Indoctrinaire by Christopher Priest





It appears my copy is from 1971 (first printing in 1970).  The cover is a fun piece of 70s sci-fi art, but doesn't even tangentially relate to the story... later printings have a big ear on the cover (which is a scene from the book, but far less interesting).


 I'm not going to say much about the details, as the fun of this book is seeing whats going to happen next... it's a pretty wild ride.   The main character, Dr. Wentik, is attempting to chemically re-create Pavlov's results chemically.  He achieves results, but the subjects always die.   He's suddenly called away from his lab under Antartica, supposedly by the American government, and ends up in Brazil in the future, among other things.

The writer, interestingly, totally predicted a particular section of the rain forest getting de-forested, which is pretty neat.  The story is definitely a page turner, but I very much felt like this is only the 1st half.  The ending is unclear, unsatisfying, and doesn't resolve a thing.  The most obvious interpretation is extremely disappointing, while any other really requires a 2nd book which doesn't exist.

It's a pretty interesting psychological piece before that, though,and worth the read from that angle.

I remember when the Prestige movie came out, and I went and tracked down the book, I assumed it was the comic book Priest, and was kinda confused and surprised to find it wasn't.

It's a great cover, it just belongs on a different book. It's funny how they never credit the artist inside the book, that's often the main 'sales pitch' and the poor fellow gets no credit.

This one even the signature is cut off... you can see half of it on the bottom right corner, but the 'ers' is cropped off.

Firebreak by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake).  The 20th Parker novel and the fourth of the second series.  

Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  

Secrets in the Shadows: The Art & Life of Gene Colan by Tom Field.

I re-read Zelazny's LORD OF LIGHT. Some good themes, but Zelazny tried to stuff too many Hindu deities into the mix-- probably in a sincere desire to duplicate the dizzying aspects of real Hindu mythology. Still, one loses track of the characters' relationships pretty quickly-- in contrast to my recent first-time reading of Mitchell's GONE WITH THE WIND, in which the author juggles two-three dozen characters and keeps them all reasonably distinct from one another.

The only Donald Westlake novels I've read are Cops and Robbers and Bank Shot. The latter was a sequel to the more well-known Hot Rock, which I haven't read or seen the movie version of either, though it was a pretty big hit IIRC. I don't remember any details about either story but I know I enjoyed both of them at the time. Not sure why I never read anything else of Westlake's. Probably just didn't happen to see any around on the stands. We tend to forget how different things were back in the 70s, long before the days of internet shopping or big chain book stores to instantly gratify our book-reading whims.

At the Earth's Core

by Edgar Rice Burroughs



Probably my favorite Edgar Rice Burroughs story this book features some of Burroughs' finest world building and wastes no time getting right into the action. After a brief prologue where the narrator reveals that this story was told to him by a man he encountered while on safari in Africa, we are drilling into the Earth's crust with the main character David Innes and Perry the scientist responsible for inventing the spectacular machine. Thinking themselves about to die when the steering wheel becomes locked in place they instead emerge in a new world. One inside the Earth where a bright ball of gas in the sky creates a perpetual noon and prehistoric humans are enslaved by a race of evolved pterodactyl like reptiles. Their adventure is genuinely fun and exciting and the vivid world and creatures that Burroughs' creates are both a wondrous and terrifying. There's even an epic battle after David and Perry manage to unite the kingdoms of Pellucidar against the Mahars. The ending will likely have you wanting to read the other six novels in the Pellucidar saga. I would love to see this book adapted into another film.

Just finished Citizen Keane by Adam Parfrey and Cletus Nelson. It's the story of Charles and Margaret Keane, who popularized the Big-Eyed children style of painting in the 60s.

It's an interesting story, and pretty well-researched, but generally a quick read--there's really not too much to tell beyond what you'd get from a surface telling of the story. Tim Burton is apparently working on a movie based on the story, but I don't see too much opportunity to do much with it.