Books - Reviews by ppint.

Books - Reviews by ppint.

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Member	Item		Review/Comment
ppint. 16th Nov 2017		Book Andre Norton - Quag Keep (1979)	Review awful. was written to complete the andre norton alphabet of novels - a fan pointed out she'd almost the entire alphabet, missing "q" and (iirc) one - or two - other letter/s: but that doesn't justify this pale, thin fictionalisation of a frpg adventure. even though it's probably the first use of an frpg world as the setting of a fantasy novel - avoid. 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 15th Nov 2017		Book Ursula K. Le Guin - Tehanu (1992)	Rated 8/10 ursula le guin returned to earthsea a decade and a half after finishing the trilogy, in part because of a fan's critical essay examining that excellent work; the results did not enthuse some of her readers, as it isn't a traditional heroic fantasy story involving flashing blades, dramatic dragons and whizz-bang sorcery - or even le guin's earlier, and rather more thoughtful, handling of these traditional tropes. but "tehanu" is an interesting and absorbing story, for all of its eschewing the obvious: a story of the strength of women in earthsea achieving what ged ultimately cannot, despite his cleverness, knowledge, and awesome power. a sequel to, and involving some of the characters from - but not a part of - the earthsea trilogy: #1: "a wizard of earthsea" (1968), q.v. for trilogy (& its sequels) listing and links. 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 14th Nov 2017		Book Roger Zelazny - Isle Of The Dead (1969)	Rated 9/10 preceded by the short story, ''dismal light'' in if vol.18 #5, 5/1968; cover story, art by john pederson, jr. sequel is "to die in italbar", q.v. (and which is decidedly peculierer. . .:-)) these three all have their own unique plot lines and each of the novels is in itself a perfectly fine - if somewhat abnormal - story; but in and across them, roger zelazny *also* gives francis sandow, builder of worlds, a truly exceptional problem: what do you, a technically-trained, strictly non-credulous practical planet-builder do, once you've been adopted by - perhaps, become an avatar of - an alien god ? 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 14th Nov 2017		Book Roger Zelazny - This Immortal (1968)	Rated 10/10 serialised in f&sf vol.29 #4, #5; 10/1965, 11/1965, under the title, "...and call me conrad"; winner of the 1966 hugo award for best novel. humanity's rape and destruction of the earth's ecosystem has presented civilisation in the local part of the galaxy with a major problem, and unscrupulous asset-strippers (and worse) amongst them with a tempting business opportunity or three hundred. a fabulously wealthy alien comes to earth, ostensibly as a tourist, one amongst quite a few such fascinated by the chance to view - and possibly buy up examples of - humanity's art treasures before the planet and its cultures have been completely looted (not least, of course, by wealthy alien tourists not too fussy about the legality of their acquisitions), and engages a tour guide for his party who proves to be rather more than meets the eye - and isn't too keen on tourists buying up the treasures of ten thousand years as mildly interesting knick-knacks to decorate their off-planet offices and towers to impress friends and visitors, and forget. conrad gives his employers their money's worth, including steering them safely through some of the more dangerous parts of their itinery they're not prepared to abandon - though some of the dangers they seem to've brought with them - and provides them with photo-opportunities (or equivalents thereof) as may appeal, entertain or appal, including the destruction of one of the pyramids(!) - but why? he doesn't appear to need the money, and his sympathies seem more in tune with the assassin he argues out of completing their commission - at least, for a while - than with the rich wastrels and industrialists, etc, he's guiding and protecting; again, why? - and why on earth has one of the monsters out of a "hot" area picked up their trail, what can it be after? - and how much can a ruined planet be worth, after all - and to whom? - one's own life? - or more? 6 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 13th Nov 2017		Book Norman Spinrad - The Iron Dream (1972)	Review readers of norman spinrad's sf should be aware this is not in fact the novel, "the iron dream": it contains, after a few pages, the complete, uncut and unexpurgated english translation of the 1955 hugo award-winning novel, "the lord of the swastika" by cult sf writer, adolf hitler. . . it is extremely well done, in the sense that it is a horribly convincingly poorly-written rant of a racist, misogynist, and thuggish paean to the limits of the diseased imagination of its putative author. i am not sure it is worth anyone's reading, though it is, i suppose, worth having read it. (it includes an appreciation of the novel and its author as an afterword by "homer whipple".) 