melannen | FMK #4: Pre-Golden-Age SF

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fandom:sf lit,
fmk

FMK #4: Pre-Golden-Age SF

Okay, so FMK is going to be Tuesdays now. :P I forgot that on normal Mondays, a little distraction is good, but on busy Mondays I basically don't have time to sit down at the computer from Saturday evening until Monday evening, and that doesn't work so well. (and today was a snow day so I spent it sewing, it was excellent.)

Anyway, FMK #3 K winner was Tarnsman of Gor and the F winner was Kushiel's Dart. I, uh, haven't finished Kushiel's Dart. I'm 500 pages in! If it was a reasonably-sized novel, that would be done twice over! Anyway short version: I am enjoying it a lot although not ravishingly in love, have already recommended it to a friend who actively enjoys brick-sized books full of court intrigue, and keep getting Cassiel the Angel of Bromance mixed up with SPN's Castiel the Angel of... *ahem* "Bromance". I will post a fuller response either later this week or when I am finished, depending on which comes first.

I also started reading Tarnsman of Gor I know! I am breaking my own rules already! But I want to be able to make fun of it fairly, okay? And it's like, 20% the length of Kushiel. I did put the other two Gor books I inexplicably owned on the dump-unread pile, though?

This week's FMK theme: English-language SF written before 1930! ~~here is where we find out who is voting entirely based on gendered author names~~

How FMK works: I am trying to clear out my unreads. So there is a poll, in which you get to pick F, M, or K. F means I should spend a night of wild passion with the book ASAP, and then decide whether to keep it or not. M means I should continue to commit to a long-term relationship of sharing my bedroom with it. K means it should go away immediately. Anyone can vote, you don't have to actually know anything about the books.

I pick a winner on Friday night (although won't actually close the poll, people can still vote,) and report results/ post the new poll on the following ~~Sunday~~ ~~Monday~~ Tuesday.

Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)

Poll #18088 FMK #4: English-language SF written before 1930

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 51

View Respondents

The Bowl of Baal by Robert Ames Bennet (1917)

F
10 (58.8%)

M
1 (5.9%)

K
6 (35.3%)

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678)

F
13 (38.2%)

M
7 (20.6%)

K
14 (41.2%)

Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1923)

F
9 (42.9%)

M
3 (14.3%)

K
9 (42.9%)

The Worm Oroborous by E. R. Eddison (1922)

F
12 (52.2%)

M
7 (30.4%)

K
4 (17.4%)

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (1920)

F
9 (52.9%)

M
3 (17.6%)

K
5 (29.4%)

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald (1872)

F
21 (63.6%)

M
11 (33.3%)

K
1 (3.0%)

Ship of Ishtar by A. Merritt (1924)

F
10 (62.5%)

M
3 (18.8%)

K
3 (18.8%)

Armageddon 2419 A.D.: The Seminal "Buck Rogers" Novel by Philip Francis Nowlan (1928)

F
9 (52.9%)

M
1 (5.9%)

K
7 (41.2%)

The Vampyre by John Polidori (1818)

F
13 (54.2%)

M
7 (29.2%)

K
4 (16.7%)

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1818)

F
13 (28.9%)

M
30 (66.7%)

K
2 (4.4%)

The Skylark of Space by E. E. "Doc" Smith (1928)

F
18 (72.0%)

M
4 (16.0%)

K
3 (12.0%)

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)

F
13 (31.0%)

M
24 (57.1%)

K
5 (11.9%)

Roverandom by J. R. R. Tolkien (1925)

F
13 (56.5%)

M
5 (21.7%)

K
5 (21.7%)

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764)

F
17 (60.7%)

M
3 (10.7%)

K
8 (28.6%)

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (1898)

F
19 (52.8%)

M
12 (33.3%)

K
5 (13.9%)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)

F
18 (43.9%)

M
18 (43.9%)

K
5 (12.2%)

Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928)

F
18 (50.0%)

M
17 (47.2%)

K
1 (2.8%)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think that Pilgrim's Progress is mainly readable as an anthropological/historical artifact.

I hated Gulliver's Travels with a passion, but I was thirteen or fourteen, so my opinion should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

I voted F on the Burroughs and the Smith because, while they're likely to contain some appalling things in terms of racism/sexism/etc., they were written with the intention of being entertaining.

I started Gulliver's Travels when I was ten or so, I think? I had just read Swiss Family Robinson and loved it (as I had loved every other book about people shipwrecked on an island that I had ever read to that point) but I never managed to get very far in Gulliver.

I kind of want to keep a copy of Pilgrim's Progress in my library because for a couple centuries it was the one book everybody in the US and England had a copy of. Like a grounding of my library in my ancestors'.

I have read a lot of Burroughs and enjoy it for what it is (you will pry Barsoom out of my cold hands). I get the impression Smith is substantially less racist/sexist than Burroughs but that's a low low bar.

I kind of want to keep a copy of Pilgrim's Progress in my library because for a couple centuries it was the one book everybody in the US and England had a copy of. Like a grounding of my library in my ancestors'.

Aie! Can't you save a copy from Gutenberg to your hard drive, or something?

Ecopies don't count as being in my library. :P (I say this because I have zero ability to keep hold of electronic files; even when I make a serious effort, both backup drives decide to get corrupted the week before I get the new laptop, the stack of CDs melted together, the webspace provider suddenly went away without offering backups, or the file formats changed while I wasn't looking, or the ereader app suddenly doesn't like the file anymore, or--- All of those have happened to my attempt to hang on to certain ebooks, yet I have managed to keep the same physical copy of Heidi I read when I was five.)

Ebooks are like library books: good to read, not something you can count on having access to next month. I wish that were not the case because it would make destashing a lot easier, and make me a lot more willing to spend money on good independent stuff, but it is true, at least for me. :/ Not that I exactly treat my physical books well or always know where they are, and they often do age faster than it seems like they should, but it's at least *possible* to hang on to them long-term.

I agree on e-books; I have never bought one for this reason, and rarely bother storing downloads unless they are super-useful, and then I tend to forget where I put them. And I too have still got some books I remember from 3–8.

My sister-in-law (an otherwise amiable person) forced me to ditch hundreds of books mainly inherited from my parents before we moved here; I still have nightmares & crying jags about that one. Yes, the books were not technically mine, but they were the earliest I copies I read of favourites like Austen. (She lives in London and treats all books as disposable, buys them & recycles via friends/Oxfam.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only