Posts Tagged ‘vintage’
I knew Vintage Month was going to be awesome, but ya’ll broke the mold this time!
20 bloggers posted over 40 reviews and discussions, there were guest posts, a giveaway (which still has a few hours left in it, go win yourself some goodies!), and new bonds formed in the blogging community. Wow people, is there anything we can’t do? The only bad thing was that there was so much going on I couldn’t keep up with it! I wasn’t even able to comment on all the reviews, and I do apologize for that.
And I couldn’t have done any of this without YOU. Give yourselves a round of applause for rocking it out AGAIN. Here’s a listing of everyone I know of who participated. If you should be on this list, and aren’t, shout at the top of your lungs in the comments, and I’ll fix it up.
tomtificate
Marvelous tales
Over the Effing Rainbow
Nashville Bookworm
Bitter Tea And Mystery
Coffee Cookies and Chili Peppers
There’s a right broad
Pan Spectrum Analyzer
Two Dudes in an Attic
Lynn’s Book Blog
Impressions of a Reader
Stainess Steel Droppings
The Finch and Pea
You Can Never Have Too Many Books
Ready When You Are, C.B.
Geeky Daddy
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations
Geek Banter
Dab of Darkness
Science Fiction times
Whether you posted one book review or ten, or did a discussion post or a guest post, or tweeted or retweeted or simply lurked and enjoyed what you saw on other people’s blogs, I give you my heartfelt and sincerest thanks for spending the darkest days of winter with me and being willing to read some crunchy paperbacks by authors we’d never heard of.
I got some totally sweet stuff coming up in February too. A little less in the crunchy-dead-person department, but still, rockin’ cool stuff is heading our way! (also, spring might be heading our way, which is also damn cool)
You probably know Frank Herbert from his masterpiece, Dune. or perhaps you are more familiar with his son, Brian Herbert, who has been involved with continuing the series. But Frank Herbert did so much more more than just epic space opera involving secretive sisterhoods and sandworms. Many of his stand alone novels took place in the present (which would have been the 1960′s and 70′s) and could be easily be considered mainstream suspense novels. When I’m at the used bookstore, if I see a copy of a Herbert I don’t own, I grab it, and rarely have I been disappointed. In my mind, Frank Herbert is a little like George R. R. Martin – sure, their famous series blow my mind every time, but I’m missing out on the bigger picture if I don’t read their other works too.
The Santaroga Barrier, by Frank Herbert
written in 1968
where I got it: bought used
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Something very strange is happening in a valley in Southern California. Or perhaps, it’s nothing strange at all, just a close knit, old fashioned community famous for its cheese production. Doctor Gilbert Dasein of the Psychology department of the University of California has been sent to the Santaroga Valley. It is true that he’s hoping to patch things up with his ex-girlfriend Jenny, a resident of Santaroga, but Dasein has another mission, one which killed the last two men who took it on. He’s being paid to do market research and find out what exactly is going on there. Why won’t the Santarogans allow national businesses to build in their valley? Why don’t they have a single reported case of mental illness? Why doesn’t anyone ever leave the valley for good? Are they innocent survivalists? is it a cult? is it something more?
It’s not that Santaroga doesn’t like outsiders, it’s that they don’t need them. They produce plenty of their famous cheese, and they also produce everything else their residents need, from furniture and wine, to independently sourced auto parts and canned food. Most Santarogan-made products never leave the valley, and all residents work together to make everyone has enough, newlyweds have houses, and that everyone is taken care of. And everyone sure gets excited when a wheel of Jaspers Cheese is brought out.
The good news is that Gilbert does find Jenny, and they do patch things up to the point where she’d like to get married as soon as possible. But the more time Gilbert spends in the valley, the more he wants to leave and take Jenny with him. Santaroga is an odd place, to say the least. Salespeople are brutally honest about what’s wrong with the used cars in the lot. No one ever seems frustrated or depressed or angry, words between Santarogans are never misunderstood, and the smell of the famous Jaspers cheese is everywhere. And children? There’s not a single child to be seen in the valley.
Vintage Sci Fi Giveaway!
