Slaughterhouse, Gail A. Eisnitz,Prometheus Books, 1997
The City on the Edge of Forever, Harlan Ellison, White Wolf Publishing, 1995
Three Squirt Dog, Rick Ridgway,St. Martin's Press, 1994
A Spark to the Past, Cynthia Wall,Dimi Press, 1998
The White Hart, Nancy Springer,Pocket Books, 1995
Evolution's Shore, Ian McDonald,Bantam Spectra, 1995
The Last American, J.A. Mitchell,Frederick A. Stokes and Brother, 1889
Dog People, Cris Mazza,Coffee House Press, 1997
Dark Alliance, Gary Webb,Seven Stories Press, 1998
Clay's Ark, Octavia Butler, St. Martin's Press, 1984
The Award, Lydie Salvayre, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 1997
One World, Ready or Not,Simon and Schuster, 1997
Mir, Alexander Besher,Simon and Schuster, 1998
Food for Beginners, Susan George,Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc, 1982
War of the Gods, Poul Anderson,Tor Books, 1997
The City on the Edge of Forever, Harlan Ellison, White Wolf Publishing, 1995
Three Squirt Dog, Rick Ridgway, St. Martin's Press, 1994
A Spark to the Past, Cynthia Wall, Dimi Press, 1998
The White Hart, Nancy Springer, Pocket Books, 1979
Evolution's Shore, Ian McDonald, Bantam Spectra, 1995
The Last American, J.A. Mitchell, Frederick A. Stokes and Brother, 1889
Dog People, Cris Mazza, Coffee House Press, 1997
Dark Alliance, Gary Webb, Seven Stories Press, 1998
Clay's Ark, Octavia Butler, St. Martin's Press, 1984
The Award, Lydie Salvayre, Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 1997
One World, Ready or Not, William Greider, Simon and Schuster, 1997
Mir, Alexander Besher, Simon and Schuster, 1998
Food for Beginners, Susan George, Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc, 1982
To read the biographies and remembrances from various people involved in the original Star Trek series, one would discover that Harlan Ellison wrote only the first draft of "The City on the Edge of Forever", that it was basically unshootable and had to be "fixed" by several people. It was ultimately "saved" only through the writing talent of Gene Roddenberry. A person would also read that, in the episode, Scotty was portrayed as an interstellar drug dealer.
Not So, to put it mildly, says Ellison.
Read this book, and one will find out that the original "unshootable" version of City won the Writers Guild of America award for Most Outstanding Teleplay. The version that eventually aired; according to Ellison, the messed-up, watered down, butchered version, is generally considered the best episode of Star Trek-the original, and one of the best pieces of TV ever shown.
Accepting the Hugo award from the World Science Fiction Convention for City (the aired version), Ellison made it clear that he accepted the award on behalf of his original version, and not what was aired.
Roddenberry mentioned, not just once or twice, but many times, over the last 30 years that Scotty was portrayed as a drug dealer despite repeated declarations from Ellison that Scotty was not in the script.
Ellison does his usual great job in the expanded essay, where he names names and gives honest opinions of the people behind, and in front of, the camera. He also includes his original teleplay, which would have been an incredible piece of television if it had been shot as written.
This will probably upset many Star Trek true believers. For everyone else, this is a great book on 60's television, it's a great book on screenwriting; all around, it's a great book.
Set in 1980's suburban Cleveland, here is the story of Bud Carew, a twenty-something college graduate with an English degree and no idea what to do with it, and his younger brother Omar. Their father died the previous year, and Mom ran off to join an Oregon commune, so the two live with their uncle Dewey, owner of a local record store. This is a chronicle of one summer in Bud's life: drinking with his buddies and puking; spending a whole five weeks without Jane, his girlfriend, who is on a forced family vacation; pulling occasional shifts at the record store; working two nights as a night stocker at a local supermarket; Omar is sent, unwillingly, on an extended vacation to visit Mom in Oregon; all to a soundtrack of Alex Chilton, the Ramones and Motorhead. Perhaps the "highlight' of the book is the annual Fourth of July neighborhood farting contest.
I hated to see this novel end. Ridgway has a real gift for raunchy language without going overboard. This is better than, and different from, the usual bored-suburbanites-in-the-80s novels in that Bud willingly listens to classical music and reads authors like Flannery O'Connor and Henry Miller. This one gets two thumbs-up.
This is a young adult novel about Kim and Marc, two present-day Oregon teenagers who are also amateur radio operators. During a meeting of the local radio club, a dfemonstration of an antique radio goes wrong, and the two, plus Bobby, a precocious five-year-old in the wrong place at the wrong time, find their spirits transported back in time to 1845 and are part of a wagon train on the Oregon Trail. Their survival packs go back with them, including handie-talkies which they use to scout the way ahead. As if using their 20th century knowledge without frightening the rest of the party isn't hard enough, one night Marc sets up his portable transceiver and, through an atmospheric quirk, hears a weak distress signal from a Navy pilot shot down in the Pacific during World War II, almost 100 years later. Did I mention that through all this the wagon train party is fighting a losing battle against death from exhaustion and/or starvation?
