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dustydigger
Posted 2019-09-02 4:53 AM (#21279 - in reply to #21271)
Subject: Re: Pick & Mix 2019 challenge		Quote Reply



Elite Veteran

Posts: 1031
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Location: UK		Didnt read much SF/F in June,I had a lot of catching up to do on other genres
Amanda Stevens The Awakening was the final book in the Graveyard Queen series . The Awakening,though the denouement seemed really slow in coming,and then was far too abrupt and a bit unsatisfying. But on the whole,as a taphophile,I have thoroughly enjoyed this series about a restorer of ancient graveyards.
I found Edgar Rice Burrough's Master Mind of Mars a little different from the earlier books in the series.When the original trilogy was 1st person ,with John Carter's point of view as a stranger on a different planet,I just accepted the nonstop fighting as necessary. Once we went on to other 3rd person narrators the brutality of some of the characters gave me pause,when there is no southern gentleman's charm around. I suppose its a clue to ERBs pulp origins. In the present book we are confronted with an evil doctor/scientist,and I couldnt avoid a shudder at my instinctive thoughts of Mengele and his callous cruelty in the camps,where knowledge is the be all and end all of his motivation. This nasty Barsoomian villain was depicted only 12 years or so before the real life Mengele did his ghastly experiments. .
Its all pulp nonsense,but lively exciting nonsense.I'm always happy to revisit Barsoom!
Oh dear......I was very disappointed with Rainbow's End. I really loved Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep,then wasnt so keen on its prequel A Deepness in the Sky.,and then I found Rainbow's End interminable,boring(I am so not into tech. I upset a lot of friends when I had the same reaction to Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash,so its obviously just not my sub genre,leaves me cold).
I found James S A Corey's first book in the Expanse series,Leviathan Wakes only OK,so was happy to enjoy Caliban's War a little better. but still wondering a bit as to why all the fuss abot the series. Oh well,lots of space flight,always a pleasure for me.I only read these two books as prep for reading theLocus award winning Abaddon's Gate.
Very disappointed by Abraham Merritt's The Moon Pool Started off great.Under the ruins of an ancient city is the door to an underground society. The first part apparently was a magazine short story,and was fine. Then it was expanded into a dull,turgid,longwinded,rather boring societies - underground tale with a cringemaking romance. It went on forever then suddenly ended very abruptly! Not amused.
ERB did a much better job 3 years later with his Pellucidar series
I had a lovely self-indulgent month reading Lovecraft,filling in on stories previously unread. I know many modern readers make a big fuss about racism in HPLs work,but reading through a mass of his stuff,ANYONE who is poor or ill-educated or of course female also fares badly. lol. Yep,only white, Anglo Saxon, university educated Protestant (unless they have lapsed to follow Elder Gods and the like) males pass scrutiny. But the grandiloquent prose,the fantastic descriptions of creepy landscape,and the whole doom ridden scenarios make you happily identify with these guys,diligently scratching away with their quill pens to warn us of the terrible hidden creatures lurking in the shadows,or are glub glubbing their slimy way up to the attic to kill them.Lovely stuff! lol.

Edited by dustydigger 2019-09-02 4:58 AM

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