reha (03/24/83)
I just finished reading the book "Friday" by Robert A. Heinlein. Its only available in hardback for now but the book is great. Heinlen has created a very moving and interesting story about biologically engineered humans in the future. The social issues raised are handled in the same way Heinlen wrote years ago.
dann (03/24/83)
I know that this is net.books and not net.sf but I couldn't sit
idly by and let innocent people be told that Heinlein's Friday is
a great book. My apologies to orion!reha (and RAH) but Friday
stunk out loud. In fact, I would strongly suggest borrowing
(as opposed to shelling out cash) for any Heinlein book written
after Time Enough For Love (and I'm being generous about TEFL
because I liked the aphorisms).
Now getting back to mainstream literature...
I recently picked up Viking Portable libraries collected
stories and poems by Dorothy Parker. Some of the short stories
were dated, but the poems and monologues are worth the price of the book.
Very funny, very cynical. Highly suggested for net.single
readers.
The Collected Short Stories of Mark Twain is also well worth
reading. Come to think of it, just about anything by Twain is
worth reading. I just started in on Connecticut Yankee again,
and it holds up even after the third or fourth reading.
I went on an Ayn Rand kick last year when I had *lots* of free time
and read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. If you don't mind
the fact that she uses symbolism in a manner usually reserved
for a twelve pound sledge, then the books are worth reading.
Just remember to skip pages when one of the characters gets up on
a soap box; you won't miss anything, rest assured that the same
speech will be repeated fifty or sixty pages later for the benefit
of those readers too dim to get the message the first five or six
times.
And drifting back somewhat towards sf&f
Has anyone read much of James Branch Cabell, fantasy writer
circa 192*? Detailing the chronicles of the fabled land of
Poictesme, his books were re-released a few years back and
have since faded from the shelves of my friendly neighborhood
book emporium. These are worth reading just for the style and
wit with which Cabell writes; the plots seem to exist merely
as vehicles for Cabell's attacks/comments on religion, love,
and other pastimes of a similar nature.
My favorite so far has been The High Place, followed by Jurgen.
Seeing as all the books are interrelated (in terms of place and
geneology) its necessary to read several before the pieces come
together. The Silver Stallion does a fairly good job of
relating the various characters and epsisodes together.
Caveat:
These are just books I've run across in my attempts to fill
otherwise unfilled evenings and the sole promise I make is
that they will all do this.
dann