Latest Book Score

 

So, to reward myself after a very stressful yet very productive month, I went to the local book store and snagged these three items for a combined price of $10:

 

Left to right, we have The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett; Le Morte d’Arthur, by Sir Thomas Mallory, and The Colors of Space, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I am very pleased with this selection.

 

Pratchett’s book is the second in his multivolume series about Discworld – literally a flattened disk that rests on the backs of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s kinda like the Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy but only for fantasy. Tolkien themes are lampooned, as is everything from mythology to the occult. I read the original book about six years ago and, though highly puzzled, enjoyed in fairly well enough to say I should investigate these further. Consider this a further investigation. Probably will read it when I put away another 150, 200 pages of War and Peace. As a side note, the Discworld series has 41 novels in it, spanning 1983 to 2015, and ended upon the author’s death.

 

Periodically, every 7 or so years, I get the Arthurian itch. I read Mary Stewart’s novels in high school, The Once and Future King in college, Steinbeck’s book on the Knights of the Round Table, the movie Excalibur every now and then, and re-read both decades later. Mallory’s novel has been on my radar forever. I had one, maybe two copies over the years but never found the time to mine it. I think this summer, once my Napoleonic phase is over with, might be a good time to start.

 

The Colors of Space is an early read for me. Sometime in the late 70s, as a wee young lad, I discovered this in my grandparent’s basement, and read it back then. Thirty years passed, and I spotted it in a used book store, remembered it with previously forgotten nostalgia, then re-read it. Now, perhaps a dozen years later, I saw it down here in Texas, and picked it up yet again. Reminiscent of a Heinlein youth novel or an early Asimov, I think I might read this upon completing Tolstoy a month from now.

 

Happy reading, y’all!

 

N.B. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is, hands down, the absolute funniest book(s) I’ve ever read. Burned through them in the late 80s …