post-apocalyptic

Book Review: Ice, Anna Kavan (1967)

/ Joachim Boaz / 58 Comments

Ice

(Gene Szafran’s cover for the 1967 edition)

5/5 (Masterpiece)

“Despairingly she looked all around. She was completely encircled by the tremendous ice walls, which were made fluid by explosions of blinding light, so that they moved and changed with a continuous liquid motion, advancing in torrents of ice, avalanches as bid as oceans, flooding everywhere over the doomed world” (37)

Anna Kavan’s masterful post-apocalyptical novel Ice (1967) parallels the death throws of a relationship with the disintegration of the world.  As the unnamed narrator (N) and the girl (G) traverse an indistinct, interchangeable, world transformed by glacial encroachment, only the same movements are possible: flight, pursuit, flight, pursuit…  Repetition reinforces the profoundly unnerving feel of both physical and mental imprisonment: as movements are predicted, trauma is repeated.

Kavan described her own writings as “‘nocturnal, where dreams and reality merge” (Booth, 69).  In the Continue reading →

Adventures in Science Fiction Cover Art: The Skull, Part II

/ Joachim Boaz / 47 Comments

 FRFRTHFTRW1974

(Patrick Woodroffe’s cover for the 1974 edition of Four for the Future (1969), ed. Harry Harrison)

Here is Part II of my sequence on SF and Skulls (morbid I know): Part I.  We have a range of skeletal curios—from Charles Moll’s deconstructed representation of an astronaut in mental and physical decay to Patrick Woodroffe’s heart + skull renegade taxidermy-esque construction arrayed against a joyous psychedelic (blotter paper swirls?) Continue reading →

Book Review: The Marching Morons and Other Famous Science Fiction Stories, C. M. Kornbluth (1959)

/ Joachim Boaz / 26 Comments

thmrchngmb1959
(Uncredited cover for the 1959 edition)

3.5/5 (collated rating: Good)

C. M. Kornbluth has long been one of my favorite short story authors of the 50s due to his first collection The Explorers (1954).  The Marching Morons (1959) contains two novelettes and seven short stories including some of his most famous works: namely, “The Marching Morons” (1951) and my personal favorite of his oeuvre so far, “MS. Found in a Chinese Fortune Cookie” (1957).

Ultimately, this is a more uneven collection than The Explorers (1954).  Despite duds such as “I Never Ast No Favors” (1954), I still recommend the collection to fans of 50s SF and satirical masterworks such as Kornbluth’s co-authored Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXXIII (Zelazny + Sheckley + White + St. Clair)

/ Joachim Boaz / 27 Comments

Here are the rest of the books my fiancé purchased for me while on her vacation from my “to acquire” master list.  I’m having a lot of fun reading White’s All Judgement Fled (1969) so I can’t wait to read The Dream Millennium (1973)—and, who can resist overpopulation themed SF? More Sheckley stories…. always good.  A St. Clair novel and short story collection + more Zelazny.

Have you read any of them? Thoughts?

1. The Dream Millennium, James White (1973)

(John Berkley’s cover for the 1974 edition)

From the back cover: “Earth was a polluted, dying planet.  Violence was rampant and civilization was doomed.  If Man was to survive, John Devlin had to find him a new home somewhere in the galaxy.  He had 1,000 years to look—and 1,000 Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Acquisitions No. CXXII (Vance + Silverberg + Cooper + Zelazny)

/ Joachim Boaz / 21 Comments

Part I of II. Thankful to have a fiancé who takes my massive, alphabetized, master list of used SF to acquire and wades through the dusty shelves of used book stores (while on a trip home to visit her family)…  Here are some gems.  More Zelazny (short story collection!), another Silverberg collection (he holds the crown for author most reviewed on Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations), an unknown quantity by Cooper, and the final novel I needed to round out the Alastor Cluster “trilogy” by Jack Vance.

Thoughts on the purchases?  Have you read any of them?