This one is pretty good. Aside from being a fine introduction to Amateur Radio, the story also gives the message that school subjects like science and mathematics are not just for geeks and may someday come in very, very handy.
Ellid, daughter of Pryce Dacaerin, the most powerful lord in the land, is being held prisoner by Marc of Myrdon, who wants Dacaerin's title. One night, Ellid is freed by Bevan, a moon goddess reared by the Immortals. He takes her to a place of power called Eburacon to recover from her ordeal. She witnesses his ability to talk to animals and create light with his hands. Ellid also discovers his magical link with a White Hart, a majestic male deer. By the time she recovers enough to return home, they are in love.
But, things are not that easy. This is a time of torment upon the land, for an ancient evil has risen, an evil that can reanimate formerly dead people and send them against former comrades. The only hope seems to be Bevan and his strange abilities.
This novel does, really well, what a fantasy novel is supposed to do. The story might be a little simple, but it's a solid, well-done, you-won't-go-wrong sort of story.
This novel takes place in near-future East Africa, near Mount Kilimanjaro. A meteor strike has unleashed an infestation of alien vegetation that resists all human attempts to stop it. It is always growing, and anything it encounters that is not organic, like plastic or metal, is transformed almost instantly. Some people choose to live inside the infestation, called the Chaga, creating all sorts of weird societies, while others leave the Chaga genetically transformed.
For Gaby McAslan, a young TV reporter from Ireland, and her SkyNet news team, the question is: Is this an alien invasion, or does this signal the next stage in human evolution? Along the way, she has to negotiate a torturous UN bureaucracy that wants everything their own way. Never far away, physically, or in Gaby's thoughts, is the ever-expanding Chaga.
I really loved this book. It's very much grounded in reality, and McDonald does a great job of putting the reader in the middle of the story. Brilliant is not too strong a word for this book.
About a thousand years from now, an archaeological expedition travels by ship from Persia (now Iran) to a strange, almost mythical land called Mehrika. All of its inhabitants died suddenly in the last half of the twentieth century through some undefined, but severe, climate change.
Any contributions Mehrikans might have made to art, science or literature have been lost. The expedition arrives in New York City in the early summer, because much is made of the stifling heat and humidity. It is known that in Mehrika the people's chief passion was to buy and sell. The upper class was very fond of displaying its wealth. Huge fortunes dominated all things, even law and government. Vast sheets of paper were printed every day full of crimes, the more revolting the better. In dealings with other lands, Mehrikans wrote laws to benefit themselves. (Sound vaguely familiar?)
The expedition continues on to Washington, where a live Mehrikan is found. Unfortunately, things ultimately come to a sad end.
Mitchell makes some very good points about late 20th century America.If you can find this book, it's short, very easy to read, and quite thought provoking. (The publication date above is not a misprint; it really was published in 1889.)
This is anovel about two married couples who have lost the ability to communicate with each other, except through their dogs.
Scott, a rather wimpy caterer, sees that his crumbling marriage to Suzanne is near the point of collapse. He falls for Fanny, who trained as an industrial designer but never really went anywhere with it, one of his part-time waitresses. She is married to Morgan, a whiny dancer in his mid-30s who is obsessed with Renee, a lesbian member of the same dance company as Morgan, a person who is determined to get what she wants, no matter what. What started as training their dogs together in the park turns into an affair between Fanny and Scott. Also, the dogs in this story are not Lassie. They're the type that attack and bite.
This certainly is an uncompromising look at people who each fit the definition of idiot. One also learns a lot about the breeding and training of dogs. Mazza says a lot about the similarities between members of the animal and human kingdoms. Very much worth reading.
Here is the expanded book version of the San Jose Mercury News series that siad the US government was involved in selling cocaine by the ton in 1980s Los Angeles and sending the profits to the Nicaraguan Contras. The story sent the mainstream media into paroxysms of consternation, not that the story might actually be true, but that anyone would suggest that an agency of the federal government would actually do such a dastardly thing.
Webb does a fine job taking the reader through the whole process, from the Contras to Central American drug running to an "overnight" drug epidemic that was predicted as early as the 1970s. The Contras started as part of President Somoza's hated and feared National Guard (not exactly President Reagan's "moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers"). Various agencies of the US government, including the FBI, DEA and Justice Department did little or nothing to interfere with the drug network, despite plenty of evidence of its existence.