Posted on: January 27, 2013
- In: give away
- 16 Comments
Maybe you just read your first oldy moldy book, maybe you’ve loved classic, golden age, and vintage scifi for as long as you can remember. Either way, this give away is for you. Some of these I have duplicates of, others I don’t think I’ll read again, so I want to share them with my friends, and that means YOU!
The lucky winner gets all FIVE books! even better, this give away is INTERNATIONAL. You must be a resident (or visitor) of planet earth.
Behold the 1950s/1960s wonderfulness!
We’ve got:
Mission to the Stars by A.E. Van Vogt (1952)
Regan’s Planet by Robert Silverberg (1964)
The Case Against Tomorrow by Frederik Pohl (1957)
The Green Brain by Frank Herbert (1965)
The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert (1968) I’ll be reviewing this one shortly.
Be aware, these are all older printings, which means they are in good (but not great or perfect) condition. Some pages are yellowed, there is minimal damage to some of the covers. Some have prices written inside or stamps from the used bookstores they came from.
How to enter the giveaway? Easy! Just leave a comment below and make sure in your WordPress sign in to put your e-mail or twitter or some other way I can reach you. This give away will close at midnight, eastern time, on Friday February 1st.
The Zero Stone, by Andre Norton
Posted on: January 25, 2013
The Zero Stone, by Andre Norton
published in 1968
where I got it: borrowed
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Can someone please tell me why it took me so long to read this book? Nearly every Andre Norton I’ve picked up has been excellent, and The Zero Stone is no different. Skillfully written and wonderfully imaginative, I think this is my favorite Norton so far!
The story gets rolling right away when Murdoc Jern’s patron is assassinated. Raised by a gem dealer with shady connections and then apprenticed out to the legitimate gem merchant Vondar Ustle, Murdoc knows everything there is to know about gems and stones, but he’s woefully naive about everything else. When Ustle is murdered Murdoc finds sanctuary and then takes the first available ship off planet.
All this time, Murdoc has been in possession of a singularly strange ring. Too large for any human finger, the ring holds a weird lusterless stone. It was found on a corpse in space, and it seems to offer guidance to specific people. What does the ring point to? Is this why Ustle was killed? Is Murdoc in danger?
Befriended by the ship’s cat, Murdoc accidentally allows the cat to eat a strange pebble. The pebble impregnates the cat (don’t worry, this isn’t my favorite horror scifi movie), and a weird little mutant cat is born. The mutant cat, who calls itself Eet, is telepathic, intelligent, and refuses to tell Murdoc anything about it’s origin. Eet helps Murdoc escape from those who would do him harm, and a partnership is formed between the two. Not quite trusting friends, they do need each other. Eet is stuck in a tiny feline body and needs a strong person to help, and Murdoc could certainly use some help avoiding certain death and learning more about the powers and origin of the ring.
Guess what? the universe doesn’t implode if you are wearing a Doctor Who t-shirt while sipping coffee out of a Doctor-Who coffee mug while reading a Doctor Who novelization!
I’m a huge fan of the new-ish Doctor Who, but the old episodes (available on Netflix!) just aren’t that fun for me. It’s not their fault they haven’t aged well. Luckily, nearly all the story arcs were turned into novels, often by writers who were involved in the show. Terrance Dicks was a script editor on the show and also an editor at Target Books, who published the novelizations, and he would pen the book if the original script writer was unavailable. The Three Doctors was televised in December of 1972 and January of 1973, and the novelization was published in 1975.
Doctor Who and the Three Doctors by Terrance Dicks
published in 1975
where I got it: bought used
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Like many Doctor Who stories, the opening is deceptively simple, but things get complicated fast. A scientist researching cosmic rays accidentally beams an unwitting observer to an antimatter universe. The Doctor, his assistant Jo, and U.N.I.T. investigates, and are soon surrounded by humanoid shaped blobs of anti-matter. Meanwhile, back on Gallifrey, the Time Lords are experiencing a massive loss of power in the universe. Their only hope is the exiled Doctor, but he too has been trapped by a force powered by antimatter.
The surviving Time Lords agree they must break the first law of time: they must allow the doctor to cross his own time stream. The successfully bring back an earlier incarnation (referred to as Doctor Two), and are only semi-successful in bringing back a yet earlier version. The banter between The Doctor and Doctor Two is hilarious. Because of who they are, they are both completely weird, and there is much in the way of pot calling kettle black.
