Book Review Teaser :: Summer of the Apocalypse by James Van Pelt

New on Fantastic Reviews is Aaron's positive review of Summer of the Apocalypse by James Van Pelt (along with a lukewarm review of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, see previous post). The Road is more widely known, but Aaron found Summer of the Apocalypse to be the more compelling book.

From Aaron's review of Summer of the Apocalypse:
"...Today, the best writers in the science fiction and fantasy genre are equal or superior to their mainstream colleagues at the craft of writing. To illustrate the point, compare The Road with Summer of the Apocalypse by James Van Pelt. These two novels share a strikingly similar premise: an older man and young companion(s) travel on foot over a derelict highway through a ruined America. Consistent with Cormac McCarthy's sterling literary reputation, The Road won the Pulitzer Prize and has spent much of the past year on all the national best-seller lists. In contrast, as befits James Van Pelt's lowly status as a mid-list writer in the science fiction genre, Summer of the Apocalypse was entirely ignored by the mainstream press."

"Yet Summer of the Apocalypse is the far better novel. The writing of Summer of the Apocalypse is subtle where The Road is only brash. Summer of the Apocalypse develops believable, three-dimensional characters; the characters in The Road are nameless (literally) figureheads. In The Road, Cormac McCarthy attempts to compensate for awkward writing, lack of characterization, and an aimless plot by dazzling readers with the utter bleakness of his vision of the future. Summer of the Apocalypse is also very bleak at times, but in the framework of a compelling story...."

"...James Van Pelt's Summer of the Apocalypse alternates between two different cross-country trips. In the earliest, set in the very near future, 15-year-old Eric travels across the western slope of Colorado in search of his father, shortly after nearly all of mankind has been wiped out in a pandemic. The second journey takes place sixty years later, as 75-year-old Eric retraces his earlier trip while leading his 10- and 12-year-old grandson and friend to a greatly altered Boulder."

To read the entire review -> Summer of the Apocalypse

Book Review Teaser :: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

New on Fantastic Reviews is Aaron's review of The Road by Cormac McCarthy (along with a review of Summer of the Apocalyse by James Van Pelt, which is featured in this post). The Road recently won the Pulitzer Prize and was selected for Oprah's book club, but is it a good science fiction book?

From Aaron's review of The Road:
"...The Road is the dismal story of a father and son, walking together through a world that has been almost entirely obliterated. McCarthy never tells us what caused the devastation, although he hints at a nuclear war. Nearly everything has burned and the sky has turned permanently gray, presumably by nuclear winter, although the characters in the book are strangely unconcerned about radiation poisoning."

"Nothing will grow, and so most of the few remaining survivors have stayed alive only by cannibalism. The man and his son have not resorted to this, so they face a constant struggle to find shelter and food enough to keep themselves alive while avoiding their dangerous fellow survivors...."

"...In The Road, McCarthy very convincingly demonstrates that it would really suck if the world were destroyed...but perhaps you already knew that."

To read the entire review -> The Road

Amy's bookshelf :: Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

A more recent copy of Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement - Aaron's Book of the Week (see previous post) – resides on my bookshelf. It's a 1978 paperback from Ballantine Books with a cover price $1.75 and cover art by H.R. Van Dogen.

Mission of Gravity is an acknowledged science fiction classic. It's set on the high gravity planet of Mesklin, which is home to intelligent, caterpillar-like aliens. The cover art on my edition apparently depicts some of these aliens.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement

The Book of the Week is Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement, one of several classics of science fiction first published in 1953. This is a signed copy of the first paperback printing, Galaxy Science Fiction Novel No. 33, cover art by Wallace A. Wood. (Incidentally, we'll return to the "Galaxy" line of SF novels in future BOTWs. Galaxy novels had an interesting history, switching over time from digest books to standard paperbacks to science fictional pornography. )

"Hal Clement" was the pen name of Harry C. Stubbs, a pioneer of "hard" science fiction, in which rigorously applied scientific principles are central to the story. Mission of Gravity is Hal Clement's most famous novel, set on a supermassive, rapidly rotating planet inhabited by intelligent, centipede-like creatures adapted to the world's high surface gravity.

