>I’ve been neglecting the blog, as if anyone noticed. It’s a strange experience to write for yourself. It’s been a few weeks of living with the music of the past, Here and Now, Gong, Hawkwind, the Inner City Unit and Robert Calvert along with many others from the left of alternative scene of the eighties. So many ideals squashed by the jack boot of Thatcher’s Britain.
On to the next book. A book written in 1956 that has all the violence and attitude of a modern book. A tale of revenge that was so intense a read I gulped it down in one bite.
I’ve not been avoiding this book but it is almost so famous that you feel you don’t want to or need to read it. Well worth the time and also on every list of greatest science fiction out there. Not without reason either.
Having now read it I can see aspects of the story in other novels, most recently for me in Dan Simmons Hyperion as Colonel Kassad struggles to survive after this hospital ship is attacked by Ousters, he even looks for a closet in his leaking and ill fitting space suit.
Then Mia’s tale in Panshin’s Rite of Passage. I’m not sure what to think of this right now, part Heinlein part sixties ideology and part coming of age tale and ultimately not as satisfying as it could have been. It may be that Panshin himself grew up as he wrote this tale, he went through an argument with Heinlein, his time in the service and then on to life. The many natures of the book may have more to do with Panshin maturing than Mia.
I think this is a book that is deceptively simple on the surface but more thought and rereading may bring out it’s true nature.
Last night was the big Robert Plant and the Band of Joy show, a truly unique musical experience. Gone is the posturing of previous Plant shows and replacing it is a prowling monster of a show that covers everything from psychedelia, hard rock, folk and then eastern influences, maybe Plant has come into his own finally as a live artist.
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