Why I reread this book: It's the SFDG book for today.
This is at least the third time I've read this book. It took me a while to get traction with it;...moreWhy I reread this book: It's the SFDG book for today.
This is at least the third time I've read this book. It took me a while to get traction with it; I was annoyed by some of Gibson's tics, and by how much our view of the present has diverged from what he portrayed in 1984. But once I got back into it, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I really wish I had a) more time to savor it, and b) someone to discuss some of the details, and some of the ideas in the book. Hopefully I'll get a bit of that at the SFDG meeting tonight, though I'm discouraged by the number of people who weren't planning on rereading it.
Someday I hope to read it more slowly and be able to detail the differences between our world and its.
One thing that struck me this time through: How much it's influenced by Samuel R. Delany and J. G. Ballard. Another thing: I think I finally understand the third-from-last and penultimate paragraph ;-).
Why I Read This Book: I was looking at my shelves (to see if I own a dead-tree copy of American Gods--the upcoming SFDG book for June) and was struck...moreWhy I Read This Book: I was looking at my shelves (to see if I own a dead-tree copy of American Gods--the upcoming SFDG book for June) and was struck by the coincidence; "Fan-Dancer's Horse" is the next episode for me to watch from Netflix.
It's (mostly) well-written, though there are some clumsy bits early on, where Mason seemingly acts out of character. In these degenerate times, I had to look up certain terms--"fan dancer" and "nautch dancer"--and was surprised to find out there were so many different kinds of burlesque.
I think this was a re-read; while there were a lot of things I didn't remember, I did remember the critical clue well enough to spoil the story. (Or perhaps I remembered the critical clue from the TV series; I'll be watching the episode next.)
Why I read this book: I hadn't planned to read this, but I glanced at it while putting The Case of the Fan-Dancer's Horse back on the shelf--and got h...moreWhy I read this book: I hadn't planned to read this, but I glanced at it while putting The Case of the Fan-Dancer's Horse back on the shelf--and got hooked ;-).
It's very professionally told; there aren't any infelicities that knocked me out of the story. It's also very clever; I didn't see the last twist coming at all.
As far as I can tell, this was not made into an episode of the TV series. (At least, there aren't any episodes with "Phantom" in the title, and "Fortune" appears in two episodes whose summaries don't match.) (On the other hand, given that The Case of the Counterfeit Eye was turned into "The Case of the Treacherous Toupee" for TV, maybe it was made into a TV episode at some point.)
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