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Spider Robinson, The Crazy Years
Jun. 15th, 2005 09:06 amI've just been reading Spider Robinson's "The Crazy Years", which is a series of columns/essays he wrote for a newspaper over the course of 8 years. The series was named after Heinlein's label for the end of the 20th century on his "future history" timeline.
Being a fan of the Spider Robinson (I own: http://sweh.spuddy.org/sf.cgi?search=Robinson%2C+Spider ) I read the book eagerly.
Basically it seems to be a series of rants. The book is grouped by general topic (eg religion, computers, space exploration). Each column has the month and year of original publication. This can be confusing. In one essay he rants about how bad Bill Gates is. A few columns later he says how nice Bill Gates is. Checking the dates shows that the latter article was written years earlier.
The biggest problem I have with the articles is that they are mostly shallow. This is probably due to original constraints by the newspaper column format. On topics I know something about Robinson's analysis is frequently deficient and merely skims over the complexity. Does this mean his other columns are equally lacking?
If you like the fiction that Robinson has written then you might find yourself a little disappointed with this book. There is little of the humour of Callahans here. Instead you will find the opinions of a man who sometimes contradicts himself and occaisionally are as extreme as those he rants about.
I've felt myself wishing I had his email address so I could debate some of his articles. I guess that makes them good opinion columns for a newspaper!
Being a fan of the Spider Robinson (I own: http://sweh.spuddy.org/sf.cgi?search=Robinson%2C+Spider ) I read the book eagerly.
Basically it seems to be a series of rants. The book is grouped by general topic (eg religion, computers, space exploration). Each column has the month and year of original publication. This can be confusing. In one essay he rants about how bad Bill Gates is. A few columns later he says how nice Bill Gates is. Checking the dates shows that the latter article was written years earlier.
The biggest problem I have with the articles is that they are mostly shallow. This is probably due to original constraints by the newspaper column format. On topics I know something about Robinson's analysis is frequently deficient and merely skims over the complexity. Does this mean his other columns are equally lacking?
If you like the fiction that Robinson has written then you might find yourself a little disappointed with this book. There is little of the humour of Callahans here. Instead you will find the opinions of a man who sometimes contradicts himself and occaisionally are as extreme as those he rants about.
I've felt myself wishing I had his email address so I could debate some of his articles. I guess that makes them good opinion columns for a newspaper!
