Category: From My Library

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From My Library – Postponed to August 21

It’s with regret that I have to cancel this month’s From My Library column.   Selecting Young Miles was the book for review proved to be too troublesome to work with for two reasons:

First, it was three books in one, which was quite a hurdle in itself, and:

Second, those books went to some really dark places.  Which, given the continued waking-nightmare of modern society, proved too much for me to process, much less write about semi-intelligently.

My apologies to my readers.  I’ll have a new From My Library column, on a different book, on August 21.

 

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From My Library: Shield by Poul Anderson

My first encounter with Poul Anderson was in an anthology entitled “Space Odyssey”, published by Octopus Books, back when I was still in grade school.  It held Anderson’s short story “Ghetto”, a tale of racial prejudice applied to a far-future society, a tale I’ve come to appreciate more in the present day than when I was a kid.  But even as a child, Poul Anderson’s writing came alive to me in a way that other writers did not.

Poul Anderson was one of the grander storytellers of 20th Century science fiction, adept at both “thud-and-blunder” action as well as ruminating on deeper themes.  Shield, first published in 1963, sits near Anderson’s earlier career, and is a good, well-paced read that seems scarily prescient in light the path the United States has taken in recent decades.  

Shield tells the story of Peter Koskinen, a naive 23-year old engineer and astronaut just back from an expedition to Mars.  Peter has in his possession a device he built with the help of the ancient Martians his expedition found and befriended; a “potential barrier” capable of stopping almost all weapons – the shield of the title.  Unfortunately, Peter lives in a world governed by the Protectorate; the name given to the United States’ effort to rule the world by force and puppet governments (sound familiar?).  In this world, the most powerful person is not the President, but the Director of Military Security, and even American citizens are spied on and arrested by MS if there is even a hint of a threat to American interests.  News of the shield’s existence reaches both MS Director Marcus and various opposing factions, and in short order Peter finds himself on the run from everyone, as it becomes clear that all factions would happily kill him to get their hands on the shield. 
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From My Library: The Last Colony by John Scalzi

I first encountered John Scalzi’s writing courtesy of his blog Whatever in late 2008, and found a funny and insightful writer.  Naturally, I wanted to sample some of his books, and as it happened, The Last Colony was the only book I could get my hands on at the time.

This is sort-of-important because The Last Colony is the third in a series of books collectively known as Old Man’s War series, or OMW for short.  But this is by no means an impediment, as Scalzi makes sure that any new reader is brought up to speed on the important bits even as he gets this story moving.

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Announcing From My Library

Starting May 22nd, I’ll be posting a monthly column up here on the blog entitled “From My Library”; reviews of various books (print and e-book, prose and graphic novel), that I own and which I think are pretty good.  Some of the books may be old or out of print, others may be fresh from the bookstore, but all have been interesting to me, now or in the past.

There may be some surprises in store; and – full disclosure – not all of them will be pleasant.  Some of the books are from earlier eras, and so were written with older sensibilities (or lack thereof) in mind.  I’ll be examining those both in the context of when I first encountered them vs how I find them now.  We’ll see just how well some books and authors stand the test of time.

Hopefully, you’ll come away from these reviews with a few more titles to add to your libraries.

So join me next week, where we’ll start off with John Scalzi’s The Last Colony.