Books Read- 203 Books to Read-282 Percent Complete- 41.86%

Just Finished (For the third time) - 'Mirror Dance' by Lois McMaster Bujold

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

I'm going to start reading 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' by Walter Miller as my next book.  I've been putting it off for awhile and I can't really say why.  It's a real classic of the genre and it's high time I finished it off.  I've also posted a review of 'Dark Universe' by Daniel F. Galouye.  This is sort of a tough book to review as it has a fair share of problems, but the concept, I believe, deserves notice.  Galouye tried to do something with this novel that I haven't seen before or since, and that deserves a little respect and recognition.

I try to remind myself whenever I read a book that the same amount of energy, love, dedication, and time goes in to making a bad novel as goes in to making a great one.  Someone took the time and energy to put their baby out there for public consumption, the least a critic can do is treat it with a modicum of respect.  You'll read a lot of reviews on the internet that will trash anything the reviewer doesn't like as being the worst thing ever, the anonymity of the internet provides a great wall from which to hide behind while we sling insults.  That's not the kind of person I want to be, and those aren't the types of reviews I want to write.

There are books out there I don't care for, and there are a lot of books written in the early days of science fiction that border on unreadable for a variety of reasons.  But all of them add up to something, all of them contribute to the genre as a whole, and all of them need to be considered with care.  That's why I'm reading all the nominees, not just the ones that are considered classics. And even with those 'bad' novels I'll try to point out why I think they're important to the genre as a whole, or to either one of the awards.  I have a hard time just bashing on any novel.

But take a look at the new review and tell me what you think.  Next I believe I'll review 'The Wanderer' by Fritz Lieber.  Then after that I'm going to try talking about something that was maybe written a little bit sooner than the ones I've written to date, maybe something that was written before my father was born might be in order.

2 comments:

  1. After you asked about 'The Eskimo Invasion' decided to come look around here. (did you see my response to your question at WP?) Highly recommend 'Canticle' after reading it twice over the past decade or so but would just as strongly warn anyone from the sequel - 'Saint Leibowitz And The Wild Horse Woman'.

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  2. I really liked Canticle, just finished it. And thanks for the heads up on Wild Horse Woman. I think I learned my lesson about sequels with the Riverworld books, now I just assume they're awful unless notified by a trustworthy source. Though I'd kind of assumed Horse Woman would be good judging by how amazing Canticle was, like I said thanks for the warning.

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