Kimmedia

All of Jack Vance’s books have alot to offer.  Vance is an extraordinary wordsmith and his fantastical worlds are a pleasure to escape into albeit many portray the dark / shadow side of humanity.  This book’s a special one and hard to find.  Also published as "The Nopalgarth", if you can find it read it!

Females can be every bit as mean as men they just do it in a different way.  Women seem to talk alot more about men’s abuse of women while women’s abuse of women is rarely brought up as a problem.  In my life, there’s been as much or more of the latter.  As Atwood clearly shows in this book, women’s meanness can be extremely spiteful and uncaring and can leave damaging scars that are quite profound.  Often girls who are treated this way grow up to prefer men who seem to bring more acceptance and less grief to their lives.

Margaret Atwood’s creative ability for description alone makes this book a worthwhile read.  Her writing conjures up sensory experiences that are utterly unique, surprsing and yet familiar at the same time.  Her observations are of new, uncliched discoveries, even while she is talking about an everyday, normally overlooked object.   The psychological complexity woven with her descriptive abiliity makes an interesting and provoking read.

This is the first book I have read by Atwood but I look forward to reading others.

I’ve read all of Jack Vance’s books at least twice.  Then there are my favorite Vance books like Rhialto the Marvelous which I reread with great satisfaction every 3 or 4 years.

The book is collection of linked stories revolving around Rhialto, magician extraordinaire.  To sample some of Vance’s other works, check here.

John Brunner describes a world overrun by consumerism, and corporate politics which is, at the time of writing, in the future.  

The book is wild and strange and also a bit spooky since that future has arrived.