Post a message

Search | New Threads | User Listing | Quotes | Control Panel

Search | Statistics | User Listing

Forums | Quotes

You are logged in as a guest. ( logon | register )

Posting a reply to: Re: Pick & Mix 2020 reading challenge

General Discussion -> Roll-Your-Own Reading Challenge

Guest name

Subject

Message

Emoticons

[QUOTE]dustydigger - 2020-01-30  6:17 AM

I thoroughly enjoyed Leigh Brackett's The Sword of Rhiannon.She can keep up with the boys with the swashbuckling sword and sorcery, while unobtrusively adding interesting world building,beautiful lyrical yet economic prose,and at least some inner thoughts and motivation of the characters,a rare thing in this genre.
Also gobbled up Pat Frank's Alas,Babylon about survivors of a nuclear war.Alas,Babylon,was intense and gripping ,about a smallFlorida community adapting to life after nuclear war. The author Pat Frank was a former journalist and government official in the Ministry of Information,and he used his skills in producing an excellent warning about the dangers of the arms race touching on many of the dangers whilst trying to promote communities working together to cope. Within a decade most books were stark depictions of the terrible effects of such a war,and the idea that within days the world would collapse into brutl barbarity with the weak crushed by the stronge would make this book into a ''cozy catastrophe''. But it is of its time,and quite exciting,with sympathetic characters,plenty of incident - and useful info on what to do. Survivalists probably know i off by heart!.
Finished Clifford D Simak's Cosmic Engineers,originally serialised in 1939,with a distinct YA bias,and extended and published as his first novel in 1950.That was when he retired and became a full time writer.Most of it is simplistic gee-whizz stuff,humans off to help aliens prevent nasty creatures (strong whiff of Nazism here)cause harm,and then prevent two universes colliding.Made me think of Doc Smith with ever more amazing science and wonders revealed as we career through time and space,but here and there Simak lyricism,lush descriptions,and thoughtful philosophy manage to pop up. All this in a mere 161 pages!
Very uneven,and it would be 5 years till the wonderful Way Station,but its an interesting first book.That makes 11 books I have read by Simak,I'll still be hunting out more from this author.
Working my way through Algis Budrys's Rogue Moon.Working out my February reads.I need to return to a few books I put aside last year for various reasons,including Boneshaker and Altered Carbon.,and I really need to finally get round to PKDs Ubik.Havent liked any of the 4 books by him that I have read in the past,wonder if Ubik will improve my opinions. When I look at some WWEnd lists he seems to have a disproportionate number of books on the lists! lol. Oh well,one man's meat IS another man's poison.Can but try........[/QUOTE]

HTML: Yes
Anonymous: No
MBBS Code: Yes

Disable HTML
Enable emoticons

You are replying to:

dustydigger