Amazon.com
It would be hard to imagine two more unlikely people to end up being in love with each other than Winslow and Erika, but they are, indeed, in some kind of love in Kevin Canty's Winslow in Love. Winslow is a poet whose life isn't working: his wife, June Leaf, is floating away from him; he hasn't written anything worthwhile for more than a year; he drinks and smokes too much; is fat and out of shape; depressed, morose--basically, a mess. Then, like a deus ex machina, deliverance of a sort appears. Winslow is offered a position teaching creative writing for a semester at a Montana University. (Canty teaches creative writing at the University of Montana.) Winslow is broke, stuck, and doesn't have a better idea, so he accepts the offer.
He and June drive to Montana together, but she leaves almost immediately, never to be heard from again. Winslow meets his students, all poet wannabes, and zeroes in on a pin-thin, tattooed girl half his age named Erika. She is bright, confrontational, and damaged. She drops into his office for Johnny Walker in a paper cup and Winslow quickly realizes that she is at least as troubled as he is. One of the other faculty members tells him that they are all worried about her: she is clearly starving herself to death and an alcoholic in the bargain. A perfect companion for Winslow in his current dark night of the soul.
In the hands of some novelists this would be just another dysfunctional relationship based on booze. Kevin Canty makes it gut-wrenchingly real, like the best of the blues, which Winslow loves and Erika can't stand. During a semester break, they take off in Winslow's Lincoln Town Car, the last relic of a past life and go south. Canty is a master at showing us the landscape, exterior and interior. Whether he is rhapsodizing about fly fishing--and these are the best lines about that since A River Runs Through It--or describing a hangover, a regret, a lost opportunity, he brings the moment to life: its beauty, ridiculousness, and poignancy. --Valerie Ryan
Book Description
Richard Winslow is in a rut. His wife is leaving him, he drinks too much, his once-acclaimed poetry has sunken into obscurity, and he hasn’t written anything worth reading for eighteen months. In truth, he hasn’t even tried. The offer of a visiting professorship at a small college in Montana hardly seems like the best way to renew his artistic glory, but with his options and his bank account rapidly dwindling, Winslow makes the move. Once there, he rediscovers the forgotten pleasures of fly-fishing and meets a girl in worse shape than he is.
Erica is a painfully thin student with a dragon tattooed on her neck. She is also sharp, confrontational, and fiercely intelligent. Their relationship, formed over paper cups of Johnnie Walker in Winslow’s office, escalates when they impulsively take off on a road trip in Winslow’s prized possession, a classic Lincoln Town Car. Traveling through Utah and Arizona, they forge a bond neither anticipated. Winslow, haunted by thoughts of death, begins to embrace the promise of love and life.
From stunning descriptions of fly-fishing in cold Montana streams to pitch-perfect renditions of intimate conversations, Winslow in Love is a work of extraordinary beauty. Canty has long been recognized as a writer of finely nuanced prose who sees our time with breathtaking clarity. Of his last novel, Newsweek wrote: “Canty’s forte is to examine human relationships with the precision of Sue Miller or Louise Erdrich within the context of a fast-moving narrative. Once he’s got you in his thrall, you’re as helpless as his lovers in the hands of fate.”
Customer Reviews:
Dear Kevin:.......2006-08-29
Ten years ago I read A Stranger in This World and thought I'd stumbled on the next Raymond Carver. That book hit me with the force of a semi crushing a soda can on the interstate.
Ten years and four books later, I keep wondering, what happened? Yes, Winslow in Love (like his other novels) is filled with poetry in prose, razor sharp condemnations and suicide inspiring introspection. It's a good novel. I liked it. I gave it 3 stars. Still, I can't help thinking that the horse so quick out of the gate came up lame. My ticket ain't worth much now.
Read Winslow. I recommend it. But go back and reread Stranger. Apples to oranges or not, you'll find a writer in that volume that delivers not only jabs of poetry, he unloads upper cuts that would make Chekhov proud.
poetry in prose.......2005-07-10
This is the latest book (both in terms of publishing and in order that I've read) that I've added to my "book club", that is to say, my favorite books--books that I think everyone should own, or at least read at least once. This is a very poetical book. Canty's prose is a lyrical prose. It's a melancholy book that has a certain hopeful hopelessness to it. It's the story of an over-the-hill, overweight poet who is past his artistic prime who gets a teaching position in an out of the way school. His marriage is over as is his career. He has lost his talent and his life to alcoholism. While at this school he meets a troubled young student. These two people are drawn to each other and in each other find each other's salvation, of a sorts. It's a haunting story, one that ranks with any of the finest pieces of literature written. This is a book that you simply must read. And the cover art fits the story wonderfully.
