LRC.HJJH@UTEXAS-20.ARPA (01/04/84)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Righting a Wrong Rite ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The issue of SF-L with my multi-book review hasn't materialized here yet, but there were 2 mistakes in it needing rectifying. Sonia at AIDS-UNIX contacted me about my substitution of the title of Panshin's RITE OF PASSAGE for Kingsbury's COURTSHIP RITE, and right she is. They are both excellent SF, but \for me/ Kingsbury's COURTSHIP RITE was just not enjoyable. I have some kind of aesthetic idiosyncracy which divorces how much I enjoy a book from how good I think it is. Even recognizing them for what they are, I'm perfectly capable of enjoying junque and disliking something of excellence. (J.M. Roberts' CESTUS DEI, for instance, as opposed to COURTSHIP RITE.) The other error was the inclusion of Colin Kapp among the authors who'd written at least a half dozen books I liked well enough to keep for re-reading. (The \majority/ of the books I purchase get recycled back to the used bookstore.) Some books had gotten mis-shelved and there were actually only 3 of Kapp's earliest ones there. Ordinarily this wouldn't merit a disclaimer except that he's recently started a new series about "shell" Earths, one inside another inside another around the sun, which is ghodawful. Since discussion on SF-L can influence my own purchasing, I didn't want to have been a factor in someone else's picking up the new Kapp's. On the other hand, are there a-n-y other Philip E. High fanciers any- one has ever heard of? -------