The Free Range
New feature. Yes, something new! I'm not dead just yet. Mind you, I do occasionally glimpse a shadowy figure off in the distance that dances out of sight when I turn to look more closely. Sneaky devil, that Reaper. Gotta keep on your toes if you want to postpone being taken to the dance by him.
Anywho, the Newness. I'm going to start recommending (or not, as the case may be) free e-books. I'm going to shoot for one book a week, though it may stretch a bit as I've less reading time than I used to enjoy. Between Amazon, Internet Archive, and the Gutenberg Project, there is plenty of gratis literature available. And so into the breach!
Armageddon - 2419 A.D. is the original Buck Rogers story, although it bears only a passing resemeblence to the serialized sci-fi you're probably familiar with -- and absolutely no resemblence to the execrable television series of the late 1970s, which possesed only two redeeming features:
Or possibly four redeeming features, depending on exactly what you're counting. Ahem.
Back to our story. Armageddon - 2419 A.D. was written by Philip Nowlan and published in Amazing Stories in 1928. It was quite well-received and generated a sequel the next year. It revolves around a protaganist from the 1920s named Anthony Rogers, (he is never referred to as 'Buck' in the story; that was a marketing invention when the character was first serialized in a comic strip), who ends up in the 25th century via "science." I shan't spoil it for you, as it's delightfully naive. In any event, the future he finds is not one of a high-tech spacefaring culture, but rather the aftermath of a massive global war in which the United States was eventually conquered by China. The Han maintain a high-tech civilization in North America, while the descendents of Americans hide from them in the forests and plot their vengenace. Unto this scene arrives Mr Rogers, and great adventure ensues.
The story is unusually sophisticated for one of the era, written in a flowing style that's easy for a modern reader to enjoy, which is not always the case with century-old science fiction. The made-up technology is very creative and eerily prescient, foretelling the ideas of vacuum-point energy and subatomic manipulation of matter long before quantum mechanics had gone mainstream. The characters are quite progressive for the day while still adhering to cultural sensibilities. For example, the heroine character of Wilma Deering remains very feminie while still having an equal voice, undoubtedly a result of flappers' brazen (for the time) public behavior of the Roaring Twenties.
Overall the book is a fun read and grants some insight into the very early roots of American science fiction. It is perhaps unfortunate that the radio and screen adaptations took the Buck Rogers franchise in a different direction than the original story, but understandable given the fact that rocketships had become all the rage by the 1940s. Let's hope that the idea of a Chinese conquest of America doesn't turn out to be prescient, as well.
___
Anywho, the Newness. I'm going to start recommending (or not, as the case may be) free e-books. I'm going to shoot for one book a week, though it may stretch a bit as I've less reading time than I used to enjoy. Between Amazon, Internet Archive, and the Gutenberg Project, there is plenty of gratis literature available. And so into the breach!
Armageddon - 2419 A.D. is the original Buck Rogers story, although it bears only a passing resemeblence to the serialized sci-fi you're probably familiar with -- and absolutely no resemblence to the execrable television series of the late 1970s, which possesed only two redeeming features:
Or possibly four redeeming features, depending on exactly what you're counting. Ahem.
Back to our story. Armageddon - 2419 A.D. was written by Philip Nowlan and published in Amazing Stories in 1928. It was quite well-received and generated a sequel the next year. It revolves around a protaganist from the 1920s named Anthony Rogers, (he is never referred to as 'Buck' in the story; that was a marketing invention when the character was first serialized in a comic strip), who ends up in the 25th century via "science." I shan't spoil it for you, as it's delightfully naive. In any event, the future he finds is not one of a high-tech spacefaring culture, but rather the aftermath of a massive global war in which the United States was eventually conquered by China. The Han maintain a high-tech civilization in North America, while the descendents of Americans hide from them in the forests and plot their vengenace. Unto this scene arrives Mr Rogers, and great adventure ensues.
The story is unusually sophisticated for one of the era, written in a flowing style that's easy for a modern reader to enjoy, which is not always the case with century-old science fiction. The made-up technology is very creative and eerily prescient, foretelling the ideas of vacuum-point energy and subatomic manipulation of matter long before quantum mechanics had gone mainstream. The characters are quite progressive for the day while still adhering to cultural sensibilities. For example, the heroine character of Wilma Deering remains very feminie while still having an equal voice, undoubtedly a result of flappers' brazen (for the time) public behavior of the Roaring Twenties.
Overall the book is a fun read and grants some insight into the very early roots of American science fiction. It is perhaps unfortunate that the radio and screen adaptations took the Buck Rogers franchise in a different direction than the original story, but understandable given the fact that rocketships had become all the rage by the 1940s. Let's hope that the idea of a Chinese conquest of America doesn't turn out to be prescient, as well.
___
Labels: books
posted by Jar(egg)head at 10:55
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