Wish I'd heard of Canty previously........2005-05-14
Where I saw this review is beyond me. That I read the book is the substantive thing. It knocked my socks off - not as smelly as Winslow's but they still could benefit from a good washing. The 'lump' stays with me. The bursting heart, the beating life, the unknown that comprises the solopsistic circle. It's ok that it's solipsistic. I'm way past my school days. Thank you Mr. Canty. Thank you very much. By the way, Missoula reminds me of Fairbanks, my home town. I wonder if Montana and Alaska both attract the end-of the-roaders or if we're all traveling the same road one time or another. We're all bound to hit the end some time. Hey, it this is autobiographical, try cutting down on the booze. You're too good a writer to kill yourself on that poison.
grrreat.......2005-04-26
This is an absorbing novel. My being a Canty fan, incidentally, may make me more, not less, credible. That's because, for me, Canty has a higher and higher bar to clear with each successive work. I thought "Nine Below Zero" was a very strong novel, and I think "Winslow In Love" is similarly compelling. I wish Canty would write books every two weeks, like Joyce Carol Oates. Then again, if he did, maybe his characters wouldn't stick in your head after you finish his work. I still think about Winlsow from time to time, weeks since I've finished the novel. Of course, that may just mean it's time to check myself into the hospital to have my meds tweaked again? Read this book. It's powerful.
"Somebody lets go of somebody's hand, the circle is broken".......2005-02-28
With it's feeling of whimsical melancholy, Winslow in Love is an often touching and poignant account of a "fat and unlovely" middle aged college professor whose sense of regret and unhappiness overwhelms a life that could have been better. Richard Winslow is fat, bald and drunk, a failed poet and a self confessed failure at life. He's the troubled and deeply unhappy main protagonist at the center of this charming, spirited, and sprightly novel by Kevin Canty.
The story begins on one rainy, windswept Oregon afternoon when June Leaf, Winslow's flighty, disaffected wife suddenly informs him that he's been given a semester long teaching opportunity in Missoula, Montana. With his creative juices dried up, drunk most of the time, and with a face that is peppered with melanomas, he takes up the offer. While teaching Rilke to a bunch of incongruent students - who aren't sure what to make of their muttering, misanthropic teacher - he meets Erika Johnson, a troubled, distressed student, "a waif so riddled with piercings," who, at thirty-five years younger, is just as worse off as he is.
Erika, battling with anorexia and depression, forges an uneasy friendship with the emotionally embattled Winslow. Becoming an unlikely duo, and partaking of one paper cup of Johnnie Walker at a time, they eventually embark on a road trip across the America where they learn much about themselves, each other, and the wild, untamed nature of love. Constantly drunk and chain-smoking, Winslow is probably literature's ultimate anti-hero. He relentlessly refers to his life "as a long illness." Where once he sensed that the world belonged to him, he now knows that feeling has gone from him forever and life is just one disappointment after another.
Richard Winslow may put off some readers - he's just such a dour, sulky, and self-pitying old retch. And although he doesn't imbue much sympathy, this reader was readily able to admire his observations on life and the illusive nature of love. As he ponders life as a failed poet, he reflects on the thousands of pages of wasted words, years of heart and soul and discipline for what? Ships in bottles, one after another. But Richard is also realistic enough to know that in some kind of existential sense, he just has to go forward and let things turn out however they turned out.
Canty's prose is gritty and realistic, complimenting characters that are constantly living on the edge. Love for them is either at the bottom of a whisky bottle, a full packet of cigarettes, or an endlessly indefinable destination in the front of a beat up old car. Old, injured, tired, and haunted by matters of love, Winslow feels he is going to die alone. Certainly nobody loves him and if they did, they couldn't live with him. He's constantly wracked with the feeling that he doesn't fit his life - there was some other life somewhere that he ought to be leading and not this one. Winslow discovers that with a failed life, he has nothing to lose, which makes the ending of this story, and his final chance at redemption, all the more heart wrenching, compassionate, and sympathetic. Mike Leonard February 05.
