tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post8996747828448450856..comments2024-03-28T19:52:07.635-04:00Comments on Sweet Freedom: FFB: Muriel Spark: THE PUBLIC IMAGE (1968); Mack Reynolds: COMPOUNDED INTERESTS (1983 collection of 1949-1983 work)Todd Masonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-82028864184856211182011-09-14T14:52:48.410-04:002011-09-14T14:52:48.410-04:00In fact, the first hypertext link on Reynolds'...In fact, the first hypertext link on Reynolds's name takes the reader to that eI issue (Spark's to her official website).<br /><br />Thanks for all this...I have a copy of that issue of UNIVERSE, not a magazine that gets anthologized too often, once beyond Theodore Sturgeon's "The World Well Lost" and even then...and will take a look at "Stowaway" finally. (And "Isolationist" certainly sounds like another of the good or at least interesting stories that would pop up FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, which would in its next issue feature nothing but slight, essentially-staff-written and a bit dull, adventure fiction...I note it's not included in the BEST OF MR). If ever another candidate for a fat NESFA volume was presenting himself, Reynolds is one...and one hopes that some selectivity in the fiction, and perhaps some of his travel writing, might be features of such an omnibus.<br /><br />I should add the link I found the other week to some of MR's writing for and about Socialist Labor Party folks...Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-8340660337362103672011-09-14T14:20:11.433-04:002011-09-14T14:20:11.433-04:00Earlier this year I read over 50 Mack Reynolds sto...Earlier this year I read over 50 Mack Reynolds stories from 1950 to the early 1960s and was impressed anew with his talent. I have not read this collection but have read many of the stories. "Give the Devil His Due" was an amusing deal with the devil story but I would have preferred "Isolationist" (Fantastic Adventures (April 1950)as it is an early example of MR dealing with issues. It is also a good example of him using a hardboiled style, which many of his non-humorous early stories featured.<br /><br />He also did a short series for various mags featuring the crew of the space ship New Taos--"Chowhound" from Marvel Nov 1951 and "Stowaway" Universe June 1953--that were solid, straight SF stories.<br /><br />GREEN MEN was his first novel written for a lending library publisher and is very slight. I prefer his second book that came out in 1958 HOW TO RETIRE WITHOUT MONEY! (as by Bob Belmont). He draws upon his years living in Tangiers, Spain, Mexico and visiting many other spots as Rogue Magazine's travel editor. It is a fascinating, funny look at a 1950s world long vanished. <br /><br />I've been accumulating issues of Rogue for some years and always enjoy the Reynolds articles. He wrote an interesting novel ONCE DEPARTED where the viewpoint character is a columnist living in Spain but unlike Reynolds was widely syndicated in US newspapers and an influential figure.<br /><br />I highly recommend Earl Kemp's special e-zine on Reynolds. I would have loved to have known him.Richard Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13770090814220403413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-58366206667763247232011-09-12T23:59:57.053-04:002011-09-12T23:59:57.053-04:00Thanks!Thanks!Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-37807657571196337872011-09-12T15:47:55.568-04:002011-09-12T15:47:55.568-04:00GREEN MEN is lightweight stuff, a bit of fun fluff...GREEN MEN is lightweight stuff, a bit of fun fluff, not much more, whether read as a mystery or SF.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-65901710430669429282011-09-09T21:19:43.116-04:002011-09-09T21:19:43.116-04:00The Merril 7th Annual includes both "The Port...<a href="http://www.philsp.com/homeville/isfac/t67.htm#A1472" rel="nofollow">The Merril 7th Annual</a> includes both "The Portobello Road" and Reynolds's "Freedom," along with an impressive array of other material...John Dos Passos to "Cordwainer Smith"...Edward Gorey to Anne McCaffrey...Fredric Brown to Conrad Aiken (a short trip, that one).Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-31867838101981924622011-09-09T20:22:06.501-04:002011-09-09T20:22:06.501-04:00Reynolds drove me crazy because, as you say, he co...Reynolds drove me crazy because, as you say, he could be so good at times and so far from good at other times. I haven't read this collection but I do remember some of the stories in here - the brilliant "Compounded Interest" and one I recall as being really terrible, "Good Indian". At his best he was very fine.