2014 books: 44-47

[the_siobhan]

    

Wanderers of Time by John Wyndham More Wyndham. This is a collection of short stories written in the 30's and mostly published in SF magazines under the name "John Beynon" or "John Beynon Harris". The style is very different from the books he later wrote under his own name. Think old-school pulp SciFi. It's too bad the cover is so plain, because I think it could really benefit from a picture of a terrified woman in a torn dress being hoisted aloft by a tentacled robot monster. No, really, that's a scene from the first story. Another story was obviously written prior to WWII, it takes place during a time of space travel and the Third Reich is still in power in Germany but not yet lobbing things back and forth with England. In a third there is an atmosphere and intelligent life on the moon and rifles are the weapon of choice for space missions. It's not hard science but it's entertaining as hell.

    

The Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem A high school teacher gave me this book because she thought I would like it. This gives you an idea of how long it's been hanging around. It was written in 1957, and according to Wikipedia translated into English in 1976. It sort of counts as a collection because each chapter tells of a different adventure by character Ijon Tichy, who is a rocketship pilot who also occasionally ends up accidentally travelling through time. It. is. Demented. It starts off with a time-travelling story in which he ends up having brawls with himself, progresses through encounters with various odd aliens and human societies - including one that is attempting to learn to breathe water by "evolutionary persuasion" - and ends up with philosophizing over the role of religion in a society where technology has progressed to the point where people are essentially immortal and intelligent life can be created out of random goo. Apparently he also wrote Solaris which is BC's favourite movie. So maybe I should check that out.

    

Eye by Frank Herbert This book has the little hole-punch in the corner that indicated I bought it used, apparently in 1990. It was published shortly after Dune was turned into a movie and so Herbert's stock was very high at the time and they wanted to capitalize on his sudden popularity. I have to say the collection is not very well curated. I think they just grabbed everything they could find that hadn't already been published in book format, so they are really all over the place in terms of quality. A couple of the stories are excellent, but some of them I think are Herbert playing with concepts that are never fully teased out. The big selling point appears to be the forward where he talks about the experience of seeing one of his books turned into film. So really only for the completist. Into the library.

    

Visible Light by C.J. Cherryh I love the fact that the cover image for this book is a painting of Cherryh herself in a space suit. I used to have the habit of writing my name and date on the inside cover of books, which is how I know I bought this in 1992. Unlike the Herbert book, this collection was put together by Cherryh herself, so the quality is much more consistent. She intentionally chose a variety of settings and themes - from a modern city to an exploratory landing on an alien planet to a bronze-age trading port - and it's all good stuff. Each chapter starts with a little blurb where she explains what concept she was exploring with the story via a conversation with a fictional fellow traveller on a spaceship. I already knew I loved her writing and this is definitely my favourite of the set.

Comments

[lil_m_moses]

I really enjoy Lem's stuff (though I've not yet read this particular title). I've taken to calling it surrealist introspective science fiction (though some is less that than others). Most of it doesn't translate well to film, IMHO. I saw 2 different versions of Solaris (a book I enjoyed) and hated both of them.

[greylock]

I am reading JW's best of right now... but none of these are in there, and dat cover art! I WANT THIS BOOK. If you decide to ditch it.

Lem I haven't started since the small font size.... scares me.

Eh. If you decide to ditch, I'll buy these.

[the_siobhan]

The Lem ended up in the library and somebody has taken it already. The JW Axel is reading, so I can see how much it will cost to mail it to you once he's done with it.

[the_siobhan]

I lied. Axel has them both. I'll pass them on as soon as he is finished with them both.