Uncovering Writing

3 of 5 stars

If I hadn’t seen the movie, I might not have finished the book. It was a fun movie when it came out and I still will watch it if it pops up. The novelization followed the movie closely and so I felt like I was “watching” it again. It kept me entertained, hence the 3 star rating.

5 of 5 stars

Here are two short novellas from Kate Wilhelm. She remains amazing. She writes fluidly with great depth and psychological exploration. I feel her characters and the mood. Her work is psychedelic and mind blowing. It’s as though her books inhabit your mind in a fog…you don’t read her works, you experience them. And then they’re finished and you sit back and wonder what just happened but you feel changed from having partaken. I’ve felt that with each of her works I’ve read so far.

The first piece is called “The Plastic Abyss, and it was phenomenological. I felt disjointed, like the characters, and wondered whether I was here or there, and was it earlier or later? This is one of those pieces that just sweeps over you and you’re left with a feeling after as opposed to a series of answers or finality.

I also really enjoyed “Stranger in the House”. It started off slowly and I initially thought that I wasn’t going to like it. But Wilhelm’s writing skill just wraps you up and takes you for a ride. This piece was part psychological, part horror, and part sci-fi. Again, just wonderful prose.

If you haven’t read Kate Wilhelm, these two stories are a great start. If you have, read more of her. I am!

2 of 5 stars

A hard slog, with a dislikable main character and prose that seemed unnecessarily dense, but I still worked through, though on major skim mode after the first ⅓ of the novel. Some intriguing ideas were presented but could have been explored better. Overall, I preferred his novel Babel-17.

4 of 5 stars

A fast, guilty pleasure, though if I hadn’t seen the movie several times, I might not have enjoyed it as much. I could hear the voice of Capricorn Control in my head as I read the announcements. The plot was thin but the pacing was good.

5 of 5 stars

A little Franz Kafka, a little Joseph Heller and just pure Barry Malzberg genius.

That this was written in 1971 is amazing. To have read it then as moon shots were becoming “boring”. Psychedelic! Malzberg’s writing about how people don’t really believe what they see on TV but want to know how the “story” ends, was great commentary of the day and scarily prescient of 21st century TV programming. Written in 1971, spot on for 2020.

5 of 5 stars

5 stars for BOTH novellas. Superbly written, fast flowing, great storytelling. Why didn’t I know about these amazing writers growing up?!? Joanna Russ is such a sublime writer while James Tiptree (aka Alice Bradley Sheldon) wove a great tale.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought this collection primarily to get the Joanna Russ short story, “When It Changed”. That story was excellent, yet again Russ delivers the goods. The introduction to this story by the editor, Harlan Ellison, was shockingly great (except for the closing, unnecessary sentence). If you are interested in more Russ, I loved her novel “We Who Are About To…” and her collection of essays “To Write Like A Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction”, both of which I gave 5 stars. I have her novella “Souls” in my soon-to-be-read pile.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s novella “The Word for World Is Forest” just blew me away. What writing, what a storyline. The very best of what science fiction can do in the hands of such talent.

Kate Wilhelm’s “The Funeral” started slow and I didn’t get it at first, but it blossomed and was such a great story. Nothing was tidy, nothing was simple, it was just great.

The above three entries warranted a 5 star review for this collection. But the rest of the stories were mediocre at best, awful at worst. So, I chose a 4 star review but underline Le Guin, Wilhelm and Russ.

Amazing, here are 3 fundamental science fiction writers, all women, all writing in the 60s and 70s (and beyond) and I hadn’t heard of Wilhelm ever and only heard of Russ earlier this year. Le Guin I knew of but had only read one of her novels before, The Left Hand of Darkness, and I thought that was only ok (I liked her themes and topics, but didn’t enjoy the story).

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first third reminded me of a blend of Max Barry’s Company along with John Scalzi’s Redshirts. I loved Company and hated Redshirts. But, over the rest of the novel, it got much better. Strong writing, nicely done, reminiscent of Barry’s even better novel, Lexicon.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A dark, experimental, literate sci-fi novel that just dazzled me. An amazing and deep work, both passionate and philosophical, visceral and cerebral. The style was like a modern way of doing an epistolary novel, through her vocoder entries. I felt her hallucinations toward the end, remembering my own from fevers past.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Typical hard sci-fi of the era with a lot of exposition. I would have devoured this as a kid without seeing the utter lack of women and non white European people as important characters. Titillating with all the techno jargon yet devoid of consistent plot, character development, or political reality.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like the first time you read Vonnegut. Amazing, mind blowing, literature at its most experimental and its highest expression.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I originally gave this 4 stars but after sleeping on it, I wonder if 3 stars would be better. The prose is wonderful and deserves 5 stars. Beautifully told … I couldn’t stop reading and felt both the loneliness and sense of infinity. However, the twist at the end was just too much.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Grendel was a cool, clever, deep, 1970s riff on Beowulf. This retelling of Frankenstein is not. It does not reframe or reimagine the story; it only cashes in on the original masterwork by Mary Shelley.

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Skimmed. Awful. Sorry.

Part of the problem was that this was a rewrite of the original 1970s version, which I did not realize. Based on the writing, I’m not sure if the original would have been any better.  But, I am sure that the rewrite was weak and full of pop culture hooks and a POV strategy to help sell it.  This is like the worst of the 2000-present efforts that “reboot” an old idea just to cash in.

Again, I guess I should say, “sorry”.

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A bit dated and it felt more like an episode of Night Gallery (Rod Serling’s series after Twilight Zone) than a novel. The characters were never really developed enough to care too much. But, I read it to the end because I wanted to know how it turned out.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Predominately, this is fan fiction at its worst, with the plots counting on fans to fill in the missing effort. Sexism is also pretty flagrant throughout many of the stories. However, there were a few high spots in this collection. Interestingly enough, the two stories I’d highlight are the ones I remember loving as a young reader of this book.

Ruth Berman’s “Visit to a weird planet planet revisited” was cute, enjoyable and in the vein of the original series (with a nod to Mirror, Mirror). I wish it had been expanded more … it needed some more pages to fill it out. The best piece, hands down, was the final story, “Mind-Sifter”, written by Shirley S. Maiewski. A most excellent story that developed a great idea and explored some strong emotions and situations. I thought it could have ended about 15 pages earlier, but the last four or five pages made for a very nice ending. One other story that I enjoyed was “The Hunting” by Doris Beetem.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fantastic read that was perfect as a commentary for the times when it was published. To be fair, it was a novelization of the movie, yet it used the original, darker ending that was omitted from the film. The novel cuts better.

What’s even better, and profoundly sad, is that this book is still relevant today in the age of Trump and the white supremacists he surrounds himself with and motivates. A book for our times…perhaps a handbook…

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Didn’t enjoy this volume as much but glad to have read it and finished Asimov’s Foundation series.

One thing that struck me (and saddened me) was his writing about some in his fictional world who denied science. Writing in 1993, this may have seemed far fetched. But, living at the end of 2016, it is the frightening reality we face. At times, I felt I was reading the news, not a work of science fiction.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

More of the sexism that I saw in Foundation’s Edge but a better overall read even though the conclusion came about rather abruptly and wrapped things up very neatly. Having said that, I did feel compelled to finish this story and felt a resurgence of the love I had for science fiction novels when I was younger. I still like the original trilogy the best but now I will turn my attention to the two prequels. Fingers crossed for two good reads!