Books I Have Enjoyed
A Walk Down Memory Lane
Finding a few spare moments yesterday I decided to pour through some boxes of books down in the basement. It is always enjoyable to visit old friends. These were some of them.
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Art by Gino D'Achille |
ERB's Mars and Venus books are especially enjoyable reads for boys (and girls too, my ex-wife was very fond of them) who would just love to get away from our humdrum world; but grown up kids love them too. I didn't care for the Tarzan books as much but I must admit I didn't read so many of them.
Disney is making a new John Carter movie. I can't wait. A John Carter movie (
Princess of Mars starring
Antonio Sabato Jr. and
Tracy Lords, available on
Netflix streaming now) was released a couple of years ago and it was execrable, but I liked it anyway.
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Art by Frank Frazetta |
Conan the Barbarian was my favorite fictional character for years. He was the wish fulfillment of the skinny introverted kid that I was. The Conan original movie was OK with a few brilliant moments, but Arnold was the barbarian's perfect embodiment. I haven't seen the new movie yet.
Conan The Conqueror is the only novel length Conan story written by Howard. I recommend all of Howard's work but the Conan stories are the best. Amazon has a fine Kindle Collection,
The Robert E. Howard Omnibus: 99 Collected Stories for $1.99, and well worth the price.
Was Carlos Castaneda writing ethnology or fiction or an admixture of both? It doesn't matter. They are wonderful books full of truth.
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Art by John Schoenherr |
Frank Herbert was a spook. Therefore there is much to be learned from his work. Dune is a classic. If you just saw the movie you may think the book is a mess. It is not. The film is a beautiful pastiche of scenes from the book. Read the book and the movie will become comprehensible. The two television miniseries are very good.
Anderson's book is what a critic might call a fun romp. Arthurian knights take over an alien space ship and wreak havoc in the galaxy. I read this book fifty years ago at least. I should re-read because I hardly remember it except for the fact that it was a gas.
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Art by Ed Emshwiller |
Dick Dick Dick. You can't get enough. My first was
The Man In The High Castle in '62 when I was 12. I collected PKD until he expired and stopped writing. It's all good. Talk about subversion of reality.
This is probably Silverberg's best. Another evocative book worthy of a re-read.
I loved
Ray Bradbury when I was very young. His short stories could be very poetic in an obvious way. I never was much of a fan of
Fahrenheit 451. Orwell did dystopia much better. Mr. Bradbury has become conservative in his old age and I wonder why. But the answer is probably the same old story: success and prosperity.
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Art by Richard Powers |
Judith Merril's annual collections were mandatory reading for me. This is the second annual. She was criticized for stretching the definition of what was science fiction and sometimes I thought better stories could have been selected than some of the out of genre pieces by non science fiction writers that she published. But that is a quibble.
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