One Good Book

James Wynn · 01 Dec 2004, 21:15 · from 2004-December.txt.gz

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From: thewynns at earthlink.net (James Wynn)
Date: Wed Dec  1 21:15:24 2004
Subject: (urth) One Good Book
References: <BAY14-F29B33A3FCA2C42FF89C058F4B00 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <032701c4d82d$ec310520$4c1e4b0a at vcorp.ad.vrsn.com>

>"Out of the Silent Planet" (not a fan of the other two space novels at all)

I gotta disagree about "That Hideous Strength". I found it to be an untamed
genre busting imagination-orgy of the sort that Wolfe has made his stock and
trade.

The head of a murderer set up by demon possessed scientists as their god,
who dig up Merlin in a war with Lords of the five planets (who are just like
their Greco-Roman counterparts and have their actual elemental counterparts
on Earth). One of the scientists wants to mow down all the trees and cover
the Earth in stainless steel. The opposite side of the Moon (which when this
novel was written was still unseen and unchartered) is a paradise outside
the realm of the revolutionary lord of Earth; the Earth-side was blasted
during the war with that same revolutionary. The textual parallels to the
King Arthur legends *and* the book of Revelation....hot-diggedty! This one
is a killer.

~ Crush

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