1. The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth and Other Stories, Roger Zelazny (1971)

(Jeff Jones’ cover for the 1974 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXXI (Zelazny + White + Daventry + Gerrold)

/ Joachim Boaz / 33 Comments

A nice grab bag of used book store finds…  I’m nearing completion of my collection of Zelazny’s pre-1980 novels (I do not own nor really want to read any of his purely fantasy works).  Also, I couldn’t help but pick up David Gerrold’s 1974 Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novel The Man Who Folded Himself (1973) although I have been utterly underwhelmed with his work in the past—for example, Space Skimmer (1972) and Yesterday’s Children (1972).

I also found the first volume of a trilogy by Leonard Daventry—owned only the third one for some reason.  And, who can resist another James White novel.  I desperately want to recreate the joy that was White’s The Watch Below (1966).

Thoughts?

1. Damnation Alley, Roger Zelazny (1969) (MY REVIEW)

(Alan Gutierrez’s cover for the 1984 edition) Continue reading →

Updates: My Top 10 SF works (pre-1980) for inclusion in the Gollancz Masterwork series

/ Joachim Boaz / 83 Comments

Long-Tomorrow dune

The Gollancz Masterwork series [list] ranges from famous novels such as Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) to lesser known short story collections such as The Caltraps of Time (1968) by David I. Masson.  The Masterwork series has the power to introduce readers to the canonical “best of SF” and works that should be considered classics.  Many of the second group have not seen print for decades.  Although I have some qualms about certain inclusions, I was genuinely blown away that they recently chose one of my favorite novels The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe (variant title: The Unsleeping Eye) (1973) by D. G. Compton—an underread and unjustly forgotten author.

Over the course of the next week or so a handful of my fellow SF bloggers (most of whom have a focus on earlier SF) will release lists on their sites of SF they would like to see featured by Gollancz.  I have not given them any guidelines so the lists should be varied and hopefully will generate some discussion.  I highly recommend you head over to their sites (I will post the links as they come in) and comment.

Thoughts + comments are always welcome (as well as your own lists!).

More “What to Include in the Gollancz Masterwork Series” Lists (blog friends)

Chris over at Battered, Tattered, Yellowed, and Creased 

Megan over at From Couch to Moon

2theD over at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature

Ian Sales over at It Doesn’t Have to be Right…

Jesse over at Speculiction…

2theD over at Tongues of Speculation (his votes regarding translated SF)

Martin over at Martin’s Booklog

My guidelines for inclusion

1. My frequent readers know that I prefer (passionately) SF from the 50s-70s Continue reading →

Book Review: Homeward and Beyond, Poul Anderson (1975)

/ Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1976 edition)

2.5/5 (Collated rating: Bad)

Homeward and Beyond (1975) is comprised of four novelettes, four short stories, and one novella.   According to an article I read recently on the Wall Street Journal, Poul Anderson was one of only five authors in the 50s that made enough writing SF without needing a day job—and he was the only one who made a “good living” (he made more money than Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, etc).  This incredible production did not always yield quality.  Homeward and Beyond is by far one of the poorer Anderson collections I’ve encountered—on the level of  The Horn of Time (1968) and nowhere close to Time and Stars (1964)—despite the presence of his Hugo/Nebula-winning novelette “Goat Song” (1972).

Brief Plot Summary/Analysis (*some spoilers*)

“Wings of Victory” [Technic History] (1972) 2/5 (Bad) serves as the first contact story between human Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CXVIII (Anthologies: Again Dangerous Visions, Vol. 2, Orbit 8; Schmitz, Malzberg)

/ Joachim Boaz / 36 Comments

Nearing the end of my undocumented purchases… A great series of coves — including Richard Powers and Paul Lehr.  Again, Dangerous Visions Vol. 2 (1972) (did not realize it was in two volumes, but alas) and another Malzberg novel, The Last Transaction (1977) to add to my nearly complete collection of his solo written novels.

Thoughts?

1. The Eternal Frontiers, James H. Schmitz (1973)

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1973 edition) Continue reading →