Book Description
Welcome to Florabama, Alabama-a place where you can stop to sip a co'cola or iced tea and think about money and love. If you had 'em, you were free to think about other things. If you didn't, you couldn't think about anything else.
"We've been screwed blue and tattooed," quips Hilly Pruitt, upon hearing the news of the closing of Cherished Lady, the local lingerie factory where she's worked a lifetime. The same day the plant closes, Bonnie Duke Cullman, former-deb turned Atlanta-society-wife, has herself been downsized-right out of her marriage and picture-perfect life. In an unlikely alliance, Bonnie, Hilly, and the rest of the ex-bra seamstresses join forces in the "Displaced Homemakers Program" at a podunk community college. Together they endure a midlife survival course where the events of a single year forever alter the way they see the world and their places in it.
Hailed as "a fearless novelist" (Pat Conroy) and "a peerless limner of strong, complex women" (Anne Rivers Siddons), Lois Battle creates a rich tapestry of female friendships in this funny, heartfelt, and poignant story about the surprising power of a group of small-town women.
"The book is so full of good stuff it's hard to know where to start. It has a feel of Places in the Heart, a little of Norma Rae, and maybe a touch of Fried Green Tomatoes. But [it] stands on its own as an intelligent, poignant, funny, wistful novel of expectations, love and rebirth." (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
"This is just the kind of book you'd like to take onto the porch of a clapboard house, to read curled up in a wicker chair with a glass of iced tea at your side." (Houston Chronicle)
Customer Reviews:
Excellent!.......2006-05-24
I loved this book. I could not get enough of these characters. This was my first Lois Battle's book and I look forward to reading more.
delightful, spirit-lifting book.......2006-04-22
As a 44 year AL native, I'm astounded at the negative reviews from other Southerners! I found the characters and events genuine and lovable. I recognized so many of the characters from my years of living in Birmingham.....the Duke, his superficial, stunted wife, the tough factory women, the oppressed divorcee learning to take care of herself for the first time in her life! I've known them all! This is a great read no matter what your choices in life!
Stand up and shout.......2005-06-30
This book caused me to want to stand up and shout in victory for the characters. I loved it from the first page to the last. It reminded me of Thelma and Louise for another generation of women who find themselves as displaced homemakers. I'm new to reading the southern fiction category but so far I'm having a blast discovering gems like this one.
Just couldn't get into it.......2004-10-17
I'm sure this book has something to offer--- but I had trouble with it from the first page. I like for the books I read to make sense in the details-- if they don't, I can't take the book seriously. Right off the bat, we are told that she leaves Birmingham, Ala. for the Alabama coast, and she leaves at sunset. Her father has to give her encouragement to send her on her way. Why does she leave so late-- no reason is given to account for her driving after dark. An hour later she drives into a hurricane. Why didn't she or someone in her family check the weather report. A hurricane doesn't just appear suddenly-- we know from the recent hurricanes that they are seen days, or weeks, in advance.
So she is driving down Interstate 65 in a hurricane, and decides to get a motel room. She stops at a fleabag motel with part of the slgn lights out. Where, on I-65, would anyone find a motel like that? I have been on I-65 dozens of times and from one end to the other, it's all chains motel, and nice ones. No homegrown motels. The real estate along an expressway is too expensive for dumps. It would have been more believabile if she had stopped at a Holiday Inn. Then, she calls her friend Cass, and tells her she will be leaving at dawn and will arrive at Florabama before noon.
Another 5 or 6 hour drive? Get a map. If she was headed to the Ala. shore it would be a much shorter drive than that. Details like this can make or break a book for me. I couldn't take it seriously, and I lost interest.
Not the South Alabama I know.......2004-05-24
I really wanted to like this book. When I started to read it, I was shocked to find that the setting was the community college my mother and I both attended. My mother, my grandmother and I were all born in this area. My aunt ran a sewing machine in the mill that moved to Mexico. In short, this book hardly rings true. It read like the impressions of an outsider looking in. This is not the book to teach someone about women in the South, especially not women in the new South. It sells short the fascinating and colorful women of the Alabama Gulf Coast.
Book Description
There's the date from hell -- the guy in a bad suit and toupee -- and the hot date from hell. These men are waaay too tempting. One wicked, sexy grin and, well -- who can resist! Certainly not these three women . . .
