and I know I've
read Damon Knight's "The Analogues" as the first chapter of "The Analogue
Men", and, well, let's see: It has a Budrys, Anderson, Qyndham, Guin (Wyam
of that ilk), Clarke, a Sturgeon, and some others that were also brilliant.
Is it any wonder new short fiction collections distress me so? These are the
ones that I raised myself on, where even the weakest story is so full of
ideas that, well, Damage Land has few stories to match the worst of those
here. Different goals, but still, execution is execution.
031 Prisoner of Conscience, susan r. matthews
It's light reading, a book I've read a few times before, even if it is about
torture and genocide. I try to read it as allegory for trying to operate
within the hippocratic oath, but really it amounts to mildly risque space
opera with lashings of ultraviolence.
032 Liaisons Dangereuse, Les, Laclos
I ought not to follow my previous 'the' convention into another language,
but it amused me. A novel of letters, the origin of 'revenge is a dish best
served cold' (allegedly), but really it's about amorality, morality, and
retribution. It did make me hungry for croissants more than it ought. I
suppose this is indicative of some form of aging.
033 worlds of robert f. young, the
Another short story collection bought on the strength of its cover. "never
judge a book..." is a lie, by the way. This is really good, in a "human
problem, human solution, produced by science" sort of way. Which is one of
my favourite kinds of Science Fiction, I ought to note. "Little Red
Schoolhouse" is a standout, as too, actually, no, they're all good, even
"Flying Pan", which is a bit of a cop out in terms of what it's about, but
still, enjoyable done. People are not the only sources of Science Fiction,
and Young is smart enough to know this, and deploy it to good effect. Now I
shall have to vaguely look out for more stuff by him.
034 Shadow, KJ Parker
The first of another trilogy. I really like KJ Parker's stuff, it's
humanocentric magic light fantasy, with credible killing and swordstuff.
It'd make an excellent roleplaying background, if only because of the sheer
variety of mechanisms of killing. Not to mention the fact that this trilogy
appears to be the newish HeroQuest - hero recreates the quest of a god that
the same fate fall upon the world. Here, apocalypse.
035 Pattern, KJ Parker
More of the same. It's a bit 'second part', unfortunately, though the
culture of 'the ravagers' is sufficiently interesting as to be worthwhile
spending a book with. They're a sort of communal consciousness post scarcity
scandinavia circa 1600 sort of a society. The cyclical nature of this story,
not to mention it's vaguely post-modernist take on religion in the aspect of
creating gods means that there's a risk of it being a little repetitive.
This novel starts a trend of repeating passages wholesale, which is
unfortunate, but they're nicely written.
036 Memory, KJ Parker
If you were the most evil person on earth, and you'd forgotten, would you
want to get your memory back? If you were an unwitting component in someone
else's plot, would you want your memory back of being an unwitting component
in a different plot? If you might be a god, can you take a joke if you're
not? Also, what does the end of the world look like?
Also, once again KJ Parker writes a humanocentric trilogy with plentiful
quantities of killing in the face. It would be a very good background for a
roleplaying game, I suspect, what with it being looseley sketched, focused
on individuals with plentiful quantities of martial prowess, and a distinct
tendency towards clever schemes that go horribly awry. His debut trilogy
'The Fencer' is a favourite of mine, and I'm slowly acquiring the trilogy
that comes after this one in paperback. I'll read it in the future I'm sure.
037 Under Compulsion, Thomas Disch
A short story collection. I notice now how many of thse that I read. I
really like them though. Anyway, this is full of Thomas Disch stories, as
you'd expect, some of which I've read before, particularly "Descending",
which is really only Science Fiction because that's what Disch writes,
instead of, say, fantasy, or a small horror story or such. Anyway, it's
worthwhile for "Casablanca", a story about what happens to an Amercian
tourist couple when America ceases to exist.
