Monday 1 October 2018

An Explanatory Update

Hi. Happy October.

I did mean to post more yesterday and even have a draft of an unfinished post which will now be drastically revised because I have had more time to think about it. While cleaning the keyboard, I accidentally pressed some combination of keys that disabled the lap top. Even Ketlan, following online instructions, was unable to re-enable it so it had to go back to the shop but all's well that ends well.

I intend to post about the treatment of lunar colonization in future histories. While waiting for the lap top to be re-enabled, I:

reread "How Beautiful With Banners" by James Blish and corrected an error on James Blish Appreciation;

reread "This Earth of Hours" by James Blish and might soon post about its nonhumanoid alien (in fact, see here);

reread some stories in Robert Heinlein's The Green Hills Of Earth.

Although Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History was directly modeled on Heinlein's Future History, some aspects of the Future History are unique to it (I think) and this observation might generate another post.

Outward into the universe with Heinlein, Blish and Anderson!

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I really should read or reread more of the works of Heinlein and Blish! Esp. RAH's pre-STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND books, which were far better than the awful dreck he started writing with STRANGER. I had occasion recently to mention in a chatroom his DOUBLE STAR, FIFTH COLUMN, and THE PUPPET MASTERS, to list some pre-STRANGER works by RAH.

I regret to say this, knowing how enthusiastic you are for Blish's works, but his books simply doesn't RESONATE (to use a term from THE ENEMY STARS) as strongly with me as does those of Anderson and RAH's pre-STRANGER books. That was because of how I had difficulties appreciating his Flying Cities books the last time I tried to read them. But I did (and do) like Blish's A CASE OF CONSCIENCE, BLACK EASTER, and THE DAY AFTER JUDGMENT.

I recently finished rereading Anderson's THE ENEMY STARS and I feel in a mood to finally get to down to reading Tolkien's THE FALL OF GONDOLIN (as edited by his son Christopher).

While checking for when the latest books by Stirling were going to be published I discovered, to my regret, that THEATER OF SPIES is not going to be pub. in January 2019, the scheduled date has been postponed to MAY! His BLACK CHAMBER was so fascinating that I'm disappointed at having to wait so much longer for THEATER.

Sean