Book Description
The mercury is soaring, and it's the perfect time to dive into a pool of uninhibited sensuality. Take a break from the heat with this collection of steamy summertime encounters featuring four of today's most popular African-American women writers.
Going south for her summer break, a high school math teacher puts her assets to work as an exotic dancer in Maxed Out by
Brenda L. Thomas. But when her secret double life follows her home to Philadelphia, things swing wildly out of control as she tries to walk the line between sexy woman and sex object.
Worlds collide when a street-smart beauty scores with a multimillionaire during a summer that climaxes with the New York City blackout.
Crystal Lacey Winslow captures the edgy thrills -- and the dark side -- of carnal pleasures in Sex, Sin & Brooklyn.
In
Rochelle Alers' Summer Madness, a sexy brother with a mysterious past turns a pretty librarian's play-it-safe Hamptons vacation into a torrent of sensual delights. But can she trust him without knowing his whole story?
A jilted bride is on the Rebound in
ReShonda Tate Billingsley's tale of passion in unexpected places. A Houston attorney goes solo on the Belize honeymoon she was supposed to share with her husband -- and makes a sizzling connection with a handsome stranger in paradise.
Customer Reviews:
Good read.......2007-05-14
Nice short stories if you don't have a lot of time on your hands to read an entire book.
Sex Chronicles.......2007-02-22
I really enjoyed reading this book. I was very exciting and a page turner. My favorite story was Sex, Sin, & Brooklyn by Crystal Lacey Winslow.
Maxed Out, was about a school teacher getting buck wild during summer vacation.
Sex, Sin, Brooklyn - Four girlfriend and their journey for the summer.
Summer Maddness - was a very shor romance.
In Rebound - was about getting her groove back.
I encourage all reader to check this book out. If you enjoy hot and sexy stories, you'll love this book.
Experience among many experiences.......2006-10-18
Four Degrees of Heat offers an array of summer escapades that escort our leading ladies off to a challenge.
In Maxed Out, by Brenda L. Thomas, readers are brought to a boil as Maxine Tate, a math teacher for three years, takes up private dancing. Maxie is involved in a relationship and somewhat happy although not often satisfied. Maxie has discovered an untapped lust deep inside of her. While relishing in her new found hobby, Max finds that maybe a little something on the side ain't that bad. But now that her sneaky ways are exposed, can Maxie handle the heat? Brenda is as always one of those writers that has you on the edge. I always enjoy reading her stories.
In Sex, Sin and Brooklyn, by Crystal Lacey Winslow, readers will not be disappointed with the surge that Crystal's quaint characters bring to the book. At twenty, Bed Sty "Do or Die" Brooklyn's own Nicoli Jones' only objective has been paper chasing. Nicoli is impassive, fastidious, and cantankerous. Luckily, she's drop dead gorgeous and that one asset seems to be the power that is needed for her imprudent ways. While partying with the rich and famous, Nicoli finds that she's eye- dancing with Black King, a renaissance man. Has Nicoli hit the jackpot and landed her golden goose or has she been overcooked? Well inquiring minds won't have to wait too much longer, Sex, Sin and Brooklyn II will be released in November.
In Summer Madness, by Rochelle Alers, Nina Watkins unique signature is always a bridesmaid, that and pitiful hookups. As a high school librarian in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, Nina doesn't fit the norm. She's adventurous, fun loving and despite what others believe, is looking for a mate. They just don't seem to last longer than the three months of her summer vacation. As she finds herself wallowing in misery, her mood changes when she's introduced to David Lancaster, a relative of the groom. Finally Nina's found a man who can spark interest inside of her. As the summer blazes on, the two spend time basking in lust filled rendezvous. Use to the burning of the hands, Nina is containing herself as not to make something into nothing. Is this adventure heated enough for seconds? This is the first time I've read anything by Rochelle. I'm not major on romance, but it was a cute story.
In Rebound, by ReShonda Tate Billingsley, we meet an independent woman with a controlling nature. Victoria has always been the glue that holds it all together, but today, well she needs to be stapled as the steamy contents of her relationship boil over in front of the whole world. Instead of soaking in self pity, Victoria has decided to savor in the money her ex fiancé spent on their honeymoon. Out of sight, doesn't always mean out of mind. While drowning in misery, Victoria is rescued by Damon, a fine D.A. from Dallas who also seems to be seasoned in drama. Can this twosome make a sizzling connection or is this sprinkled with disaster? This is the second thing I've read by ReShonda. It was a very interesting twist.