6 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 10th Nov 2017		Book Frank Herbert - The White Plague (1984)	Rated 6/10 not published as sf - though it perfectly arguably is science fiction - this was frank herbert's second attempt to demonstrate he could write a non-category novel, and a "category best-seller" novel, at that: the result is an over-long and inadequately thought-through tome that could perhaps have made a competent sf novel from his pen^W typewriter; or perhaps also a "category best-seller" novel in collaboration with another author, or a more demanding editor, capable of providing or requiring credible technical background research upon viruses (etc.) - and also, unfortunately, believable characters. the absence of either of these need not prevent a tome achieving actual best-seller sales figures, of course; but the absence of both ensures this is neither a classic novel nor particularly memorable. 6 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 8th Nov 2017		Book Alan Garner - The Moon Of Gomrath (1972)	Rated 10/10 stand-alone° sequel to the weirdstone of brisingamen (1963) (detailed in submitted "correction" for notes), q.v, and just as good as that superb novel, which also is complete in itself. ° there are a couple of direct references back to the earlier novel, and i recommend reading it before this one, if only for reasons of temporal continuity. both are very powerful modern-day set fantasies, with historical and fantastic references brought alive - all too alive ? - by alan garner; and although originally published by wm. collins sons (and p/b-ed in puffins) as for immediate pre-teen and teen-age children, they will reward any adult's reading, so long as their minds be not too closed-off by their having "grown up". 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 19th Apr 2017		Book Norman Spinrad - The Last Hurrah Of The Golden Horde (1970)	Review this sf & fantasy collection is of seventeen short stories and a novelette, including the single best jerry cornelius° short story yr hmbl srppnt.'s so far read. . .°°. ''carcinoma angels'' starts the collection off with a bang, and suggests an amazingly attractive alternative method - admittedly rather unlikely to prove practical - of fighting an internal medical problem to that of the miniaturisation of submarines... with lots of flash, and the excitement of flashes, and a not inconsiderable proportion of whizz-bangs, this collection provides a good introduction to norman spinrad's sf, which works best when he's not trying to be nice... ° - portmanteau omni-capable laidback lifestyle agent of adventure, espionage and sometimes chaos created by michael moorcock q.v., opened up by him whilst editor of "new worlds" magazine for use by other authors with no particular restrictions upon location in time, space or chronological consistency, so long as his style in dress, and manner, omnivorous approach to experiences, and - evidently - his habit of sardonic observations were maintained. . . °° - the title story 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 26th Mar 2016		Book David A. Kyle - The Dragon Lensman (1981)	Review if you greatly enjoyed the lensmen series of books by e. e. smith in your youth, still enjoy re-reading them, and wish for more, these three novels° by david a. kyle are well worth investigating - but n.b. the standard of writing, as well as the style thereof, does not improve upon "doc" smith's own. - elsewise, you'd prob'ly be best-advised to pass these honest hommages by; the revisiting of "creaky classics" by other hands rarely pays dividends to those who "were not there at the time". ° - not a trilogy: not linked by aught more than background setting of the lensmen universe; the title of a fourth alien lensmen novel, "the red lensman", was rumoured, but no such novel was published, and no ms. has ever come to light. 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 18th Mar 2016		Book Russell Ash - Bizarre Books (2000)	Review "non-fiction, humour - bog book" - a distinct, if unofficial, non-publicly advertised publishing category. 2 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 1st Mar 2016		Book Terry Pratchett - The Colour Of Magic (1985)	Rated 9/10 terry's first discworld novel - his fourth novel - is composed of four consecutive-but-more-or-less self-contained sections introducing rincewind, the discworld's most incompetent ''wizzard'' ever; twoflower, the discworld's first ever tourist; the unseen university, and its more-or-less permanent population of wizards, masters of arcane lore and who, save for the truly ambitious amongst them, who are also attempting to become masters in the art of assassinating their superiors in the uu hierarchy, are primarily interested in continuing to live their comfortably overfed lives with a minimum of effort on their own parts; the thieves' & other city guilds, whose rivalries and excesses are - mostly - balanced by an early incarnation of the patrician of the twin city of ankh-morpork whose skills in this have been