I Am Reading A Novel That Seems To Be Something That Elvis Telecom Would Like

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I actually haven't read "Air Raid." More to the point, I've always been rather meh about Varley. Punched out of the trilogy somewhere in the middle of Wizard. I think I had the feeling that deep down Varley was a space opera guy and I wasn't going to have any of that. Millennium sure felt like it.

Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 18 March 2014 08:40 (ten years ago) link

Truth be told, decades ago was a fan of his entertaining fast-moving, familiar folksy style then ultimately ended up finding it a bit slick and glib. Reread some stuff a few years and liked it again for the same reason but then started to have the same misgivings. Come to think of it had the same experience with his hero, RAH.

I Forgot More Than You'll Ever POLL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 19 March 2014 00:08 (ten years ago) link

Agreed. We all probably went through a RAH phase until you get to that WTF point that makes you question everything you just read.

Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 19 March 2014 07:59 (ten years ago) link

BTW, just finished Kaye's Stars Screaming. I mostly dug it, but wanted to like it more. Good for that paranoiac haze that collected around LA middle-aged burnout culture back then, but vaguely dissatisfied by the resolutions.

How's his other book?

Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 19 March 2014 08:06 (ten years ago) link

Haven't got around to finishing but it had a similar vibe. Good stuff about Bobby Fuller.

I Forgot More Than You'll Ever POLL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 19 March 2014 14:19 (ten years ago) link

This review of the RAH bio (along with a Cory Doctorow novel) by John Clute is kind of amazing: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100628/clute-c.shtml

I Forgot More Than You'll Ever POLL (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 19 March 2014 19:22 (ten years ago) link

one month passes...

Finally just started reading Sales' Apollo Quartet. ZOWIE. More than makes up for current reading doldrums.

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 25 April 2014 04:27 (nine years ago) link

Cool.

Kilgore Haggard Replica (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 April 2014 04:33 (nine years ago) link

Wish I was reading those again for the first time.

Kilgore Haggard Replica (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 April 2014 04:55 (nine years ago) link

one year passes...

The last one of those is out, btw. On a related note, you are wanted over on this thread: DSKY-DSKY Him Sad: Official ILB Thread For The Heroic Age of Manned Spaceflight.

one month passes...

Hooboy. I'm so far behind on everything... I promise I'll get to that thread. I've been riding the train to work the past couple of weeks and have been blazing through some schlock just to clear it out. I've been in a dark depressive hole lately - been hate-reading Nixon books and Supermob - the Sidney Korshak book that's a must-read for anyone who perceives the utter corruption at the core of American power.

Did read garbage techno-thriller Ghost Fleet on the Metrolink the other day. I don't know what to say other than it felt like distasteful propaganda.

Elvis Telecom, Monday, 3 August 2015 07:40 (eight years ago) link

six years pass...

Reviving thread to go on about how much I'm enjoying Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry For The Future. A spiritual successor to Stand On Zanzibar that's just as annoyingly fractured.

Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 17 November 2021 04:01 (two years ago) link

Yeah, that's a good big messy book that actually gave me a glimmer of hope.

Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Wednesday, 17 November 2021 05:11 (two years ago) link

one year passes...

Minor thread revival - I'm thanked in the end credits for having helped bring this accursed thing into being

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71dH-Q5HCjL._SL1500_.jpg

Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 18 October 2023 01:14 (six months ago) link

Looks pretty cool to me.

immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 18:07 (six months ago) link

four months pass...

There’s an apocryphal story about Kubrick where his assistants and family would constantly hear the sound of novels being hurled at the office walls. One day the sound stopped… and that novel was The Shining.

Anyway, imagine me doing the same until I got to The Twenty Days of Turin - a real read-twice-before-reacting brilliant kind of book

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 1 March 2024 12:32 (one month ago) link

Glad this thread ultimately had a purpose after all.

This review of the RAH bio (along with a Cory Doctorow novel) by John Clute is kind of amazing: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100628/clute-c.shtml🕸

This can now be found here:
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/scores-37/

The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 1 March 2024 13:11 (one month ago) link


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