A spy should know better, but this spy gets stuck on a blind-date assignment with the ex-partner who broke her heart. A lot of making up can get done between scaling rooftops and dodging bullets.
A hostess discovers what it's like to really crash and burn on her first date with the undercover cop who's been casing her restaurant . . .
And if that isn't hot enough, what about a date from hell . . . literally. Satan at his seductive best! It's getting hot in here . . .
Customer Reviews:
Somewhat worth reading.......2004-08-26
I thoroughly enjoyed Adair and Jensen's stories; however, I found Anne Stuart's story, "Blind Date From Hell," more than a little lacking. Her female protagonist, Samantha, was extremely unlikeable. Not only was she egotistical (oh, my beauty is such a curse!), she was also petty, childish and surly. I also found the dialogue and description choppy. Her male protagonist redeemed the story somewhat, but overall, it was colored by Samantha's assumptions that all men just wanted to get into her pants, and her assertions that it was hard to be so beautiful, but it was a curse that she would bravely have to bear, and hopefully she would be able to leave that tough life behind her (yes, I am being sarcastic). I would highly recommend Adair and Jensen's stories - they are both excellent; however, I would hesitate to recommend Stuart's.
Stuart stole my heart!.......2004-06-17
OH>>>>I love Gideon. I am fan of Stuart and love Into the Fire, Ritual Sins and I just finished Moonrise (WOW!), but Gideon is a more world weary soul. The same old rogue male, but slightly tired of existence especially if it means hurting a gentle, young woman. SIGH...my heart belongs to Gideon.
Adair is one steaming blind date. Mom from hell sets up daughter with her ex-lover, the man she has been trying to forget about. It's red shoes sexy, and of so romance. If I cannot have Gideon, I will happily settle for Jack.
Third one by Jensen? HUN? it's not a blind date story at all.
And undercover cop and his boss who is unaware he is a cop crash land in his small plane. That is NOT a date and there was NOTHING Blind about it. She knew she was going up with him, so how they picked this tale to go with the other two puzzles me. It's very well written, through is hurt by being with the amazing Stuart and Adair.
For anthology, this is one of the best! Stuart and Adair are just heart stealer!
Super Anthology.......2004-06-17
I picked this up because of Anne Stuart and SO GLAD I DID. This is a more romantic, whimsical side of Stuart the Queen of the Bad Boys. Those this bad boy is centuries bad, he has become rather jaded and it takes a trip to earth to make him care. It's Stuart as we BEST. This story alone is the price of the book!
I have not ready Cherry Adair, but shall after reading this story. This blind date was such a fun read. I really lover her characters and the whole story was such fun, so sexy. Off to buy her back list!
The last story by Jensen is good, but not in the league with these first two. First off, the premise is blind dates. Her story is NOT a blind date. The premise is contrives, but I went with that. But it's not a date, they go in an plane write to keep her out of the way. She thinks she is on a trip to pick up special linens. Why have them in a plane? Why have the go pick up linens. The premise is so thin. Secondly, the attraction between the leads had promise, but it's such not developed correctly. Jensen is a talented writer and the story is good, but not great like the first two and hurt by it not fitting the premise of a blind date.
Jensen's a 4 start, I give it a 5 because of the strength of Stuart's and Adair's brilliance.
One super groups of super sexy tales.......2004-06-13
Anne Stuart can do more with 120 pages than any writer I know. She proves this time and again. Why she is not THE top writer in Romance today is hard to fathom. Frankly, I attribute it to shortsightedness of her publisher, since some of her powerhouse backlist titles like Moonrise, Nightfall, Ritual Sins, To Love a Dark Lord and about a dozen others are not kept in constant reprint. That hurts a writer and it's just plain bad judgment from the publisher. She is the Resident Genius of dark and deadly bad boys you cannot resist. And she does it again in the anthology, with a lighter more romantic touch in her short story Blind Date From Hell. Don't we all think blind dates are from there? Well, Stuart takes the premise and has fun with it. Gideon Hyde has existed in Hell for so long he cannot recall why he was sent there in the first place. He is relatively sure it was likely a jealous husband who removed him from his earthly existence, but he cannot recall who, what or where and frankly, he doesn't care. He is tired and bored with the endless existence, but Ralph - one of Satan's devils - is determined to shake Gideon out of his boredom. He is sent back to earth to seduce one Sam - Samantha actually - a gorgeous, legged professional model that stubborn has held on to her virginity. It's a fun tale that reaches into your heart and won't let you go. Gideon is another of Stuart's male who will haunt you long after you put the book down.
