It’s
time another look back. The 1960’s were
for me, a decade of highs and lows of all kinds. The highest and closest to perfect HEP Score yet
occurred in the 60’s but there were also some pretty low scores. There were some books that I finished in a
matter of days and others that I needed to enter a time warp to give myself
enough time to finish. Lots of
theological themes and lots of nuclear destruction. It’s not surprising really that in the decade
of both the Bay of Pigs and the death of God in popular culture and philosophy,
that The Bomb and theology would hit SF pretty hard. Surprisingly, it managed not to feel
monotonous. Overall, I’d say I’m much happier
about the 60’s than I was the 50’s and I’m feeling rejuvenated and excited
about what’s to come. YAY!
Lowest Score: The
Man in the High Castle and The
Wanderer tied at 14 pts
Highest Score: Way
Station at 24 pts
Biggest Surprise/Disappointment: Stranger
in a Strange Land. This was
previously one of my favorites, but after this re-read, it all came crashing
down…
Favorite Featured Epic
Quote: This
Immortal. This was a much more
difficult choice than the last decade, partly because I wasn’t great about
posting them last time, but also because there were some really great books
from the 60’s.
Favorite Character: This is really hard to
answer so I’m going to split it into sub categories…
Favorite
Computer:
Mycroft Holmes
Favorite
Human: Conrad
Nomikos
Favorite Moment: When Dune beat
This Immortal in the 1966
Deathmatch!
Favorite Gadget: This is a really unfair
call to make because there was so much to love.
Martian language, though not a gadget was a pretty fun invention of the
mind in Stranger. The many unexplainable
trinkets and whatnots and Enoch’s entire HOUSE was also great in Way
Station. But I think my favorite had to
be the Stillsuits in Dune!
Coolest Aliens: I’m gonna give this one
to the whole suite of aliens from Way
Station.
Favorite Review: Way Station. I liked this book quite a bit so I was
nervous I wouldn’t do it justice (considering I rarely do any books justice
with my reviews) and it seemed to come in a flash and I was even pretty happy with
it. Plus it was picked for May’s GMRC
Challenge and is putting up a great showing in the polls! Also shout out to Allie from Tethyan Books for an equally awesome
review of the same book in May.
Favorite Cover: Looking at my 1960’s
cover art mash-up, The Wanderer seems like
some kind of ancient relic. My favorite
though has to go to The Moon is a Harsh
Mistress due to the utter lack of any competition (I did like the
Rodin on Stranger though).
Let's move on and examine a few more stats from my 11 reviews from the 1960’s.
The average HEP score was 18.6. I
read 3627 pages for an average of 330 pages/week. To give you some perspective, in the 1950’s I
read only 1533 pages. Also, my language
and communication skills are still in the toilet:
When
I ran my reviews into the cloud, as with the last decade, I was pretty
disappointed. Maybe I’m not doing it
right, but I always imagine cooler sounding words will pop up like ANGST or ALIENS
or anything cooler than freaking LIKE or JUST or MUCH. This may be the time that I have to start
admitting to myself that my talent for writing reviews is mediocre at best and
my vocabulary is choked with non-curse four-letter-words. Erg.
Gut check time. No matter what the
quality of my reviews, I must finish this challenge.
People,
I’ve got two decades down and I’m still going strong. To the remaining Hugo winners, I have four
words: I. Will. Destroy. You.
I think we can safely say that you've earned everlasting glory with the review of Way Station :)
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