Poul Anderson is one of the authors I chose earlier this year as part of the Grand Master Reading Challenge hosted by Worlds Without End. Anderson was a prolific author whose career spanned many decades and consequently many eras of science fiction so I was unsure exactly where to start. I had toyed with the idea of starting with his Flandry series though the covers of the more recent collected editions tended to make me think these might be like the oversexed wish-fulfillment of Heinlein’s later years. I did not want that. When I saw this Michael Whelan cover for the first novel in the series my hopes rose and I decided to go ahead and snag the book for its cover, hoping that when I got around to reading it I would not be disappointed.
Guess what? I was not disappointed, not by a long shot.
My first foray into one of Poul Anderson’s created universes proved to be one filled with rip-roaring adventure, political intrigue, Bond-style romance and not a little bit of commentary on the soul-blackening compromise of world, or in this case Imperial, government. Ensign Flandry not only provided me with some of the everyman-hero-overcoming-all-odds storytelling I was hoping for but was also full of surprises.
It must be my inner game-show-geek coming out, but I get a small thrill any time I can recognize the work of an illustrator, particularly in the SF/F field. So I couldn’t help but smile at my small victory when I came up the steps after returning from my afternoon run Friday to see the merest sliver of an image peeking out of my mailbox. I said aloud, “that looks like a Michael Whelan cover” and was rewarded to see his cover image for Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles on the January 2013 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine as I extracted my mail.
I am not the most constant of readers. I have subscribed to Asimov’s in print form for the past year and most of the issues sit unread, awaiting my attention. That fact hasn’t lessened my enjoyment of seeing them arrive in the post. The thrill of wondering what the next cover image will be and which authors will have stories included makes it fun to be a subscriber.
Maybe it was the recent passing of Ray Bradbury and the fact that he has been on my mind, or the Whelan cover image, but I determined right then and there that I would sit down and start my Asimov’s year 2013 with a weekend read. I’ve read some really good issues of Asimov’s and others in which the stories were geared for readers with other tastes than mine. This was a good one. A really good one.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted – nevermore!
(from The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe)
A Happy Halloween to you all! On this All Hallow’s Eve our adventure of the past two months comes to its end. Seven years of sharing gothic goodness and reveling in mystery and fright have come, and seven years have gone, and now we part each to our own revels, destined to return nevermore….until September 2013, that is!
Last year around this time Andrea of Little Red Reviewer posted her thoughts on her first Andre Norton experience, Star Born. Her review coupled with the wonderful Dean Ellis cover combined to ensure that this would be my first Andre Norton experience as well. I quickly snagged a nice copy of the book off of ebay and this past week I could resist the lure no longer.
Star Born packs quite a lot of storytelling punch in its brief 187 pages. Andre Norton’s 1957 story examines such issues as slavery, racial prejudice, apocalyptic warfare and governmental oppression and wraps it all up in the kind of adventure-filled story that was a pleasure to read as and adult and would have had me gazing heavenward as a child. Star Born is an example of fine world-building and classic space adventure that remains accessible and surprisingly relevant 55 years after its release.
My friend Theresa and I were the only members of team Insane in the Membrane rugged enough to actually follow through with this year’s Rugged Maniac 5K Obstacle Race, Kansas City edition. Lest you be unaware of what it means to be a Rugged Maniac, here is a quick peek into what our day looked like:
