Elemental Reading
Sep. 18th, 2005 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
A short review of the last two books I've read:
First up, Lurulu by Jack Vance.
This is the sequel to Ports of Call and the first chapter is basically a recap to get you up to speed. and that speed is dead slow. Much like it's subject matter (a tramp freighter plying the space lanes) this book just kinda meanders all over the place. Even when the main characters get involved in stuff that should really be dramatic it's only ever just kinda interesting and then anticlimactic. So...yeah, read it.
Happily, the next book I just finished up is, The Periodic Table of Science Fiction by Michael Swanwick (no Amazon entry apparently). Originally a short weekly series for the SciFi network's website, this is, as you might suspect, a collection of 118 micro-stories (a page or two long) each revolving (sometimes loosely) around a single element from the periodic table. Obviously some stories are better than others, but it's not until the end, when you're dealing with nearly theoretical elements that he really starts to fall down. Most of the stories are quite good. Certainly it's a quick, breezy read and a number of stories are informative and quite entertaining. It's not the best thing all year, but it's certainly a novel collection.
later
Tom
A short review of the last two books I've read:
First up, Lurulu by Jack Vance.
This is the sequel to Ports of Call and the first chapter is basically a recap to get you up to speed. and that speed is dead slow. Much like it's subject matter (a tramp freighter plying the space lanes) this book just kinda meanders all over the place. Even when the main characters get involved in stuff that should really be dramatic it's only ever just kinda interesting and then anticlimactic. So...yeah, read it.
Happily, the next book I just finished up is, The Periodic Table of Science Fiction by Michael Swanwick (no Amazon entry apparently). Originally a short weekly series for the SciFi network's website, this is, as you might suspect, a collection of 118 micro-stories (a page or two long) each revolving (sometimes loosely) around a single element from the periodic table. Obviously some stories are better than others, but it's not until the end, when you're dealing with nearly theoretical elements that he really starts to fall down. Most of the stories are quite good. Certainly it's a quick, breezy read and a number of stories are informative and quite entertaining. It's not the best thing all year, but it's certainly a novel collection.
later
Tom