Proving she is now powder puff girl, Cherry Adair gives you a red-hot sexy tale with "Dance With the Devil. This time, its spy vs. spy romance. Mia Rossi loved her spy partner Jack Ryan, but the International Playboy was not willing to commit. So, she quits her job, leaves Jack and says she is going to be married by Summer. Her mother has been setting her up with blind dates in the effort. All have proved dates from Hell - Mia believe her mother is trying to make her see Jack is the only man for her. So when her mother arranges one with a man named Davis Sloan, she is determined to use Sloan to wipe Jack from her mind. But who should turn out to be her blind date? Jack's back! It's a sassy, sizzling tale that is true Adair. It has Mia giving Jack what for and they have to steal a disk with information vital to their country. This is a tale you won't want to miss.
Muriel Jensen holds her own with these two heavy hitters in "Hal and Damnation". Kat is frustrated in her efforts to get her father to turn over the family restaurant to her, even though she has proved she is a super manager. She is more frustrated with the super new waiter Hal, who refuses to snap to when she barks and order. This one stretches the premise just a bit, because Hal is not from Hell and he is not really a date. He is assigned to lure her away from the restaurant for two days while the cops handled a bank robbery attempt. The bad guys plan on coming through the restaurant's wall to the bank. Things go array when the plane Hal is flying has to make an emergency landing. It's not as strong as the other two stories - but sheesh, few writers are at the peak form of Stuart and Adair. So it's to Jensen's credit her tale is not over shown too much by the two powerhouse writers.
This is one GREAT anthology.
2 out of 3 were great.......2004-04-01
The first two stories by Anne Stuart and Cherry Adair were fantastic. They both did a great job of painting a rich picture of love and passion, which is difficult to do in a short story. This is also where the third story fell short; the passion barely reached luke warm and the love popped out of nowhere and wasn't believeable at all. I still gave the book 5 stars because the first two stories were so darn good! And that is rare for an anthology!
Average customer rating:
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Date with the Devil
Bonita Wagner
Manufacturer: Writers Club Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General | Horror | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | Classics | Comic | Contemporary | Literary
Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
General | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1893652831 |
Book Description
Chyna Wilson had been on the run for her life. With help from her boyfriend Todd, she thought she had finally found safety. Just as she begins to plan for the future, the terror begins all over again.
Customer Reviews:
Timely and entertaining.......2000-02-02
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Date with the Devil. I especially liked the tension leading up the climax. The characters are colorful, and the main female characters are real survivors--they have spunk. It's a love story set in a plot of horror. I read Called from Darkness first, and this is the sequel.
Average customer rating:
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A Date with the Devil
Kim, Mathis Schwartz
Manufacturer: AuthorHouse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General | Horror | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1420863045 |
Book Description
Dr. Ashley Ravenstone, a beautiful, intelligent woman, whose psychic abilities are the best in the world, is the top agent of the Paranormal Warfare Department. The Paranormal Warfare Department was formed by the Vatican to fight Satan and his evil. In charge is Archbishop Damon, a man well educated in the ways of the spiritual world. A new assignment takes Ashley to Los Angeles, California, where she also finds Bishop Damon, who is personally supervising the case. Her assignment is to search for the person who is killing the members of the Delta Phi Sorority House at the University of California at Los Angeles. One of those found dead was the daughter of an important senator. Using her psychic powers, she follows a lead that takes her to an abandoned lighthouse. There she encounters some members of the "undead" and eventually the murderer himself. She realizes during this encounter that the murderer is one of the "undead" - a vampire. Grazing the murderer with a silver bullet from her gun, he leaves Ashley, stunned, within the lighthouse. Leaving the lighthouse, Ashley travels to interrogate the remaining women of the sorority house, hoping they can reveal his identity. There she learns that five of the women used black magic to raise the dead fiancé of one of the sorority sisters. Uncovering bite marks on one of the women, Ashley plans to capture the vampire before he makes his final bite on the woman.
