Don't Forget to Read a Book!

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Samuel Delany's The Einstein Intersection. The Short of It Plot:  Kid Death has taken Friza and it's up to Lo Lobey to stop him. Page Count: 142 Award:  1967 Nebula Worth a read : No Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or Character) Bechdel Test : Fail Technobabble:  Moderate Review:  A distant post-apocalyptic world (30,000 years in the future) with wildly inconsistent rules is for some reason still referring to the Beatles and Greek myths. Starring an uninteresting first person narrator who stumbles from one event to another. The Medium of It Spoiler Free! Another one that is not remarkably bad but just completely forgettable. Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Checklist: Radiation mutants Scary desert Giant lizards Abandoned talking computer Subterranean tunnels Misunderstanding pop culture references Mercenary capitalism New titles/societal order "We will remake the world better than before" Hero-Goes-On-A-Journey Checklist She...

Hello, Stranger. Let's talk about Samuel R. Delaney's Babel-17. The Short of It Plot:  A series of attacks by the invaders have only one thing in common: the mysterious language Babel-17 Page Count: 173 Award:  1966 Nebula. You read that right. This tied with Flowers for Algernon. Worth a read : No Primary Driver:  (Plot,  World , or Character) Bechdel Test : Fail Technobabel-17:  Go big or go home.  Review: Boring. Very boring. Just so boring. Is the idea that language dictates thought interesting? Sure. Is it enough to carry a story? Nope. Dull story, tepid characters, belabored central concept. Handful of neat ideas that don't make up for the rest. Nap time in book form.  The Medium of It Spoiler Free! This is probably the longest book I've ever read that was less than 200 pages. There are a few concepts in this book that are fun. There are living tattoos, intense body modifications that allow people to take on all sorts of forms, and the use o...