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These posts mostly relate to books I am reading or series I am collecting to read in order (I tend to collect the series and then read it in one block). You can see a see a list of the books I am currently seeking, as well as a list of all the books I've bothered to catalog if you're interested.
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Fri, 22 May 2009
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ISBN: 0812550587
Tor Books (1995), Mass Market Paperback, 222 pages
LibraryThing
| This is a relatively short collection of Harry Harrison short stories. They are:
- I always do what Teddy says: what happens when we abdicate teaching our youngsters moral values to machine, and then don't test that the machine is working correctly? A short story about unit testing?
- Space rats of the CCC: this story is just silly. Its a little bit like Bill the Galactic Hero in style, but also a little bit annoying. It didn't really work for me.
- Down to earth: I'm sure I've read this basic plot line about a billion times, for example Hawk Among the Sparrows being just one example. This one didn't even have a good twist at the end.
- A criminal act: Harrison feels strongly about population grow (see also Make Room, Make Room!). Its pretty obvious in this story, although its not as preachy as Make Room, Make Room.
- Famous first words: I actually really liked this one.
- The Pad - a story of the day after the day after tomorrow: seducing women is hard work for billionaires, apparently.
- If: a pretty standard "don't alter the time lines" tale, with a small if predictable twist.
- Mute Milton: what important discoveries have been lost through the ages through racism or accident?
- Simulated trainer: this is an interesting story -- I quite like the concept, and the execution is more believable than most Harrison stories.
- At last, the true story of Frankenstein: this is a good story too, with a nice twist at the end.
- The robot who wanted to know: a pretty classic robot story, which could just as easily fit in an Asimov collection as a Harrison collection. I'm quite partial to robot stories, and I enjoyed it.
- Bill the Galactic Hero's happy holiday: I've previous complained about the overall style of the Bill the Galactic Hero series. I think it works better as a short story than a novel, because the level of annoyance it develops in the reader is smaller. This was actually better than the novel length Bill stories that I've read so far.
Overall, a solid collection, but not startlingly good.
Tags for this post: book( ) Harry_Harrison( ) |
posted at: 08:52 | path: /book/Harry_Harrison | permanent link to this entry
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Tue, 19 May 2009
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Sun, 10 May 2009
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Fri, 08 May 2009
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Thu, 23 Apr 2009
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Mon, 27 Oct 2008
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Tue, 21 Oct 2008
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Thu, 09 Oct 2008
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Wed, 17 Sep 2008
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Sat, 09 Aug 2008
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Sun, 03 Aug 2008
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Thu, 31 Jul 2008
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Tue, 29 Jul 2008
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Wed, 23 Jul 2008
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Thu, 10 Jul 2008
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Mon, 07 Jul 2008
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ISBN: 9994607332
LibraryThing
| This book is another Stainless Steel Rat prequel, although it was written well after the original book. This book takes up from where A Stainless Steel Rat is Born ends -- with Jim arrested (of course), on a surprisingly low tech planet. Jim must then escape, and make his way in the universe once more. He has some unfinished business with some previous acquaintances if he finds a way as well...
Harrison's writing is very easy to read, especially because his science fiction books always seem to require a good dose of suspension of disbelief, although some need more disbelief than others, so I read this book as a break from my quite a lot of Asimov. The book is 300 pages, but I managed to knock it over in a day, which I guess means I found it engaging.
I liked this book. Its silly, and I'm not a better person for having read it, but it was entertaining.
Tags for this post: book( ) Harry_Harrison( ) |
posted at: 03:20 | path: /book/Harry_Harrison | permanent link to this entry
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Sun, 08 Jun 2008
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Fri, 09 May 2008
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ISBN: 0743423763
LibraryThing
| This book is an interesting read, but for unusual reasons. Its as if Harrison sets out to write a terrible book, and learns new techniques to achieve this terrible along the way. An example of his mastery of the art:
A hundred bucks a month was good money, though, and Bill saved every bit of it. Easy, lazy months rolled by, and he regularly went to meetings and reported regularly to the G.B.I., and on the first of every month he would find his money baked into the egg roll he invariably had for lunch. He kept the greasy bills in a toy rubber cat he found on the rubbish heap, and bit by bit the kitty grew.
It seems to me that this book is so terrible it has to be deliberate, and its good to see that Wikipedia agrees:
Bill, the Galactic Hero is a satirical science fiction novel by Harry Harrison, first published in 1965.
It is a response to Heinlein's controversially militaristic Starship Troopers. The overall plot is similar, the details rather less so; and Harrison makes the most of an opportunity to spoof the work of other authors including Isaac Asimov, "Doc" Smith, and Joseph Heller. Harrison reports having been approached by a Vietnam veteran who described Bill as "the only book that's true about the military".
This book is a study in bad writing, and that's what makes it great. This book is entertaining, stupid, and funny. You wont to be a better person at the end, but you wont be bored while reading it either. To be clear -- I loved this book and its paranoia-like universe.
Tags for this post: book( ) Harry_Harrison( ) |
posted at: 21:19 | path: /book/Harry_Harrison | permanent link to this entry
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