Customer Reviews:
now thats more like it.......2005-09-10
i have to admit i gave this author a terrible review on her first book of this series. so, now, i'm happy to say keep it up. this was a fun read. the structure was good this time. the story flowed well. the main character was very intersting as were the other characters. the story was excellent.
my advice is to check it out. i really enjoyed this one.
ROCK AND ROLL!!!!!!
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Sporting News, published by Thomson Gale on October 7, 2005. The length of the article is 902 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Dance with the Devils: starting with a date at high-scoring, hard-charging Arizona State, Southern California faces its toughest stretch of games.(COLLEGE FOOTBALL)
Author: Todd Harmonson
Publication:
The Sporting News (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 7, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 229
Issue: 40
Page: 47(1)
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Product Description
So you want to be a film critic and review movies for a living? Veteran film critic Christopher Null teaches you, step by step, how to break into the business with the lessons he's learned from more than a decade in the industry. Five Stars! will teach you all you need to know!
- Understand movie history and the mechanics of filmmaking --
without the film snob jargon!
- Learn how to write a review,
step by step
- Get into every movie
for free and never pay to go to the movies again!
- Get
free DVDs -- before anyone else!
- Break into
professional writing in newspapers, magazines, and online
- Launch a movie review website, recruit staff, and
start your own business as a critic
- Learn how to
approach editors -- from the experts themselves
-
Build an audience for your work
- Interview celebrities and
hang out with the stars!
Five Stars! is
the only book on the market that shows you
exactly how to become a
professional movie reviewer, step by step! It's an absolute must-read for any aspiring film critic!
256 pages -- packed with essential information!
Customer Reviews:
Obviously a great book, but wrong topic.......2006-10-03
I love movies. I love to criticize movies. But I really just want to share my criticism with my friends, and I really don't care to be eloquent about it. Take the movie "Four Brothers" for instance. My review would run something like this: "WTF??? I gotta see that again!"
Now, if Christopher Null had written about how to become a food critic, I'd be all over that. I wonder if it would work to just replace words like "film" and "movie" with "food" and "eats", or "actor" and "actress" with "meat" and "potatoes". But then I would have to come up with all kinds of substitutes, and that would get complicated. Would I pick "flambe" or "brussel sprout" to replace "director", "chef" or "gourmet" for "producer", or "curry" or "whip cream" for "writer"? No I guess it wouldn't work.
Hopefully, Mr. Null has a food critic friend who will write a similarly great book entitled "Five Stars! How to Become a Food Critic, The Galaxy's Greatest Job." Let's face it, film critiquing may be great, but food critiquing, what could be better than eating for a living?
The definitive book on movies and being a film critic.......2005-10-04
Other reviewers have gone into great detail about what's in this book so I won't repeat their efforts. Simply put, this book is written by a critic, Christopher Null, which knows movies and can put that knowledge on paper in an informative and still entertaining way. Each point he makes in this book includes at least one movie as an example and it's obvious by the movie titles he lists that he has watched thousands of them. This is a must buy for anyone that wants to be a film critic (or already believe they are one) and a highly recommended purchase for those of you, like me, that simply love watching movies.
kudos.......2005-08-17
normally, i wouldn't want to be a film critic but christopher null makes you really think about it. a great critic...he's interesting and inventive--and has an appreciation for the out of the ordinary... just check out his wacky website. [...]
Five Stars makes it easy.......2005-08-11
If you're one of the millions who dream of turning your love of cinema into a lifelong vocation, you need to read Five Stars. This is the only book on the market today that tells you, step by step, exactly how to break into this business.
Without weighing you down with a bunch of worthless theory that means nothing in the real world, Five Stars quickly gets down to the nitty gritty. In this book, Christopher Null, one of the most widely published and respected movie critics on the internet, walks you through every phase of your personal development on the path to a successful career.
The tips in Five Stars clearly show you how to:
-Educate yourself about the larger world of cinema
-Become a smarter and more active movie goer
-Communicate your thoughts coherently
-Write lively, entertaining movie reviews
-Find outlets to publish your work
Even with the best guidance in the world, becoming a successful film critic isn't easy. But Five Stars will arm you with the knowledge you need to roll up your sleeves and put your talent to work. Whether you're a young upstart with a passion for movies or an established critic with years of experience, this book is a must-have for your personal library.
What other rating could you give it?.......2005-07-02
"Five Stars" deserves five stars.
