Books: TakeOff Too!
Sep. 21st, 2023 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petrea_mitchellI have a stack of books that has accumulated of the last year or so as I go, "I should really write something on Dreamwidth about that one." So let me get started with the current top of the stack. (The actual most recent one has been requisitioned by the SO, who thought it looked interesting, so I'll get to that whenever I get it back.)
TakeOff Too! is a collection of Randall Garrett stories assembled in 1987. I picked it up at a convention years ago, I don't remember which one.
I hadn't read any of Garrett's work beyond the Lord Darcy stories before. After reading this collection I feel I have a better understanding of why only the Lord Darcy stories have stayed in print. Most of them are just not half as clever or funny as billed.
The stories are accentuated with a few meh Phil Foglio drawings. OTOH Foglio also contributed a truly excellent cover which is easily the best thing about the whole book.
One thing that will stick with me is the one nonfiction piece in the book, a talk Garrett gave in 1974 about John W. Campbell, which includes a song first performed in 1955 about how odious some people found his particular hobbyhorses. Whenever someone defends Campbell as merely a man of his time, I will now remember that even in 1955 enough people were put off by his beliefs for that song to be composed. I've found one copy of the lyrics online, in this comment on a Tor.com post.
TakeOff Too! is a collection of Randall Garrett stories assembled in 1987. I picked it up at a convention years ago, I don't remember which one.
I hadn't read any of Garrett's work beyond the Lord Darcy stories before. After reading this collection I feel I have a better understanding of why only the Lord Darcy stories have stayed in print. Most of them are just not half as clever or funny as billed.
The stories are accentuated with a few meh Phil Foglio drawings. OTOH Foglio also contributed a truly excellent cover which is easily the best thing about the whole book.
One thing that will stick with me is the one nonfiction piece in the book, a talk Garrett gave in 1974 about John W. Campbell, which includes a song first performed in 1955 about how odious some people found his particular hobbyhorses. Whenever someone defends Campbell as merely a man of his time, I will now remember that even in 1955 enough people were put off by his beliefs for that song to be composed. I've found one copy of the lyrics online, in this comment on a Tor.com post.
