My wife gave me a Kindle for our anniversary this past summer.  The short review is that I like the technology a lot, but since I’m not interested in much new fiction outside of Cormac McCarthy and William Gay, my use of the Kindle will depend largely on how many older books are released in the Kindle format.  I was pleasantly surprised to find quite a few vintage science fiction books in the Kindle store, many of them priced at just a dollar or two.  For example, I found some Andre Norton books.  Her Star Man’s Son, retitled Daybreak 2250 AD, was the first science fiction book I read, and is still one of my favorites.

I also found several books by one of the founders of the science fiction genre, Edmond Hamilton.  I read a few of his books on the Kindle, and then bought several more on eBay and read them.  In the first of a new series of posts, I’ll briefly review some of these books.  Other books by other authors will follow.

My vintage science fiction interest lies generally in books from the fifties through the seventies.  There may be a few outside that range, but they will be the exception, not the rule.

The first Edmond Hamilton book I read was City at World’s End (1950), a book about a city that is blown far into the future by an atomic bomb.   

It’s a good read.  I enjoyed the story.  The character development was good, certainly by pulp sci-fi standards.  The book is the equivalent of a Saturday afternoon B-Movie on AMC or Turner Classics.  Not one of my favorites, but worth a read.

Things got significantly more interesting with the next book: The Star Kings (1947).  This one is about a man named John Gordon, who is mentally contacted by a man from the far future and, out of boredom, agrees to a mind transfer.  Gordon finds himself in the far future, in the body of a  prince and in the middle of a galactic war.  It is a great read.  I liked it so much I bought the sequel, Return to the Stars (1970, 23 years later), on eBay.  The sequel is interesting, but not nearly as good as the first book.  Highly recommended.

Next, I read The Three Planeteers, accurately described on Amazon as the “science fiction pulp classic.”  It’s a short but interesting space opera about three outlaws who are called upon to save the galaxy from the evil League of Cold Worlds.  The writing is similar to The Star Kings, and it is my second favorite of the Hamilton books I have read so far.  It’s a good book in 2008.  When you consider it was written in 1940, it’s even more amazing.

I also read A Yank at Valhalla (1950), an odd book about a guy on an Arctic expedition who winds up in the middle of Norse mythology.  I didn’t like it at all at first, but by the time I finished, I thought it was worth a read.  Lastly, I read The Haunted Stars (1960) (boring, and my least favorite) and The Star of Life (1959) (not great, but worth a read).  There are lots of other Edmond Hamilton books out there, but they are not easy to find.  I continue to monitor eBay and will buy others as the opportunity arises.

Hamilton takes his place as my second favorite vintage sci-fi writer (behind Andre Norton), for now.

As always, I encourage other book recommendations via the Comments.

Next time: a vintage Arthur C. Clarke book that bored me to tears.

My wife recently joined a book club, which seems to be the soccer moms’ preferred social network these days, followed somewhat closely by Bunco groups, which I thought until recently was some sort of organized crime (actually, the more I learn about those groups it may be).

Anyway, my wife joins this book club.  The first thing I noticed is that they read all these nerdy, high falutin’ books like the A Thousand Splendid Suns and whatnot.  Those books are too hard for me.  I’m still at the edges of post-traumatic stress disorder over having almost read Wuthering Heights in the 11th grade.  Thank goodness for Cliff’s Notes.  The second thing I noticed is that a couple of the founding members of this club keep picking books they have already read.  That sounds more like playing school than a book club.  If I was in that club, I’d call b.s. on that the first time it happened.  The second time it happened, I’d start turning furniture over.  But women are too nice to do that.  They either dutifully read the selected book, or they go all passive aggressive and start going to class unprepared.

Anyway, I’m not in a book club.  But I like to read.  Lately, I’ve been in a science fiction phase.  Here are some books I have read or reread lately, and enjoyed.  Other than the first one, I’m going to skip all the obvious must-reads, like Stranger in a Strange Land, Ringworld, etc.

First, and as I have mentioned before, I just reread Hyperion, followed in order by its four sequels, Fall of Hyperion, Endymion and Rise of Endymion.  These are all excellent books, and this has become my favorite sci-fi series.  I also reread another old favorite, The Eyes of Light and Darkness by Ivan Cat.  It’s as good as I remember it.  I am currently reading Cat’s second novel, The Burning Heart of Night.  It’s not as good as the first one, but it’s still to early to make a judgment.

I also recently read Robert Heinlein’s Farnham’s Freehold.  I bought it years ago, because it is in my favorite sub-genre: post apocalyptic, but didn’t get around to reading it.  It was considered pretty controversial when it came out in the 60’s.  I didn’t find the racial elements to be all that interesting, and I thought it was a pretty good story with or without that element.

Lastly, I started to reread the California Voodoo Game series.  When I read these books the first time, back in the 90’s, I thought they were great.  Among my all time favorite science fiction books.  I don’t find them as compelling this time around, but they are still worthwhile reading.

That’s my part.

Now I need some good science fiction recommendations for my next visit to the bookstore.  Can anyone help me out via the Comments?