The GMG SF/Fantasy/Horror Club

[Joe Barron]

Shocking!  Usually Heinlein jumps to his sexual perversions by page 2!  Actually I'm kind of not joking.

Well, there were some disturbing erotic undertones throughout the book. Podkayne is eight-plus in Mars years, which makes her not quite 16 in earth years. (The conversion figure is provided.) She makes a point of saying she sleeps naked on the spaceliner to Venus, and in one epsiode, in need of comfort, she sits on her uncle's lap and asks him to tell her the story he used to tell her when she was a little girl. (Whether the uncle got an erection is not stated.) I wouldn't have minded more of the same, but the the last two chapters turn violent --- implausibly --- and finally she's almost killed in an atomic blast. It's said she'll survive, though she's still unconscious at the end of the book. What isn't said is that she'll probably be permanently disfigured, and somehow we're supposed to believe it's all because her mother, a professional engineer, wasn't there for her when she was growing up. Building spaceports is all very well, we're told, but the most important thing a woman can do is raise her children. (This according to the horny old uncle.) It's as though poor Poddy is being punished for her dream of becoming a space captain, and she doesn't even have that dream by the end. She changes her mind about halfway through the book when she finds it's easier and more fun to take care of the babies in the ship's nursery, and she decides she can have a career in space and still do the nurturing thing. Kee-rist.

My ex-wife, who was more into sci-fi than I am, once told me she liked Heinlein but found he was a bit of an MCP. She vastly understated the case.

[Fëanor]

...
My ex-wife, who was more into sci-fi than I am, once told me she liked Heinlein but foind he was a bit of an MCP. She vastly understated the case.

... or dirty old man might be closer.

Thanks for the synopsis. On account of it I won't be reading the book -- not that there was much chance of that anyway.

The only Heinlein I sort of liked was Star Ship Toopers.  (Classic quote: in a mechanical voice, "I'm 30 second bomb: 30, 29, 28 ...".)  The 1997 movie is a travesty to be avoided at all costs.

I knew I was done with Heinlein after struggling through Stranger in Strange Land.  Another example of an acclaimed book that I hated, contrarian that I am.  It thoroughly reflected Heinlein's attitude toward sex and woman's role therein as I recall, (it was 35 years ago).

[Joe Barron]

... or dirty old man might be closer.

That too, but brutally punishing a female character for her independence I think qualifies him as an oinker.

[Joe Barron]

Oh, and I left out the best part. The atomic bomb is planted and armed, as part of an escape plan, by Pod's 12-year-old (in earth time) brother, Clark, who is a genius but, it turns out, an emotionless sociopath. This, too, is the mother's fault.

[MN Dave]

New review up: John Shirley's LIVING SHADOWS

http://grimrictus.blogspot.com/

[Hollywood]

Ah, what a great evening that must of been.  What year was it specifically, if you recall?  I have always been a huge Dwight Frye fan, especially as his role of Fritz in Frankenstein, but he also nails it as Renfield!

The Count Dracula Society was founded in 1962 by Dr. Donald A. Reed for the serious study of horror films and gothic literature. It is closely associated with the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, dedicated to honoring films and filmmakers in the several genres. The society hosts regular screenings of vampire and horror films and also sponsors an annual gathering at which the Ann Radcliffe Award is given at its annual banquet.

I was a member of the Count Dracula Society in the 1970s for a total of 7 years. I attended the Ann Radcliffe Award dinners in the years 1971 to 1976. As I mentioned in my earlier post I was so lucky to have met many actors, directors, writers, etc. who were all involved in some way or another with horror, sci-fi and fantasy films and books. In 1975 I received a call from the society president Dr. Donald A. Reed who asked me if I would be interested in taking over Rod Serling's position on the Board of Govenors to vote on the nominees for that year's Ann Radcliffe Awards. This was a short time before Rod Serling's death in June 1975. Needless to say I was honored and thrilled to death to have been chosen to replace Mr. Serling on the board. I believe that it was also at that year's banquet that while I was busy going around getting autographs that I was approached by the famous cartoonist Bob Clampett (the creator of Beany and Cecil, one of my favorite cartoons as a child). He told me that he just had to tell me how pretty he thought I was. Now that I look back at that I think that he wanted to get to know me better, but since I was still a bit naive at 18 yrs. his words just pretty much went over my head. 