I read an early edition from Sutro Press, and "Five Stars" is truly a marvelous guide to making your dreams a reality, without any film school snobbery to weigh it down. The book surveys all the stuff you need to know to write credibly about movies, coaches you through the writing process, and even provides excellent tips on how to get your words published.
The author is a web entrepreneur, a seasoned magazine editor, and even a novelist, so he really knows what he's writing about, and that really comes through in the book. Whether you want to pursue film review as a career or even as an occasional hobby, or you just want to go see a lot of new movies and DVDs for free, this book is a fabulous way to start.
Average customer rating:
- One from SF's Golden Age ... hooboy!
- Good, But Not His Best
- Dated, but still fun
- Classic in its time
- NULL-Sci-Fi
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The World of Null-A
A. E. van Vogt
Manufacturer: Orb Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
United States
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Slan: A Novel
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Players Of Null-a
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Null a Three
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Transgalactic
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Transfinite: The Essential A. E. Van Vogt
ASIN: 0765300974 |
Book Description
The classic novel of non-Aristotelian logic and the coming race of supermenGrandmaster A. E. van Vogt was one of the giants of the 1940s, the Golden Age of classic SF.Of his masterpieces, The World of Null-A is his most famous and most influential. It was the first major trade SF hardcover ever, in 1949, and has been in print in various editions ever since. The entire careers of Philip K. Dick, Keith Laumer, Alfred Bester, Charles Harness, and Philip Jose Farmer were created or influenced by The World of Null-A, and so it is required reading for anyone who wishes to know the canon of SF classics.It is the year 2650 and Earth has become a world of non-Aristotelianism, or Null-A. This is the story of Gilbert Gosseyn, who lives in that future world where the Games Machine, made up of twenty-five thousand electronic brains, sets the course of people's lives. Gosseyn isn't even sure of his own identity, but realizes he has some remarkable abilities and sets out to use them to discover who has made him a pawn in an interstellar plot.
Customer Reviews:
One from SF's Golden Age ... hooboy!.......2007-03-15
This is one of the best bad books I know.
It was first published as a three-part serial in the pulpy pages of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine during the second half of 1945, just after what was then regarded as the science fictional end of World War II. Considering the economics of scratching out a living as a pulp writer and the physical necessities of magazine publication in the heyday of the great Street and Smith pulps, it was probably written in the spring of that year. A couple of references to atomic power were, I think, hastily edited in just before the presses turned. (I have always rather fancied the atomic-powered flashlight that the hero totes for a couple of pages before it is forgotten entirely.)
Van Vogt's hero is a man whose name may or may not be Gilbert Gosseyn. At the beginning of the book, the poor schnook just wants to take a test to qualify for a job. Then things begin to go wrong, really wrong. First he gets killed, shot to pieces by machineguns, then he....
Years later, Alfred (a name he loathed) van Vogt said that he had stumbled on the name "Gosseyn" as the chief of some obscure Central Asian tribe. He had liked the sound of it: pronounceable, a bit exotic and vaguely Indo-European. He was absolutely astonished when the fans knowingly informed each other that he had meant the name to be taken as "Go-Sane."
This "Go-Sane" business arose from Van Vogt's placement of puzzling quotes at the beginning of each chapter. The quotes come from several sources, including his own editor at the magazine, but the ones everyone remembered were hacked out of "Science and Sanity: an Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics" published in 1933 by Alfred (that name again) Korzybski.
Korzybski has his legion of followers even today. (They tend to use such terms as "unrecognized genius" when referring to him.) Whether Korzybski was reconstituting human consciousness or selling intellectual snake oil, it must be admitted that the man had a memorable prose style. Here is a passage that Van Vogt did not happen to quote:
"What we know positively about `space' is that it is not `emptiness', but `fulness' or a `plenum'. Now `fulness' or `plenum', first of all, is a term of entirely different non-el structure. When we have a plenum or fulness, it must be a plenum of `something', `somewhere' at `sometime', and so the term implies, at least, all three of our former elementalistic terms. Furthermore, fulness, by some psycho-logical process, does not require `outside walls'." [Page 229 of the International Non-Aristotelian Library edition; italics omitted in deference to Amazon's software limitations.]
Now that may mean simply "the universe is neither empty nor bounded." On the other hand, it might also--or even instead (or both, of course)--mean "the Gostaak distims the doshes." It's hard to say which. Van Vogt quoted a lot of this stuff. The fans ate it up!