Four delicious tales spiced and served to your liking. FOUR DEGREES OF HEAT is guaranteed to leave readers salivating for more.
Simply HOT.......2006-05-24
Four Degrees of Heat would make anyone wish for summer. The anthology starts off with Brenda L Thomas giving us the summer tale of a Philadelphia high school teacher who visits the south and get buck wild to Crystal Lacey Wilson who takes us on the wild side of Brooklyn and the women who pimped celebrities to veteran Rochelle Alers who takes us on Sag Harbor to visit with a couple who's summer fling turn out to be something more to ReShonda Tate Billingsley who takes us out of the country for a little rebound playtime. My favorite stories were Summer Madness and Rebound both of these stories were funny and dynamic.
Love Zane? You're gonna dig this!.......2005-07-08
This book was off the chains. I couldn't put it down. Four degrees of heat from four different perspectives. My favorite was SUMMER MADNESS by Rochelle Alers. My girl Nina was in love with nothing but her books until she caught the bouquet at her best friend's wedding. It was on like popcorn after that. Read the book to find out. Love Zane? You're gonna dig this!
Book Description
Fiction drama about a black actress whos having an affair with the Mayor of New York City and who is ultimately murdered.
Customer Reviews:
Life..... A Box of Chocolates.......2007-05-30
This was the best book I've read this year. Crystal Lacey Winslow is my favorite female author. I love all her books. They have excitement, sexual explictation, and be page-turners.
Lacey is the female everyone loves to hate. Conceited, money-hungry, and expensive. She is beautiful and had a body to die for but has many personal issues. She deals with "wealthy" and "prominent" men - will her secrets be revealed?
Joshua is married to Parker and their relationship is going down-hill.
Madison had self-esteem problems that she thinks will be repaired with a man.
Theses friend secrets will soon come out. Sit back and enjoy this ride - it will be bumpey!
Over-the-Top Novel Keeps Pages Turning.......2006-10-30
Life, Love & Loneliness
Crystal Lacey Winslow
Melodrama Publishing
PPP
Lyric Devaney's acting career is on the verge of stardom. Amid turmoil with her past and present lovers, Lyric is making things happen. However, when her life takes a suprising turn, she decides to change her haughty, man-eating ways and change her life to one that includes helping, not using others.
The story of Life, Love & Loneliness is told from the point of view of six characters. At several points in the novel, each individual story seems disconnected from the others. Too many point of views confuse the plot and add uneccesary details. Aside from this, Madison Michael's story is by far the most interesting, possibly more so than Lyric Devaney's.
Life, Love & Loneliness is a dramatic, over-the-top tail with plenty of suprises to keep readers wondering what's going to happen next.
Life Lessons.......2006-10-28
What can I say. I absolutely loved this book. I never heard of the author before and was kinda of skeptical in purchasing this book. Boy, am I happy I did!!! Ms. Winslow, you have a new fan here. This book will teach the reader alot of things. You can't take life or people for granted because it can all be taken away from you. I loved this book and can't wait to read the sequel. Keep up the good work.
Life, Love & Loneliness- OFF THE CHAIN.......2006-10-09
I stumbled on this book and ordered it, simply because it was in my list of recommendations. I am not familiar with this author at all, but I will tell you one thing. I want to get familiar, starting with the order for her other books that I just placed minutes before typing my 2nd rating (the first one was "Project Chick") I just finished reading this book at 2:07 in the a.m, and this book was to die for. Not hard to follow along, nice and long, it took me 2 days between working 2 jobs, baby shower, and birthday party to complete this!! This book simply put was off the chain!! It was soap opera-like, but not too many characters, it gave you something on everyone in the book. It was a total shock. Lyric and Lacey being identical twins, Madison not fully recuperating after the con-man Maurice stint with her, Lyric's murderer being the mayor's wife, Monique not being pregnant by Josh (the white attorney married to Parker a black woman), but by a married judge with children, just something on every page, you can't hardly put the dang on book down. The 3rd book I will ever refer besides The Coldest Winter Ever, and Project Chick.
