Science Fiction Writers Workshop

Unless you're completing a Heinlein collection or are studying him this is not a book to buy. It does have some interesting history about RH but you can get that elsewhere or borrow this from a library.

The book reads like a poorer written version of his later work (it was his first novel) with an economics lesson thrown in (I skipped most of that). I had thought that Heinlein turned into a dirty old man in the 60's but this proves he started that way. Either he couldn't get that published until the late 60's or I was limited to my high school's library which wouldn't carry that sort of stuff.

This is Crichton's latest. It is on the subject of genetic engineering and set in the current time. It is basically a series of chapters about different characters who may or may not end up in the climax. A lot of characters. Very few whom you can care about. Mostly it is a fictional setting for Crichton's views about the state of genetic research today. He may be right but that hasn't translated into a good story.

If you like books with a lot of characters (I can't keep them straight) then this might be worth a loan from a library.

I'm starting Heinlein's _For Us, the Living_ which was written in 1939.

This a collection of three short novels by Edmond Hamilton. It's pure adventure scifi, little merit in creativity, but man is it engaging reading. It's clear why this stuff sells. The physical writing is horrible, absolutely horrible, bad grammar, lots of excess words. Often I put the page down for a second I'm so annoyed. However, the characters are riveting, and you never know how the space mercenaries are going to get out of their current mess. If you want a plot structure for pulp scifi adventure stories, this book is perfect. It knows where to start and where to end.

I believe it's currently out of print though.

Is anyone interested in discussing the stories in the latest major magazines? I've got the March issues of F&SF and Asimov's, The April Analog, and the Winter 2006 Apex.

So far in F&SF I've read Magic with Thirteen-year Old Boys and The Devil Bats Will Be a Little Late This Year. Both are good fantasy reads. Devil Bats is an amusing read, not hilarious but fun. Magic is one of those stories that doesn't completely tell you what has happened but lets you infer the conclusion.

Any more comments on these or other stories?

Dave K

Anyone read this? Classic dark humor and hyperbole set in a war-time setting. Until recently, this kind of dark humor and satire could only be found in war-settings, as this was really the only plausible setting to unleash the truly gruesome of humanity. The books and movies of American Pscho and Fight Club are two examples of breaking out of this "war setting" constraint to examine Humanity's bestial underbelly.

It's a style of writing based on oppostites--set-up a central image of a character or idea or an event and then have the main character, Yossarian, believe the exact opposite of everything that was previously stated. It works beautifully.