038 Red Dragon, Thomas Harris
I finally got around to reading this, months after buying it. I like this
for the same reason I like Manhunter, and almost nothing else associated
with Thomas Harris and his pet. Who's keeping who, I wonder? Anyway, I still
say Lektor is the best spelling, and Petersen and Cox the best pair of
manhunters. Though I haven't seen 'Red Dragon', so I can't comment on how Ed
Norton pulled it off. I noted, by the way, that here our detective is a
specialist in insect forensics.
039 Far Out, Damon Knight
More short stories. I don't think I had consciously discovered Damon Knight
until about, oh, two, three years ago, and since then I've been hunting out
and chewing up his stuff whenever I can. I think this is the biggest problem
I've got with books, music, films, etcetera - there's so much good stuff
coming out, but it can scarcely compete with all the good stuff that I
stumble across from the past. When the big studios knuckle down and get
their back catalogue digitised and monetised, well, then we'll see what's
what. Probably not a good what.
040 mocking program, the, Alan Dean Foster
ADF writes good stuff. This is basically a novelisation for a film that was
never made (and for which no screenplay exists), however - it rolls along,
and it's quite pleasant, but it's 'twist' is cripplingly obvious and it uses
'irregardless' twice.
041 Cure For Death, Victor Valentine
Cellular regeneration of adults grants the prospect of immortality without
the survival of personal identity. The world jumps for it (save a few), and,
well, corruption, idiocy, and then Deus Ex Machina resolve everything tidily
(apart from the apocalypse and stuff). It's predictive fiction in the
Wellsian pattern, but lacks his wit, verve, sense, or ability to plot.
Still, an enjoyable wee read, if only for what it says about the nineteen
sixties. Are we always to be recognised from our fictions? Aye, I'd say so.
042 Homecoming, The*, Harold Pinter
If you took the Pauses out Harold Pinter's plays would be about a ninth the
size. Still, it's time to digest the unremitting horror.
043 Elsewhere X3, Compiled By Damon Knight
It's three novellas. 'The Ugly Little Boy' by Asimov is another one of
Asimov's motherhood parables that probably helps to explain why I relate
poorly to women. 'The Saliva Tree' is, well, 'The Saliva Tree'. Aldiss is
almost always good, but sometimes the metaliterary pretensions grate.
'Fiddler's Green' is a hallucinatory consensus. I think it's the only
McKenna I've read, and every time I do read it I wonder if I'll like
anything else he's written.
044 Maelstrom, Alexander Scott
It's a Puffin roleplaying game, sorry "Adventure Gamebook". It's very much,
shall we say, a product of its time [1984], and a fascinating read. It's
full of things that wouldn't make sense unless you'd already played a
roleplaying game, and has a habit I absolutely detest, that of encouraging
players to make up their own rules as and when they see fit, with little
clue as to how to integrate them. Though it does suggest writing them in the
book. It would be about fifteen years before people started talking openly
about things like 'social contract', but, well nevermind. That's another
rant.
045 Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, Sillitoe
It's a classic apparently. I'm still not sure what to make of it. It's
clearly a product of its time. The past is truly a foreign country.
046 SF:17 new writings in sf-17, edited by John Carnell
Only really mentionable for 'The True Worth Of Ruth Villiers'. Who are you
Michael G Coney?
047 Spinner, The, Doris Piserchia
Spider guy from alternate earth eats city. Mankind is revealed as the real
monster. Etcetera.
048 sexmax, Hughes Cooper
An 'inevitable consequences of the permissive age' novel.
049 Mistress Of Mistresses, E.R. Eddison
Tolkien rated Eddison highly, and on some alternate earth this overwritten
virtually plotless impenetrable fug of world building might have spawned an
industry. I'm not so sure. I liked Worm Ouroboros, The, but Eddison's
tendency to quote things in the original Greek is a little off-putting.
050 Chung Kuo, David Wingrove
I read book five, I think, of this seven book series when I was eight or so.
