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spoltz
Posted 2015-02-25 2:53 PM (#9726 - in reply to #9182)
Subject: Re: Pick and Mix 2015		Quote Reply



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		Okay, I'll come out of lurker mode :-) I really liked Double Star. I read it for my personal conquer the Hugo winners challenge. In my SF book club, one of the members pronounced, "If you can take away the science, and still have a novel, it's not science fiction". I really take issue with that because IMHO, you can take away the science from most SF and you end with a, albeit often sparce, novel of some sort. Notice I say most, not all. Even the hardest space operas can be sifted down to horse operas, and eventually to some literary theme. "The Martian", which I read for this challenge is exactly that. Sift it down enough and you have MacGuyver meets Robinson Crusoe. Okay, I'll get off my soap box now.

I started this challenge with "The Martians" which I loved. I thought jokingly that it wasn't science fiction, it was engineering fiction. Some people at my bookclub took issue with there being so little about his emotional state. And although I prefer deep characters and emotions, I didn't miss it at all. The action was great and it kept me on the edge of my seat.

Oh, and I'll reiterate from my first post, that I'm using this challenge for the selections from the bookclub I belong to, since last year, I was constantly reorganizing my challenges to fit the selections. We only choose the books 2 to 3 months in advance.

For February, I read "A Night in the Lonesome October" by Zelazny. It's part Cthulu mythos with a bunch of literary and real and generic historical figures thrown in. The book is told in diary style by Jack the Ripper's dog. The dog, and all the animals in the story, are familiars to the people, helping them prepare for some cataclysmic event that's not really revealed until nearly the very end. The book has a huge cult following and some people read it annually in October. I didn't find it as fun as it sounds. I wasn't really engaged until the last few chapters. I thought it was a little too meandering for the first two thirds or so. But I'll probably read it again in October, and give it a second chance.

As soon as I finish "Return of the King" for my Tolkien challenge, I'll be reading "The Last Policeman" by Ben H Winters for P&M.

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