SF Book Reviews

Book Review: Lords of the Starship, Mark S. Geston (1967)

/ Joachim Boaz / 12 Comments

(John Shoenherr’s cover for the 1967 edition)

3.75/5 (Good)

Mark S. Geston’s first novel Lords of the Starship (1967), written at the age of 21 while he was an undergraduate history student, revolves around a fascinating premise: The construction of a massive (fake) spaceship intended to lift a society out of a crippling malaise.  The narrative covers hundreds of years and seemingly innumerable characters.  The lack of distinct characters is the most frustrating aspect of the work.  However, the extremely dark tone and satirical underpinnings lift the novel above the endless morass of earlier pulp sci-fi.

For fans of 50s/60s space opera and more traditionalist 60s Continue reading →

Book Review: Needle in a Timestack, Robert Silverberg (1966)

/ Joachim Boaz / 23 Comments

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1966 edition)

*Review for the 1966 edition.  The 1979 and 1985 editions were revised.*

collated rating: 3/5 (Average)

Needle in a Timestack (1966) is an uneven collection of ten short stories from the late 50s and early 60s by Robert Silverberg.  By the late 60s and early 70s Silverberg was producing his masterpieces.  However, earlier in his career he wrote mostly pulp novels and short stories.  A few in this collection tackle, in varying degrees of success, social science fiction themes: the media, war propaganda, colonialism, unusual criminal punishment, the suburban lifestyle etc.  Many of these Continue reading →

Book Review: What Entropy Means to Me, George Alec Effinger (1972)

/ Joachim Boaz / 29 Comments

(Stanislaw Hernandez’s cover for the 1973 edition)

5/5 (Masterpiece) (*caveats below*)

Nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award (lost to Asimov’s disappointing The Gods Themselves)

“She was Our Mother, so she cried.  She used to sit out there, under that micha tree, all day as we worked cursing in her fields.  She sat there during the freezing nights, and we pretended that we could see her through the windows in the house, by the light of the moons and the hard, fast stars.  She sat there before most of us were born; she sat there until she died.  And all the time she shed her tears.  She was Our Mother, so she cried” (11)

What Entropy Means to Me (1972) is one of the more satisfying products of the New Wave science fiction movement of the 60s and 70s that I’ve read.  I place it in the pantheon of Malzberg’s Revelations (1972), Samuel Delany’s Nova (1968), and Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar (1968).  Effinger revels, and I mean gloriously revels, in metafictional Continue reading →

Book Review: Slave Ship, Frederik Pohl (1956)

/ Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

(Robert Foster’s cover for the 1969 edition)

2.75/5 (Bad)

Robert Foster’s salacious cover for the 1969 edition of Slave Ship (1956) implies a sort of John Norman-esque — of Gor “fame” — sexist slave girl sci-fi fantasy with collars and all.  Don’t worry, I bought the novel knowing full well that the “slaves” were not nubile young women but dogs + cats + chimps + seals drafted into the war effort.  But a naked seal on a leash won’t sell many books… At least Foster’s outlandish fabrication and manipulation of Pohl’s vision includes a hapless chimpanzee strapped into a mechanical device!  In case you’re fourteen years old and find Foster’s cover all dusty in some abandoned seldom seen corner of a used book store be warned Continue reading →

Book Review: The Garments of Caean, Barrington J. Bayley (1976)

/ Joachim Boaz / 4 Comments

(H. R. Van Dongen’s cover for the 1980 edition)

3.75/5 (Good)

Barrington J. Bayley’s novels — I’ve reviewed Collision Course (1973), Empire of Two Worlds (1972), The Fall of Chronopolis (1974), The Pillars of Eternity (1982), and Star Winds (1978) — are characterized by extremely inventive concepts, generally poor characterization, and an uncanny lightness combined with a dose of visceral brutality.  In the works of his I’ve read so far he never leaves the galactic empire/space opera format and is utterly uninterested in extrapolating potential or possible future technology.

Along with Doris Piserchia’s The Billion Days of Earth (1976) and Lloyd Biggle, Jr.’s The Light That Never Was (1972), The Garments of Caean is one of the most off-the-wall strange space operas Continue reading →

Book Review: The Wall Around the World, Theodore R. Cogswell (1962)

/ Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

(John Schoenherr’s cover for the 1962 edition)

collated rating: 2.25/5 (Bad)

In my quest to bring to light the esoteric, the worthwhile yet forgotten, and to re-examine unjustly maligned works of science fiction I’m unfortunately more likely find incredibly average works than if I were to stick to the more well-trod path.  Theodore Cogswell’s short stories attempt unsuccessfully to wed clichéd fantasy + horror elements — à la vampires, werewolves, broomsticks and all that drek — with science fiction staples, including alien invasions and alien visitations.  I suspect there was, and still is, a market for such hybridity.  I don’t have to mention the conveyor belt chunking out vampire/zombie excreta all over our modern bookstore shelves… (I apologize to anyone who’s offended or implicated by that statement).  Almost all of Cogswell’s stories are lighthearted (besides ‘The Burning’), replete with heavy doses of whimsy, and in the few readable stories, some vibrancy.

Not my type of science fiction or fantasy.

Continue reading →

Book Review: The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith, Josephine Saxton (1969)

/ Joachim Boaz / 29 Comments

(Jack Faragasso’s cover for the 1970 edition)

4.5/5 (Very Good)

The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969) is an experimental (but approachable) science fiction fable set in a world which, at least on the surface, is very much like our own.  The buildings remain, food dispensers still dispense food, and undisturbed store shelves are fully stocked.  However, the majority of the animals have disappeared and people are almost all gone. Cannibalism is hinted at.  A few other individuals flit on the outskirts of the narrative, phantom-like, unsubstantial in their physicality.  Are they hallucinations, or external viewers of the spectacle who intrude when needed before vanishing with no evidence of their arrival?

Josephine Saxton deftly utilizes the coming of age narrative, Continue reading →

Book Review: The Eleventh Commandment, Lester del Rey (1962, revised: 1970)

/ Joachim Boaz / 4 Comments

(Dean Ellis’ cover for the 1970 edition)

3.5/5 (Good)

Lester del Rey’s The Eleventh Commandment, originally published in 1962, was revised by the author in 1970. I’ve reviewed the 1970 edition — I do not know to what extent the original was changed.

My first exposure to Lester del Rey’s sci-fi bucks the impression of general averageness conveyed by my fellow reviewers.  This work strikes me as a product of the more mature side of del Rey, a move away from his normal space opera YA fare.  In The Eleventh Commandment del Rey explores the religious ramification of overpopulation (see list) concerns of the 50s/60s.  Due to the fact that overpopulation fears gained a lot of currency after the publication of the 1968 bestselling non-fiction work The Population Bomb,  I suspect it provided the impulse for del Rey to rewrite the novel.  Despite the involving premise, the plot is often a Continue reading →

Book Review: Galaxies Like Grains of Sand, Brian Aldiss (1960)

/ Joachim Boaz / 19 Comments

(Paul Lehr’s cover for the 1960 edition)

3/5 (collated rating: Average)

The concept behind Brian Aldiss’ short story collection Galaxies Like Grains of Sand (1960) is intriguing.  Take previously published stories (in this case from magazines in the late 50s), graft them together by means of mini-introductions, and arrange them so they fit into a future history framework à la Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men (1930) or Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953).

The quality of the stories makes the format less than successful.   Only three stories are worth reading — ‘Secret of a Mighty City’ (1958), ‘Out of Reach’ (1957), and ‘All Continue reading →