New Sci-Fantasy Book (or rather a really old one..but new to me)

[shadowkat]

One of my co-workers, Zalzeny (for want of a better nickname or maybe Pun-Master, the man does love his puns, even if they fly over my head), likes to loan me his old sci-fantasy paperbacks. In some cases he just rec's them. I'm nicknaming him Zalzeny because Roger Zalzeny is his favorite science fiction novelist. Zalzeny read these books when they were first published, and the paperbacks date back to the 1960s. He's around 67.

Anyhow, he stopped me in the aisle, on the way back from the bathroom, drug me to his office...and said, "I know how you hate it when I thrust books on you. But you're really going to love this one. It has everything, adventure, humor, and strong female character and it's science fiction and fantasy. It is a space opera though, not sure if you like space opera?"

Me: "Uh, yeah. Actually, I love space -"

Z: It may be before your time.

Me: Not really. The Expanse is space opera. Also I'm sort of writing one at the --

Z: You'll really love this. It's old though, real old sci-fi, one of the first space opera ones published, back in the 1960s at the height of the space opera genre. And by one of my favs. I just rediscovered the book in my library and re-read it, because apparently there are sequels. Written by Mercedes Lackey and a few other writers.

Me: Okay. Is it on Kindle, because I'm not really a fan of old paperbacks --

Z : It should be, but here take this anyhow. (He hands me this dog-eared, coffee stained paperback, which is about palm size, although the print is slightly bigger than it is in today's paperbacks. Making me feel slightly validated for thinking that the print has gotten smaller in printed paperbacks and magazines now. It's not my imagination or my waning eye-sight. It's the cheap publishing industry trying to wedge more characters on the page by decreasing the typeface.)

Me: Uh, I'm sort of reading a book that I'm really enjoying at the moment. (And have five or six others in the queue, plus I'm flirting with Blake Crouch's Dark Matter, and David Eggers' The Circle.)

Z: No pressure. But you'll love it. And the writer has either won a Hugo or it was nominated for one.

[The title gives me pause. It's The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz - a German writer.

Schmitz is best known as a writer of space opera, and for strong female characters (including Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee) that didn't fit into the damsel in distress stereotype typical of science fiction during the time he was writing. His first published story was Greenface, published in August 1943 in Unknown. Most of his works are part of the "Hub" series, though his best known novel is the non-Hub The Witches of Karres, concerning juvenile "witches" with genuine psi-powers and their escape from slavery. Karres was nominated for a Hugo Award.

Me: Hugos don't necessarily mean much, there are some odd books out there that won Hugos.

Z: But some of the best ones did too.

Me: True. I'll give it a whirl. [I say with some trepidation. While I did enjoy the Goblin Prince, one of the books he rec'd, the last one he gave me I couldn't finish, which was a Rodger Zezalny novel, entitled "The Lord of Light". Now it's possible I wasn't in the right frame of mind. Which is what I told him. He took my frustration with the novel better than people online did. But I tend to be more diplomatic about books in person. That said, this is the problem with people giving you books that they've either written or adore, what if you dislike or worse hate the book? Then what? All is well and good if you love it. Same thing with television shows...what if you don't like the tv show you friend adores? It's always risk sharing things you love with folks.]

So now, said book is sitting in my apartment alongside about a thousand other books I need to read.

*My mother wants me to read Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow - the non-fiction magnum opus that the musical was based on. She believes everyone on the planet should read it -- because it provides insight into the American political system, how our government works, and what is going on now happened before and isn't new or that insane.

* Uhurua wants me to read Devil in the White City by Eric Larson a non-fiction novel about the serial killer, Holmes, and creator of the World's Fair in Chicago.

* Church wants me to read "Just Mercy"

* My father thinks I ought to read Dashielle Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. Even though I've seen the movie a million times.

