Journal Samrobb's Journal: My guilty little literary secret 2
I've been reading SF for as long as I can remember. Since early childhood, certainly. My dad is a big SF fan, and I grew up reading Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Simak, collections of Nebula Award winners and other short stories anthologies. I've always enjoyed good SF, whatever the genre. The only thing I've steered clear of was... well, you know... those titles. The "property" books. The ones based on some TV show, or some movie, or meant to tie into the Amazing Launch (TM) of some Game Company's (C) Big New Thing (C)(TM)(Patent Pending).
Which is where my guilty secret comes in.
A while back, I picked up a book by Sandy Mitchell, "For the Emperor". Looked like a good ol' book, really. Military SF, which was cool - just what I was in the mood for. It was even in the normal SF section, with the real authors, not stuck at the end of the shelves in the regular "property" series ghetto.
Then I realized I was holding a Warhammer 40K book. One of those books.
I put it back with its brethren. It must have been misfiled, right? It was in with the real books, after all. Instead, I picked up something else that day. But, for whatever reason, I kept on seeing that title whenever I was in the bookstore over the next couple of weeks, and, well, one thing led to another, and, um...
... I bought it.
I figured even if it had cruddy writing, cardboard characters and a lousy plot, it would still be more enjoyable than doing something like real work. Right?
OK, so I admit it - I was a snob. I was embarassed to buy it. I wanted to stop and explain to the cashier that this wasn't something I'd normally buy, but to do that, I would have had to make eye contact, so I didn't. I mean, here I am, I go to the bookstore, I come out with an armload of graphic novels, comic strip collections and SF/Fantasy without batting an eye - I like it, I know it's good stuff, even if I get an odd look from the older cashier every once in a while (particularly when buying a couple of graphic novels with an embedded systems book and a theology text. That raises eyebrows in an amusing way.)
That's not the point of this, though. Buying a book - even one of "those" books? That's not my guilty secret.
My guilty secret is that I liked it. It was a good book. Well, no. That's not quite right. It was a freakin' great book. Oh, not in the sense of "The Fool's War" or "A Deepness in the Sky" or anything else like that. It wasn't an earth-shaking, mind-altering experience. It was just a well-written, entertaining military SF book. Decent plot, great characters, interesting scenario.
So I went out looking for, and found another book by Mitchell - "Caves of Ice". Antother novel about Commisar Caiphas Cain, the protagonist from "For the Emperor". Bought it, read it in one sitting. Started looking for other novels by Mitchell - Warhammer 40K or otherwise. He was a pretty good writer, after all - not his fault that he was writing those kind of books. He still spun out a pretty good story.
My problem at this point, see, was that I was starting to browse the bookstore shelves where they kept those books. I was just looking for something else by Mitchell, really. No interest at all in any of the other junk down there - I mean, I got lucky with Mitchell, but how likely is it that I... would find... something... else...
What I found was the omnibus collection of three books by Dan Abnet, titled "Eisenhorn". Also set in the Warhammer 40K universe, they tell a good part of the story of Gregor Eisenhorn, Imperial Inquisitor, servant of the Eternal Emperor of Terra. These books weren't as good as Mitchell's; if anything, they were better. After reading "Eisenhorn", I went out and picked up a couple of other Abnet books - "Ravenor" and "Ravenor Returned", stories about Gregor Eisenhorn's protege, the Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor. Each book is better than the last, with deeeper characterization and more intricate plotting, so Abnet is obviously improving as a writer. He's managing to turn out some awesome tales.
"Ravenor Returned" is the second of a trilogy, so it looks like I'm going to have to fill in the time waiting for the third book with some additional reading. By "additional reading", of course, I mean more Warhammer 40K books. I'm absolutely hooked. I'll probably start with Abnet's series about the Tannith First and Only. After I get through those, well, there are a number of other authors writing stories set in the same universe. Maybe I'll stick with tales of the Inqusition, or branch out and read some of the stories about the the Deathwatch capters of the Adeptus Astartes, or pick up one of the novels about the Adeptus Mechanicus. There are quite a few options available, and I'm feeling lucky - I'm batting a thousand so far, after all. I still suspect that there are some real stinkers in the bunch - there always are - but at least for now, Sturgeon's law seems to be temporarily held in abeyance, and I'm really, really, really enjoying the reading.
It's nice to be able to make eye contact with the cashiers at the bookstore again, too.
Thanks (Score:2)
I bought the game Dawn of War (Score:2)
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