[continued from previous message]   
      
   perspective, how do the Diligent and its travelers fit into the   
   larger story?  For that matter, what is the larger story.  That   
   would be telling, of course.   
      
   It has be noted by now that I haven't written about the characters   
   in THE ARCHIMEDES ENGINE, and I know that characters can be very   
   important to readers.  Quite frankly, there are so many of them   
   that it is hard to know where to begin.  There are several that   
   are important to the story --main characters, if you will - but   
   even minor characters have important roles to play.  Andthere is   
   plenty of character development going on, but I could spend pages   
   and pages going over that development.   
      
   This is a fairly typical Hamilton book.  The story takes place in   
   multiple settings, which if they haven't converged by the end of   
   the novel (as they do in other Hamilton novels) they will in the   
   second book.  And because those settings and storylines converge,   
   so will the characters that are involved.  There are the requisite   
   battles with weird alien creatures, although most of those battles   
   take place on planetary surfaces rather than in space.  And the   
   Celestials themselves are weird and unusual.  To repeat, this is a   
   fairly typical Hamilton book.  Which means that for those who like   
   that sort of thing, and love his storytelling, they will gobble   
   this novel up (although at 900+ pages in print form and 30+ hours   
   in audio form, it will take a while).  I happen to be one of those   
   people.  For me, this is like candy to a kid at Halloween.  I   
   can't get enough.   
      
   Narrator John Lee does his usual outstanding job with this book.   
   I can't fathom anyone else narrating a typical Hamilton novel.  Is   
   this novel enough to get me to play the Exodus video game when it   
   is released?  It is not, but that's because I don't play video   
   games.  Your mileage may vary.  [-jak]   
      
   ===================================================================   
      
   TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)   
      
   Barry N. Malzberg died in December, leaving behind 35 novels and   
   355 short stories (according to the ISFDb), plus several books of   
   essays and other works, spanning a career of fifty-seven years.   
   His career was in some ways similar to that of Howard Waldrop--an   
   attempt to make a living not just as a science fiction writer, but   
   a writer of science fiction short stories.  And that is fairly   
   precise--in the 1976 collection DOWN HERE IN THE DREAM QUARTER   
   (Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-12268-3, there is one novelette (which   
   Malzberg claims was his only short fiction that was not a short   
   story).  The other twenty-four stories (including afterwords to   
   each) total just 173 pages.   
      
   In his introduction, Malzberg says DOWN HERE IN THE DREAM QUARTER   
   is basically his farewell to science fiction, and while there may   
   be future collections, they will not contain new material.  As   
   with many science fiction authors' farewells of that time, it was   
   premature: Malzberg had at least three more collections of newer   
   material published, as well as seven more novels.  In 2024, he had   
   three new stories published, so he clearly never retired again.   
      
   Barry Malzberg is gone, but his body of work remains.  Many of his   
   books are in print on the Kindle or even in paper copies.  And for   
   used books, bookfinder.com is your friend.  His major collections   
   include:   
      
        OUT FROM GANYMEDE (1974)   
        THE MANY WORLDS OF BARRY MALZBERG (1975)   
        THE BEST OF BARRY N. MALZBERG (1976)   
        DOWN HERE IN THE DREAM QUARTER (1976)   
        MALZBERG AT LARGE (1979)   
        THE MAN WHO LOVED THE MIDNIGHT LADY (1980)   
        THE PASSAGE OF THE LIGHT: THE RECURSIVE SCIENCE FICTION   
            OF BARRY N. MALZBERG (1994)   
        IN THE STONE HOUSE (2000)   
        THE VERY BEST OF BARRY N. MALZBERG (2013)   
        READY WHEN YOU ARE AND OTHER STORIES (2023)   
        COLLECTING MYSELF: THE UNCOLLECTED STORIES   
            OF BARRY N. MALZBERG (2024)   
      
   [-ecl]   
      
   ===================================================================   
      
                         Mark Leeper   
                         mleeper@optonline.net   
      
      
              I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful   
              organ in my body.  Then I realized who was telling me   
              this.   
                                              --Emo Philips   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)