Books: Trains, Requiem, Darkness, Proust, Fatherhood, And A Giant Robot

[woodwardiocom]

Legendary Journeys: Trains

A slide-out pop-up book of trains, for my daughter, someday. It's a bit of a tease — it features the beautiful A4 Mallard on the endpapers, but doesn't mention it in the text!

A Requiem For Astounding by Alva Rogers

A retrospective on the famed SF magazine Astounding, written in the 1960s, after its name change to Analog. It's mostly a pretty dry issue-by-issue recounting of what stories were good, bad, or poorly illustrated, but there's some interesting history in there. It also shifts my understanding of the evolution of the term "space opera". I was under the impression that in the 1960s "space opera" still meant "bad SF", but Rogers uses it in a positive manner to describe the Lensman books, etc., in much the same sense it's used today. Innnteresting!

Gather, Darkness by Fritz Leiber

A classic novel in which mankind is ruled by an oligarchy both theocratic and technocratic. The rebellion, therefore, frames itself as Satan-worship... Recommended.

Proust And The Squid by Maryanne Wolf

A fascinating look at the science of the reading brain, and what parts of our basically ape-like brains get co-opted for the task of reading. Recommended to me by minkrose, recommended to you by me.

Home Game: An Accidental Guide To Fatherhood by Michael Lewis

A slight but engaging collection of fatherhood anecdotes. The best wisdom I took away from it was, "You don't see adults who never learned to walk crawling all over the place. Your kids'll learn eventually. Don't rush it."

Tom Swift And His Giant Robot by Victor Appleton II

Fourth in the relentlessly 1950s technophilic series, in which Tom must build a robot to swap nuclear slugs at his father's new atomic plant. Gangsters, naturally, try to steal it. The writer often gets the feel of scientific development right, even while the science itself is goofy.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

This is "Tom Swift, Jr.," yes? I never found their handling of scientific development as persuasive as the way it was shown in the Rick Brant series, which I actually still find pretty readable.

[bluegargantua]

Oh man, the Giant Robot episode. I like how people casually (even for the 60's) mess around with radioactive materials like it's no big deal.

later
Tom

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

In "The Caves of Radioactive Fire", Tom and Bud give the stuff very healthy respect, and still have perilous close calls.

[muffyjo]

The A4 Mallard is "garter" blue! I didn't know any blue by that name and had to look it up which led me to reading about all kinds of curious things with the Queen and what powers she has. I wonder if there is a pantone color associated with it. (Of course there will be if I look). Proust and the Squid also look interesting.