Listen:
Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
—Slaughterhouse Five, Chapter Two.
Praised, reviled, declared a classic, and banned by some school boards, Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut’s entertaining attack on human stupidity and the absurdity of war—even a war with aims he supports—remains a must-read. It is the second in my ongoing reviews of Vonnegut’s best novels. The review of Sirens of Titans appears here.
It’s the cleanest depiction of self-flagellation I’ve ever read. And let’s not get into how he cleans up the Templars. They’re heroes protecting the Jesus Princess! You could give that book to a ten-year-old.
–My wife.
The best-selling novel of the last couple of years has a plot that relates to the Holy Grail, so it connects to a major influence on fantasy lit, and it’s actually set in the near-future, making it a kind of SF. A movie will be out soon, and I just received a copy of the illustrated edition; therefore I’m going to review it here.
Doug Naylor’s solo entry in the Red Dwarf
series is reviewed below. I’ll review Rob Grant’s
solo entry after I catch up on some comic reviews.
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Before we decamp at Gavagan’s or Callahan’s (or even Lady Sally’s), we probably passed through high school. Edited by Nancy Springer, this 1999 anthology heads out to the prom, SF and fantasy-style.
Jack Chalker, author of over 50 science fiction and fantasy books and novels, passed away today just before noon. He will be missed.
“I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled ‘Science Fiction’… and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics mistake the drawer for a urinal.”
–Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons
The late Douglas Adams acknowledged that this novel influenced him when he wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Alan Moore had been reading it when he wrote Watchmen, given the similarity in some of the plot elements (though Watchmen, like HHG, becomes something else entirely).
When I was a teen, I got into Vonnegut’s writing, and have since read everything he’s written. The quality varies, but his best books have become required reading in some circles, and I plan to review five of his best genre novels over the next couple of months.
The late Timothy Findley wrote a wide range of novels. The Wars tells the tale of a Canadian soldier who loses his mind during World War I. Famous Last Words presents a fictional character’s conspiracy-theory version of World War II. Among his most extraordinary works ranks Not Wanted on the Voyage, a postmodern fantasy that retells the story of the Biblical Deluge.
Your Sunday School Teacher likely wouldn’t approve.
The Red Dwarf Omnibus is a printing of
Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers
and Red Dwarf: Better Than Life in a single
volume.
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A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare to it now.
It is too late. The Evacuation still proceeds, but it’s all theatre. There are no lights inside the cars. No light anywhere. Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through. But it’s night. He’s afraid of the way the glass will fall– soon– it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light, only great invisible crashing.
Do you like vampires, werewolves, shamans, and reptilian aliens? Well, they’re all in here.
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