The Witches of Karres - book review
May. 8th, 2017 08:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinally finished this book. It's probably good to know where and how I read -- I read on my commute. Each day I travel by foot, subway, foot, and train to my workplace. It's about an hour and fifteen-twenty minutes give or take each way. I also read whenever I'm traveling by train elsewhere. Mainly? I read primarily in transit. Travel reading is a very different thing than stationary reading. For one thing it's far harder to read dense fiction or philosophical meanderings while in transit. It tends to give me a headache. Why? Well, distractions.
Example?
On Friday, while I was trying to read Witches of Karres, the book was competing with a fairly loud conversation next to me between two guys in their early twenties (at least I hope they were in their early twenties, because I fear for them if they were in their teens, even if they looked no older than 18. They had beards and facial hair, so twenties makes sense.) Their discussion was basically about the one guy's girlfriend having a miscarriage, he'd lost the baby, he was bummed, but apparently this wasn't his actual girlfriend but another woman he slept with on the side, and his current girlfriend was just a bitca on wheels, and on and on. I tried to block them out, it was not happening. They left finally and got replaced by a woman and two chattering kids. Speaking in high pitched voices.
That's just one example. Transit is not always conducive to reading. And I love reading on the train.
But it helps if the reading material is lighter in character, with a happy ending, and not depressing.
I also read before bed at night. I tend to read more ...dense stuff at night. I read Blind Assassin before bed at night for three years -- that's why it took so long to read that book. I'd read it in snatches for twenty to thirty minutes before bed. Couldn't read it on the train -- mind refused to focus on it. It's very hard to read literary or dense material when people are chatting on the phone, listening to loud music or coughing around you, not to mention the train announcements and noises. Also I tend to read standing up and I cart the book around with me -- so it's better if it is a Kindle and not a hefty hard back or paperback, preferably with a light in case all the lights go out on the train, which happens.
Anyhow, enuf on that..
Review of Witches of Karres
A co-worker thrust this one on me. One day at work, he came up to me and handed me a ratty old paperback from the 1980s (actually it was from the 60s, but this copy was 1983), and said, you have to read this ! I just read it and I really think you'll love it.
So, with much trepidation I did. Book rec's don't always work out. And co-worker and my tastes don't always coincide. What's that phrase? You say tomato, I say tomatoe....? Anyhow, I read it and liked it a lot better than I thought I would.
It's apparently the most famous of James H. Schmitiz's novels, which is odd, considering it is a stand-a-lone cobbled together from various short stories and novellas that he wrote. He was known as "the space opera guy" or one of the originators of the "space opera". And, indeed, there are familiar and well-traveled tropes found within his novel, which can be seen in everything from Star Wars to Farscape to well, Doctor Who. Although the novel reminded me the most of Farscape and possibly Guardians of the Galaxy.
He creates strong female characters -- a rarity in 1960s male sci-fi novels. And there's a blend of fantasy, in some respects the book slants more towards the fantastical than the scientific. Hard core sci-fi fans most likely will take issue with it. It's not as philosophical as science fiction, nor as speculative. Although that's one of the fun things about space opera pulp, it doesn't tend to be.
Philip K. Dick this isn't, nor for that matter Issac Asimov or even Heinlein, more like Andre Norton and possibly Terry Prachett or Neil Gaiman. He's not as philosophically minded as Zelzany, and heck of a lot easier to read.
The book for the most part is a light read. And seems to be geared for a young adult audience. The story is about a young Captain who convinces his fiance's father to let him repay his debts and prove his worth by flying trade routes with the potential father-in-law's space craft, "The Venture". Things are going swimmingly, until Captain Pausart runs into a trio of enslaved girls that he takes it upon himself to save. Not realizing they are witches from the planet Karres, and may well be manipulating him. Once he runs into the witches, Meelane, The Lewitt (yes that's actually her name), and Goth, nothing seems to go right for him and much chaos ensues. (ie. He loses his fiancee, ends up exiled from his planet, and running from various factions...think Han Solo before he became Han Solo or John Crichton.) Various factions chase him about hunting the secret to his warp drive, which happens the witches. They run afoul of pirates, an evil robot ship about the size of a planet, and a weird poltergeist like entity.
The story is more plot-centric than character centric, so my interest fluctuated throughout. I tend to prefer character centric novels with a decisively psychological slant, as opposed to plot centric novels with a philosophical slant. This novel fell more in the later category, which is admittedly true of most science fiction and fantasy novels. Although I'd say it was more focused on character relationships than speculative philosophy. (ie. The characters were focused on resolving a puzzle but could care less about why things worked or the meaning of the universe. ) Schmitz is not a frustrated philosopher like many of his contemporaries were, which may explain why his works aren't quite as famous? I don't know.
Anyhow, if you want a fun read with very little violence, no sex, and just a bit of adventure -- this is a good bet. There is a romance of sorts, but it's more a young girl telling an older guy she plans on marrying him when she grows up, and guy ignoring it. I mean she is 10-14 years of age and he's around 26.
There's apparently two sequels, neither written by Schmitz, and both written and published long after he died (whereupon the rights retreated to public domain, so that someone could write a sequel without the author complaining about it. Similar to what happened with Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.) I'm on the fence about this. I mean, I wrote a stand-alone book that people wanted me to write a sequel too, and I think it works better as stand-alone. So I can well understand why Schmitz and Mitchell would feel the same way. That said, this book definitely felt like the beginning of a series...yet, it was a book cobbled from various short stories and novellas. You can't really tell -- it flows together well enough. (I only know that because someone wrote it in a review on Amazon.)
