Good old fashioned paper, however, never goes out of style, and after three days I'm already down two books from the pile I snatched from the shelves. Although I stand by my love for my nook (so far I've been slightly underwhelmed with reading on the iPad), there is definitely no substitute for a ratty dog-eared paperback, the smell of which if they could bottle I would surely wear to the dismay of the massive non-reading populace.
Despite my post from a few weeks ago where I outlined a modest book pile for June, neither book read so far came from that list. First up was Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel, the first in his celebrated "Robots" trilogy, coming off the heels of some of his most popular and beloved short stories. First published in serial form in 1953, The Caves of Steel is a shining example of not only the brilliance of Asimov as a writer, but of what made the Golden Age of science fiction in the 30s through the 50s such a special, ground-breaking time for the genre.
Asimov combines the ideas set forth in his Robot short stories and his famous Three Laws of Robotics with a detective novel, putting as much emphasis on the mystery - the murder of a prominent scientist - with the concepts of bigotry, urban living, religion, ecology and conservation that underline the themes of the book. Detective Elijah Baley is the human cop assigned to the investigation. His partner is R. Daneel Olivaw. You can guess what the "R" stands for. But it's not enough that he's a robot in a city where humans despise the gradual robot integration being forced on them, but he's also the exact image of the murder victim, and the first robot to pass for human. Who killed the doctor? Was there even a murder? And what does this mean to the millions of people living in the city? All are answered in this fantastic book of ideas.
Switching genres but staying firmly in the golden age, anyone who read crime but doesn't know the name Jim Thompson needs to rectify the situation immediately. This is the man responsible for The Grifters. For After Dark, My Sweet. For The Getaway. And for perhaps the most chilling look in the mind of a serial killer set down on paper: The Killer Inside Me.
Written in 1952, The Killer Inside Me is as shocking today as it must have been when it was first written. Lou Ford is a amiable deputy sheriff working in Central City, TX. Asked to run off a young prostitute working out of her home, What happens when he goes to the house to confront is both brutal and captivating, and is the start of what Lou calls his falling back into "the sickness". How he rids himself of it, and how the complications pile on top of each other all come together into a fantastic pulp crime story, but what elevates The Killer Inside Me even above the best of that genre is the unflinching first person narration, putting us inside Lou Ford's mind as he calmly evaluates his own madness. There's currently a lot of controversy surrounding the 2010 film adaptation by Michael Winterbottom, which supposedly follows the book very closely. But forget the numerous film adaptations and jump into something, anything, but this giant in the field of crime.
Looking at this pile of tattered love next to me, it's almost a certainty that those books I mentioned aren't going to get read this month. But isn't that one of the things that's great about the whole thing? Not just the reading, but the choosing of the thing.
3 comments:
have a lovely holiday mate. :)
Haven't read Asimov in years, but I remember reading his Robot trilogy and loving it. Might have to dig out a copy, or buy it for the library at least.
You picked some great reads. Enjoy your vacation!
Post a Comment