The Lost Continent, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (also published as Beyond Thirty)
published in 1916
where I got it: either bought used, or borrowed. it has my friend’s name stamped in the front, so I am not sure!
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Originally titled Beyond Thirty, and printed only once in an obscure magazine in 1916, The Lost Continent wasn’t available to the masses until the late 1950s. In the introduction to the novel, the Ace editor mentions the only copy he saw until this printing was a fan’s typed version that had been laboriously cribbed from another fan’s typed version or the original magazine printing. For decades, this was the lost manuscript of a master. To add to the mystery, the copyright page in this Ace printing contains only 4 lines, none of which specify the actual year this version was printed. If anyone can tell by the Frank Frazetta cover art or the suggested retail price of 60 cents, I’d appreciate knowing.
Since the outbreak of The Great War (that would be WWI, for those of us aware of its second incarnation), America has cut off contact with the other continents. For two hundred years Pan-America has kept it’s activities between 30 and 175 degrees longitude. War ships watch the waves, prepared to slaughter anything that comes across. But nothing, and no one, ever does.
Lieutenant Jefferson Turck grew up reading hearing his grandfather’s stories of England and Europe and studying his grandfather’s forbidden maps. Not everyone onboard the aero-sub agrees with Turck’s curious thoughts about the outside world or appreciates his ability to move up the military ranks. During a storm while patrolling The 30, his sub is sabotaged, and Turck soon finds himself stranded in a small motorboat with a few other seamen. And they are, most certainly, beyond the 30. With no possible way to survive the trip west over the Atlantic, the men row east towards England and the unknown.
The Case Against Tomorrow (collection) by Frederik Pohl
Printed in 1957, stories originally published between 1954 – 1956
Where I got it: bought used
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America in the 1950s – WWII had ended but Korea and the Cold War were ramping up, the American economy was booming, with more production, more consumerism, more home ownership, more children entering school, and a new concept called “suburbia”. Public schools became integrated, racial tensions and national anxieties soared, McCarthyism was born. It was a time of changes. Frederick Pohl observed and satirized everything around him – society, consumerism, politics, hubris, and conservative views on race and class. His matter of fact writing style feels like Vonnegut at times, and chillingly like Shirley Jackson at other times. Not every story in The Case Against Tomorrow is satire, but in my opinion most of them are.
Here are my thoughts on the 6 stories included in this thin little volume.
The Midas Plague (1954) – Morey Fry has just married his beautiful bride, and at first everything is blissful, as is often the case with young love. They certainly aren’t rich, but they work as hard as they can and dutifully get their quota book stamped and inspected for their clothing and food and furniture. But how much veal and expensive liquor and fancy clothes and opera tickets can two people possibly go through? As the robots tirelessly work to efficiently build and manufacture as many consumer goods as they can, the consumers must work just as tirelessly to use all these consumer goods. It’s a closed system, after all. Wealth means escape from the system, thus a poorer family is required to eat more three course meals, use up more luxury goods, go through more pairs of shoes, have a larger house that’s filled with yet more furniture. And when Morey accidentally comes up with a solution, will he be labeled traitor or hero? A highly entertaining and eye opening satire of consumerism and an unchecked manufacturing industry. The longest and best story in the collection.
The Census Takers (1955) – this is one way to solve an overpopulation issue. Cities can only handle so many people, so when a count is taken the overage must be handled. And there is no escaping the census. Told through the eyes of our narrator, who passes judgement on large families (and everybody else), and convinces one patriarch to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his children. So obsessed with counting, overing, and handling, the supervisors and enumerators are blinded to what’s happening right under their eyes. Satirical and creepy!
And yes, I am talking about *that* John Campbell. You know, the guy who edited Astounding (later renamed Analog) for nearly 35 years, the guy who kicked off the careers of many of the most famous golden age science fiction writers. This is the guy who in 1938 also penned a little novella called Who Goes There? which later became, among other incarnations, John Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing. Simply put, without Campbell, science fiction would not be what it is today.
