RNeal@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA (03/13/84)
Well, I finally got up the drive to read The Magic Labyrinth (book 4 of
Riverworld). It took a long time to start due to the discouraging
reviews I have read in this meeting. I was pleasantly surprised. I
enjoyed the book and I think it did quite a good job of wrapping up the
Riverworld mystery. Maybe I missed something, but I thought the reason
behind it all was quite good. The series is quite long, though, and I
would not read it a second time.
Now to Lem. I have seen some transactions claiming what a great writer
he is. I have read The Cyberiad, Solaris, and The Invincible. The
Cyberiad was very good and very funny, and the other two (both novels,
while The Cyberiad is a collection of shorts) started off well. But he
has an extreme problem ending those two novels! The Invincible started
off great and got better, but when I got to the end, I was looking for
at least another chapter. It was as if he ran out of paper. It really
ticked me off for such a great book to have such a lack of ending. I
read Solaris because I heard some of the plot and was interested (and I
figured it couldn't just drop off like the other did-he is supposed to
be a good writer). ss Solaris is good about 1/3 of the way through.
Then it starts a down hill run the likes of which I have never
encountered before. By the time I waded through the muck to the end (I
never leave a book unfinished) I wished I had never heard of Lem and
never started this book!
So that some of you out there will know what type of stuff I do like (so
you can determine if these reviews will do you any good), my favorites
are Niven, Chalker, Hogan, Piers Anthony, "Doc" Smith, and Alan Dean
Foster to name a few...
>RUSTY< RNeal.dm8%pco -at cislhcr@hcr.UUCP (HCR Clerical) (03/22/84)
Cheers! I couldn't agree more. I had heard that Solaris was considered one of S-F's classics, and therefore thought that I was missig the point as I read the story. By the end of it however, I realized that pseudo-sentient world books were simply not up my alley. It was nearly as bad as Dahlgren, and I realy deserve a medal for reading THAT one to the end. Paul Bonneau hcr!hcrvax!paulb
louie@cvl.UUCP (Louis A. Mamakos) (03/23/84)
Dhalgren! I thought I was really missing something. I've never been able
to get past the first 100 pages or so on a number of attempts to read it.
Anyone want a copy of it for REAL cheap? This is definatly one I don't want
to keep.
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Louis A. Mamakos - Computer Science Center (Systems Staff) - Univ. of Maryland
Internet: louie@cvl.ARPA uucp: ...!{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!cvl!louie