I didn't really remember it too well, and the first book left a similar
impression. I don't have time for novels that are this thick and say this
little. I also find the whole China/not China quite creepy. There are some
nice ideas in it, but comparisons to Star Wars and Dune are clearly based on
the inanities and long dull patches of those two franchises. Not necessarily
respectively, either.
50 Books Completed (and I didn't even realise)
051 Storm Front,
052 Fool Moon,
053 Grave Peril,
054 Summer Knight,
055 Death Masks,
056 Blood Rites, Jim Butcher
'The Dresden Files' are modern occult detective stories in a sort of "only
freelance wizard in the phonebook" sort of way. It's fluff, but it's solidly
and entertainingly written, and manages to tie together it's faeries,
vampires, werewolves and so forth in ways that are both relatively novel,
interesting, consistent, and allow for typical pulp potboiler plot twistery.
Competently and enjoyably written, with bad puns and popular cultural
references scattered liberally, they only weakness I found with them was the
fact that as their covers are virtually identical it's possible to
accidentally read them out of sequence. Which I did. Oops.
057 Distraction, Bruce Sterling
This was a re-read, and, in fact, a procrastination strategy. It's got a
good take on the breakdown of American order, and emergent architecture.
Also, a good treatment of a variety of metnal conditions. It made me miss
'The West Wing' though. In a 'not on any more sense', not in a scheduling
conflict way.
058 The Man In The High Castle, Philip K Dick
It is heartbreaking. I also suspect it is why I like the work of Jack
Womack. I also recommend Jack Womack, by the way. I have similar percentages
of his work as I have of Philip's. What is the value of a thing?
059 Perfume, Patrick Suskind
A re-read. This is a gorgeous novel, that has almost immediately become one
of my favourites. I cannot recommend it to you highly enough.
060 Getaway Special, The, Gerry Oltion
This is a smart, fun, 'magic box' SF story, with a mad scientist and a bunch
of other cool stuff. It understands the internet and the space shuttle and
government, all at the same time.
061 Strange Invaders, The, Alun Llewellyn
It is an apocalypse. Communism as religion. The traditional sources of
power. It's an early, clever, critique of Stalinism and everything else. By
rights it should be up there with BNW and '84. Well, in there anywhere.
062 Grimmer Than Hell, David Drake
A collection of short stories. His previous collection featured his
humourous stuff. This, perhaps obviously, is the rest. Working Vietnam out
of his system, and the like. It is entertaining, but very grim.
063 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K Dick
Is this my favourite book? That is a silly question.
064 jPod, Douglas Coupland
It is, I think, a book written about high functioning autists and people
with Asperger's that has been designed as if it were written by and for one
of those groups. It really annoyed me. I think I shall have to go after 'The
Curious Incident...'
065 Twilight of Briareus, The, Richard Cowper
For some reason, I really didn't like this. I am as yet unsure as to why. It
requires more thinking. For now I have Ballard.
066 Non-Fiction, Chuck Pahluniak
This is where fight club came from. The stuff about the castle guys is top.
It's relatively easy to see where some of those ideas were born. Oh my.
067 Pashazade, Jon Courtenay Grimwood
It's a cunning little murder mystery in a cunning little alternate future.
Past now, I suppose. Alas, poor Boney. Well, not so much as Kaiser Bill.
068 Effendi, Jon Courtenay Grimwood
This too is a murder mystery. Actually, Peter F Hamilton has written a few
of thse. Human problem with a human solution, if you will, but the situation
is brought about by science. Here, alternate futurity, and a little bit of
science. The postulate that Napoleon could have defeated the nascent German
Empire (and the revisions to The Great War 1896?- that follow) is a nice
one. The presence of an expert system that teaches children to fight wars is
a nice one. Well, not nice nice.
069 Felaheen, Jon Courtenay Grimwood
This is the third. It has a murder mystery which is really cover for another
murder mystery which is really for hiding what's going on with the whole
business of the main character being (or not being) the son of the Emir.
