On Alan Dean Foster
It’s hard to see a writer that could be so good settle for so much less.
I recently revisited an author I followed in my teens, Alan Dean Foster, and picked up one of his more recent titles, Reunion.
My mini-review, as I posted it on Shelfari:
Sophomoric. I read a lot of Alan Dean Foster as a teen, enjoying it though realizing this was not anything approaching great literature.
The two most unfortunate things about Alan Dean Foster novels:
1) Gratuitous use of vocabulary
Didn’t an English teacher ever tell him to stop pulling out a thesaurus? Has he never read Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, or Strunk & White? Does he still think he’s 13 and impressing people with big words?2) Poor editing
Has he had such boffo box office that he’s now immune to expert copy editing? Numerous head-scratching cases of oddly counterposed sentences jump out of the text. Example on page 8: ” … the elongated beach resort was one of the least crowded on the continent. It well suited the multitudes that thronged to its shores …” Huh? Is it uncrowded, or is it thronged? The beach can hardly be both.In both these characteristics, Foster’s writing is definitely in the “baffle them with bullshit” category.
Annoying. He could be so much better.
Backed up on Beyond Booked Solid
Michael Port sent me a manuscript of his latest book, Beyond Booked Solid a couple of months ago. It’s the follow-up book to Book Yourself Solid.
In spite of all good intentions, it sat on at table in my office for two months. I’ve just now started to crack it open and check it out. I have to say, I like it.
More as I get farther into the book …
Quote of the day
I’m currently reading Chris Hunter’s Eight Lives Down, an autobiography of his time in Iraq with the British army as an explosives technician, defusing bombs and IEDs.
He starts off every chapter with a quote, and I really appreciated this one:
We tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
- Gaius Petronius (AD 66)
Having gone through my fair share of re-orgs in the past decade, that 2000-year old quote rings very true.
Shelfari
I like to keep track of what I’ve read.
What I’ve done till now is just post titles and authors to this blog. I noticed and checked out Shelfari years and years ago, but never really got the hang of it, and never really posted any books to it.
However, I just tried it a few days ago, and it’s incredibly easy … so I’m going to try entering my books there. They’ll still display here via the Shelfari widget.
One thing that I might miss is that occasionally I would add a mini review to a book. I know you can do it on Shelfari too, but I’m not sure how to expose that on this site.
We’ll see if this works long-term.
Recently on my bookshelf …
Going back to the library today …
- Bloom, by Wil McCarthy
Great book - read it first years ago, but always a pleasure. - Shooter, by Jack Coughlin
Disturbing book by a ex-Marine sniper. - Homegoing, by Frederik Pohl
Great, as Pohl usually is, with a twist. - Love Thy Neighbor, by Peter Maas
An excruciatingly honest and painful biography of a journalist in the Serb/Bosnian cesspool of the middle 90’s.
Recently on my bookshelf …
I just finished my recent semester and can get into some serious reading. Here’s what’s been on my bookshelf lately:
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond
Great book, really excellent … exploring the various factors in how societies fail. Talked about Anasazi, Norse in Greenland, Easter Island, Rwanda, and many other cultures/societies. - Bias, by Bernard Goldberg
Interesting book on the bias in what and how established media cover the “news.” - East of Desolation, by Jack Higgins
Fluffy but enjoyable. - The Borman Testament, by Jack Higgins
Ditto. - The Fall of Hyperion, by Dan Simmon
Overrated - bigtime. I am seriously not impressed with books that mix science fiction and fantasy …
More details later … but we’ve got to run into town to the library, mall, and grocery store as it’s snowing outside and we’re a little worried we won’t be able to drive soon.
Amazon marketplace: sorry, your purchase has been sold
Yesterday I bought 27 books from Amazon - mostly from the marketplace. Why not? The book are almost new, and they’re easily half off or less.Today I got a notice that a book I bought via the marketplace was previously sold.
No biggie - I just went back to Amazon, chose the next available seller for the book, and bought it again.Here’s the deal: when Amazon sends out that kind of email, they should include a link to re-purchase. That would probably increase their sales from people whose purchases are no longer available.And would make an already very usable store even more so.
Recently on my bookshelf …
John Varley’s Mammoth:Great read with a nice twist at the end.Blindsight by Peter Watts:Dark - both literally and figuratively. Impressive work, though.Menace in Europe, by Claire Berlinski:Good read, but a pretty pessimistic view of Europe’s direction. Berlinski should know, though: she’s a grand-daughter of Jewish escapees from Hitler’s Germany and lives in Europe today.Platinum Pohl, by (of course) Frederick Pohl:Collected best short stories of Frederick Pohl … and Pohl’s best is very, very good.
Latest books …
Some books that I’ve just finished up:
- Witnesses of War, by Nicholas StarGardt
About children’s lives under the Nazis before, during, and slightly after WWII. Appalling, moving, engrossing. - In Search of Stones, by M. Scott Peck
Peck’s tale of a trip he and his wife took to the UK in search of dolmen and menhirs … which he intertwines with frank discussion of himself, his life, what he’s learned, and his mistakes. One important thing to remember from this book: the concept of “overdetermination,” the idea that most things have more than one cause … they are “overdetermined.” We like to have one cause, and one effect, but that’s simplistic. - Ashes of Glory, by Ernest B Furgurson
The story of Richmond, Virginia, the “other capital” of the US … at least during the civil war. A little tedious and narrowly-focused, but interesting. Most memorable anecdote: Abraham Lincoln comes to Richmond shortly after the city is taken. Black men and women surround him. One aged black man doffs his cap and offers a short bow. Lincoln doffs his cap and bows in return. That must have been a big deal to those just-recently-slaves. Wonderful! - A Perfect Hell, by John Nadler
The story of the Canadian-American commando unit “First Special Service Force,” composed somewhat of misfits, which fought like heroes and died by the hundreds in multiple campaigns throughout WWII. All that you need to know about them to know something of them is that the Germans called them “Schwartzer Teurel,” or Black Devils.
Made to stick … sticks
Not a single person has passed through my office and seen the cover of this book without touching it to see if, in fact, the cover has duct tape stuck to it:
(It does not.) But it is bumpy and tactile, just as if it was.
And the book is very, very good.
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Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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