Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

As I expected, this reads more like something from the 1920s or 30s, not the 1960s (except for Madame Atomos's revenge motivation being tied to WW2). Sax Rohmer territory, with a pinch of Eric Frank Russell, and even Edogawa Rampo, or Edgar Wallace pulpy stuff...odd that this comes out of France in the 1960s. Horror/Sci-Fi hybrid, fairly silly, action-packed - scary, at times. I've saved the Introduction for later.

Right okay - so I'm getting the radioactive zombies first, and the giant spiders a little later on. And then a Christmas story to put a bow on everything. I would have preferred giant spiders first, followed by irradiated zombies, but nothing in life is perfect and I'm not that guy who says "the writer should have done this...". The big issue with this will be, how much of it has not aged well.

I'm a bit ahead when it comes to my John Dickson Carr summer reading project - and I find that reading a book about a large part of the history of SF, Astounding by Nevala-Lee, has put me in the mood to read a flurry of SF works. Maybe. The plan is: The Terror of Madame Atomos; Naked Lunch; The Return of Tarzan (SF?! kind of, I think). Maybe in a row, with The Covenant breaking up any (unlikely) samey-ness...

Okay. I'm calm, but....hoo, I'm a bit pissed. Fredric Brown's name appears once, and is spelled wrong. Frederic Brown. If I end up giving this book 3 stars instead of 4, it is because we can cover Asimov's groping of female behinds in detail, we can lay out Campbell's racism correctly, and deal with all that is horrid about Hubbard every minute, and we can't get Fredric Brown's name right once.

I bought and read this when it came out, knowing nothing about the character, or who created him. I was just curious, and I loved the look, and the character's name. I can't remember if I knew the series had been cancelled already...but when I read it, I enjoyed it. Now I learn that Mr. Terrific is pretty terrifically fabulous in the new Superman film. So I'm gonna re-read and see what I think...

My favorite Hubbard is Slaves of Sleep. My favorite Heinlein is The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag. Favorite Asimov is Second Foundation. Of course, with Campbell it has to be Who Goes There?. I don't read Hubbard at all now (mainly did for reading-list requirements - Fear, Slaves of Sleep); I would read Heinlein, Asimov, or Campbell at any time - but don't actively go after their work, much.

There are some creative talents you could not hinge this book on, but I am thrilled as they get mentioned, beyond just the “Big Four” headlining things. Enter Jack Williamson, my favourite SF and Fantasy writer of the Golden Age! Also, loved the special mention of Sinister Barrier by Eric Frank Russell, even though it was selected for the debut issue of Unknown.

So what I'm getting, at the start, are the childhoods and youthful days of Campbell, Heinlein, Asimov, and Hubbard (though age differences have put the Heinlein data into the romance and marriage phase). I could take or leave alone the personal bios of any of these four guys...but the nexus point, the pulps, and any look at SF's evolution, will help me deal with these three rather off-putting dudes.

Not reading much SF this month, I'm afraid - but I'm going to make up for that just a little bit by doing some nonfiction niche-reading on one small part of the history of Science Fiction. This looks fun, and seems to have been well-received.

Lots of fun - but also very tense. Or, I guess those two things aren’t at odds, in a great book.

Anything to do with religion, slavery, or colonizers, is not preferred reading for me - but I knew going in the sort of history lesson was coming in this package, and I’m okay with that until I’m done. It is actually a great read for summer.

Lots of fun. Not the greatest era for Iron Man - but this is about where I came in, back in the late 1970s, as a ten-year-old. Spider-Man, Nova, and Moon Knight were more popular with me - Tony Stark seemed at heart to be kind of a stiff, dull rich-man personality - but the stakes of these particular story arcs were high, and Iron Man was always very heroic against powerful villains.