A Sci Fi Reading Odyssey - 50 Novels

[Hobbit]

Still intending to read Startide, and looking forward to it. But having trouble finding it on Amazon. Says it's "currently unavailable".

Might be easier to get as part of the omnibus volume, Uplift, Matt?

LINK

 

[pogopossum]

There's also a SF Book Club edition of it in a combined edition (Earth Clan) with a third book (Uplift War) in the series, available used from Amazon. for $6.36 (including shipping)LINK.
Uplift is absolutely worth it on its own merits. It was a Nebula finalist and won the Hugo in its year.

A note about Sundiver, the first book in the series. Perfectly good work, just nowhere as good as the other two.

 

[Matt H.]

The Other Side of Here Murray Leinster [1936]
Ace
134 pages
Reader Response by Matt H. [v 1.22] from Reading Odyssey
Rating: Not highly recommended, but some excitement


Story and Setting

Across the country famous scientists are mysteriously disappearing. One evening, Steve Waldron, a biologist, and his fiancé, Lucy receive an urgent message. Lucy’s father’s is one of the missing scientists, and the message is from his assistant, Fran. He urgently warns the couple to depart from the Newark area immediately, but remains cryptic on the reason. Soon it becomes clear that a wide-spread, deadly conflict has begun. Amazingly, the assailants are an unknown race of earthlings that have always lived among us but within a different dimension. – The Other-siders. The have a terrible weapon that neutralizes all opposition, that has already caused all of Newark to go dark and absolutely, deathly still. And they are targeting New York next. The Other-Siders are looting cities and kidnapping citizens.

Steve must fight against overwhelming odds, to escape the attackers, and to find a way of defending himself and Lucy. The two go by car and by foot a long way through the darkened city, fleeing, fighting and gathering information. They are later joined by a journalist, Nick. They make use of guns scavenged, hand-made devices and captured enemy “armor.” Through misunderstanding Steve has also become the most wanted man in the US! Waldron must use his wits and scientific knowledge in a series of desperate gambles, and counter-sabotage to help give hope to the entire country during this invasion. The Other-Siders are not invincible. By sheer grit and fighting spirit, Steve, Lucy and the remaining earthlings still have a chance.

Critical Reader Appraisal

Though Steve and Lucy are traditional characters with predictable qualities, you can still care about them as they skulk through the creepy city on their desperate errands. It’s a very quick-moving plot initially, but once the main theme and scientific conceit are revealed, unfortunately, a marked blandness and repetitiveness sets in. There is also a crudeness of style, a shallowness, and at times even laziness in the writing, that further enfeebles the overall impression.

The story is mostly about creeping around the city, hiding, shooting, sabotaging, desperately trying to save the world. On one level, it’s a lot of action, but early on you correctly predict that it’s going to be a fairly flat, limited universe. A strong sense of caricature exist in both the dramatic scenes and the characters. It’s about shootouts, ships, jaw muscles and generators, military tactics. It’s a story of manly triumphs and apparenlty not too much else. Steve is a big, scientific, world-saving tough guy. Lucy is a dame with no trace of uniqueness I could see.

Even so, we can take some good from the book. As a concept, a parallel dimension with human inhabitants is certainly rich with potential. The nature of their secret weapon, though scientifically absurd, leads to a unique atmosphere -- the absolutely darkened, be-stilled city with the weirdly vanquished victims all around. The writer exploits this vividly in places. There are also well-portrayed, realistic scenes of big-city panic as the “dark zones” keep spreading.

I don’t think the Other-siders make a perfect metaphor for the Soviets, though there would seem to be similarities. The “Reds” are mentioned several times which would complicate the allegory. A prominent theme is the failure of the master/slave model of society. But one can imagine a more nuanced version. Here you have masters, literally whipping their slaves a la a Hollywood Ancient Egypt as they work. Again, it’s a crude imagining of the situation, and ridiculous as a potentially reality. But the point is that the Other-sider masters, couldn’t, wouldn’t and shouldn’t trust their slaves with any decent military training, thus they sucked badly at fighting. Perhaps there is more parallel to the Soviet Military of the 30’s than I realize. Were the Soviet soldiers of the 1930’s intentionally bad to avenge their oppressors?