<br /><br />Spark was a fantastic writer. I've read about half of her books - not, unfortunately, including <i>The Public Image</i>. Of those I've read, my favorites are <i>The Girls of Slender Means</i> and, especially, <i>Momento Mori</i>. I don't always remember what the first thing I read by a particular author was but I do with Spark - the short story "The Portobello Road" in one of Judith Merril's "Best of the Year" books.SteveHLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01745665231586422220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-9653824105769889962011-09-09T20:05:31.105-04:002011-09-09T20:05:31.105-04:00I'll be interested in your take on the Reynold...I'll be interested in your take on the Reynolds, which I haven't read, but it does have a reputation for being disappointing.<br /><br />Yes, I gather the sense of the misunderstanding of Spark comes from people who aren't really paying attention, who want all all stories about boarding schools to be at most dangerous CHARIOTS OF FIRE or more bland.Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-23538151656389725132011-09-09T19:58:15.400-04:002011-09-09T19:58:15.400-04:00Muriel Spark a sentimentalist? Really? MEMENTO M...Muriel Spark a sentimentalist? Really? MEMENTO MORI one of my favorite her her later books is scathing, rich with black humor, anything but sentimental.<br /><br />I have a copy of THE CASE OF THE LITTLE GREEN MEN by Reynolds that I will tackle sometime later in the fall.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-44020353848701315432011-09-09T19:53:58.131-04:002011-09-09T19:53:58.131-04:00Passion held in check, cool without being actually...Passion held in check, cool without being actually cold. Very funny. (Evelyn Waugh being her colleague she was most often compared to, and he was more irritable.)<br /><br />Both writers puffing the nicotine. Don't try this at home, kids! (Or is it tobacco, in either case?)Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-45749804149438538012011-09-09T18:35:28.629-04:002011-09-09T18:35:28.629-04:00A marvelously louche looking Spark there. I love h...A marvelously louche looking Spark there. I love her writing - so coolly precise and funny. Damn those irresistible Scots!K. A. Laityhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05983280397279864583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-77014985294124534502011-09-09T13:53:25.435-04:002011-09-09T13:53:25.435-04:00One just wishes Reynolds could've taken the ti...One just wishes Reynolds could've taken the time to write everything as well as he could, but even in deflated Mexico in the '60s, one did have to pay to live.<br /><br />And Reynolds was at heart an optimist, moreso than Pohl and of course therefore at odds altogether with Kornbluth. The sheer joyous audacity of rewriting Edward Bellamy's two utopian novels is tribute to that...and no one was dealing with African questions in sf ahead of Reynolds, I don't think...and he was enough of a liberationist, broad-spectrum, to be unshowily pro-feminist (even when it doesn't completely come off, as in "Psi Assassin") well before the trend (and less awkwardly than some later converts, particularly among the men).Todd Masonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01815516018079824802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-47129140833160887982011-09-09T12:20:00.004-04:002011-09-09T12:20:00.004-04:00I have THE BEST OF MACK REYNOLDS and PLANETARY AGE...I have THE BEST OF MACK REYNOLDS and PLANETARY AGENT X. Like George, I'm a big Mack Reynolds fan, each time an issue of Analog came with a Reynolds story in it I read that story first (unless there was one by Christopher Anvil, in which case I had to flip a coin).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8525415828746712027.post-22475701727134529082011-09-09T10:09:37.626-04:002011-09-09T10:09:37.626-04:00I'm a huge fan of Mack Reynolds! I've rea...I'm a huge fan of Mack Reynolds! I've read his work for decades. Other than Pohl & Kornbluth, Mack Reynolds is the other major SF writer to take on business, finance, and economics. Excellent review!Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04546161337366365635noreply@blogger.com