It's pleasant, but part of me misses George Alec Effinger, and part of me
remains somewhat unimpressed with Grimwood himself. He seems a lovely chap,
but he used the same anecdote three times at Worldcon 2005. Poor show.
Later on, it seems important to note that these are much like the Dresden
files, but with less possibility for continuation. A trilogy, or a series of
three? From such questions are publishing empires born.
070 Complete Short Stories, The JG Ballard
There are 96, I think, in this connection, of which it emerges that I have
read no less than 27. The bulk of those 27 come from the short story
collection 'The Terminal Beach' and the hoard of 'New Worlds in SF'
anthologies that I have cached in my towering book cliff. Maybe horde. I
don't think this is complete, as it only goes up to the early nineties, and
I'm sure his (now resolved) spat with Melvyn Bragg motivated him to write
something. I intend to post about the ones that I've read before (which,
with the the exception of the Vermlilion Sands stories are pretty much the
only ones I like) seperately. There are clear motifs and the like in his
work, but some of his obsessions are quite pedestrian. Though that could be
said of Dick. I think it becomes problematic to read large quantities of
Ballard and Dick while working in a call centre. This Is The Modern Age. The
War On Terror Considered As A Call To Technical Support.
071 Five Years, Four Fronts, Georg Grossjohan, trans. Ulrich Abele hist.
commentary Keith E. Bonn w Wolf T. Zoepf
Grossjohan enlisted in 1928 as a 'twelvepointer', as his father said at his
birth, "the boy will be a soldier". He was. He served throughout the second
world war, fought on all the European Fronts (ie, not Afrika), and did not
die. He went from Sergeant to Major too. When you read it, it becomes clear
why a) Nazi Germany did so well at the start, and b) how they managed to
completely destroy themselves. Fascinating.
072 Five Fists of Science, The Various
Tesla & Twain versus the Lovecraftian horrors summoned by Edison and JP
Morgan. It is a lot of fun.
073* Mezzanine, The: A Novel*, Nicholson Baker
This is a course text. It's a pretty obvious example of the postmodern
novel, revolving, as it does, around the thoughts (and here's where it
becomes postmodern) the thoughts about those thoughts of a chap wondering
and wandering about on his lunch break. The shoelaces stuff is half
interesting, as is the focus on the way people actually use devices like
shoelaces and paper sugar packets, but the discourse on straws is
off-putting to me as someone who does not drink carbonated drinks. Also, it
uses footnotes extensively, though never more than one fresh footnote to a
page, which is, I hasten to add, a lie. There's one page that has two
footnotes, and one footnote that runs for five pages or so.
074 Cobweb, The, Stephen Bury, the pseudonym of Neal Stephenson and
Frederick George (the nom de plume of Professor George Jewsbury).
An Iowa and Washington set spy thriller with the usual microchemistry and
highschool wrestling Stephenson mixture. It's very much entertaining.
075* Thought Gang, The, Tibor Fischer*
More Post-Modernism course texts, and also annoying. Philosopher alcoholic
robs banks with partial Frenchman. The thing that annoys me about Literary
Post-Modernism, rather, than, say, New Wave Science Fiction, if one is to
acknowledge them as differentiated genres, and, indeed, I would suggest that
one does, is that at least in New Wave Science Fiction they only tended to
write short stories, which are over quickly. This is an Encylopedic novel,
which somehow managed to put me off that subgenre, which upsets me. I shall
have to go at another soon. Actually, it's more of a List novel, and i'm
thinking (or trying to think) of others. I know there's the Ballard glossary
one (of the assassination), but I'm convinced there are more.
076 Thud, Terry Pratchett
Discworld by numbers. It probably took me longer to read than it took to
plot. The point at which the characters of the Discworld ceased to change,
but simply became more numerous, was, I think, the end for me. Oh well.