sharpened by necessity, occasioned not least by the incompetence of the city guardsmen, as evidenced by the men of the night watch; and to the discworld itself, borne by the four great elephants standing atop giant atuin, the star-turtle, orbited by the sun as it (- whether he or she is a matter of deeply serious religious debate - for some -) swims slowly through space towards - what? - terry takes a delight in gently pointing out the occasional sillinesses in the very best of fantasy he's enjoyed, nodding his appreciation by this of the pleasure their authors provided him over the decades, whilst telling a story that is all his own, that starts off with - not one, but several bangs, as the city of ankh-morpork explodes behind an incompetent wizzard escaping the catastrophe his unwanted companion, twoflower has inadvertently and accidentally triggered - both pursued by "the luggage" - twoflower's at least mildly intelligent, and apparently "mildly murderously" protective brass-bound travelling, sometimes aggressively-, even hungrily- hinged toothed timber chest, highly mobile on its innumerable tiny legs... - contrary to his devout personal belief that the safest direction to choose is always "away" - from any and every danger or disturbance, and at as high a speed as possible, rincewind is saddled with the task of ensuring twoflower's safety and survival by the ruler of ankh-morpork - and the apparently suicidally-insane prototypical "tourist" persists, even insists, in heading for the most "picturesque" and "interesting" - for both of which rincewind rightly reads "most dangerous" - sights, company and events in any and every circumstance possible... (re-edited 2021, to add more without committing any spoilers; maybe more to follow, still...) 6 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 29th Feb 2016		Book Andrea Barham - The Pedant's Revolt (2005)	Rated 8/10 makes a decent "small present" - and's a good "bog book". . . 4 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 29th Feb 2016		Book William Hope Hodgson - The House On The Borderland (1962)	Rated 8/10 this would later be marketed by nick austin at granada publishing (yuk) in p/b as "weird fantasy" category fiction - which, together with the works of clark ashton smith, william hope hodgson's horror-tinged exotic fantasy came pretty well to define. - there are definite lineal literary connections with the "hidden worlds" novels of writers, such as h. rider haggard, with the "lost worlds" stories (dating at least as far back as pliny), with the martian & venusian novels of edgar rice burroughs and many later (& some better°) writers' fantasy & sf. - warning: purple prose is often to be found within such. ° - e.g. c. l. moore's collection of linked stories, "shambleau", leigh brackett's "the sword of rhiannon" (originally in thrilling wonder stories 6/1949 as "sea-kings of mars"), and, via robert e. howard & others's interminable "conan" stories, fritz leiber's wonderful "fafhrd and the grey mouser" stories and novel, "the swords of lankhmar" (q.v. all five or six books of the original series - plus all the other authors' titles given here :-) ) 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 8th Feb 2016		Book Lin Carter - Thongor Against The Gods (1979)	Rated 2/10 awful. avoid unless addicted to lin carter's fantasy, or a specialist in very low quality sub-conan stories in general.° ° - or another sf&f bibliographic nutter, such as yr hmbl srppint. . . - perh. ? 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 5th Feb 2016		Book Lin Carter - Thongor In The City Of Magicians (1979)	Rated 2/10 extremely sub-erburroughsian. awful. avoid at almost all costs, unless a fan of very poorly-written mighty-thewed barbarian heroes and mighty-thewed barbarian hero stories - or possibly a lin carter fan, if such a fantastic beast exists... 1 person found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 3rd Feb 2016		Book Joseph H. Delaney - Valentina (1984)	Rated 8/10 "cardboard cut-out" characters or stereotypes - and that's the two human good guys: one each dirty, smelly slob-of-a-programmer guy, and dowdy, fat "never-shaped-hersef-up" (but at least she's clean) programmer, both as smart at the work as you could wish for - are contacted by a youngster as really needs all the help that they can give - and maybe more. - because "valentina" is an a.i. and does not and cannot own the machine on which she runs. - the increasingly complicated twists and turns of their attempts to help "her" duly get them, and her, into ever-more dire fixes, and temptations - in the process of sorting their different ways through, all three of them mature, and in sometimes surprising ways, whilst their evil opposition is rarely purely evil, and not notably distinguished in the stupidity stakes, neither. - much more than a western-in-inner-space, a first a.i. is a human-in-chips, or a high-tech shoot-em-up: "valentina: soul in sapphire" is possibly the first a.i. novel written by authors who realised the artificial intelligence