I loved it.......2006-07-24
I loved everything about the book, heck I loved the characters names. Lyric was something else you hated her yet loved her at the same time, every character had their own drama and it was nothing boring about none of theirs. Boy oh boy how love can shatter some lifes.
Average customer rating:
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By love compelled: Life story
Carolyn Winslow
Manufacturer: Light and Life Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
 Missions & Missionary Work
| Evangelism
| Christianity
| Religion & Spirituality
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0893670618 |
Average customer rating:
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Lois Sybil Harrington & Edward Winslow-Spragge: Life and Letters: Love, Family, and Travel in Canada, 1908-1950
Manufacturer: Euros Publications (Petra Books)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
| Arts & Literature
| Books on CD
| Books on Cassette
| Ethnic & National
| Family & Childhood
| General
| Historical
| Large Print
| Leaders & Notable People
| Memoirs
| People, A-Z
| Professionals & Academics
| Reference & Collections
| Regional Canada
| Regional U.S.
| Specific Groups
| Sports & Outdoors
| Travel
General
| Canada
| Travel
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Canada
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0968578411 |
Book Description
Historical letters, many printed as fold-out reproductions of the originals, open a window on courtship, marriage and family life in the early 1900s. A young engineer travels across Ontario, Quebec and the NorthWest by train writes about the land and its characters.
Meanwhile his wife's letters tell of her yearning for him and the joys and strains of raising five children in Montreal, Sherbrooke and the summer residence in Metis.
Average customer rating:
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Love from Uncle Clyde
Nancy Winslow Parker
Manufacturer: Dodd Mead
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: School & Library Binding
General
| Baby-3
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 039607426X |
Book Description
The second in a series of essential titles for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game.
This slip-covered gift set contains three supplements that expand the core race options for the
D&D roleplaying game: Races of Stone™, Races of Destiny™, and Races of the Wild™. Choosing a race is one of the most fundamental steps in creating a character, and for the first time the supplements that focus on this important area have been collected in one set.
Customer Reviews:
Good source books.......2007-09-16
This a good set of books for experienced played who want more information about how different races work. The addition of other races a player can use is also handy. They are really nice source books.
Race Series.......2007-02-22
This box set of books is good for any player who wan'ts to make more specialized characters.
Great Resource.......2006-03-21
These books are just an awesome resource for players. They give a little more information on typical life for the races (even humans, go figure). They also have some new subraces and some new prestige classes as well as racial feats and a few more tactical feats. Just an all around good resource for tweaking characters.
D&D Race Series Collection.......2006-03-08
This is a excellent collection, it has all the information you need about the core races, plus some new ones. Great deal rather then buying them individually. A must for D&D Players and DM alike.
Customer Reviews:
George Orwell meets Ayn Rand meets Doc Smith.......2006-11-12
If you're silly enough to allow any deeper meaning for this space opera, then bear with me. It's clearly a product of its mid-60s, mid-cold-war era. The bad guys (as in Atlas Shrugged) are the leeches sucking the life out of industrial creativity, both union organizers and tax-wielding agents of the corrupt government. The other bad guys include The Nameless One, a mysterious and insane eastern potentate eager to rain nuclear he11 down on anyone who interferes with his fantasies - now that Kim Il Jong has demonstrated his nuclear flatus, it's a prescient image. The other-other bad guys are the robber-barons of industry, who've gone so far as to hide their new planetary slave camp, well into its seventh generation of social strangulation and serfdom. The other-cubed bad guys, this being the Cold War at its searing coldest, are the Soviets of New Russia, and that says all that matters.
Of course, in the midst of all these baddies, we have the good guys, a mere ninety planets or so against these schemers against all that's good, free, democratic, and based on hard currency. (I did mention Rand, didn't I?) Among other things, their super-psychics have the knack of finding planetary masses of uranium or any other useful ingredient for their super-scientists - who, being so very intelligent, must necessarily be good guys since being bad guys would be dumb, right? (Rand again.)
