Showing posts sorted by date for query Robert Heinlein. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Robert Heinlein. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Sunday, July 10, 2016
In Memory Yet Green by Isaac Asimov
When I was a kid, my interest in science
fiction was fed by reading many short stories
from the heyday of science fiction magazines in
the 1940s and 1950s. I
particularly remember reading I, Robot,
a collection of stories written by Isaac Asimov.
(The book is still in bookstores after more than four decades. Will Smith is
on the cover; his 2004
movie
of the same title was based on one of the stories.)
Asimov wrote an extensive autobiography.
The first volume, In Memory Yet Green,
covers the first 34 years of his life. As you would expect, his life in that
timeframe was similar to many other. He grew up, completed his formal education,
started his career
and started a family.
Like other famous people, Asimov had fortunate timing, talent, and
willingness to work hard to achieve something. He is best known for his
achievements as a science fiction writer. Writing was
not his sole profession during this part of his life, but he was a fairly
prolific writer and was well known in science fiction circles. He had a
reputation in science fiction fandom before he
ever published a fiction story. He was a fan of the early science fiction
magazines and regularly wrote letters to them. He made friends with other fans,
several of whom became successful writers along with him, particularly fellow Futurians.
As he put time into writing stories, his participation in fandom waned.
His other career as an academic chemist also took up a lot of time. Though it
is well known among science fiction fans, others may not be aware that had a
Ph.D. in chemistry
and was a professor at a medical school. He co-wrote two biochemistry textbooks
during this period.
The book covers many aspects of his life, both professional and
personal. He begins with his birth in Russia and ends
as a husband
(to Gertrude)
and father
(to David)
on the verge of a career transition. In between he lived through two world wars,
the Great
Depression, and many other upheavals of the first half of the 20th
Century. Asimov shares his experiences and views of these events.
Asimov’s style in his autobiography is much as it is in his other
writings: straightforward and often jovial. He is not shy about his
accomplishments, but he is often humorously self-deprecating and willing to
confess to his boneheaded moments.
The book will probably appeal mostly to science fiction fans. Asimov
got in on the ground floor. He knew many of the other writers, editors, and
publishers of his generation including Ian and Betty
Ballantine, John Campbell,
L.
Sprague de Camp, Lester Del
Rey, Robert
Heinlein and Frederik Pohl.
If you’re interested in reading this book, you may also be interested
in
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Top 20 Books So Far
I recently posted the review for the 300th book on
this blog. Here is a list of the top 20 books reviewed.
1. Epistles
4. First Samuel
6. Joshua
7. Ruth
8. Revelation
9. First Kings
10. First
Chronicles
11. King
James Bible
12. The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
13. The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
14. The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
15. Maus by Art Spiegelman
16. Into the Depths of God by Calvin Miller
17. War Against the Weak by Edwin Black
18. Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
12. The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
13. The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
14. The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
15. Maus by Art Spiegelman
16. Into the Depths of God by Calvin Miller
17. War Against the Weak by Edwin Black
18. Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs
300 Books Reviewed on Keenan’s Book Reviews
I’ve
posted reviews of 300 books on this blog. It’s hard to believe. Here are links to the 50 most recent posts.
Further down are links to more reviews.
First
Time Reviews
Additional
and Expanded Reviews
Continuation
of list of 250 books reviewed
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont (234) & The Revenge of Kali-Ra by K. K. Beck (235)
Malmont,
Paul. The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown. New
York: Simon
& Schuster, 2011.
Beck,
K. K. The Revenge of Kali-Ra.
Paul Malmont clearly loves pulps.
The
Chinatown Cloud Peril is one of the most fun books I’ve ever read. He revisits this territory in The Astounding, the Amazing and the Unknown.
Astounding
places fictional versions of science
fiction authors in a scientific mystery
adventure
some of them might have been glad to write.
Some of the characters are pulp authors who appeared in Peril (Robert
Heinlein, L.
Ron Hubbard, Walter
Gibson, and Lester
Dent, a fellow Missourian). Others are authors of the era when the old
pulps gave way to comics and sci-fi magazines (Isaac
Asimov, L.
Sprague de Camp, and editor John
Campbell).
A group of science fiction
writers, most of them scientist and engineers as well, are working for the Navy
to turn crazy ideas into reality in a proto-DARPA. They’re not producing a lot of results and
their leader, former Naval officer Heinlein, is feeling the pressure. They stumble upon the suggestion that
inventor Nikola
Tesla accidentally created a superweapon at Wardenclyffe, which is why the
tower he built there came down. Their
search for answers leads them on a twisting trail from the underground rivers
of New York to the heights of the General
Electric hierarchy. Red herrings about and these clever authors
don’t catch on to the biggest one in the book.