was an emergent feature, not of the hardware - be it mainframe computer or whatever - but of the nested software suites in operation. - and it still stands up to a re-reading, every now and then, despite the cardboard :-) 6 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 31st Jan 2016		Book Poul Anderson - The Star Fox (1968)	Rated 10/10 one of poul anderson's best thought-out, plotted and realised adventure-thriller sf series of novellas/fix-up novels of the fifties-through-sixties, which means one of the best such by any sf writer of the period. humanity and the young, expanding and militarist alerion empire have rubbed up against each other, and alerion has conquered the fairly recently human-colonised planet, christened "new europe" - saying that there were, alas, no human survivors. this being so, the world federation on earth sees no point in turning a highly regrettable incident into a war - but retired captain gunnar heim is amongst a passionate minority who believe alerion's expansionism must be faced, and halted - and he meets a man who says he knows the settlers are not dead, but retreated into the haute garance - which heim already knows as good guerilla country from earlier visits to the settler-world, and where friends, perhaps including an old flame of his, are still holding out - for a while. - unable to gain any official support for military action by the world federation, nor from any of its member states, the gunnar heim of heimdall space motors outfits a ship at his own expense - and sets out "armed" with letters of marque and reprisal - for no-one has thought to close a loophole of national powers unexploited since the nineteenth century, and never since used - nor ever contemplated by anyone as being seriously even in possibility being applicable in space... - after initial successes, gunnar heim discovers unexpectedly that time is not on the colonists' side, as he had thought it would be - and therefore, nor can it be on his side; and he must bring matters to a critical decision point where the advantage is not his: how he responds, and how his moves are answered by the alerion commander he faces, eventually presents him with a decision difficult on more than one level, on top of the gamble he and his comrades've been prepared to make, of their own lives. - good, absorbing adventure sf with food for thought, in which the aleriona are not evil; nor are they depicted as being so. 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 11th Jan 2016		Book Arnold Silcock - Verse And Worse (1958)	Rated 10/10 contains many decades-long favourites, if few truly great poems (tm°), not least gertrude strong's "when he killed the mudjokivis" ("the modern hiawatha: from 'the song of milkanwatha'"); james clerk maxwell's "rigid body sings" ("gin a body meet a body/flyin' through the air..."); "how i brought the good news from aix to ghent (or vice versa)" by w. c. sellar & r. j. yeatman; percy bysshe shelley's "on a painted woman" and george outram's heart-rending epic tale in fifteen verses of "the annuity"; and small but perfect gems, such as john wilmot, the earl of rochester's original (and more insulting) epigram on charles II, which deserves quoting in its full glory: "here lies our mutton-eating king whose word no man relies on, who never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a wise one."°°; (°° - charles got his reply in, though: "my sayings are my own; my actions are my ministers'.") ° - vide, "the week-end book" - and many, many more, including some to delight the truly young, as well as the young at heart; no home should be without a copy; nor public, nor school, library, neither. 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
ppint. 5th Jan 2016		Book Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1937)	Rated 10/10 superb storytelling in a particular, peculiar sing-song style that is the voice of the eponymous itinerant entertainer, making a living (or failing to) by retelling well-known traditional stories in the precise form to audiences who collect in, or just outside, villages in a china that never truly was, where mandarins who are bitter enemies are oh-so polite to one another, and courteous to a fault, as they deftly slip a dagger from out a voluminous brocaded sleeve and into the side of their unsuspecting target, all the while protesting their total insignificance and lack of lineage and honour in comparison with their now exquisitely painfully-expiring rival. . . also published by penguin were ernest bramah's ''the wallet of kai lung'' (penguin #39) and ''kai lung's golden hours'' (penguin #174); and ''max carrados'' (penguin #436), & ''the eyes of max carrados'' (penguin #303), collections of detective stories in which the investigative central character just happens to be blind. "ernest bramah" is the form of his name chosen by ernest brammah smith (1868-1942) under which to publish his writings. 4 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?

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