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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 11, 2014 13:49:10 GMT -5
It's a genre conceit I can live with. Especially with Flashy, because he's so damn funny. And Frasier really did know his history so the feel is almost always right. I had to look at the cover again. I guess it's at least PG-13. I agree totally... I've read lots of similar series. In fact, Flashy kinda reminded me of Alan Lewrie , the star of one of the many Horatio Hornblower knock off series that are out there. THey're by Dewey Lambin.. if you like naval fiction, you'll probably like'em. As to the cover, my wife picked the book up for me at the library, and she said 'What the heck are you reading?' when I got home. Luckily, she's familiar with the Sharpe series so I was able to put it in context easy enough. Incidently, I had no idea Flashman was so revered in the author circles... there are TONS of documented references in other stuff they mention on the wiki page... crazy. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 15, 2014 6:38:02 GMT -5
Mind Partner and 8 other novelets from Galaxy (1961)
Edited by H.L.Gold
I had once read a short story by H.L. Gold,a long time editor of Galaxy Magazine,and was looking for a collection of his work.So in those distant pre-internet days I mail-ordered this book and discovered instead that it was an anthology of works published in Galaxy between 1955-1960.So it was back then.What I got was: Christopher Anvil-Mind Partner. A new drug has devasting effects and the police send an undercover cop to investigate the drug ring. The drug is swallowed,you fall into a sleep then wake up thinking you've been scammed.So you live your life until its happy conclusion and ultimately die of old age,then wake up to find that life was a drug-induced dream.it was all so real,you remember every detail of that life and have no desire to take the drug again.So you carry on,raise a family,retire and pass away,then wake up again to find that was another drugged illusion.You live multiple lives,good,bad,indifferent,every detail remembered,up to 8 ,9 lives until finally the drug wears off.Only a few hours have actually passed.You'll never take the drug again.However as the days wear on,all these past lives start to fill your mind in all its details.The drug dealer offers you a temporary antidote that you must take every week to prevent the memories from debilitating you.You're now hooked Cordwainer Smith-The Lady Who Sailed The Soul.The astronautic pilots willing to give up 25% of their life expectancy flying material and human cargo from star system to star system Neil Barrett Jr-The Stentorii Luggage. A hotel for myriad sentient races is infested by dangerous shape-changing critters R.A.Lafferty-Snuffles. The planet is the joke of the universe.Nothing about it makes sense.Its highest form of natural habitant is a bear-like snorkling creature who copies the mannerisms of the earth scientists investigating the planet.They call him Snuffles and he's not so innocent William Morrison-The Sly Bungerhop. An SF writer takes an elevator ride to the 99th floor of a building that only has 12 stories A.J.Offut-Blacksword. G.P.Blacksword is a dictator for hire.He places an add in the paper to make his services known and promptly finds a job.He is very much experienced Clifford D. Simak-The Civilization Game. A boy has built a simulated battlefield for his robot armies.This might come in handy for the new President of Earth Evelyn E. Smith-The Hardest Bargain. After the last nuclear war,earth's soil is too irradiated for crop-production.But an alien race has a method to restore the eath's fertility.They only want some of our greatest paintings in return Charles Satterfield-With Redfern on Capella XII. When you go to the planet of the insect-like Fnits to open trade agreements,don't bother the king's bride-to-be Anvil,Barrett,Lafferty are my favorite storytellers here.The only slog to read was Smith.So this anthology gets some big thumbs up 
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Post by Rob Allen on Jun 16, 2014 17:26:09 GMT -5
Here's an interesting list - "The 200 Greatest Adventure Novels of All Time" according to this guy, anyway: hilobrow.com/adventure/His definition of "novel" is a loose one - it includes some Tintin, Asterix, Terry and the Pirates, V for Vendetta, and a couple of short stories. |
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Post by gothos on Jun 16, 2014 18:09:00 GMT -5
