You say "critic" like it's a bad thing...

To clear up any thoughts that I might be harboring delusions of competency, I want to point out a couple things...

critic - noun -a person who judges, evaluates, or analyzes literary or artistic works, dramatic or musical performances, or the like, esp. for a newspaper or magazine.


critique - noun - an article or essay criticizing a literary or other work; detailed evaluation; review.
- verb - to review or analyze critically.

(Please note that nowhere in the above definitions are there any mentions of negativity...neither a critic nor a critique are automatically out to tear something or someone down.)

I'm not one to search for symbolism in the books I read. Sure, it's there, and I might even notice it if it's obvious enough (Mike's death by stoning in "Stranger in a Strange Land" as a messianic allegory comes to mind) but I really have a hard time believing that authors sit around for months sowing symbolic images and descriptions through out their prose. I remember reading "The Old Man and the Sea" by Hemingway in high school and having to critique it. And having to try to recognise the symbology of the wounds on his hands (stigmata), the marlin, the lions of Santiago's dreams, the struggle, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum...

Maybe Papa Hemingway, sitting at his typewriter, cigarettes at one hand and bottle of rum at the other, actually sat down and thought these things through, but I doubt it. If anything, the symbols might be unconscious expressions of Hemingway's acculturation, but I don't think they were deliberate.

And I could be wrong...

But the point is, I'm not going to talk about stuff like that. For years, critics have said that "The Lord of the Rings" is Tolkien's literary vision of World War I. He denied it until he died, claiming it was a story for his kids. Do parts of LOTR seem like they could have come out of the mechanised hell of the trenches...sure. But that's what writers do; they write what they know. Anyway, I'm not going to be mining for messiah analogues or eternal hero archetypes. Other people do that much better that I can.

I'm just going to talk about whether I liked the book or not.

What I should be reading while I'm waiting...

After thinking about it, I decided whining about the dearth of output from my favorite authors wasn't going to help...(sometimes I hate being an adult...)

So, what haven't I read? I all ready mentioned the aborted attempts at reading the Foundation novels.

-most of Harry Harrison's alternate history stuff. I read "Guns off the South" a long time ago, but when he got started on this latest binge, I was reading other things...

-Fred Saberhagen's "Berserker" novels. I think I read one of these once, but it didn't make enough of an impression at the time to keep me interested. Maybe it's an age thing...maybe I was too young to appreciate it...maybe I'll have to check into it...

-I'm gonna get hate mail for this...Philip K. Dick. Sorry, he just never did it for me...I didn't even read "Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep" after Bladerunner came out. I know he was a seminal influence and one of the greats, but during his heyday, I was too young and then when I got older, there were other things I wanted to read...

-The early stories and novels of Sir Arthur C Clarke. I loved Rama...I loved 2001 et al, but I never read The City and the Stars or Childhood's End...

-Back in the day, a lot of authors only wrote short stories for the magazines like Analog, Argosy and Asimov's Science Fiction. There wasn't the market for novel length stuff like there is now...I missed a lot of good stuff that is only starting to come out in collections...like Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Darkover" series, a bunch of Andre Norton's Witch World, L. Sprague DeCamp, Lin Carter, Karl Edward Wagner...there's a bunch...

There are some wide modern gaps, too...like William Gibson...actually, I haven't read much cyperpunk...Jaquline Carey's "Kushiel" books...Robert Aspirin's "Myth" books...

I could go on...but what I should do, since I've decided not to whine anymore, is head out to the used book store and get something to read...

An hour of my life I'll never get back...

Just spent an hour wandering through Barnes and Noble. I won't say there's nothing on the shelves, but I will say I've read everything I want to read...every other shelf is a collection of Anita Blake wannabes, Indian shaman in street clothes, ANOTHER alternate history of WWII and yet another pastiche of Tolkien.
I ended up with a copy of PC's for Dummies, the September issue of Fine Scale Modeler and an Official Scrabble Dictionary for my mom...
C'mon Mercedes, I wanna go back to Valdemar...
C'mon Weber, I wanna find out what happens when Anton and Victor go undercover on Mesa...
C'mon Somebody, publish something!!!

It's times like this when I know I should go back and fill in the gaps...like finish reading Asimov's Foundation...but I can't get excited about it...besides, the last time I tried to read Foundation, I really lost interest quickly. Unlike much of Asimov's stuff (See his robot books) Foundation seems to drag and drag and drag...
Of course, it could just be me...

OK. Gotta go and take a nap...I have to go back to Barnes and Noble at midnight with my two oldest daughters for the Stephanie Myers release party...

later.

First Post

If blame must be laid, it rightfully belongs to my paternal grandmother. My favorite book when I was three years old was a Little Golden Book about Mickey Mouse and Goofy taking a rocket to the moon. She read it to me every time I asked and I feel certain it set the stage for my taste in books as I got older.
Since that time, I've read thousands of science fiction titles. And like most everyone on the planet, I have an opinion.
So, at the behest of a few friends, I'm going to talk about some of them. The good, the bad and the the ones that would have made good toilet paper.

You don't have to agree with me and you don't have to like what I like, but if you are going to comment, I'd appreciate it if we could keep it civil. Bottom line, if you don't like what I say, don't click on the link...

I read a lot of sci-fi, but as any fan knows, our favorite authors feel as though they are entitled to a life outside of writing things for us to read and so it can be months, or even years, between releases, so you have to fill the time with something. So, to start off the blog, here's a list of things to read while you're waiting for the next book about Honor Harrington, Daniel Leary, William Weaver or Ghost...

In no particular order...

The Richard Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell
Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler (as well as the NUMA files books and the Oregon files books)
Any collection of stories by H.P Lovecraft
Sherlock Holmes
Titus Crowe by Brian Lumley
Necroscope by Brian Lumley
The Horatio Hornblower novels by C. S. Forester
The Cthulhu Mythos stories of August Derleth
The Flashman novels of George Macdonald Fraser
The Seventh Scroll by Wilbur Smith
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
Any book by Tom Clancy
Iron John by Robert Bligh
Hercule Poirot stories by Agatha Christie
Miss Marple stories by Agatha Christie
The Anita Blake and Merry Gentry novels by Laurell K Hamilton
Venus Envy by Rita Mae Brown
Rumi
ee cummings (all of his poetry)
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Siddhartha by Herman Hess
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol (especially the annotated one...it tells you about the puzzles and logic problems that are sprinkled throughout the book...)
Urban Shaman by C.E. Murphy (and the rest of the Walker Papers, too...)
A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo (and the rest of the Posleen series...)
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

It's late...I'm tired of thinking...that's enough to get you started