The sequels are written by good writers...but it feels a bit like reading published fanfic. I don't know, I probably won't try them. But in case you're interested -- they are out there.
Example?
On Friday, while I was trying to read Witches of Karres, the book was competing with a fairly loud conversation next to me between two guys in their early twenties (at least I hope they were in their early twenties, because I fear for them if they were in their teens, even if they looked no older than 18. They had beards and facial hair, so twenties makes sense.) Their discussion was basically about the one guy's girlfriend having a miscarriage, he'd lost the baby, he was bummed, but apparently this wasn't his actual girlfriend but another woman he slept with on the side, and his current girlfriend was just a bitca on wheels, and on and on. I tried to block them out, it was not happening. They left finally and got replaced by a woman and two chattering kids. Speaking in high pitched voices.
That's just one example. Transit is not always conducive to reading. And I love reading on the train.
But it helps if the reading material is lighter in character, with a happy ending, and not depressing.
I also read before bed at night. I tend to read more ...dense stuff at night. I read Blind Assassin before bed at night for three years -- that's why it took so long to read that book. I'd read it in snatches for twenty to thirty minutes before bed. Couldn't read it on the train -- mind refused to focus on it. It's very hard to read literary or dense material when people are chatting on the phone, listening to loud music or coughing around you, not to mention the train announcements and noises. Also I tend to read standing up and I cart the book around with me -- so it's better if it is a Kindle and not a hefty hard back or paperback, preferably with a light in case all the lights go out on the train, which happens.
Anyhow, enuf on that..
Review of Witches of Karres
A co-worker thrust this one on me. One day at work, he came up to me and handed me a ratty old paperback from the 1980s (actually it was from the 60s, but this copy was 1983), and said, you have to read this ! I just read it and I really think you'll love it.
So, with much trepidation I did. Book rec's don't always work out. And co-worker and my tastes don't always coincide. What's that phrase? You say tomato, I say tomatoe....? Anyhow, I read it and liked it a lot better than I thought I would.
It's apparently the most famous of James H. Schmitiz's novels, which is odd, considering it is a stand-a-lone cobbled together from various short stories and novellas that he wrote. He was known as "the space opera guy" or one of the originators of the "space opera". And, indeed, there are familiar and well-traveled tropes found within his novel, which can be seen in everything from Star Wars to Farscape to well, Doctor Who. Although the novel reminded me the most of Farscape and possibly Guardians of the Galaxy.
He creates strong female characters -- a rarity in 1960s male sci-fi novels. And there's a blend of fantasy, in some respects the book slants more towards the fantastical than the scientific. Hard core sci-fi fans most likely will take issue with it. It's not as philosophical as science fiction, nor as speculative. Although that's one of the fun things about space opera pulp, it doesn't tend to be.
Philip K. Dick this isn't, nor for that matter Issac Asimov or even Heinlein, more like Andre Norton and possibly Terry Prachett or Neil Gaiman. He's not as philosophically minded as Zelzany, and heck of a lot easier to read.
The book for the most part is a light read. And seems to be geared for a young adult audience. The story is about a young Captain who convinces his fiance's father to let him repay his debts and prove his worth by flying trade routes with the potential father-in-law's space craft, "The Venture". Things are going swimmingly, until Captain Pausart runs into a trio of enslaved girls that he takes it upon himself to save. Not realizing they are witches from the planet Karres, and may well be manipulating him. Once he runs into the witches, Meelane, The Lewitt (yes that's actually her name), and Goth, nothing seems to go right for him and much chaos ensues. (ie. He loses his fiancee, ends up exiled from his planet, and running from various factions...think Han Solo before he became Han Solo or John Crichton.) Various factions chase him about hunting the secret to his warp drive, which happens the witches. They run afoul of pirates, an evil robot ship about the size of a planet, and a weird poltergeist like entity.
The story is more plot-centric than character centric, so my interest fluctuated throughout. I tend to prefer character centric novels with a decisively psychological slant, as opposed to plot centric novels with a philosophical slant. This novel fell more in the later category, which is admittedly true of most science fiction and fantasy novels. Although I'd say it was more focused on character relationships than speculative philosophy. (ie. The characters were focused on resolving a puzzle but could care less about why things worked or the meaning of the universe. ) Schmitz is not a frustrated philosopher like many of his contemporaries were, which may explain why his works aren't quite as famous? I don't know.
Anyhow, if you want a fun read with very little violence, no sex, and just a bit of adventure -- this is a good bet. There is a romance of sorts, but it's more a young girl telling an older guy she plans on marrying him when she grows up, and guy ignoring it. I mean she is 10-14 years of age and he's around 26.
There's apparently two sequels, neither written by Schmitz, and both written and published long after he died (whereupon the rights retreated to public domain, so that someone could write a sequel without the author complaining about it. Similar to what happened with Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind.) I'm on the fence about this. I mean, I wrote a stand-alone book that people wanted me to write a sequel too, and I think it works better as stand-alone. So I can well understand why Schmitz and Mitchell would feel the same way. That said, this book definitely felt like the beginning of a series...yet, it was a book cobbled from various short stories and novellas. You can't really tell -- it flows together well enough. (I only know that because someone wrote it in a review on Amazon.)
The sequels are written by good writers...but it feels a bit like reading published fanfic. I don't know, I probably won't try them. But in case you're interested -- they are out there.