Sunday, May 31, 2009

Science Fiction 17 – Fritz Leiber, Jonathan Lethem, C S Lewis

Besides having the complete collection of the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber, I have several other of his novels, plus the collection The Best of Fritz Leiber which contains one of the best cat stories ever, that being “Space Time For Springers” the first Gummitch story.

leiber_conjurewife leiber_gatherdarkness

leiber_bestof

Jonathan Lethem is one of my favorite writers. His work is highly original and entertaining to read. Below are his first two novels, Gun With Occasional Music - a sort of bizarre noir futuristic detective story, and Amnesia Moon, an even more bizarre road trip type of fiction.

lethem_gun lethem_moon

I remember quite enjoying the C S Lewis Space trilogy – Out of the Silent Planet, Voyage to Venus (or Perelandra) & That Hideous Strength. More than that I cannot remember.

lewis_silentplanet lewis_venus lewis_strength

Another Lewis, Roy Lewis wrote the amusing novel The Evolution Man about the ascent of man from ape to sentient being.

”This comic novel purports to be a first-hand account by the son of the first man to discover fire. Instead of celebrating such a pivotal event in the progress of man, Lewis' narrator comes to see the development as a very destructive and disruptive force. To prevent further "advances", the family takes matters in hand, leading to a conclusion telegraphed by the French title of the book, Pourquoi j'ai mangé mon père (translation: Why I Ate My Father).” ~ from Wikipedia

lewis_roy_evolution

Next: Books by Martin, May & McAuley

Science Fiction 16 – Ursula K Le Guin

Ok, I’ve been awfully slack at adding new posts to Eye Candy for Bibliophiles, so to make for that I’ll try and put up a few new posts today.

For a start, books by Ursula Le Guin…

1973 appears to be the year that I discovered her books, when I first started work at Space Age Books. Though I have not read any of the below books for many years, they have been sitting on my bookshelves for all that time.

First Rocannon’s World and Planet of Exile both published 1966. My copy of Rocannon’s World appears to have been chewed by a puppy. I did have a dog at that time and probably read these books during her puppyhood.

leguin_rocannon leguin_planet

Next City Of Illusions (1967) and The Lathe of Heaven (1971)

leguin_illusion leguin_lathe

The Hugo & Nebula winning Left Hand of Darkness (1969) – hideous cover!

leguin_darkness

Two more from the 1970s – Orsinian Tales and The Wind’s Twelve Quarters with prettier covers than the earlier novels.

leguin_orsinian leguin_wind

Next: Lieber, Letham & Lewis