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%T Solar Lottery
%A Philip K. Dick
%I Collier Nucleus/Macmillan
%D 1990
%O paperback, US$3.95
%P 188
%G 0-02-029125-6
This is Philip K. Dick's debut novel from 1955. The science is absurd,
the social predictions dated in many respects, the characters are
strictly 2-D and the plotting is melodramatic and left to lurch to an
abrupt end -- but the fascinating, feverish intensity that consumed
and eventually destroyed Dick is already on display. The book stumbles
headlong forward like a an overbalanced runner going faster and faster
to keep from falling down, throwing off fireworks in all directions.
There is also still some interest in his portrait of a ruthless
industrial feudalism worshiping the Von Neumann-Morgenstern minimax
game. High weirdness indeed!
%T Deathbird Stories
%A Harlan Ellison
%I Collier Nucleus/Macmillan
%D 1990
%O paperback, US$3.95
%P 295
%G 0-02-028361-X
This reprint of Ellison's powerful 1975 anthology takes us back to the days
when American SF's enfant terrible was a little more enfant. The stories are
still gripping, often at the same moments that they seem most overwrought and
self-indulgent. But when Ellison's rage-till-your-guts-bleed style works, when
his moral vision is actually matched by reality, it creates experiences of
unmatched awe-fulness (as in The Whimper Of Whipped Dogs, surely
one of the most searing short stories ever committed to paper). I find myself
alternately slack-jawed with amazement at the raw power of his writing and the
utter obviousness and triviality of some of the Vast Insights he uses it to
build up to. Ah, well. The world would be a poorer place without him.
%T Star Hunters, Vol III: Bluebloods
%A David Drake (editor)
%I Baen Books
%D March 1990
%O paperback, US$3.50
%P 279
%G 0-671-69866-4
Yawn, another ho-hum `theme' anthology of reprints from other
anthologies. The stories in this one are OK but old (one, a minor
Kuttner, dates from 1949), only incidentally related, and the whole
was obviously intended to ride the coattails of Star Hunters I and II.
I wish Drake and Baen had displayed more taste, and advise you not to
buy this one lest it encourage similar mediocrities in the future.
%T Roofworld
%A Christopher Fowler
%I Ballantine
%D April 1990
%O paperback, US$4.95
%P 307
%G 0-345-36731-6
Satanic punks rappel across the rooftops of London, scheming to bring
a horrific New Age to the unsuspecting city. Our Hero, a nebbish
strongly resembling the author, falls in with a smart & sexy lady
photographer and a rival gang of good-guy of roofworlders led by an
incompetent idealist. Gore, action, and many aerial chase scenes
ensue. Goddess knows why this got mailed to an SF reviewer; fans might
find the roofworlders' tech toys of some interest, though.
Up to Eric's Home Page | To Index | Tue Apr 10 19:09:26 EDT 1990 |
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>