The serial was hugely successful. Before long, there was a sequel, "The Players of Null-A," that was almost equally popular. In 1948, "The World of Null-A" was the first pulp SF novel to achieve the dignity of book publication and, if the blurb on the back of this edition is to be believed, it hasn't been out of print since. I gather that years later Van Vogt wrote a third Null-A book, one I have never run across.
A. E. van Vogt was one of the leading luminaries of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. (Of course, the golden age of anything is about eleven.) He wrote stirring and memorable stuff. While the war was still being waged in the Pacific, he wrote a series of novelettes for Astounding about a far-ranging space vessel called the Beagle, commanded by a sympathetically portrayed Japanese captain. (In those days, that was a brave act.) The stories were gathered together in a book called "The Voyage of the Space Beagle." Read it today and you will never again regard either the movie "Alien" or the first series of "Star Trek" as having the slightest shred of originality about them.
Van Vogt's specialty, and the thing the fans most wanted from him, was the plot of almost maniacal complexity, of enigmas wrapped in hidden agendas, of wheels within wheels within hidden wheels, of characters wearing whole wardrobes of masks for the purpose of discarding one after another. Take this passage as a typical example. The speaker is Patricia Hardy, daughter of the President of Earth, to whom Gosseyn (apparently) falsely believed he was married before her death, which took place before the novel starts--of course. She had helped him leave the presidential palace in the botched escape attempt that had resulted in him being killed ... the first time. This is their second meeting and, the thing is, he's a bit confused:
"The truth is that your lack of personal knowledge has puzzled all groups. Thorson, the personal representative of Enro, has postponed the invasion of Venus. There! I thought that would interest you. But wait! Don't interrupt. I'm giving you information I intended to give you a month ago. You'll want to know about `X.' So do the rest of us. The man has a will of iron, but no one knows what his purpose is. He seems to be primarily interested in his own aggrandizement, and he has expressed the hope that some use can be made of you. The Galactic League people are bewildered. They can't decide whether the cosmic chess player who has moved you into the game is an ally or not. Everybody is groping in the dark, wondering what to do next." [Page 110-111]
Oh, yeah!
And let it not be thought that Van Vogt had to depend on Korzybski for puzzling statements. He was pretty good at it himself:
"The problem," Prescott [Deputy Commander of the "Greatest Empire" invasion force] continued, frowning, "is greatly complicated by a law of nature, of which you have probably never heard. The law is this: if two energies can be attuned in a twenty-decimal approximation of similarity, the greater will bridge the gap of space between them just as if there were no gap, although the juncture is accomplished at finite speeds." [Page 173]
Pay attention! You WILL be tested on this.
Finally, Van Vogt finishes the book with a five word sentence that is one of the great pulp endings, comparable to his own "Poor superman!" in "Masters of Time" or to his friend L. Ron Hubbard's, "God? In a dirty bathrobe?"
Good, But Not His Best.......2005-03-16
"The World Of Null-A" is a tremendously influential work in the SF genre. It was first published in August - October of 1945 in "Astounding Science Fiction", however that version is quite a bit different from the version which was published in book form in 1948. A final revision was published in 1970, which was very close to the 1948 version.
The core of the story is set in the year 2650, and is told from the point of view of Gilbert Gosseyn, who discovers very early on that all his memories are not real. He is being used as a pawn in a struggle for power.
The story of Gosseyn is interesting and the reader does want to find out what happens to him, but there are problems with the story as well. Key to the plot is the philosophy of Null-A (non-Aristotelianism), which is never clearly defined and thus can easily leave the reader confused. This is the first of three books in this series, so perhaps this problem will be resolved in the other books.
For my tastes, "Slan" was a better example of van Vogt's work. In addition, his Isher series is easier to follow as well. The other two books in the Null-A series are: "The Players of Null-A" and "Null-A Three".
