For my birthday and Christmas, I received several books that I've been going through. I just finished Robert Heinlein's A Stranger in a Strange Land. It is my understanding that this is commonly viewed as one of the best Science Fiction books ever written, however I just can't share that opinion.The first third of the book was interesting, and kept me reading. The remaining 2/3's of the book were a bit more laborious and uninspiring. I don't know why, but I find stories about uber-people who are nigh invulnerable and so much better than everyone at everything to be rather boring. I had the same problem with Frank Herbert's Dune. Some of the ideas in Heinlein's classic are interesting to mull over, however the story just didn't grab me and pull me in.
On the other hand, Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald, is a fantastic short story filled with flavor and character. If you like your Cthulhu mythos blended with a Victorian setting and spiced with a dash of famous literary characters, then you won't be disappointed. The layout of the story, done as a newspaper complete with advertisements, is splendid. At 9 pages, it would be criminal and rather lethargic of you to not read it.So, what do I have next in the lineup to read? Some old school Greyhawk fiction that escaped my notice when I was younger...
"Stranger" was a pretty amazing book for its time. It holds historical value.
ReplyDeletePlus it's a sci-fi retelling of the classic messiah story, and that gets some people a-hoppin'.
The historical aspect of the book is indeed a good point. For its time, the book was a revolutionary jump forward.
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