Book Review: Picnic on Paradise, Joanna Russ (1968)

December 13, 2014January 9, 2015 / Joachim Boaz / 5 Comments

(Diane and Leo Dillon’s cover for the 1968 edition)

4/5 (Good)

Nominated for the 1969 Nebula Award for Best Novel

Joanna Russ’ first published novel Picnic on Paradise (1968) delightfully subverts traditional SF pulp adventure tropes. Although not as finely wrought as The Female Man (1975), And Chaos Died (1970), or her masterpiece We Who Are About To… (1976), Picnic is worthwhile for all fans of feminist SF and the more radical visions of the 60s.

Unfortunately, the metafictional implications/literary possibilities of the Alyx sequence Continue reading →

Book Review: Drunkard’s Walk, Frederik Pohl (1960)

October 17, 2014October 17, 2014 / Joachim Boaz / 15 Comments

(Nik Puspurica’s cover for the 1960 edition)

3/5 (Average)

Frederik Pohl’s best early SF was produced with his frequent collaborator C. M. Kornbluth—the most notable of which include the masterpiece The Space Merchants (1953) and Gladiator-In-Law (1954). The solo work I have read so far from the same period does not reach the heights of his Kornbluth collaborations but rather fluctuates between downright dull satires with intelligent dogs in the vein of Slave Ship (1956) to solid but unspectacular satire about higher education, Drunkard’s Walk (1960). As of this moment in my SF reading career I place Pohl’s editorial work above his 50s/early 60s solo SF. That said, I have not read any of his short fiction.

Recommended for fans of 50s/60s Continue reading →

Book Review: The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde, Norman Spinrad (1970)

September 28, 2014September 15, 2016 / Joachim Boaz / 23 Comments

(Dean Ellis’ cover for the 1970 edition)

4/5 (collated rating: Good)

A solid collection of seventeen short stories and one novelette by one of my favorite New Wave authors, Norman Spinrad. Although the collection seldom reaches the heights of his inventive and original alt-history novel The Iron Dream (1972), The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde (1970) is still a wonderful showcase of his earliest short fiction. However, Spinrad’s relentlessly bleak outlook on Earth’s future will not appeal to all SF readers. I only recommend the collection for fans of experimental late 60s SF, the New Wave movement, and bleak satires of societal ills (count me in!).

The best include: “Technicality” (1966), a war against pacifist aliens who wield horrific but non-lethal weapons; “The Last Hurrah of the Golden Horde” (1969), an absurdist pastiche of the bastardization of ideology and societal decadence; and “Dead Continue reading →

Book Review: The Centauri Device, M. John Harrison (1974)

June 21, 2014June 20, 2019 / Joachim Boaz / 68 Comments

(Paul Lehr’s cover for the 1980 edition)

4/5 (Good)

I can only imagine the shock that readers received and still receive (according to amazon reviews) after diving into M. John Harrison’s The Centauri Device (1974) expecting a standard space opera. This is a subgenre where the anti-hero still has not found a firm place to roost… You know the rubric: Empathizing with the hero. Positivism. Saving the world. The good guys win.

I suspect the shock to the system that Stephen R. Donaldson’s leprous and bitter (and reluctant) savior Thomas Covenant in Lord Foul’s Bane (1977) and subsequent novels had on high fantasy was something akin to impact The Centauri Device‘s drug-addled, inarticulate, and passive spacer Continue reading →

Updates: Recent Science Fiction Acquisitions No. CV (Russ + Spinrad + Malzberg + Kornbluth)

May 20, 2014December 13, 2014 / Joachim Boaz / 10 Comments

Dawn Treader bookstore haul part II [part I]! A batch of my favorite authors: Norman Spinrad, Joanna Russ, Barry N. Malzberg, and C. M. Kornbluth. Two novels and two short story collections!

…and some fun covers.

Thoughts?

1. No Direction Home, Norman Spinrad (1975)

(Charles Moll’s cover for the 1975 edition)

From the back cover: “A GHASTLY WORLD… AN ULTIMATE ORGASM… A COSMIC NIGHTMARE… Bone-chilling, mind-shattering science fiction that will take you Continue reading →

Book Review: Citizen in Space, Robert Sheckley (1955)

February 22, 2014June 20, 2019 / Joachim Boaz / 16 Comments

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1955 edition

4/5 (collated rating: Good)

Robert Sheckley’s easily one of the best SF satirists in the short story form. The collection Citizen in Space (1955), although not as uniformly brilliant as the collection Store of Infinity (1960), is chock full of gems including “The Luckiest Man in the World” (1955), “Something for Nothing” (1954), “Ask a Foolish Question” (1953), and “Skulking Permit” (1954). Sheckley exposes in all their glory the vast variety of humankind’s follies and utopic delusions.

Later in the 50s and in the span of 6os his visions would become increasingly searing and metafictional. This early collection Continue reading →

Book Review: The Bridge, D. Keith Mano (1973)

October 7, 2013August 3, 2019 / Joachim Boaz / 8 Comments

(Uncredited — but looks like Jerome Podwil’s work — cover for the 1974 edition)

3.25/5 (Good)

The Bridge (1973) is D. Keith Mano’s only “full-fledged” SF work (Clute on SF encyclopedia). Mano’s profoundly unsettling dystopic New York circa 2035 is characterized by an unusual mix of radical environmentalism gone amok and Christianity misinterpreted beyond recognition. In our current day of overwhelming evidence of Global warming and other types of environmental devastation caused by mankind, Mano’s near future will come off as unnecessarily alarmist.

Clearly Mano means his work to be a satire of the most draconian rhetorical flourishes of the environmentalist Continue reading →

Book Review: A Pail of Air, Fritz Leiber (1964)

September 23, 2013December 25, 2020 / Joachim Boaz / 23 Comments

(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1964 edition)

4/5 (Collated rating: Good)

My only previous exposure to Fritz Leiber was his enjoyable and highly experimental Hugo-winning novel The Big Time (1958) — an unusual story (evoking a one-act play) whose characters are soldiers recruited from all eras of history relaxing in between missions during a vast temporal war. The same sort of invention and incisive wit abounds in the collection A Pail of Air (1964). Against a post-apocalyptical backdrop that runs throughout most of the stories, Leiber’s stories are chimeric (and satirical) parables on a vast spectrum of themes — the mechanization of the future, gender relations, endless war, media saturation… The stories shift between whimsical delight and gut-wrenching despair.

This collection of eleven stories from the early 50s to the early 60s is highly recommended for all SF fans — especially the title story “A Pail of Air” (1951), “The Foxholes of Mars” (1952), Continue reading →

Book Review: Profundis, Richard Cowper (1979)

May 30, 2013May 30, 2013 / Joachim Boaz / 4 Comments

(Don Maitz’s cover for the 1981 edition)

3.75/5 (Good)

Richard Cowper’s science fiction (and fantasy) was recommended to me by 2theD over at Potpourri of Science Fiction Literature (be sure to follow him!). But ever since I procured a copy of Profundis (1979) more than a year ago, I’ve passed over it when searching for my next read — perhaps due to the silly “Three Kinky Kittens, talented sexboats with uninhibiting charms” blurb on the back cover (“uninhibiting” isn’t even a word) in addition to Don Maitz’s uninteresting 80s cover art… Tangent: Maitz drew the pirate for the Captain Morgan Rum brand.

However, Profundis proved to be a highly involving science fiction parable set in a post-apocalyptical Continue reading →