I finished Barbara Eden’s Jeannie Out of the Bottle, which was a quick read. I then launched into a bunch of books I’d picked up at science fiction conventions and used book shops:
Earthman’s Burden by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson. Ever since I saw the 1950s magazine with The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound I’ve wanted to read the earliest Hoka stories by Anderson and Dickson. The Hoka, in case you don’t know, and teddy bear-shaped and sized- aliens who are highly imitative of Earth Culture. I suspect the Star Trek (OS) episode “A Piece of the Action” was inspired by the Hoka idea, only they played it with humans for the TV episode, of course. The Hoka might even have been an ninspiration for Lucas’ Ewoks, since they’re diminutive bear-like aliens who, in at least one story (“In Hoka Signo Vinces”) they defeat a technologically superior alien foe. (Anderson appears to like that kind of story. That’s basically the plot of his novel The High Crusade) The idea of the highly imitative culture that’s THAT imitative makes for cute stories, but it’s clearly unworkable. I ended up enjoying the the stories not very much, and thinking that several of them would probably be considered politically incorrect these days, right down to that book title.
Godel’s Proof by Ernest Nagel and James R. Newman – offers a sketch of Godel’s proof, with none of the details. This suited me fine. I would’ve been put off by a rigorous explanation, and this book, which I’ve seen for years but never read, is a lot shorter and more direct than Godel, Escher, Bach
Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith. – I’d read the Ballantine/Del Rey version years ago, but the NESFA Press edition has a lengthy appendix that has the material taken away from or added to both the original magazine publication and the Pyramid Books paperback editions (which chopped the novel into two halves). I was surprised how much I’d forgotten.
A World Named Cleopatra – I’d wanted to read this one, too. It’s a “shared world” novel, in which POul Anderson (again) sets up the premise, and three other authors Michael Orgill, Jack Dann, and George Zebrowski – wrote stories set on the world of “Cleopatra”, to add to Anderson’s original. Shared Worlds can be either very good or very bad. Medea: Harlan’s World was an example of the latter. The authors in that case pretty much concentrated on their own idea, not necessarily close to the supposedly “shared” content. On the other hand, the apparently interminable Man-Kzin War series, based on Larry Niven’s universe, is frequently excellent. I’m only halfway through, but this is looking more like the first kind.
On audio I’ve finished Clive Cussler;s The Final Option, his most recent of the Oregon Files novels. I have no doubt that he has at least one more plotted in his notes, if not more, and I am curious where hes going to go with it now that he made a major change in things.
Having finished that, I’m reading Anthony Horowitz’ Moriarty. Horowitz wrote the two most recent James Bond entries, Trigger Mortis and Forever and a Day, both of them using some Fleming material. He has been, to my mind, one of the best of the post-Fleming Bond authors, along with Sebastian Faulks, whose Devil May Care started the latest round of new Bonds. In “Moriarty” he’s obviously trying to do the same with Sherlock Holmes. It’s an interesting book, but suffers from false pretenses. Moriarty is dead at the very start, Holmes has apparently been killed at Reichenbach Falls, and our main characters are the Scotland Yard detective Athelny Jones (coming of much better than he does in Doyle’s stories) and a Pinkerton detective named Chase. It’s the not-really-a-Sherlock-Holmes story approach I’ve seen others use, although set in the Holmes universe. Sort of another shared-world story. Not entirely satisfactory, but I’m only halfway through, so we’ll see if it improves.
