Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Jack Vance’s Galactic Effectuator (1980)

From the back cover: “Meet Miro Hetzel, Galactic Effectuator. He’s part gentlemen, part detective, part fraud, and his trail of exploits cuts through some of the more improbably civilizations in the universe. Join him in a trip to the planet Maz, whose natives are so fierce that they’ll fight three battle before lunch and then dine on the enemy–a planet that only a man with Miro Hetzel’s steely nerve would dare to visit at all.”

Initial Thoughts: This is a fix-up novel containing “The Dogtown Tourist Agency” (1975) and “Freitzke’s Turn” (1977). I previously reviewed “Freitzke’s Turn” (1977) and did not classify it amongst Vance’s best. As many know, I’ve soured a bit on Vance in the last decade. That said, I still think novels like Wyst: Alastor, 1716 (1978) and Emphyrio (1969) are worth the read.

2. Adolfo Dioy Casares’ Diary of the War of the Pig (1969, trans. Gregory Woodruff and Donald A. Yates, 1972)

From the back cover: “The Obelisk edition of Diary of the War of the Pig marks the first time in paperback for this fictional chronicle about street terror and disappearance by the greatest living Argentine author. Written almost a decade before the death squads disrupted Argentinea, it is the gripping first-person narrative of an old man caught in a wave of persecutions against all old people, and might well stand as a metaphor for the murkier currents of Latin American society today. Adolfo Bioy Casares relates the day-to-day life of Isidro Vidal, the “old boys” from the corner cafe, and the women, young and old, who offer temporary redemption from madness and mob terror. Part allegory and part irreducible dream this story of courage, cowardice, and love is disquieting testimony on the human conditions of our southern neighbors.”

Initial Thoughts: As issue one of Rachel Cordasco’s new online magazine Small Planet: The SF in Translation Magazine (with one of my reviews) recently went live, I’ve acquired a bunch of SF and SF adjacent works for my review column. She suggested I track down Casares’ near-future dystopia Diary of the War of the Pig (1969). In college I read (and adored) his masterpiece The Invention of Morel (1940, trans. 1964) (one of many tantalizing books deliberately visible and in dialogue with the narrative of Lost).

3. Thom Keyes’ The Battle of Disneyland (1974)

From the back cover: “A hilarious post-Vonnegut trip. Prophets of doom, harbingers of the coming self-destruction of the U.S.A., fasten your forlorns. Exiled Californian sci-fi writer, Thom Keyes, has the answers to it all.

Disregard what Gerneral Jastrzab is doing to the playboy bunnies with his wooden lef. Look down into the streets… There’s a whole lot fighting going on! And when the riot spills into the Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and the Magic Kingdom in Disneyland you’ll see where things are really at.”

Initial Thoughts: All I know is what SF Encyclopedia blurbs: “The Battle of Disneyland (1974) also hyperbolic, depicts a Post-Holocaust Los Angeles, and the calving of California from the continent.”

4. Kenneth Bulmer’s The Insane City (1971)

From the back cover: “In a city of tomorrow–the master-machine turns upon the people who created it.

A clicking sounded up the tunnel. A robex on three wheels rolled steadily toward them. Ridgeway swallowed. He knew they were safe, but he felt jittery just the same. The thing looked so calm and unemotional, so mechanical and precise. Moving closer, it glittered at them. Then a box on its body opened with a squeal. A long screwdriver appeared on one tenacle, a hammed on another.

“Oh, No!” screamed Carrit. “It can’t be!” But it was…

In a single lethal rush the robex charged toward them, brandishing its tenacles like weapons of final destruction.”

Initial Thoughts: Kris Vyas-Myall over at Galactic Journey wrote nice things about this one. Kris described it as “told in a beautifully alienated style” and that “it is unfortunate this book has been put out by Curtis, known primarily as the venue for reprinting the back catalogue of people like the Binders or Robert Moore Williams. I think if this had been published as an Ace special, it would be a shoe-in for a Hugo nod.” Count me intrigued. Despite the fact that Kris and I rarely see eye-to-eye on science fiction (which is fine of course)!

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