Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The On-Deck Circle


Went to the used book store this morning after my CT scan as a reward-of-sorts. Also, I’m getting low on the SF paperback reserves, having put away four or five in the past month. What’d I get, you ask? All right, here they are:

(By the way, nerd-that-I-am takes a two-page list of titles with him whenever he hits a book store; so far I’ve knocked off about ten percent of the most-wanted list.)

Time and Stars by Poul Anderson. As a kid, I loved this guy. I fondly remember Tau Zero, the book that introduced me to Einsteinian stellar travel and rudimentary cosmology. Don’t know much about this book, ’cept that it deals with aliens and robots and, yes, war and weaponry. Cold War saber-rattling set against the stars, I assume. Looks like an interesting quick read.

Casey Agonistes by Richard McKenna. Don’t know much about this author, but apparently this seems to be a highly-regarded, in some circles, short-story compendium. The book cover informs us that this is the dude that wrote The Sand Pebbles, which I assume to be that Steve McQueen four-hour nineteenth-century naval epic. I’m willing to give it a go. I notice I have been somewhat neglectful of my short story collections, as I count seven anthologies on the shelf behind me. This’ll be the eighth. But I promise to get to it.

Wolfhead by Charles L. Harness. Another book whose author and storyline I am unfamiliar with. Seems to be more fantasy than SF. Looks like a quick read, too, probably something I can put away in three or four days. Okay. I’ll take out whatever I can get from whatever I have in front of me. Quotes from The Inferno on its prologue page, referring to the Italian as the Prophet Dante. That makes it interesting …

And though I resisted for so long, I finally bought it: A Game of Thrones, an epic fantasy saga by the master, George R. R. Martin. This 835-page tome is proudly announced to be “Book One of A Song of Fire and Ice.” Hmmmm. Maps in the front, genealogies in the back. Could this be Martin’s pilgrimage to the shrine of Tolkien? A billion other writers have gone there (as I intend to do, too, soon), but I am very, very keen on seeing his original take, his interpretation, his intelligence, his creativity, his wit – I can go on and on, but you know what I’m saying. You can also see this post to read further my opinion of this man.

I also slated At the Mountains of Madness by Lovecraft for a reading (probably towards the end of the summer), and I still have a couple of titles to get through from the old shelf. These include hard-SF such as a pair of Frank Herbert efforts (Destination: Void and The Jesus Incident) and another trip to the shrine of Tolkien, Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara. The latter was foisted on me over two decades ago by a school chum, but I forgot about it, unread all these years, until I spotted it at the used book store a month ago and decided to give it a new home.

Happy readings! May you enter fully the world before you in the printed page …

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