* Online buddies think I ought to read "The Traitor Baro Commorant", the next book in the Expanse series, "Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie", and the comic serials "Saga" (print only) and "Still Silence" (online)

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the latest romance novel by Meredith Duran entitled "A Lady's Code of Conduct". It's about a guy who isn't that nice, loses his memory, and is forced to re-examine his life, and the woman he was manipulating, who is forced to re-examine who she is, and who he is, also about the politics of the time -- around the time of Disrali or shortly thereafter, after the India uprising. Duran tends to like to explore classicism and Indian/British politics in the Victorian Age.
Which is why I like Duran, she has a bit more to say than most.

But, I'm about due for a good space opera. I like space opera, it's actually my favorite type of science fiction. Prefer it to hard tech. I like political sci-fi, where you get into the political power games. I also like that in fantasy novels. This may explain why Lord of the Rings and Dune were among my favorites, along with the X-men in the comics arena. All are highly political and sociological. I prefer cultural anthropological, biological, and sociological sci-fi to tech sci-fi.
I think it's because I think more in metaphorical and cultural terms than tech terms? Don't know.
I'll read anything if I'm in the mood. There's very few genres that I've not read.

Comments

[fenchurch]

I read The Witches of Karres back when I was in high school and recall enjoying it quite a bit, although I now don't remember a thing about it. Definitely time for a re-read!

Lord of Light is probably my least favorite of Roger Zelazny's books... that said, his writing style is definitely not for everyone. It took me several tries before the Amber books finally hooked me. In the end, it really helped having friends around who had read them before. I actually got to spend some time with Mr. Zelazny at an academic symposium a year or so before he passed away. I was on the committee helping run the thing and got to play chauffeur for him a few times and had some very pleasant chats.

[shadowkat]

Interesting anecdote on Zelazny, whose name I'm having issues remembering how to spell. It think you are right - it's the writing style that I was struggling with. I really don't like a certain type of writing style, or so I've discovered.
He uses "third person distant" point of view a lot, and I'm not a fan of it. Neil Gaiman does something similar...but it's not quite as distancing. He's also more speculative or philosophical oriented than character oriented, which I also struggle with in science fiction novels. It was my difficulty with The Master and the Margritta, which is more of a allegorical novel than a character based novel. Also had similar difficulties with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and
to some degree...Catch-22 and Jonathan Swift.

Situational absurdist humor appears to work better for me than allegorical or satirical absurdist? I don't know. I'm struggling to put my finger on it. But I've noticed a definitive pattern. The Palace Job, Hitchhiker's Guide, Guillver's Travels, Good Omens, Lord of Light, and American Gods didn't quite work for me...and for more or less the same reasons, I could not connect to the characters to save my life. They felt allegorical or not real to me. As if they were meant to be metaphors for something larger...and I needed them to be flesh and blood characters. If that makes sense?

Also something about the writing style in each of these books...put me off. And I'm not quite sure what it is.

I know writing style is a subjective thing. Mine turns people off -- I've cultivated a somewhat casual at times snarky voice for blogging and creative writing. It's meant as a strict contrast to the formal legal/technical style that I use in the work place. Which I occasionally jump into while blogging. I have a tendency to mimic the style that I'm reading the most. Although I finally was able to create my own, without it being greatly influenced by what I read. (Thank god).
While I tend to be turned off by the more formal academic style (find it hard to read) and Victorian style -- ie. Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Weirdly the letter style -- of Richardson, Austen, and the earlier writers doesn't bother me. But the flowerly Victorian prose stylings of Henry James, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Dickens, and others within that group does.

Sorry, I just find it interesting to ponder, since I've no answers. And I change my mind regarding all the above constantly.

[spikewriter]

Lord of Light is definitely not one of my favorites books. I've never been able to finish it myself.

Hamilton is fascinating, but dense. Devil in the White City is absolutely fascinating, but there were moments when I had to just put it down because some it is very hard to read. As for mysteries, I prefer Chandler to Hammett. Beautiful, descriptive language, with Los Angeles as a character.

