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foomple's review
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
This was published in 1967, so a lot of the outdated applies in the usual ways (casual sexism, horrifying terms for various disabilities, all white dudes, etc.). I liked the stories around those things, though.
Balanced Ecology, by James H. Schmitz, was the one I found most pure fun to read, and is only coincidentally the lone story that both contains even a single female character and manages not to be weird about it. It's highly original and a little reminiscent of Heinlein's juveniles in its sense of adventure adventure.
You know that feeling you get when you're reading something and it's really clear that a character is being lionized specifically because it's the author's idealized vision of themselves (raises quizzical eyebrow in Hemingway's direction) ? That is so pervasive throughout "Repent, Harlequin, said the Ticktock Man" that I couldn't believe it took me nearly the whole to story to realize Harlan => Harlequin. I know. This story, aside from competing with The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth for most melodramatic title, mostly convinced me that I'm glad I never met the author. He is, I can say with certainty, the sort who would say "wake up, sheeple!" on the internet.
I read somewhere that Zelazny wanted to call The Doors of His Face [...] instead The Leviathan of Venus, which would have made a ton more sense and would have been thematically congruent with the story, which is in the style of an old pulp. His other in the collection, He Who Shapes, is darker and very interesting, even while the characterization of all of the women (a sum total of four, 1 in the former story, 3 in the latter) leaves, ah, something to be desired.
The Saliva Tree was quite good and I can see how it tied with He Who Shapes.
Gordon Dickson's Computers Don't Argue was cute and prescient.
Becalmed in Hell by Larry Niven was good and, in my opinion, ought to have won over Ellison's story.
The short, absurdist The Drowned Giant, by J. G. Ballard, was only mildly neat for this reader.
Balanced Ecology, by James H. Schmitz, was the one I found most pure fun to read, and is only coincidentally the lone story that both contains even a single female character and manages not to be weird about it. It's highly original and a little reminiscent of Heinlein's juveniles in its sense of adventure adventure.
You know that feeling you get when you're reading something and it's really clear that a character is being lionized specifically because it's the author's idealized vision of themselves (raises quizzical eyebrow in Hemingway's direction) ? That is so pervasive throughout "Repent, Harlequin, said the Ticktock Man" that I couldn't believe it took me nearly the whole to story to realize Harlan => Harlequin. I know. This story, aside from competing with The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth for most melodramatic title, mostly convinced me that I'm glad I never met the author. He is, I can say with certainty, the sort who would say "wake up, sheeple!" on the internet.
I read somewhere that Zelazny wanted to call The Doors of His Face [...] instead The Leviathan of Venus, which would have made a ton more sense and would have been thematically congruent with the story, which is in the style of an old pulp. His other in the collection, He Who Shapes, is darker and very interesting, even while the characterization of all of the women (a sum total of four, 1 in the former story, 3 in the latter) leaves, ah, something to be desired.
The Saliva Tree was quite good and I can see how it tied with He Who Shapes.
Gordon Dickson's Computers Don't Argue was cute and prescient.
Becalmed in Hell by Larry Niven was good and, in my opinion, ought to have won over Ellison's story.
The short, absurdist The Drowned Giant, by J. G. Ballard, was only mildly neat for this reader.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Sexism, Suicide, Racial slurs, Grief, and Car accident
Minor: Animal death and Body shaming
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