Propaganda and mis-communication are prominent in the story too. Steve is saddled for all the blame in the “epidemic” (actually the results of the super weapon), and is thus fighting two foes in a sense, the Other-siders and the very authorities which he is risking his life to save. He faces an unjust martyrdom as he frantically tries to correct the misunderstanding and to pass critical messages to the outside. Professor Harmon is mistakenly gunned down by the military, which is a harsh comment on the stupidity of unreasoned, mis-information driven panic.

Loose ends didn’t help much. The love triangle theme with Fran was left dangling to an extent. Lucy’s father’s disappearance that drives the first part of the plot is resolved very undramatically and we never meet him. I also hungered for a real, non-discursive entre into the Other-sider world and culture and how and why their strange class system came to be. And worse, the motivation for the invasion and looting didn’t stick out effectively. We never get to go into the Other side and understand it.

So the perhaps too-rapidly unfolding main conceits, the monotony and limits of the plot, the flat characters, the not-highly satisfying ending I think will be the primary taste left in the reader’s mouth. There were short passages in there though, that were still exciting and novel. Too bad there was not even a little more variety and depth, because it has the basic outline of a promising story.

 

[Windshadow]

Paperback pricing of my youth 35 cents in the case of this Ace Double but many books still selling for 25¢ at the time

 

[Matt H.]

Might be easier to get as part of the omnibus volume, Uplift, Matt?

LINK

Thanks, Hobbit. I should really get smarter and go Omnibus as you recommend, save some $$. If I like Brin, will doubtlessly get around to the rest of Uplift. All that said, I have a thing for the individual books, though I may need to cover over that too story-explicit cover-art. Hehehe.. all part of the fun!

 

[Matt H.]

Paperback pricing of my youth 35 cents in the case of this Ace Double but many books still selling for 25¢

Hahaha..!

Windy, what's weird right now about pricing (and something I think unique to this genre of collecting) is that "collectibles" are cheaper than non-collectibles! You can get an Ace Double (a neat, but crumbling part of publishing history) for about 6.50 USD. A new book costs min 8.95 USD! I can understand how one could get drawn in... Ace Doubles first, then on to signed first edition H.G. Wells, khe, khe, khe

 

[Matt H.]

Finished my review of Other Side of Here.

Now I can Space-Beagle to my heart's content (an apt Pogo-ism).

Shame I won't achieve a highly compressed reading of it. That's important, and tends to work in a book's favor. Don't you folks agree? But distractions...

Help wanted! I need to beef-up the 1935-1949 section of my list. Suggestions, other than what I already have?

• Odd John, Olaf Stapledon [1935]
• The Other Side of Here, Murray Leinster [1936]
• *Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon [1937]
• Lest Darkness Fall, Sprauge de Camp [1939]
• Gray Lensman, Doc Smith [1939]
• Genus Homo, Sprague de Camp/Miller (1941)
• Destiny Times Three, Lieber (1943)
• One Against Eternity, A.E. Van Vogt [1947]
• The Humanoids, Jack Williamson [1949]
• Earth Abides, Stewart, [1949]
• *The Paradox Men, Charles L. Harness [1949]

 

[ArthurFrayn]

One man's opinion: Why do 2 of a given writer out of the gate? Why not pick one and see how it goes down? For example, if you're going to read the representative book by Stapledon, I'd pick Star Maker.

Gateway is fun. Definitely worth a read!

 

[Matt H.]

One man's opinion: Why do 2 of a given writer out of the gate? Why not pick one and see how it goes down? For example, if you're going to read the representative book by Stapledon, I'd pick Star Maker.

Gateway is fun. Definitely worth a read!

Hey Arthur. I already read/reviewed Odd John and Gateway. Thing is is that there are not that many great, wewll known stand-alone Sci Fi novels (excluding certain writers, see head post). 1935-49 That's why both Stablendon. If you can think of anything to sub for Starmaker (same year about), lmk.

 

[ArthurFrayn]

My bad! I'll scroll back and catch those reviews!!

 

[Matt H.]

My bad! I'll scroll back and catch those reviews!!

Np. Gateway one of my favs, Odd John, my least fav, lol

 

[Matt H.]

Calling all ERB-ologists!

Anyone like to float a few Edgar Rice Burroughs books for the list? He is pretty dominant (along with RAH) during the period 1935-49, no?

Questions:

1. Is there much difference in the overall quality of his books, or are they all roughly comparable?

2. What are 2-3 of the *best* of the more Sci Fi/ less Fantasy, Non-Tarzan(?) ones (1935-49)? (Well-known, influential) from List below?

