SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases discussion

This is a thread for buddy reading of The Number of the Beast in preparation of reading the 2020 version of it, The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes

Thanks Z, I have started and am not yet to the point where the stories diverge

I was surprised at how much I disliked the supposedly sexy chatter between Deety and Zeb when they first met, on the first few pages in particular. I know it is just the same as it always was, and I am not really a politically correct type of gal (I mean I don't insist upon political correctness as much as lots of women do), but . . . ugh!

I like their banter and I clearly see what was meant when Vorkosigan novels are said to be written under massive influence of Heinlein.

What really amazes me is Gay Deceiver - the only case in SF I'm aware of with pseudo-AI. It is clearly stated that she/it isn't conscious. With multitude of modern and even old (like 60s) SF have sentient AI.

As for talk, that's RAH folly to assume that sexual integrity (esp. for women), is a fundamental part of total integrity. The idea progressive for 50s-70s sounds more like lecherous old fool rumbling now.

At the same time see that for RAH, men who do not listen to smart women, such as Jake, end up looking like fools. Checking out one’s brains to one’s girlfriend is, in many Heinlein novels, admirable. Who is the programmer in the team after all?

From The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein:

Heinlein’s dialogic style is drawn from the cinema of the 1930s and 1940s, in particular the screwball comedies. It is the classic repartee of these genres. The stories in which this is most evident are ‘“Let There Be Light”’ and Beyond This Horizon but the legacy remains right the way through Heinlein’s work – the lack of heterosexual romance in all but a couple of his juveniles may help explain their survival – and results in some of the more excruciating dialogue of I Will Fear No Evil and ‘The Number of the Beast’, not because the dialogue is bad but because this mode encodes certain assumptions of heterosexual flirtation that are being challenged by the 1970s coming, and that, to the eyes of many modern readers, present as abusive.

I am starting this this morning. Need a break from "Revelation Space" and maybe this be lighter and less intense.

Thanks for the quote from The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein. Yes, I agree with everything you have said and quoted. I just didn't expect to dislike the beginning as much as I did. And, to a lesser degree, it continues throughout the book.

I was following along in both books at once to find where the change was. I did not see this character they were supposed to put to show it, and I think I must have bleeped over it. And it now worries me because I SINCERELY hope there is really a difference between the books and it's not just a rewrite. When they get to (view spoiler)[ Mars/Barsoom, the language is pretty much the same, but there's a paragraph stuck into one that I didn't recognize. (hide spoiler)] So I think I am past it. I have found where it definitely differs, and have reverted to Number of the Beast for now.

This is really rather good, isn't it. Just what I need in this strange time of "lockdown". Something that is completely stupid, that I dont have to think about.

Cordelia wrote: "I am starting this this morning. Need a break from "Revelation Space" and maybe this be lighter and less intense."

Note that by most fans this book assumed to be one of the worst by RAH (other candidates for the worst spot are To Sail Beyond the Sunset and Farnham's Freehold. So if it is your first book by the author I strongly suggest to choose another. When you're if love with RAH (like me) it is ok but far from great book

Oleksandr wrote: "Cordelia wrote: "I am starting this this morning. Need a break from "Revelation Space" and maybe this be lighter and less intense."

Note that by most fans this book assumed to be one of the worst ..."

No. I like it. I am a fan of "Weird Fiction" and "Pulp fiction"' And this almost has elements of Noir. Not bad at all.

Chapter XXXIII, end (view spoiler)[RAH goes to joke about Asimov:

“My fault, Aunt Hillbilly. Pop told me I should read the Foundation series…but I never did.”

“Sharpie,” I said, “we can put you down in New York in five minutes. The Good Doctor is getting on in years—turns out less than a million words a year now—but still likes pretty girls. He must know whatever is in the Galactic Library; he invented it. So telephone him. Better yet, sit on his lap. Cry if necessary.”

Isaac's reputation as a groper became a running joke among science fiction fans. The writer and editor Judith Merril recalled that Asimov was known in the 1940s as “the man with a hundred hands,” and that he “apparently felt obliged to leer, ogle, pat, and proposition as an act of sociability.” (hide spoiler)]

Z, that is so interesting about Azimov.

I am through this one and starting in where the Pankera really diverges.

This one wasn't as good I remembered.

I'm trying to decide whether to lower my rating on this book because it wasn't as good as I remembered. Hmmm

Kateblue wrote: "I'm trying to decide whether to lower my rating on this book because it wasn't as good as I remembered. Hmmm"

You can choose another edition and rate it separately. This way you can have both your present feelings about the book and old ones

That's a good idea because I pay no attention to which version I am rating when I rate stuff. But I may just leave it. My review says this same thing , , , that I reread and it wasn't as good as I remember.

I guess that will do.