What Are You Reading: The Sequel!

[RJDiogenes]

I finished Red Planet. It was very enjoyable, though typical of early Heinlein. It reminded me strongly of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-- I should check the Wiki page to refresh my memory, but I think it even had the same curmudgeonly doctor character. It was certainly less violent, though, and it had the addition of the interesting Martian race. I like how he never spelled anything out about the Martians-- it was mostly Doc's speculations.

I'm also about halfway through Cthulhurotica. It's pretty good, although the stories are tamer than I expected so far. I'm at about the halfway mark.

[RJDiogenes]

Okay, I'm done with Cthulhurotica. It was a nice little collection of Lovecraftian fiction, which was mildly risque but not very erotic. The worst part was the last three items, which were not fiction, but essays that provided absolutely no insights at all into the connection between the Cthulhu Mythos and erotica.

Now I've started Everybody's Favorite Duck by Gahan Wilson-- yes, the cartoonist. I hadn't even heard about this until recently. It seems to be a wide-ranging satire or parody of 20th-century pop culture. Since it's Gahan Wilson, I'm expecting good things.

[Lupine]

I finished Red Planet. It was very enjoyable, though typical of early Heinlein. It reminded me strongly of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress-- I should check the Wiki page to refresh my memory, but I think it even had the same curmudgeonly doctor character. It was certainly less violent, though, and it had the addition of the interesting Martian race. I like how he never spelled anything out about the Martians-- it was mostly Doc's speculations.

It was one of the earliest of Heinlein's books I read and I think I've re-read it a couple of times though not recently. Another one from that period I liked was Time For The Stars.

Okay, I'm done with Cthulhurotica. It was a nice little collection of Lovecraftian fiction, which was mildly risque but not very erotic. The worst part was the last three items, which were not fiction, but essays that provided absolutely no insights at all into the connection between the Cthulhu Mythos and erotica.

I've never read any Lovecraftian stories that weren't written by Lovecraft- save The Valley Of The Worm written by Lovecraft's friend (and Conan author) Robert E. Howard.

[RJDiogenes]

It was one of the earliest of Heinlein's books I read and I think I've re-read it a couple of times though not recently. Another one from that period I liked was Time For The Stars.

The description on Amazon certainly sounds interesting. The part about the main character getting propositioned by his grand-niece is very Heinlein.

I've never read any Lovecraftian stories that weren't written by Lovecraft- save The Valley Of The Worm written by Lovecraft's friend (and Conan author) Robert E. Howard.

Technically, you have, since I've written a few.

It's amazing to me how many Mythos-themed anthologies there are out there. When I was a kid, Lovecraft was legendary but very hard to find. Now even if you walk into a brick-and-mortar bookstore there's a dozen Lovecraftian anthologies. And it's like any other genre-- some are better than others. I generally find myself enjoying them, though.

[Lupine]

I've never read any Lovecraftian stories that weren't written by Lovecraft- save The Valley Of The Worm written by Lovecraft's friend (and Conan author) Robert E. Howard.

Technically, you have, since I've written a few.

True!

[RJDiogenes]

[RJDiogenes]

I finished Everybody's Favorite Duck a couple of days ago, and I liked it a lot. It was both an homage to and a pastiche of 20th-century pop culture, and I figured out quickly that trying to map the characters one-to-one was not going to work. For example, the character of Enoch Bone was a fairly close match to Sherlock Holmes, but his associate, Weston, was more like Napoleon Solo than John Watson. The trio of villains mapped fairly closely to Moriarty, Fu Manchu, and, I think, Fantomas-- though I know very little about Fantomas. There was also a Walt Disney and Disneyland pastiche that strayed a bit far from reality. There were other characters that were probably pastiches as well, but I didn't recognize the sources. The story was a bit campy, but not a parody, and the stakes were high-- all in all, a nice mix. I think anybody with a love for 20th-century genre fiction would enjoy it.

[Lupine]

^Sounds interesting, though I haven't heard anything about it.

[RJDiogenes]

I never heard of it either. I actually found it completely by accident when I was looking through his cartoon collections, shopping for birthday presents. I knew he did some writing, because I remember he had a story in Dangerous Visions and I have one of his short-story collections (there's also an older one that's out of print). As far as I can tell, this is his only novel.