wendt@bocklin.UUCP (10/10/85)
Does anyone know where this guidebook to the Universe is mentioned? Aside from the Anthony Villiers series. If you haven't read the Anthony Villiers series (by Alexei Panshin), drop the baby into the bath and go out right now and buy 'em. You can clean things up later. Did the _Universal_Pantograph_ ever come out? Alan Wendt arizona!wendt Jerry: name a spacecraft after Grace Murray Hopper!
rose@sdcsvax.UUCP (Dan Rose) (10/25/85)
In article <392@bocklin.UUCP> Alan Wendt (wendt@bocklin.UUCP) writes: >If you haven't read the Anthony Villiers series (by Alexei Panshin), >drop the baby into the bath and go out right now and buy 'em. You >can clean things up later. I couldn't agree less. Probably my favorite SF book of all time is _Rite Of Passage_ by Alexei Panshin, which won the Hugo AND Nebula awards when it came out (ten or fifteen years ago). For those of you who haven't had the pleasure (I've read this book at least five times), it's about the coming of age of a young girl, Mia Havero, in a far-post-apocalyptic society in which technologically advanced people live in "ships" which drift from colony planet to colony planet exchanging knowledge for natural resources. The ship society requires that before becoming an adult, every thirteen-year-old must survive a month on a planet. To say more might spoil it, but this book has something for everyone. If you don't have one, GET ONE AND READ IT RIGHT NOW! With that for a preamble, I decided Panshin was the greatest writer and searched for years to find anything else by him. One day, miracle of miracles, I came across three books: _Masque World_, _The Thurb Revolution_, and _Starwell_, which were supposed to be a kind of James-Bond-in-space series with hero Anthony Villiers. They were listed as being by Alexei and Cory Panshin. I bought ALL of them that day and read them in order. They weren't just disappointing; they were poorly written, extremely short (~150pp. and in larger-than-average print), and in general seemed to be the work of an amateur pulp SF writer. I don't know who Cory Panshin is -- son, I suspect -- but I bet he or she wrote 95% of this and got Alexei to agree to add his name to the cover. I thhink these were supposed to be funny, but to me they were just kind of stupid: campy and silly but not enough, or too much, depending on what tone they were aiming for. I guess this is the old problem of who finds what funny, but my vote is a strong NO. Stick with the masterpiece. -- Dan (not Broadway Danny) Rose rose@UCSD
keesan@bbncc5.UUCP (Morris M. Keesan) (10/28/85)
In article <1162@sdcsvax.UUCP> rose@sdcsvax.UUCP (Dan rose) writes: > . . . I came across three books: _Masque World_, >_The Thurb Revolution_, and _Starwell_, which were supposed to >be a kind of James-Bond-in-space series with hero Anthony Villiers. >They were listed as being by Alexei and Cory Panshin. . . . [ Several lines saying that Dan didn't like them. ] > . . . I don't know who Cory >Panshin is -- son, I suspect -- but I bet he or she wrote 95% >of this and got Alexei to agree to add his name to the cover. > . . . >I guess this is the old problem of who finds what funny, but >my vote is a strong NO. I'm fairly sure that my copies of all the Villiers books were published under Alexei's name before he married Cory. I agree that it's the old problem of who finds what funny -- I happen to think that these books are silly and charming, and suggest finding one and reading it before rushing out to get the others. I think that they should appeal to the same sort of twisted mind that likes Daniel Pinkwater's stuff. To further calibrate my taste versus yours, let me say that I find Douglas Adams's stuff (Hitchhiker's Guide, etc.) silly, but tedious and unfunny. -- Morris M. Keesan keesan@bbn-unix.ARPA {decvax,ihnp4,etc.}!bbncca!keesan