I continue to read the Easton Press Masterpieces of Science Fiction that were sitting in my TBR pile.  The next book in the series was another Wells book.  You may recall that I blogged about The Time Machine last week.  Today's subject is the less-celebrated, but almost as frequently filmed, The Invisible ManWhile equally innovative for its time, ( Read more... )

So, since the last time I posted anything useful here, I have finished reading She, by H. Rider Haggard.  This one is considered a seminal work of fantasy for many reasons, most having to do with the fact that it started the craze for "lost race" stories in the late 19th and early 20th centuries ( Read more... )

As we sit in a kind of limbo in which real human progress (and by that, I mean space colonization) is suspended so that we can concentrate on social plans and smarter phones, a nice bit of perspective comes from remembering a previous pause in human tech: the dark ages.

I call the dark ages a pause, because they set in motion the social and moral ( Read more... )

Reading the Masterpieces of Science Fiction series from Easton Press, I've found that there are many books I'd either read already or would have bought anyway.  However, there are any number of them that would never have occurred to me.  One such is Samuel_R._Delany's Babel-17.

And it would have been a real pity to miss out on it.  Although it isn't ( Read more... )

After watching the terrible movie of a few years ago, one of the things I wasn't really planning on doing was to reread The War of the Worlds.   However, when I received my beautiful Easton Press copy (I may have mentioned that I really like these books a time or three, but bear with me), I dropped it into my TBR pile and, hey presto, it cycled ( Read more... )

As followers of this blog know, I've been a subscriber to Easton Press' Masterpieces of Science Fiction Series.  Sadly, this one has been discontinued, and I am no longer receiving my monthly book.  I say sadly because, although I had already read a number of the books I received (albeit, obviously, in editions nowhere near as beautiful as the EP ( Read more... )

Back in the early days of SF fandom, large numbers of shy, retiring lab-rat types with a combined weight of around 90 pounds would shout out (or, even worse wear lapel pins so stating) that fans were Slans. A Slan, you will understand, is a kind of superhuman, the next iteration of humanity (bigger heart and more memory, as well as telepathy).  The ( Read more... )

In his first heyday (the man has had more than one) Frederick Pohl was seen as the editor whose style was a counterpoint to Campbell.  And, although it will never be referred to as "Pohl's Golden Age", there was a lot to like about some of the stories he published - and he was probably the man most responsible for the New Wave taking root in ( Read more... )

I finished reading Odd John a few days ago, yet another of the books that I've received from Easton Press' Masterpieces of Science Fiction collection, and yet another book that is one of those undisputed classics that I'm ashamed not to have read before now.

I have to admit that this book brought on a few mixed feelings.  For those who haven't read ( Read more... )

First post of 2011, and I decided that, instead of talking about myself (I have all year to do that, after all!), I should talk about something of weight ans significance to mark the occasion.

By happy coincidence, I recently finished reading From the Earth to the Moon, by Jules Verne, which means I can talk about genre history.  Yay!

I read it with ( Read more... )