Clement was named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1998. Always charming and friendly, Clement was a favorite at science fiction conventions. In 2003, shortly after the publication of his last novel, he attended Mile Hi Con, Denver's local convention, where he signed the Book of the Week for me under both the name Hal Clement and Harry Stubbs. At 81, he seemed in the best of health and spirits as he entertained the crowd. He passed away the next week from complications of diabetes. Next week we'll have another of the all-time classics of SF from 1953, this one from an author still going strong at age 89.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Fantastic Adventures February 1950

The Magazine of the Week is the February 1950 issue of pulp magazine Fantastic Adventures, with cover story The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon, cover art by Robert Gibson Jones. This is a condensed version of last week's Book of the Week, The Synthetic Man.

The Dreaming Jewels, aka The Synthetic Man, was one of the major science fiction novels of 1950, but it was Sturgeon's novel More Than Human (1953), our BOTW of two weeks ago, that became an acknowledged classic of the field. Neither novel had an opportunity to win a Hugo Award, however, because the SF field's leading award was not invented until 1952, and then took two years to catch on and became an annual event. So Hugos were awarded for works published in 1952 and 1954, but not for 1953. As fate would have it, 1953 saw the original publication of more all-time classics in the field of science fiction than any year before or (arguably) since. We've already seen More Than Human. In our next several BOTWs, we will see some of the other all-time classics of SF from 1953.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: The Synthetic Man by Theodore Sturgeon

The Book of the Week is the first paperback printing of The Synthetic Man by Theodore Sturgeon, cover art by Art Sussman.

The Synthetic Man is not as well known as last week's BOTW, More Than Human, but it's always been my personal favorite Ted Sturgeon novel. I first read it as a teenager, and was grabbed from the opening line: "They caught the kid doing something disgusting out under the bleachers at the high-school stadium, and he was sent home from the grammar school across the street." The disgusting thing Horty was doing was eating ants. Young Horty does not fit in, and eventually ends up running away and joining a carnival. The carnival setting is only one of a number of congruities between Sturgeon's work and Ray Bradbury's. Sturgeon and Bradbury were at the forefront of a generation of Golden Age authors whose approach to science fiction was less technical and more artistic and humanistic than earlier writers. (Hollywood is just beginning to catch up.)

The Synthetic Man was first published in the pulp magazines under another title. That title was much preferable, since the title The Synthetic Man has a spoiler right in it. The original pulp publication will be next week's Magazine of the Week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

Completing our tribute to the late Kurt Vonnegut, the Book of the Week is More Than Human by science fiction great Theodore Sturgeon. Kurt Vonnegut publicly stated that Theodore Sturgeon was the inspiration for his fictional sci-fi author Kilgore Trout -- although really, aside from having the name of a fish, Kilgore Trout bears far less resemblance to Sturgeon than to Vonnegut himself.

This is the first paperback printing of More Than Human, published in 1953, simultaneously with the extremely rare hardcover first edition. The cover is by famed SF artist Richard Powers. Theodore Sturgeon was one of the leading SF authors from the 1940's through the 70's, although for whatever reason he never caught the attention of the general public as Kurt Vonnegut did. In addition to his fiction, Sturgeon is widely remembered in the genre for announcing the principle that came to be known as Sturgeon's Law: "90% of all science fiction is crap. But then, 90% of everything is crap."

More Than Human, about a small group of misfits who prove to represent the next step in human evolution, is widely regarded as Sturgeon's best novel. Next week's Book of the Week will be my personal favorite Sturgeon novel.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout

Following up on our tribute to Kurt Vonnegut, the Book of the Week is Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout, published in 1975, with cover art by Victor Gadino.