Having lasted well into the 1960s, Smith was forced to deal with women as powerful, capable people - kicking and screaming, maybe, but he did it. In an early scene, the two babes each take out a would-be assassin, who the menfolk promptly shred with bullets to save the little ladies from the upsetting thought that they'd have to take credit for their own kills (bare-handed, by the way). And, although some of the weaker sex are almost the equal of the square-jawed men in many respects, that highest level of super-psi-something or other is a mens club, ladies not admitted. The females have their own figures of merit, though, and not just the classic three measurements that summarize everything a fratboy wants to know. No, because they are such potent beings, these women seem to consider the "cat in heat" as the highest exemplar of their womanly values. Although a bit vague about details, frequent pregnancies figure heavily (pardon the pun) into how womanly they really are.
But, c'mon. Those great Bogart movies are scarcely more enlightened in their views of women, but good stories anyway. These stories (or at least their author) come from the same era, and Smith is to be applauded for the little bit that he was able to change with his times. He is to be applauded more loudly for dragging the Flash Gordon sense of heroism from the 1930s to the 60s without looking wholly antiquated doing it.
This is among his latest books, the last in his true spirit (and I deliberately omit the D'Alemberts from that list). I can't use the word "great" on any one these pot-boilers, but his ouvre as a whole reeks of squeaky clean, saturday afternoon, nickel-cinema greatness. A generation that can't sit back and wallow in these stories is a generation that has lost something happy and precious.
//wiredweird
E.E. "Doc" Smith's best book!.......1998-03-19
There are some that swear by the Lensman series, others by the Skylark series, but personally, I go for the single books like Subspace Explorers.
Unlike many of E.E. "Doc" Smith's books, this book actually has women as capable, thinking (and of course, loving) beings. It even contains references to sex! The story line is great, although of course fantastical, and altogether a rollicking read.
Average customer rating:
- George Orwell meets Ayn Rand meets Doc Smith.
|
Subspace Explorers
E. E. Doc Smith
Manufacturer: Canaveral Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Smith, E.E. 'Doc'
| ( S )
| Authors, A-Z
| Science Fiction & Fantasy
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B000GGEEUU |
Product Description
Imagine a future in which the creative energies of the West have all been turned to space, to the exploration and development of dozens of new worlds, leaving behind on Earth only a fat, sluggish, decadent remnant of former greatness.
Customer Reviews:
George Orwell meets Ayn Rand meets Doc Smith........2006-11-12
If you're silly enough to allow any deeper meaning for this space opera, then bear with me. It's clearly a product of its mid-60s, mid-cold-war era. The bad guys (as in Atlas Shrugged) are the leeches sucking the life out of industrial creativity, both union organizers and tax-wielding agents of the corrupt government. The other bad guys include The Nameless One, a mysterious and insane eastern potentate eager to rain nuclear he11 down on anyone who interferes with his fantasies - now that Kim Il Jong has demonstrated his nuclear flatus, it's a prescient image. The other-other bad guys are the robber-barons of industry, who've gone so far as to hide their new planetary slave camp, well into its seventh generation of social strangulation and serfdom. The other-cubed bad guys, this being the Cold War at its searing coldest, are the Soviets of New Russia, and that says all that matters.
Of course, in the midst of all these baddies, we have the good guys, a mere ninety planets or so against these schemers against all that's good, free, democratic, and based on hard currency. (I did mention Rand, didn't I?) Among other things, their super-psychics have the knack of finding planetary masses of uranium or any other useful ingredient for their super-scientists - who, being so very intelligent, must necessarily be good guys since being bad guys would be dumb, right? (Rand again.)
Having lasted well into the 1960s, Smith was forced to deal with women as powerful, capable people - kicking and screaming, maybe, but he did it. In an early scene, the two babes each take out a would-be assassin, who the menfolk promptly shred with bullets to save the little ladies from the upsetting thought that they'd have to take credit for their own kills (bare-handed, by the way). And, although some of the weaker sex are almost the equal of the square-jawed men in many respects, that highest level of super-psi-something or other is a mens club, ladies not admitted. The females have their own figures of merit, though, and not just the classic three measurements that summarize everything a fratboy wants to know. No, because they are such potent beings, these women seem to consider the "cat in heat" as the highest exemplar of their womanly values. Although a bit vague about details, frequent pregnancies figure heavily (pardon the pun) into how womanly they really are.
But, c'mon. Those great Bogart movies are scarcely more enlightened in their views of women, but good stories anyway. These stories (or at least their author) come from the same era, and Smith is to be applauded for the little bit that he was able to change with his times. He is to be applauded more loudly for dragging the Flash Gordon sense of heroism from the 1930s to the 60s without looking wholly antiquated doing it.
