Hugos: Unfinished Novellas

[alias_sqbr]

Since I didn't finish these I am plausibly interrogating the text from the wrong perspective.

Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow:

I'm pretty sure this is a fantastic example of it's type, but it's type doesn't really interest me. I got to page 60 then skipped to the end (page 200ish) and didn't feel like I'd missed much.

In the 1980s an old hollywood scifi writer/actor tells the story of being recruited by the US government for stuff I will not spoil. It's a quite clever and effective pastiche of writer memoir (it reminded me a lot of "Adventures in the Screen Trade" by William Goldman) with monster movie nostalgia and old school anti-war satire sf, but stuff satirising the 1950s war machine needs to be at least one of very funny, very insightful, or very accurate to interest me and this didn't quite make the grade on any of those counts. I think I'd rather read an actual old school anti-war satire written in the 70s etc than this oddly retro one.

Palimpset by Charles Stross:

A guy joins a time travelling organisation which keeps an eye on history and humanity.

I got to page 8 then skipped to the end (page 47). I don't know why this didn't grab me, I love time travel and the premise was pretty cool, maybe because I didn't care about the main character at all or feel like waiting around for his inevitable realisation that All Was Not As It Seemed.

Comments

[fred_mouse]

Oddly, 'Shambling toward Hiroshima' I had a lot of difficulty putting down, so I basically half-answered questions for the entire evening, until I had finished it. I did find it slow going to start though, but being on public transport meant that I didn't put it down until it had me by the nose.

[sqbr]

Yeah, it didn't feel like an inherently boring book, just Not My Thing.