Here you can read a bit of what took place at two of the Ann Radcliffe Awards banquet back in 1972 and 1973 (which I also attended):
http://www.insroland.org/CountDrac

 

[Fëanor]

Last week I finished reading a sci-fi book I enjoyed very much ...

Gene Wolfe: The Fifth Head of Cerberus

I owe thanks to MN Dave for recommending it to me quite recently.  I wanted Gene Wolfe recommendations, and I must say that Fifth Head of Cerberus is of comparable quality to, (though much shorter than), perhaps my all-time sci-fi favorite, Wolfe's New Sun tetrology. Fifth Head is officially a set of three "novellas" although it is certainly one work in three sections.

Gene Wolfe's writing styles is sophisticated and delightful, and though his sci-fi ideas are intriguing, it can't be said that his novels are more about the ideas than the story, (as many would say of Asimov or Clarke for example).

Perhaps the real earmark of Wolfe's writing style is his ability to evoke mystery in all most every paragraph; the sense of relevant things unknown or untold.  In the case of Fifth Head, in the 3rd section, Wolfe cultivates mystery using the blatant device of a minor character, a prison officer, reading a set of documents in random order, so that we can bits and snatches of information and insight such that the mysteries are both compounded and elucidated at once as author sees fit without following the underlying plot in a chronological way. But indeed the whole structure of the three novellas or sections uses displacement not only of chronological time but of characters to great effect.

In the Fifth Head, the only the first section is a first-person narrative; this is unlike the New Sun where that whole story is strictly first person.  Wolfe uses the "unreliable witness" as another device to heighten mysteries.  That is, the first-person narrator tells the story from his personal perspective, replete with his personal biases and perhaps imperfect recollection of events.  It is up to the reader to sort out the real truth and import of the narration sometime much later in the story.

Yet Fifth Head of Cerebus is a novel without a denouement.  The central mystery is hinted at in the first section and revealed gradually throughout the work, though its certainty is mainly confirmed in the final section.  However there is no single event or revelation of facts that fully or suddenly exposes the strange truth, in fact it could be missed by a careless reader.

Needless to say I strongly recommend this book



[Edit]
The thing I neglected was to mention earlier about Gene Wolfe's style is his ability to deliver quite profound insights into the human character and condition in a way that is seemingly off-handed and rarely necessary to the main story line.  These asides are delivered by Wolfe's "unreliable" first-person narrators, and greatly enrich the reader's enjoyment of the story.  Of course this method is less often used in Fifth Head of Cerberus than in the New Sun tetralogy which is much long and entirely in the first-person.
[/Edit]

[MN Dave]

Nice review. Makes me want to read it again.

[MN Dave]

Lately, I've been diving into classic horror stories. The writing was so much better back then.

[DavidW]

I'm reading another Mike Carey novel.   I also got my mother to start reading the series too.

[MN Dave]

I'm reading another Mike Carey novel.   I also got my mother to start reading the series too.

Cool! I'm glad you're enjoying it. I have a couple I have to get  to myself.

[MN Dave]

In fact, I think I'll review the next one for the blog. Thanks for the reminder.

[MN Dave]

Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME is out today.

[MN Dave]

What's better than robots?

Giant robots!

[Bogey]

What's better than robots?

Giant robots!

Not much!

[Josquin des Prez]

Great movie that one. Much better then all that over-rated tripe they make this days.

[Bogey]

Great movie that one. Much better then all that over-rated tripe they make this days.

Absolutely!

[MN Dave]

Yep.

[MN Dave]

Read or see anything good lately?

[Hollywood]

What's better than robots?
Giant robots!

Then for those of us who are old enough to remember this particular giant robot:



Go Gigantor!