Reading LX-LXIII
LX: Leigh Brackett, The Tiger Among Us (1957)
A raft of forties and fifties sf writers also wrote crime fiction - Fredric Brown and Antony Boucher spring to mind - and this is that rare thing, a female pulp writer. Here we have a vigilante revenge thriller: Walter Sherris has been beaten up by five young youths, and fears that they will come back to finish the job or kill his wife. The police don't offer any real help, and warn him off. Very competent thriller, with a cliff hanger at end of every chapter. Certainly I'd read more.
LXI: Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)
Pre-Second World War novel by the absurdist playwright. Murphy travels to London from Ireland where he he falls in love with a prostitute, Celia, and gets a job in an asylum. Beautifully written - which feels like a combination of Joyce and Stoppard's prose (the latter presumably influenced by Beckett) - but somewhat hard going. The phrase Quantum of Wantum leapt out - now that would be a Bond title.
LXII: Walter Tevis, The Man who Fell to Earth (1963)
Read in preparation for rewatching the film (a work-related Christmas treat), in which Anthean Thomas Jerome Newton arrives on Earth as part of a plan to save his planet, and makes money through releasing new inventions. Meanwhile a scientist, Bryce, is convinced the head of WE Incorporated is a man from Mars.
One of those points (like Invasion of the Body Snatchers) where there's a need to be careful with quotations, as the dates have been rejigged for the film tie-in and later versions. The name of the Anthean is perhaps suggestive - Thomas for the doubting saint (and Aquinas), Jerome for the patron saint of librarians and school children, and Newton for the scientist. It also struck me how many paintings are mentioned, but I'm not sure what it adds up to. Earth culture, of course.
LXIII: Leigh Brackett, The Ginger Star (1974)
I've presumably read the odd Brackett in the past, but nothing springs to mind (in a Merril anthology?) and she is one of the pulp gaps in my reading exposed by this year's editing. I'm not sure when I can fill these gaps in - certainly not this side of 2011 - but this is from the 1970s. Eric John Stark is a recurring character who is central to a late trilogy, presumably her last work before the Empire Strikes Back script. Here he lands on a planet on the edge of the Culture Galactic Union where his mentor has gone missing. He fights his way through to locate him. Curiously old fashioned - even allowing for it being thirty-five years old.
A raft of forties and fifties sf writers also wrote crime fiction - Fredric Brown and Antony Boucher spring to mind - and this is that rare thing, a female pulp writer. Here we have a vigilante revenge thriller: Walter Sherris has been beaten up by five young youths, and fears that they will come back to finish the job or kill his wife. The police don't offer any real help, and warn him off. Very competent thriller, with a cliff hanger at end of every chapter. Certainly I'd read more.
LXI: Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938)
Pre-Second World War novel by the absurdist playwright. Murphy travels to London from Ireland where he he falls in love with a prostitute, Celia, and gets a job in an asylum. Beautifully written - which feels like a combination of Joyce and Stoppard's prose (the latter presumably influenced by Beckett) - but somewhat hard going. The phrase Quantum of Wantum leapt out - now that would be a Bond title.
LXII: Walter Tevis, The Man who Fell to Earth (1963)
Read in preparation for rewatching the film (a work-related Christmas treat), in which Anthean Thomas Jerome Newton arrives on Earth as part of a plan to save his planet, and makes money through releasing new inventions. Meanwhile a scientist, Bryce, is convinced the head of WE Incorporated is a man from Mars.
One of those points (like Invasion of the Body Snatchers) where there's a need to be careful with quotations, as the dates have been rejigged for the film tie-in and later versions. The name of the Anthean is perhaps suggestive - Thomas for the doubting saint (and Aquinas), Jerome for the patron saint of librarians and school children, and Newton for the scientist. It also struck me how many paintings are mentioned, but I'm not sure what it adds up to. Earth culture, of course.
LXIII: Leigh Brackett, The Ginger Star (1974)
I've presumably read the odd Brackett in the past, but nothing springs to mind (in a Merril anthology?) and she is one of the pulp gaps in my reading exposed by this year's editing. I'm not sure when I can fill these gaps in - certainly not this side of 2011 - but this is from the 1970s. Eric John Stark is a recurring character who is central to a late trilogy, presumably her last work before the Empire Strikes Back script. Here he lands on a planet on the edge of the Culture Galactic Union where his mentor has gone missing. He fights his way through to locate him. Curiously old fashioned - even allowing for it being thirty-five years old.