3/5 (Average)
A. E. van Vogt spins a great space opera in this short (157) page volume. Mission to the Stars–as it was later known–was originally published under the name The Mixed Men.
Here is a brief plot summary: Lady Gloria Laurr, Grand Captain Continue reading Book Review: Mission to the Stars (variant title: The Mixed Men, A. E. Van Vogt (1945)
3/5 (Average)
Notable as an Early Steampunk/Jules Verne homage….
The Warlord of the Air is the first of a trilogy of steampunk novels (Land Leviathan, The Steel Tsar) by Moorcock collected in the omnibus edition The Nomad of Time and later as The Nomad Continue reading Book Review: The Warlord of the Air, Michael Moorcock (1971)
4/5 (Good)
I was impressed with Poul Anderson’s minor novel, Shield. Many other reviewers point out that the novel is dated. Yes. But so are almost all sci-fi novels written in the 1960s when it came to Continue reading Book Review: Shield, Poul Anderson (1965)
1.75/5 (Bad)
John Brunner is rightly famous for his dystopic works Stand on Zanzibar (won Hugo for best novel), The Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up, and Shockwave Rider but most of his output Continue reading Book Review: Interstellar Empire, John Brunner (published as a collection in 1976)
A SUSPECT RUMINATION
O the joys of wanna be Victorian Robinson Crusoes…
3/5 (Average)
Douglas Frazar’s ‘Perseverance Island or the Robinson Crusoe of the Nineteenth Century’ (1885) is the American Victorian reinterpretation of Robinson Crusoe and it shares shelf space Continue reading Book Review: Perseverance Island Or The Robinson Crusoe Of The Nineteenth Century, Douglas Frazar (1885)
4/5 (Good)
(spoilers — however, most back covers also ruin the great surprise)
Hal Clement, an Oxford educated astronomer who contributed immensely to the hard-science fiction movement, is best known for his books Mission of Gravity and Needle, however Iceworld Continue reading Book Review: Iceworld, Hal Clement (1953)
2.5/5 (Average)
Before you judge my review of this “classic” purely by the low rating please read my defense and reasons. First of all, if I was still a 13 year old boy this would have been very good, however, even then I would have been slightly disappointed by how much Heinlein has to offer and how little he actually develops in Methuselah’s Continue reading Book Review: Methuselah’s Children, Robert Heinlein (1958)