Trapped by his own creation is he. I do hope he's writing something else
under a pseudonym, if only for his own sake.
077 Machine in Ward Eleven, The, Charles Willeford
Effectively a loosely linked set (ie, some recycled character names
mentioned in passing) of short stories that first appeared in Playboy back
when everyone who counted wrote for it, and lots that didn't did too.
Anyway, the Machine is not, as is suggested, a man, but an electroshock
machine. The titular story is less interesting than Endgame by Ballard. The
others were passable, but none immediately spring to mind. Though the
Confessional story does, after a moment, and was quite amusing, and the
Letter To A.A. is quite, quite depressing, and indeed almost SFinal if one
is willing to stretch.
078 Best of Amazing, The, Selected by Joseph Ross
There are some very good ones here, from the annals of Gernsback's Amazing!,
and some that show their age. It's got a Murray Leinster in it though, 'The
Runaway Skyscraper', which is top wasp.
079 Slave Ship, Frederik Pohl
Quite an odd one this, with a pre End of the Cold War post Cold War struggle
between the heavily mechanised Industrial Nations and animals crewing
submarines. No, actually, the other side are a peasant army of terrorists
based out of Madagascar. Though there are animal directed submersibles.
Also, some kind of ESP war that makes people explode.
080 Galactic Cluster, James Blish
Some of these I had read before, and some I had not. All good though.
081 Impartial Eye, An, Pierre Boulle
This is a novel about a former war photographer after the perfect
photograph, that of a Presidential assassination. Translated from the French
(my copy is currently on loan, so I can't find the translator), it's a short
book, more of a novella, but that's typical of Boulle. It's one of my
favourite short novels. Art versus morals, and all that.
082 Ossian's Ride, Fred Hoyle
It's actually just a more or less bog standard espionage story with SF
ground into the ending. It's pretty savage though. Petrol bombings and
stuff. Hoyle was a Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. His stuff's
enjoyable in a boys' own sort of way.
083 13 Cent Killers: The 5th Marine Snipers in Vietnam, John J. Culbertson
This is an amazing memoir. I'd draw quotes from it, but it's an unedited,
almost unreadable mess. Culbertson talks about himself in the third person,
there is much killing, and Culbertson learns how to kill but good. 13 cents,
by the way, is what the US Marine Corps paid for a match-grade bullet for
their rifles. Culbertson complains about lots of things, in particular the
"crybabies" back home. In their "marijuana smoke".
084 Happy Birthday Jack Nicholson, Hunter S. Thompson
This is a penguin seventy, so hardly counts. It is amazing though. In
particular the whole Jack Nicholson chaos nearly killing phones cut off (not
by Hunter) phosphorous flares partially defrosted ELK HEART on his family
doorstep where they were effectively in Aspen hiding from stalkers, and they
told Hunter (!) where he lived.
--
erith - I have just seen Alaistar motherfucking Campbell in a Pizza Hut
advert. God is dead.
kest
> 008 Anabasis, The Xenephon trans. Carleton L. Browneson
>
> Ten thousand Greeks march from Greece to Persia to kick someone in,
> and then march all the way back home again, kicking folk in along the
> way. I'm going to need to investigate all manner of things in the
> University Library in relation to this, because in addition to being a
> gazetteer, propaganda piece, stirring adventure, autobiography,
> biography, and tactical masterclass it also appears to be a
> condemnation of standing armies: They keep rebelling, wanting to be
> fed, destroying things, and condemning their leaders, and so on. The
> only way to deal with them seems to be to keep them at war.
Yes, that sounds about right.
k
erithromycin
>erithromycin:
Well, yes. Though you don't go to war with the army you want, but the army
you have. It's interesting to watch the major defence projects being
rejigged to deal with modern asymmetric warfare, and then to deal with
China, and now to deal with the kind of retrogressive war with the past that
a North Korea conflic would become.
--
erith - .sig