Included is the story of how, when the story first went on the paper's web site, everything was wonderful, with the site recording up to 1 million hits every day. But, when the government and mainstream media began to turn up the heat, the Mercury News backtracked and eventually repudiated the whole story.
After reading this book, one might wonder how the CIA could justify an assertion of No Evidence of Drug Running by its employees. From 1982 to 1995, there was a gentleman's aggreement where the CIA was not required to tell the Justice Department about drug running by its employees.
This book is extremely highly recommended.
Set in 21st century California after a general societal collapse, this is the story of physician Blake Maslin and his two teenage daughters, Keira and Rane. They are peacefully kidnapped (if that's possible) by an emaciated group of strangers. Taken to an isolated mountain retreat, they meet Asa Elias Doyle, the last survivor of a failed mission to Proxima Centauri. He came back with a very contagious alien disease that compels the sufferer to spread it to others. While the person looks sick, they have superhuman strength and a very heightened sense of smell. It also causes extreme mutations in unborn children.
The first thought on the minds of Blake and his daughters is escape and getting to a hospital. According to Asa, that is not possible, because the re is no cure and the compulsion to spread the disease will take over. Also, unless they are very lucky, they can count on being caught by one of the roving bands of bloodthirsty marauders.
Butler is a very underrated, and very, very good writer. This is a short novel with only a few characters, but it packs a big punch. The author does a terrific job with this one.
This novel looks at a necessary evil of the corporate world, the awards ceremony. Honoring certain employees for meritorious service is the sort of stage-managed event that could take place anywhere in the world, but this ceremony takes place at a French car plant. It's the sort of place whose owners seem to have been inspired by the book 1984; switching from dormitories for bachelors to individual rooms of 18 square feet floor space with furniture bolted to the floor; fatigue is purely imaginary; using electrical stimulation to get rid of useless and superfluous gestures, etc.
The speeches given by each honoree are like mini short stories, and they show that life at the plant is not as wonderful as the owners think. They talk of broken marriages, sexual harassment and domestic abuse. The widow of one honoree tells how the particles from his 20 years as a grinder, plus the lubricant used, turned his skin black. The whole time, there is some undescribed, but spreading, agitation going on throughout the whole plant.
This is an excellent satire of big business. Everyone can identify with this book in one way or another. Well worth reading for managers and employees.
Greider takes on a daunting task in this book: explaining the global economy. He talks about the huge global oversupply of production capacity, forcing companies on a never-ending search for more markets for their goods. He explores the downward pressure on wages, causing companies to move from country to country looking for the lowest wages to pay their workers. On the subject of airplanes, for example, China, the world's largest single market, is requiring a piece of the technology to make airplanes as a condition of any airplane purchase; the same sort of thing is happening in other industries. When a corporation moves into a new country, government suppression of labor unions, violently, if necessary, is usually part of the bargain.
The author also explores a whole host of other issues: currency speculation, the bond market, government deficits, globalization from the worker's point of view among them.
Greider does a great job explaining concepts that may be unfamiliar to most Americans. This is not an easy book to read, but in these days of global economic turmoil, this book is required reading.
This novel takes place in the middle of the next century. Earth has become a world where millions of people live in virtual reality full time.It's also a place where the Cold War has returned, in cyberspace, pitting different operating systems against each other. It comes complete with concentration camps and drugs that can, continually and permanently, recreate the despair of the gulag inside a person's head.
Someone on the Net has created a deadly virus called Mir, which has moved into human reality. It's carried by sentient tattoos, which can move around a person's body and carry out tasks on the Net, the latest thing among the cyber-hip. Just before its host is gunned down in the south of France, the tattoo leaps onto a woman named Nelly, who, unknowingly, takes it to San Francisco.
She is followed by a bunch of adversaries, including Chines, Japanese and the Russian Mafia, all of whom want Mir Very Much.
This turns into a futuristic thriller combined with science fiction and Besher handles each half really well. It's cyberpunk enough for anyone, and there's a good story with real characters, too. It is well worth reading.
Ever wonder why over 800 million people, mostly in the Third World, live under the constant threat of famine, while in America crops are left to rot because the storage bins are full? This book gives the answers.
During the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-1800's, two million people died of starvation, but Ireland actually had twice as much food as was needed to feed its population. Irish peasants were told by the landlord that Paying Rent Comes First (even before feeding their children). The landlords sent the crops overseas and invested almost nothing in the land. The practice still goes on today all over the world (it's called "cash crops").
International aid programs simply push population control (and dump unsafe contraceptives) on the Third World, instead of changing the conditions that require them to have many children.
The US Senate has been told that the US health budget could be cut by about $70 billion if people simply improved their diets.
It's been said that for people who want to become politically active, but don't know where to start, food is the perfect place to start, because it touches everyone. Reading Food for Beginners is an excellent place to begin that activism.