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FMK #8: Short Books
Last week's winner was Growing Up Weightless by John M. Ford. I had mixed opinions of his Star Trek novels that everyone loves, so we'll see how this one goes!
Loser was Rocket Ship Galileo which I kind of really want to read after the discussion in comments ;_; I seem to have accidentally planned an overseas hiking holiday in a couple months, so maybe I will save up the K books that I really want to at least read first to take there and leave behind.
You people voted in another MASSIVE TOME with The Snow Queen so it may be a bit of a delay. It's interesting so far!
In revenge (and to give me a bit of a chance to catch up and do my taxes and stuff) this week's theme is "Books under 200 pages", so there.
How FMK works, short version: 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 Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.
Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)
p.s. I am enjoying observing the latest 'harassers at SF cons' redux, but why has nobody filked "Banned from Wiscon" yet? It scans. You could be really scathing. And "Banned from Wiscon" seems to be that dude's official epithet at this point.
Loser was Rocket Ship Galileo which I kind of really want to read after the discussion in comments ;_; I seem to have accidentally planned an overseas hiking holiday in a couple months, so maybe I will save up the K books that I really want to at least read first to take there and leave behind.
You people voted in another MASSIVE TOME with The Snow Queen so it may be a bit of a delay. It's interesting so far!
In revenge (and to give me a bit of a chance to catch up and do my taxes and stuff) this week's theme is "Books under 200 pages", so there.
How FMK works, short version: 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 Tuesday, and write a response to the F winner sometime in the next week.
Link to long version of explanation (on first poll)
Poll #18175 FMK #8: Short
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 25
Three Worlds to Conquer by Poul Anderson (1964)
Anton York, Immortal by Eando Binder (1965)
Bedlam Planet by John Brunner (1968)
The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke (1956)
Attack from Atlantis by Lester Del Rey (1953)
The Forgotton Door by Alexander Key (1965)
Electric Forest by Tanith Lee (1979)
The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindren (1975)
Star Ka'At by Andre Norton (1976)
Singularity by William Sleator (1985)
The Frightened Forest by Ann Turnbull (1975)
The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. Van Vogt (1950)
A Dark Travelling by Roger Zelazny (1987)
p.s. I am enjoying observing the latest 'harassers at SF cons' redux, but why has nobody filked "Banned from Wiscon" yet? It scans. You could be really scathing. And "Banned from Wiscon" seems to be that dude's official epithet at this point.
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The Frightened Forest is another one I haven't reread in a long time. If I recall correctly, it surprised me in being willing to do something that kids books I read in the 1970s and 1980s wouldn't normally do. I only ever saw two books by this author. I don't know if that's all she wrote or just all that made it to the US.
I voted F on the Sleator because I've quite enjoyed other books by the author. I think his The House of Stairs was the first dystopian book I ever read. My local library had a kids' reading club. We'd meet once a month with sack lunches in the basement of the library, and The House of Stairs was one of the books we read and discussed.
I voted K on A Dark Travelling because it irritated me when I read it. There was so very, very little there, and Zelazny was trying far too hard to write a kids' book which was really not something he was suited to. He's a writer were a lot rests of his command of language covering up holes in the plot and contradictions and such.
The Brothers Lionheart is a K from me because it was baby's first book meets wall moment. I felt betrayed by the ending, and a lot of the logic made no sense. I thought about rereading it recently because, well, I was probably seven or eight, but... I couldn't.
Star Ka'at is a K because it (and the rest of the series) are among the weakest of Norton's books. They're aimed very young and end up being even more superficial than some of her early stuff aimed at tween and teen boys. As I recall, there were some horrors blithely passed over, there by implication but somehow not actually there. I also have a very low tolerance for books that rely heavily on the assumption that everyone loves cats.
I voted K for a few other things based on just not liking other works by those authors. I read a lot of things that I didn't much enjoy while I was in high school because it was the only SF/fantasy I could get right then. It's only been recently that I've managed to convince myself that I really won't run out of books if I skip certain authors altogether or even just don't finish most things I start.
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You have made me very curious what The Frightened Forest does! I guess I will have to read it and find out.
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Also an F for The Forgotten Door, which is one of a number of Alexander Key's very odd and of-their-times kids books from the 60s. The oddest was probably The Golden Bear, and the most well-known is Escape to Witch Mountain, but my favorite is The Enchanted Meadow, which is technically science fiction but is really more of a literal escapist fantasy that I found very appealing as a kid.
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Of the two others that got M votes, The Forgotten Door was one of those books that helped me survive years of bullying. It also managed to slip in some subtle (for the era) lessons about anti-Native racism, adult cruelty, and the importance of compassion and understanding. It features a very 1970s view of Utopia, but I think it still works.
Singularity was less formative than Key's book (a Sleator book of comparative importance to The Forgotten Door would have to be House of Stairs, which still haunts my nightmares), but it's a good story about identity and irrevocable choices, and it made me think.
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The Forgotten Door is sounding better and better!
I play in the Name That Book forum on LT and House of Stairs haunts so many people that it's the the FAQ under most-asked books.
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I adored both the Pippi and the Ronja movies as a kid. I suspect they might even still hold up for me. (I mention this because it's rare that I like a movie almost as much as the book .)
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Singularity, the one with the twins and the time-warp shed, is possibly Sleator's best book and is really worth reading if you haven't already - it's fun and different and has a really unusual narrative device, done very well.
I think I was culturally incompetent to read The Brothers Lionheart, which came across to me as "suicide is awesome, kids!"
I know I read Star Ka'at but recall nothing of it other than space cats and super-cute illustrations.
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...well, that answers the question about what's wrong with the end of Brothers Lionheart. yuck. I have a fairly low tolerance for that kind of ending these days.
Space cats though!
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I read one Brunner years ago - iirc, Shockwave Rider, which is best known for being cyberpunk-before-cyberpunk-was-a-thing, and I remember being mostly impressed by the fact that it really did do a good job with the futurism, calling it well on even minor technologies, but I will admit to having no memories of the plot or even of the MC other than that he was a boring straight white dude. ^_^
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The City and the Stars has the odd distinction of being a do-over! Clarke wrote a novel called Against the Fall of Night, and some years later re-read it and decided that he could do it better -- and got a publisher to pick it up. It's probably worth hunting down the first book to see whether or not you agree.