Back to the Stone Age Pellucidar #05 1935
Carson of Venus Venus #03 1937
Synthetic Men of Mars Barsoom #09 1938
Land of Terror Pellucidar #06 1939
Slaves of the Fish Men Venus #04 1940
The City of Mummies Barsoom #10 1940
The Return to Pellucidar Pellucidar #07 1940
Goddess of Fire Venus #04 1940
Black Pirates of Barsoom Barsoom #10 1940
Men of the Bronze Age Pellucidar #07 1940
The Living Dead Venus #04 1940
Yellow Men of Mars Barsoom #10 1940
Adventure on Poloda Beyond #2 1940
Tiger Girl Pellucidar #07 1940
War on Venus Venus #04 1940
Invisible Men of Mars Barsoom #10 1940
Tangor Returns Beyond #3 1940
The Wizard of Venus Venus #05 1941
Skeleton Men of Jupiter Barsoom #11 1941
Savage Pellucidar Pellucidar #07 1944

 

[pogopossum]

Read 20? 30? Burroughs in my youth. About a third were Tarzans.
Honestly, most of the Space stuff sort of fades together. His first John Carter is still in my memory, as is the second. Might I suggest that if you decide to indulge in brawny protagonists you might consider the first two, A Princess of Mars and Gods of Mars as one book?
Still, it probably is more than a person should have to endure to consume that much schmaltz in one gulp.

 

[Matt H.]

Read 20? 30? Burroughs in my youth. About a third were Tarzans.
Honestly, most of the Space stuff sort of fades together. His first John Carter is still in my memory, as is the second. Might I suggest that if you decide to indulge in brawny protagonists you might consider the first two, A Princess of Mars and Gods of Mars as one book?
Still, it probably is more than a person should have to endure to consume that much schmaltz in one gulp.

Thanks, Pogo! Consensus seems to be his better/best work was in the 1910's-20's, but it's outside the date range 35-49. Think I'm going with Synthetic Men of Mars, or more likely... Carson of Venus.

 

[pogopossum]

FYI,
Looked up Carson of Venus. Before I qualified the search to get the Burroughs book, I came up with articles about Alyssa Carson, the first teenager to participate in every available space program , with a huge desire to be on the first expedition to Mars. At 15, she participated in the Advanced PoSSUM (Project Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere) Space Academy. ( Ahem, never heard of it before).
Point being, other than the egoboo of the name, her bio is exemplary of the fact that kids are as or more science/adventure oriented as ever.
Edit: Sources prefer Carson of Veenus. Keep up the good work

 

[Hobbit]

Sources prefer Carson of Venus.

It's also the first in a series, isn't it?

 

[Matt H.]

It's also the first in a series, isn't it?

Hobbit, yeah... There seems to be no way around that. *Every* ERB is part of a series! I will see if it is self-contained enough as a novel. Test would be is there large, unresolved plot items (a lot of "to be continued"). If so, guess I have to drop ERB altogether. Read it recently? Maybe you can tell me.

(added)

Actually, looks like it's the 3rd book or the Venus series.

 

[Matt H.]

FYI,
Looked up Carson of Venus. Before I qualified the search to get the Burroughs book, I came up with articles about Alyssa Carson, the first teenager to participate in every available space program , with a huge desire to be on the first expedition to Mars. At 15, she participated in the Advanced PoSSUM (Project Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere) Space Academy. ( Ahem, never heard of it before).
Point being, other than the egoboo of the name, her bio is exemplary of the fact that kids are as or more science/adventure oriented as ever.
Edit: Sources prefer Carson of Veenus. Keep up the good work

Oh, the things you learn, eh? Going to call you PoSSUM from now on, hahaha. Thanks for tidbits. Yeah Carson is seen as one of the better among the list I gave.

 

[Vince W]

Hobbit, yeah... There seems to be no way around that. *Every* ERB is part of a series! I will see if it is self-contained enough as a novel. Test would be is there large, unresolved plot items (a lot of "to be continued"). If so, guess I have to drop ERB altogether. Read it recently? Maybe you can tell me.

(added)

Actually, looks like it's the 3rd book or the Venus series.

I've read a lot ERB and while it's true everything is part of a series I found them to be pretty encapsulated. Sure, there is the odd reference to previous events but nothing that would make reading that particular one less enjoyable because you hadn't.

 

[Hobbit]

What Vince said.