Dated, but still fun.......2004-02-22
As a classic Sci-Fi novel it reads pretty good. Much of the futuristic speculative science is not yet either obsolete nor proven impossible 60 years later. Some of the high-tech foreseen by Vogt includes a society run by a mega-computer which selects leader based on a mental discipline and philosophy called "Null-A." Our hero enrolls in the annual selection by the computer after some years of study. Selected winners are sent to an imaginative colony on Venus. Everything in perfect order, until he finds out that his brain has been tampered with, he isn't who he thinks he is, and nothing is as it seems. The Earth is a pawn in a galaxy wide political plot wherein one evil dictator is planning to destroy Earth and Mars as and use it as justification to start a huge interstellar war. Our hero finds out that his brain has been genetically augmented to give him extra abilities, and his body is being cloned and the clones receiving his mental patterns so that when he is killed the clone takes over without loss, a sort of immortality. Typical of early sci-fi the characters are mostly cardboard cutouts. There is a woman in the plot, and he almost but not quite manages a relationship. In Vogt style it ends when he gets tired of writing without the reader finding out what ever became of the space war. Still, it's an entertaining read on a lazy afternoon.
Classic in its time.......2002-01-17
If this book was released today I don't think it would be as critically praised as it has been and regarded as an outright classic of Golden Age SF. It's not that standards were lower back then, but the audience was different and looking for a different type of story, one that audiences today probably aren't as interested in. Of course, keeping in mind that, all nostalgia aside, most of the Golden Age SF, except for a handful of notable authors was mostly derivative crap, this book looks pretty good indeed. It's original, for the most part it's readable and often times fairly exciting. What we have here is a hero who has no idea who he really is fighting against an enemy and being manipulated every time he turns around. Like most novels of the period, Van Vogt wasn't about to let something as simple as plot get in the way of a good story and it shows. The book is supposed to be based around the concept of General Semantics which I admittedly know nothing about and didn't learn much from the book itself . . . the concept is never really fully explained except for general asides and most of the stuff "fully null-A people" would do strikes me as mostly common sense (attack an army at night? it takes a logical system of thought to figure that out) so I suspect there's more to it than Van Vogt shows us. The best way to read this book is as quickly as possible, preferably in one sitting . . . plots shift gears and scenes change so quickly and ideas are tossed out with such uncaring glee that when you're immersed in the story, it's great fun. But when you take a step back to think about it, you're not so pleased. But the ideas and the feelings are what make this story work and explains why people still read it fifty some odd years after its publication . . . it's certainly not for the sophisticated writing or the depth of charactization but simply because it's a fun book that at best will get you interested in General Semantics and at worst will simply entertain you.
NULL-Sci-Fi.......2001-12-09
Have you ever read a story and then wondered what you had read? That was my question after finishing this bedtime thriller. I really got interested in Gilbert's plight, not knowing who or what he was, not knowing why he had a second embryonic brain? And I liked his encounters with asexual Pat Hardie--there always seemed to be hope for a romance there. But I finished the story frustrated and feeling like I had been set up with the first book of a trilogy. Frankly, I knew less about Gilbert on the last page than I did on the first. Yes, we found out he was a pawn, like every character in the story, but what kind of chess game was this? Who were the real life players?
I never quite grabbed the non Aristotelian stuff and General Semantics also left me cold. Why would one write a novel instead of an essay, to interest others in semantics. Semantics is a word game. Semantics worries about words, sets of words, and loses sight of the forest while examining the trees. And nothing in the story showed that Null-A characters were any better or worse off than non Null-A characters. Null-A's were as good at being pawns as were the others. Anyway, it seemed like the Null-A characters were all undercover, pretending to be Aristotelian. And no, I don't want the Author explaining the story in a belated Introduction. So I doubt I'll bother to read the sequel.
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THE WORLD OF NULL-A
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H4GPLW |
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Basin Region: Washoe People
Mary Null Boule
Manufacturer: Merryant Pub Inc
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Briefe aus dem Spatzengarten (Stunde Null und danach)
Erich von Lolhoffel
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Damals 1945: Das Jahr Null
Guido Knopp
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Funf vor Null;: Die Besetzung des Munsterlandes 1945
Helmut Muller
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Norddeutschland Stunde Null: April-September 1945 : e. Bild/Text-Bd
Charles Whiting
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Null-A Three
A. E. Van Vogt
Manufacturer: Daw
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Product Description
Daw #634. Sequel to "The World of Null-A" and "The Pawns of Null- A." "Meet again Gilbert Gosseyn, the man with the extra brain who staved off disaster for the Solar System, as he finds himself launched on his greates challenge - a showdown with the originators of cosmic civilization."
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