Legion of Space!
9) The Legion of Space, Jack Williamson, 189 pages
I’m getting heavily into old-style sf, what you might now call sci-fantasy, a once-lively genre that’s unfortunately just as dead as our mortal moon, sacrificed on the altar of scientific accuracy. Here, in the vein of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Doc Smith, is a nonstop tale of adventure. The original copyright on this book is 1935, when it was published in serial format, though it was not published in book format until some years later. Its science and politics predate WWII, making it true pulp adventure fiction.
This book is all plot - no ham-handed and stultifying lectures on future politics, or the pornography of scientific minutiae, that so clogs modern sci-fi. No choking gouts of exposition. No dull and dusty science fact disguised as science fiction. Of course, there’s little development of character beyond the bold cutouts, and the usual conventions of pulp sf are here in spades.
If you cannot stand the genre and its excesses, this book is not for you, but if you liked Flash Gordon (and I don’t mean the movie), and/or Burroughs’ Mars series, this is your book. Even at the time, this was quite obviously tongue-in-cheek - never before have I read a story that I could describe as a pastiche of the Three Musketeers in space. As a bonus, Williamson is a perfectly passable line-by-line writer, far better than Burroughs’ stilted and awkward prose.
Judged for what it is, Legion of Space is a good seven or eight out of ten. A solid example of the genre, in which the pulp sf conventions seem for the most part more like assets than flaws. It’s short, to the point, and has plenty of action and impossible escapes. So if you seek dashing, bold adventure in the far future, if you crave memorable if cardboard characters menaced with unthinkable, inhuman perils, if you just have a thing for extremely cheesy pulp, look no further.
Mortal me, looks like Jack Williamson is on my list of authors to pursue.
9 books/50=18%
2,604 pages/15,000=17%
4 months/12=33%=still got some reading to do
link
I’m getting heavily into old-style sf, what you might now call sci-fantasy, a once-lively genre that’s unfortunately just as dead as our mortal moon, sacrificed on the altar of scientific accuracy. Here, in the vein of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Doc Smith, is a nonstop tale of adventure. The original copyright on this book is 1935, when it was published in serial format, though it was not published in book format until some years later. Its science and politics predate WWII, making it true pulp adventure fiction.
This book is all plot - no ham-handed and stultifying lectures on future politics, or the pornography of scientific minutiae, that so clogs modern sci-fi. No choking gouts of exposition. No dull and dusty science fact disguised as science fiction. Of course, there’s little development of character beyond the bold cutouts, and the usual conventions of pulp sf are here in spades.
If you cannot stand the genre and its excesses, this book is not for you, but if you liked Flash Gordon (and I don’t mean the movie), and/or Burroughs’ Mars series, this is your book. Even at the time, this was quite obviously tongue-in-cheek - never before have I read a story that I could describe as a pastiche of the Three Musketeers in space. As a bonus, Williamson is a perfectly passable line-by-line writer, far better than Burroughs’ stilted and awkward prose.
Judged for what it is, Legion of Space is a good seven or eight out of ten. A solid example of the genre, in which the pulp sf conventions seem for the most part more like assets than flaws. It’s short, to the point, and has plenty of action and impossible escapes. So if you seek dashing, bold adventure in the far future, if you crave memorable if cardboard characters menaced with unthinkable, inhuman perils, if you just have a thing for extremely cheesy pulp, look no further.
Mortal me, looks like Jack Williamson is on my list of authors to pursue.
9 books/50=18%
2,604 pages/15,000=17%
4 months/12=33%=still got some reading to do
link