This is among the later of his late books, the last in his true spirit (and I deliberately omit the D'Alemberts from that list). I can't use the word "great" on any one these pot-boilers, but his ouvre as a whole reeks of squeaky clean, saturday afternoon, nickel-cinema greatness. A generation that can't sit back and wallow in these stories is a generation that has lost something happy and precious.
//wiredweird
Customer Reviews:
George Orwell meets Ayn Rand meets Doc Smith.......2006-11-12
If you're silly enough to allow any deeper meaning for this space opera, then bear with me. It's clearly a product of its mid-60s, mid-cold-war era. The bad guys (as in Atlas Shrugged) are the leeches sucking the life out of industrial creativity, both union organizers and tax-wielding agents of the corrupt government. The other bad guys include The Nameless One, a mysterious and insane eastern potentate eager to rain nuclear he11 down on anyone who interferes with his fantasies - now that Kim Il Jong has demonstrated his nuclear flatus, it's a prescient image. The other-other bad guys are the robber-barons of industry, who've gone so far as to hide their new planetary slave camp, well into its seventh generation of social strangulation and serfdom. The other-cubed bad guys, this being the Cold War at its searing coldest, are the Soviets of New Russia, and that says all that matters.
Of course, in the midst of all these baddies, we have the good guys, a mere ninety planets or so against these schemers against all that's good, free, democratic, and based on hard currency. (I did mention Rand, didn't I?) Among other things, their super-psychics have the knack of finding planetary masses of uranium or any other useful ingredient for their super-scientists - who, being so very intelligent, must necessarily be good guys since being bad guys would be dumb, right? (Rand again.)
Having lasted well into the 1960s, Smith was forced to deal with women as powerful, capable people - kicking and screaming, maybe, but he did it. In an early scene, the two babes each take out a would-be assassin, who the menfolk promptly shred with bullets to save the little ladies from the upsetting thought that they'd have to take credit for their own kills (bare-handed, by the way). And, although some of the weaker sex are almost the equal of the square-jawed men in many respects, that highest level of super-psi-something or other is a mens club, ladies not admitted. The females have their own figures of merit, though, and not just the classic three measurements that summarize everything a fratboy wants to know. No, because they are such potent beings, these women seem to consider the "cat in heat" as the highest exemplar of their womanly values. Although a bit vague about details, frequent pregnancies figure heavily (pardon the pun) into how womanly they really are.
But, c'mon. Those great Bogart movies are scarcely more enlightened in their views of women, but good stories anyway. These stories (or at least their author) come from the same era, and Smith is to be applauded for the little bit that he was able to change with his times. He is to be applauded more loudly for dragging the Flash Gordon sense of heroism from the 1930s to the 60s without looking wholly antiquated doing it.
This is among the latest of his later books, the last in his true spirit (and I deliberately omit the D'Alemberts from that list). I can't use the word "great" on any one these pot-boilers, but his ouvre as a whole reeks of squeaky clean, saturday afternoon, nickel-cinema greatness. A generation that can't sit back and wallow in these stories is a generation that has lost something happy and precious.
//wiredweird
Customer Reviews:
Good resource for reaching people in a different way.......2007-04-16
This is not your typical "Bible study" but can have a big spiritual impact through its different nature. Participants visit several different stations that encourage them to meditate on Jesus' death for them and what it means for their daily lives. I have used this during a junior high lock-in - I was worried that they wouldn't be able settle down in the middle of crazy game playing, but it worked out really well. The girls especially wanted to discuss what they had experienced afterwards.
The technical setup gave me a few problems at first, so make sure you run it before any event to make sure it works with your system.
Books:
- Zia Summer
- A Hard Time to Be a Father: Stories
- A Single Pebble
- A Winter Haunting
- Afrodita: cuentos, recetas y otros afrodisiacos
- After Dachau: A Novel
- An OCEAN IN IOWA: A NOVEL
- Antigua and My Life Before: A Novel
- Antipode: Seasons with the Extraordinary Wildlife and Culture of Madagascar
- Baghdad Journal: An Artist in Occupied Iraq
Books Index
Books Home
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Honeymoon: And Other Stories
A Stranger in This World: Stories
Into the Great Wide Open
Nine Below Zero
Last Night