Here's an interesting list - "The 200 Greatest Adventure Novels of All Time" according to this guy, anyway: hilobrow.com/adventure/His definition of "novel" is a loose one - it includes some Tintin, Asterix, Terry and the Pirates, V for Vendetta, and a couple of short stories. That's a very good list. I wouldn't list some of them as "adventure" myself, though I can see a justification of it in many cases, except maybe Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, from which I get no "adventure" vibe at all. I learned a new word from the list: "apophenic." |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2014 18:55:26 GMT -5
Mind Partner and 8 other novelets from Galaxy (1961)
Edited by H.L.Gold
I'm almost positive I own this (or, if not, I certainly did pre-'84), though I haven't read it. Main reason it sticks in my mind is something Harlan Ellison once wrote, possibly in an author intro in the first or second Dangerous Visions, about losing a Galaxy contest for young writers (maybe first stories?) to Andrew J. Offutt; "Blacksword" took the prize. I met Offutt (well, "offutt" ... he lower-cased his name in e.e. cummings fashion, IIRC) at the one-hot sf con in Slidell, La., in mid-'89. Nice guy. Sorry to have learned of his death not too terribly long ago. |
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Post by MDG on Jun 17, 2014 12:03:27 GMT -5
Over the weekend, I finished Laid Bare by John Gilmore. Memoirs of life in Hollywood and New York in the 50s and 60s. A pretty dark take that I liked, but I wouldn't be shocked to learn some things in it were BS.
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Post by dupersuper on Jun 17, 2014 21:20:30 GMT -5
I recently read The Stranger by Camus: throughout most of the book I just though it was "fine", then after the last page or so - when the protagonist explained his motivations - I loved it.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 17, 2014 21:31:11 GMT -5
I know I read that a while back, and I have positive feelings about it, but I don't really remember much.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2014 10:37:48 GMT -5
I see via Facebook that Daniel Keyes, famous for "Flowers for Algernon," died Sunday.
RIP.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2014 10:42:21 GMT -5
(If memory serves -- it may well not -- in wildfire's cosmology "Algernon" isn't sf ... but of course I default to the old maxim [paraphrased] that "sf is what sf fans point to when they're talking about sf.")
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 18, 2014 11:12:14 GMT -5
(If memory serves -- it may well not -- in wildfire's cosmology "Algernon" isn't sf ... but of course I default to the old maxim [paraphrased] that "sf is what sf fans point to when they're talking about sf." Wildfire has a lot of work to do to strip that book of it's Hugo and Nebula awards Daniel Keyes also wrote for EC comics,specifically Shock Illustrated and Confessions Illustrated, under both his own name and the pseudonyms Kris Daniels and A.D. Locke.prior to that, he worked for Martin Goodman's Atlas Comics,pulps and magazines,authoring stories and becoming an associate editor |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2014 11:15:18 GMT -5
Daniel Keyes also wrote for EC comics,specifically Shock Illustrated and Confessions Illustrated, under both his own name and the pseudonyms Kris Daniels and A.D. Locke.prior to that, he worked for Martin Goodman's Atlas Comics,pulps and magazines,authoring stories and becoming an associate editor Which I'd completely forgotten. Thanks for the reminder. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 18, 2014 11:19:59 GMT -5
(If memory serves -- it may well not -- in wildfire's cosmology "Algernon" isn't sf ... but of course I default to the old maxim [paraphrased] that "sf is what sf fans point to when they're talking about sf.") I also recall arguing that with him. RIP Daniel Keyes. The original short story of Flowers had a huge effect on me when I first read it. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2014 11:22:10 GMT -5
It pretty clearly had a huge effect on a lot of people. I still remember Asimov's recounting, in the story's intro in The Hugo Winners, of meeting Keyes when (IIRC) he handed him his trophy for it at the awards banquet.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 18, 2014 11:29:30 GMT -5
It pretty clearly had a huge effect on a lot of people. I still remember Asimov's recounting, in the intro in The Hugo Winners/b], of meeting Keyes when (IIRC) he handed him his trophy for the story at the awards banquet.Even IMDb classifies the movie adaptation Charly from 1968 as an sf drama |
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