The length of which will just never end.

My last post was in regards to the well known "science" fiction author Harry Harrison. You may also have noticed the describtion underneath the top of my page now mentions the author in high esteem. Perhaps I should elaborate on my dislike of this man. First off Harry Harrison did do one thing good for the world. He inspired the young minds of Rob Grant and Doug Naylor who as adults wrote the famous Britcom Red Dwarf so he cannot be all bad can he? WRONG!!!

Despite this fact the work of Harry Harrison is complete trash. I don't mean this to be mean but just to inform you the reading public. Here let me indulge you with several plot synopsis' of his "work".

The Stainless Steel Rat (1961)
At the beginning of the first novel, the Stainless Steel Rat believes he has pulled off a successful bank job, but is out-conned into working for the government. In the Special Corps, the elite law-enforcement and spy agency led by the former greatest crook in the Galaxy, Harold P. Inskipp, he joins the ranks of an organization that is entirely constituted of ex-criminals like himself. In the novel, he has several adventures during which he believes he has escaped from the Corps, and meets his love interest, Angelina, who is even more sociopathic than he is - she too is a criminal genius but lacks Jim's moral strictures against killing. She is attempting to have an illegal space battleship built on a backwoods planet. It transpires that Angelina was born unattractive and committed crimes to pay for her transformation into a beautiful woman; her psychological traumas are cured when Jim captures her, but she retains her allure and her criminal tendencies and joins Jim in the Special Corps.

The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge (1970)
The Stainless Steel Rat gets married, but rapidly gets involved in something that so far has proven impossible in the galaxy - the planet Cliaand has successfully been invading other worlds. Jim is sent to investigate (in scenes very reminiscent of Eric Frank Russell's 'Wasp'), discovers the mysterious Grey Men behind Cliaand's success, encounters a world of feisty warrior women, and becomes father of twins (James and Bolivar).

In total there are about 10 of those books all focusing on The Stainless Steel Rat. Another interesting note is that the books are the only books I believe in existence in which you really can judge them by their horribly cartoonish and disgusting colorful cover art. I kid you not.

But why spend this entire entry rambling on about bad writing when I could put it to better use.

Currently as I have mentioned in a previous post I am enjoying the novel Far-Seer part one of The Quintaglio Acension by canadian Hard SF writer Robert J Sawyer also known for his books Calculating God, Hominids and the short story On The Shoulders Of Giants. The book deals with Dinosaurs on a new planet and how they have evolved and how culture for them works in additon to their reaction to their moon home soon to become a ring around its enormous gas giant mother.

As of right now my book shelf is teeming with unread books and I have made myself quite a substantial list of which one I plan to read in what order.

1)Diamond Dogs/Torquiose Days by Alastair Reynolds (two novellas dealing with sentient machinery and alien marine life)
2)Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (The sequel to Enders Game is something I have to read due to my enjoyment of the first book)
3)Startide Rising by David Brin (part two of the Uplift series, it is one I have written about previously and soon I will have answered many a question)
4)Timelike Infinity/Ringby Stephen Baxter (These two books have been known as "very,very hard science fiction" and that is right up my alley with its involment in superstrings and wormholes)
5)Cyteen by CJ Cherryh (a large, and I mean very large book dealing with the political and scientific problems of cloning from a space station known as Cyteen)
6)The Revelation Space Series by Alastair Reynolds (AR's claim to fame, this new age space opera series deals with deadly alien machinery left to kill any sentientbeing)
ETC.... Expect reviews of these and many, many more.


http://members.fortunecity.com/tirpetz/authorpages/harrison/stainlesshellharrison.gif



http://youtube.com/watch?v=MVVIk_6Js3A