The character development is
interesting, too. Heinlein is feeling
left out of opportunities to make a real difference, but eventually gets an
inkling that his stories can make a difference.
The seeds of Scientology
are planted in Hubbard. I think the
strongest character development occurs in the fictional Asimov. He goes through something like a conventional
coming-of-age story. He starts as a
frightened youth, faces his fears and becomes a man. In addition, is a loner struggling in his marriage
who finds a way to bring his wife into partnership with him, having a passion
for her that matched the passion he had for his work. That is good stuff; it adds depth to a story
that is mostly and-then-and-then suspense.
For the geeks (that includes
me), there are appearances by fictional versions of many other people. Authors include Nowell
Page of The Spider, Hugh
Cave, aka Justin
Case, and Kurt
Vonnegut as an Easter egg. Actor Jimmy
Stewart lends his skill as a pilot.
Mystic and rocket scientist Jack
Parsons could spin off a weird tale of his own. Even Manhattan
Project physicists Robert
Oppenheimer, Julian
Schwinger, and Richard
Feynman make an appearance.
While I’m writing about an
homage to pulps, I’d like to mention The
Revenge of Kali-Ra by K. K. Beck. I
wrote a review of it that got lost in a hard drive crash (even so, I named it
one of the best
books I read in 2010). The story
focuses on fictional pulp stories featuring the villainous vixen of the title,
which may no longer be public domain and may be valuable because of a proposed
movie base on them. The scent of money
is in the air, bad characters pick up the scent, decent people are caught up in
the events, and mayhem ensues. Kali-Ra isn’t as good as Astounding, but it’s a fun read. Beck includes clips from ersatz Kali-Ra tales
that are full of the type of florid language one might expect, even hope for,
in pulp.
Paul Malmont also wrote The Chinatown
Death Cloud Peril.
If you’re interested in this
book, you may also be interested in
Google
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont
Malmont, Paul. The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.
There is trouble in Chinatown. The war god that sets faction against faction in Asia stretches a tentacle across the world to stir plots and revenge in America. Heroes rise to meet this menace, very unlikely heroes: writers.
Malmont takes real life writers of pulp magazines, who he clearly regards with great respect and affection, and puts fictional versions of them in the middle of the kind of adventure they may have written. Some of these writers were legends in their time, but may be little know today. For instance, the main characters are Walter Gibson, who wrote The Shadow as Maxwell Grant, and Lester Dent, who penned Doc Savage as Kenneth Robeson. Other names may be more familiar to modern readers of genre fiction, especially L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein. H. P. Lovecraft plays a brief but pivotal role in a creepy way suited to his weird tales. Several lesser know pulp writers play lesser roles in the story.
I enjoyed these intrusions of biography into the wild fiction. I don’t think anyone would need to be a fan of pulps to enjoy the book. If someone enjoys adventure stories, he’ll probably enjoy this one. The characters sometimes discuss what might be real, if improbable, and what is pulp, a good yarn. Malmont puts the pulp first.
Malmont achieves the right balance of fact and fiction by throwing out the balance. It’s fiction first. The reality is informative and fun, but Malmont makes it work double duty. It is biography and history, but it also helps the reader connect to the characters and their world, which does much to serve the fictional story.
The best thing about the book is that it is fun. It’s a thriller that thrills. It’s a twisty tale that doesn’t try to throw the reader, but sweep them along.
There is trouble in Chinatown. The war god that sets faction against faction in Asia stretches a tentacle across the world to stir plots and revenge in America. Heroes rise to meet this menace, very unlikely heroes: writers.
Malmont takes real life writers of pulp magazines, who he clearly regards with great respect and affection, and puts fictional versions of them in the middle of the kind of adventure they may have written. Some of these writers were legends in their time, but may be little know today. For instance, the main characters are Walter Gibson, who wrote The Shadow as Maxwell Grant, and Lester Dent, who penned Doc Savage as Kenneth Robeson. Other names may be more familiar to modern readers of genre fiction, especially L. Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein. H. P. Lovecraft plays a brief but pivotal role in a creepy way suited to his weird tales. Several lesser know pulp writers play lesser roles in the story.
I enjoyed these intrusions of biography into the wild fiction. I don’t think anyone would need to be a fan of pulps to enjoy the book. If someone enjoys adventure stories, he’ll probably enjoy this one. The characters sometimes discuss what might be real, if improbable, and what is pulp, a good yarn. Malmont puts the pulp first.
Malmont achieves the right balance of fact and fiction by throwing out the balance. It’s fiction first. The reality is informative and fun, but Malmont makes it work double duty. It is biography and history, but it also helps the reader connect to the characters and their world, which does much to serve the fictional story.
The best thing about the book is that it is fun. It’s a thriller that thrills. It’s a twisty tale that doesn’t try to throw the reader, but sweep them along.
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