But give the size of my digital TBR file, I can understand the reluctance to take on yet another.

[su_herald_reading]

FWIW I liked the Witches of Karres, back when I read it as a teen, though it wasn't my favorite of his novels. I would agree that Schmitz wrote unusually good female characters for his era, though I'm not sure how they'll stand up to the test of time. I should see if the Telzey Amberdon books are on Kindle; our library was missing a lot of them...

[rahirah]

Gah, that's me...

[rogin]

I found epubs of most of Schmitz books. He completely passed me by as there are no German editions of his books.
I'll have to check him out, he sounds very much like my cup of tea.

I wish I had co-workers like that...when I was a teenager I more or less decided that familiarity with Zelazny was what I wanted in a man. Took until I was 18 to find somebody who fit that criterium in non-Vienna Austria, but retrospectively it worked out quite well.

[feliciacraft]

I remember reading The Maltese Falcon in high school and loving it. I believe the movie was a pretty close adaptation (it's been a while since I last watched it), but the book has a lot more subtle humor that simply doesn't translate to a visual media. It's a pleasure to read, and a quick one, too.

I've heard of Meredith Duran but never read anything by her. A Lady's Code of Conduct sounds interesting, though. Maybe I should look for it at the local library.

[shadowkat]

Oh, it's "A Lady's Code of Misconduct" not "Lady's Code of Conduct" -- I keep misremembering the title. More political than most historical romance novels. There's a lot of discussion of the "ticket-to-leave penal system" and "penal code's effect" on the poor. Also the first women's college - Bedford in London, which was founded by Unitarians.

[mefisto]

Count me as another who liked The Witches of Karres.

[yourlibrarian]

I have nothing to add to your reading queue :)

All are highly political and sociological. I prefer cultural anthropological, biological, and sociological sci-fi to tech sci-fi.

I definitely prefer the political and sociological in all genres, including mysteries. Although what caught my attention was this comment:

Making me feel slightly validated for thinking that the print has gotten smaller in printed paperbacks and magazines now. It's not my imagination or my waning eye-sight. It's the cheap publishing industry trying to wedge more characters on the page by decreasing the typeface.

Good to know. I've been reading on an eReader for such a while now I was wondering if it was simply being so accustomed that made me almost squint at print despite wearing the same glasses. Probably not a coincidence then that the AARP Bulletin currently on my desk does not require squinting.

[shadowkat]

AARP has also come out with a WOW computer that has large print. My Dad bought it -- and it's impossible for me or most of us to work. But hey, large print.

[yourlibrarian]

I use the "Easy Settings" mode on my smartphone because despite the large screen it's harder to read content or see a bunch of icons without my glasses. And since I still don't need to wear them for regular activities, they're usually not on.

A friend's mother stopped reading books years ago because even with glasses she found print too difficult to wade through for that much reading.

[shadowkat]

My father is struggling. He can read things on the Kindle, because you can enlarge the print. But he can't read the small print in printed/paper books at all or struggles. He bought a typewriter because he'd gotten fed up with the computer and wanted to write. Only to discover that the typewriter didn't have a delete button and the print was even smaller.

I use my reading glasses on the Smartphone to read things. Easy Settings..hmmm.

I wear contacts for distance, have since I was in high school, and now reading glasses at work and for the computer. I refuse to get bi-focals and the mono-contacts won't work for me.

[yourlibrarian]

Yeah, I had a very short-lived attempt to use bifocals. Multiple glasses are annoying but at least are workable.

[shadowkat]

That's what I've discovered. Annoying but less head-ach inducing. I can take them off. And if I want, enlarge the print on the electronic devices.

Haven't figured out how to do it yet on DW. I'd finally figured out how to do it on LJ, then LJ went all fascist crazy on me. So that ended that relationship.

[yourlibrarian]

Hmm, I didn't realize LJ had a setting for that. But you can always use the Zoom featured under the View menu in your browser as a workaround.