Kilgore Trout was an invention of Kurt Vonnegut, a make-believe science fiction writer who appeared in many of Vonnegut's novels. According to Vonnegut, Trout was underappreciated as an author, largely because he was mistaken for a sleaze writer after some of his early works were published by pornographers. Trout was supposedly the author of over 100 novels, but Venus on the Half-Shell is the only one ever to see print in the real world, thanks to another science fiction author, Philip Jose Farmer.

Philip Jose Farmer is one of my personal favorite authors (you will see more of him in future BOTWs). Even though he has enjoyed significant success in the science fiction field, many of us believe he remains underappreciated, perhaps in part because he was mistaken for a sleaze writer after several of his early works were printed by pornographic publisher Essex House. Farmer delighted in borrowing other authors' fictional creations, and wrote Venus on the Half-Shell as a tribute to Vonnegut.

In Venus on the Half-Shell, Farmer deliberately imitated the style of Vonnegut, successfully enough that when the book came out several reviewers insisted that it really was by Vonnegut, even though he denied it. The Washington Post review declared, "Trout's prose is at least as good as Vonnegut's," then ended the review with the words, "Thanks, Kurt." The confusion annoyed Vonnegut enough that he later had some snappish things to say about Farmer free-loading off his reputation. This was rather unfair, since Vonnegut gave Farmer permission in advance to create Venus on the Half-Shell and declined Farmer's offer to share the royalties.

While Kilgore Trout evolved into a semiautobiographical figure in Vonnegut's writings, he was originally inspired by yet another science fiction writer, the subject of next week's BOTW.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Utopia 14 by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Continuing our tribute to the late Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the Book of the Week is the first paperback printing of Utopia 14, Kurt Vonnegut's first published novel, set in a mechanized future society. All you Vonnegut fans out there racking your brains trying to remember a book called Utopia 14 can relax -- the book is far better known under the title Player Piano.

Subsequent editions have always used the Player Piano title, no doubt because mainstream readers would be scared off by the sci-fi sound of Utopia 14. (I'm not quite sure why Vonnegut's second book, The Sirens of Titan, never received the same kind of name change. Perhaps publishers were counting on mainstream readers being unaware that Titan is the largest moon of Saturn.) Of course, the fact that the mainstream eventually did acknowledge Vonnegut as an outstanding writer, and then tried to redefine his work as not science fiction at all, is only further evidence of the absurdity of the prevalent prejudice against SF.

A final link between Vonnegut and the SF field is his recurring character Kilgore Trout. Kilgore Trout was inspired by one of Vonnegut's fellow SF writers. Before we get around to revealing who that was, next week's Book of the Week will be the only book ever published as by Kilgore Trout. The book was not written by Kurt Vonnegut as widely suspected, but by another prominent SF author.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The Book of the Week is the first paperback printing of Cat's Cradle (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. This is to honor Vonnegut, who passed away in April at the age of 84. Kurt Vonnegut was celebrated for his distinctive writing style, which blended science fiction tropes with satire and black humor. His work undoubtedly influenced later science fiction satirists such as John Sladek and James Morrow.

Vonnegut resisted classification as a science fiction writer, not because he denied that his work was science fiction -- most of his books are SF by any conceivable definition -- but because he wished to avoid the mainstream's demeaning attitudes toward SF. In 1965 he wrote, "I have been a sore-headed occupant of a file-drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since [Player Piano], and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a tall white fixture in a comfort station. The way a person gets into this drawer, apparently, is to notice technology. The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works."

While Vonnegut sold some of his earliest stories to Collier's magazine, much of his early work first appeared in genre SF publications such as Galaxy and If magazines and Again, Dangerous Visions. His famous story "Harrison Bergeron" was first published by Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine. Next week's Book of the Week, the first paperback edition of Vonnegut's first book, leaves no doubt that Vonnegut was marketed as a science fiction writer early in his career, before being "discovered" by the mainstream.