The Black Star Passes, by John W. Campbell
published in 1930 / 1953
where I got it: purchased used
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The Black Star Passes is a 1953 fix-up of three of Campbell’s earlier stories that were originally written in 1930. I know that the stories were edited from their original forms to become a smoother novel, but I don’t know the extent of those changes. In Campbell’s introduction to this 1953 printing, he says the fiction he writes is for students (he specifies male students, but take it in the time in which it was written) who were discovering the joys of math, chemistry, and engineering while in high school or college. These stories were for people who enjoying thinking about problems and figuring out the answers. Basically, these are stories for science nuts.
In Piracy Preferred, the first story, the young inventors Arcot and Morey are challenged with catching an invisible thief. The pirate manages to gas entire airplanes with sleeping gas, get aboard, steal the valuables, and get away. the plane is able to safely land on auto-pilot, and no one is ever hurt in these attacks, except for the fact that the sleeping gas also cures many cancers and other ailments. If a pilot begins to feel sleepy, it’s too late. It’s quite entertaining when entire planes go up filled with the elderly and cancer stricken and all their money, hoping to bait the pirate into curing them. This isn’t a mystery or a suspense story, and after a bit of experimentation in their labs, Arcot and Morey are able to make themselves invisible, break through the invisibility cloak of the pirate, and catch him. And what do you do when you catch a genius criminal? you hire him, of course!
The Planet Buyer, by Cordwainer Smith
published in 1964
where I got it: purchased used
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Rod McBan the hundred and fifty first is the last of his illustrious line, so the law of Norstrilia allows him to have children. But he can’t control or properly develop his telepathy and is therefore considered flawed and handicapped, and no amount of therapy seems to help. Rod will either pass the tests and be allowed to breed, or be given euthanasia drugs. On pastoral Norstrilia, only the strongest are allowed to survive. They may be the farmers of the immortality drug Stroon, but the Norstrilians are a strict, traditional, and pragmatic people.
It’s fascinating how the richest planet in the universe ended up being sparsely populated by a bunch of farmers and their disease ridden mutant sheep. The narrative offers quite a bit of helpful background on how Norstrilia came to be. It borders on infodumping, but Smith’s easy going and conversational style prose makes it easy to dive right in and feel like you are right there.
At the last minute, Rod is saved from the grueling tests by Lord Redlady, a representative of The Instrumentality (the governing body of the galaxy), and given the opportunity to visit Manhome (Earth). Not sure what decision to make, Rod consults with the family computer, which has been hidden away under ground. The computer’s response is basically “leave it to me”, and the computer begins playing the stock market with Rod’s family fortune. Before dawn, Rod is the richest man in the galaxy, richer than the Stroon markets, possibly richer than The Instrumentality. If there was a time to escape to Manhome, now is that time!
Today’s post comes to us from nrlymrtl (pronounced Nearly Mortal, not Gnarly Myrtle), webmistress of Dab of Darkness and contributor at Dark Cargo. Thanks to the hardworking folks at Wildside Press who are making a large number of Stableford titles available as ebooks, nrlymrtl has been able to discover and enjoy a new-to-her author. Here’s her thoughts on some of his writings:
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Biologist, Sociologist, Writer: Brian Stableford
by nrlymrtl
In 2012, I discovered Brian Stableford and his Daedalus Mission books (The Florians, Critical Threshold, Wildeblood’s Empire, The City of the Sun, Balance of Power, & The Paradox of the Sets) as published by Wildside Press. The gorgeous, detailed covers on the Wildside Press additions are also an attraction. As a biologist, these books drew me in right away because of the underlying ecological and biological principles as applied to colonizing other worlds. Even on Earth, no matter where we go, we have always had to bargain with Nature, and she has not always been an easy bargainer. Spreading Humanity across the Universe is not only a daunting task mechanically, financially, engineeringly, but also in learning to manipulate new environments and ourselves long term biologically.
And that challenge, met not just in a few years, but rather haphazardly some generations later, is what captivated me about these books. So, of course, I had to read up on Stableford. Who is this man, how many more of his books are out there, and how many should-be-sleeping hours can I physically give up to his books?
The more I learned about this man, the more I appreciated him. This Brit graduated with a biology degree in 1969 and went on to study sociology, complete with a PhD thesis titled, ‘The Sociology of Science Fiction‘ in 1979. At over 70 novels, he is still writing and publishing today, so no worries that I will run out of quality reading material anytime soon.
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