Tuesday, January 13, 2009

A book to read next month

Wherein their spin on Inferno got me to read Dante's Inferno which kinda freaked out my 10th grade English teacher when I told him it wasn't required I was reading for the fun of it Even in advanced lit classes I was the only one who ever finished the books


Released next month is Escape from Hell by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It's their Inferno sequel. Other Niven and Pournelle collaborations I've read:

  • Lucifer's Hammer -- comet beats the crap out of the planet. Hardy band of Californians fight off cannibals and attempt to save civilization with books hidden in a septic tank. Overall, I remember this being quite good.

  • Inferno -- a modern retelling of Dante's story. Hardy science fiction writer refuses to believe he's dead.

  • The Mote in God's Eye -- There's these aliens and they have a secret -- psst, not as friendly as they appear to be. Hardy band of humans try to prevent a catastrophe. Probably their best book.

  • Oath of Fealty -- There's this arcology outside Los Angeles and conflict ensues. Hardy band of hive-minded individualists fight off terrorists and government bureaucracy. Uneven story with a few interesting ideas and most well known for the phrase "think of it as evolution in action." funny...checking wiki, that's almost exactly their short description.

  • Footfall -- Elephant-like aliens invade earth. Hardy group of humans find a way to fight back. There are a couple of major plot points they borrowed from other novels of theirs. Maybe more, I'm not really fluent in most of their separate works.

  • The Gripping Hand -- sequel to "Mote in God's Eye." Don't remember much about this other than it confirmed why I'd mostly stopped science fiction in general, and Niven and Pournelle more specifically. I considered myself hardy for finishing it.


Adding Appetite for Self-Destruction to the list for February.

2 Comments:

Blogger Icepick said...

Lucifer's Hammer -- comet beats the crap out of the planet. Hardy band of Californians fight off cannibals and attempt to save civilization with books hidden in a septic tank. Overall, I remember this being quite good.

Dude, you forgot the surfer who died with style by riding a 300 foot wave into a skyscraper in downtown LA!

(Of course, in rality that wouldn't have happened as there's no way that guy could have paddled in to a wave that big....)

1/13/2009 05:55:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not forgotten. Just more fool-hardy than hardy.

I'm reading Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and just finished the section on comets striking the earth. Makes me want to dig out my copy of "Hammer" and read the description of a comet as a hot fudge sundae.

billquoted

1/14/2009 08:53:00 AM  

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