NP

[Joe Allonby]

I'm going straight for the camels.

On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 1:07 AM, tbeshear <tbeshear at insightbb.com> wrote:
> You're best off looking for his work in used paperbacks -- I hae Reefs of
> Earth and a number of others bought for a few bucks.
>
> I'd agree his short stories are his strength -- I think he had trouble
> sustaining his premises over novel length. He's way out on the edge of SF as
> a genre -- he came at things from a unique angle; I don't think most of the
> fans of the day quite appreciated him.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "rich" <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> To: "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> Cc: "tbeshear" <tbeshear at insightbb.com>; "Otto" <ottosell at googlemail.com>;
> "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>; "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 3:14 PM
> Subject: Re: NP
>
>
> yeah, unfortunately
> small publisher, etc etc.
> remember seeing a whole slew of titles at a great sci-fi place in
> London a few yrs back--if i had the dough i would've bought them all
>
> some of the novels I like (these are others descriptions but its the
> sheer uniqueness of Lafferty's voice that stands out. short stories
> tend to be better)
>
> Reefs of the Earth (about a bunch of weird kids--Six children of the
> alien Puca families visiting Earth (seven if you count Bad John),
> decide to make the world a better place, mainly by killing all the
> people on it--you might think my god, but its pretty funny believe or
> not)
>
> Serpent's Egg takes place in the indeterminate future of 2035 when all
> sorts of experiments are taking place between animals, humans and
> humanoid computers, resulting in various hybrid offspring. These
> mega-persons all reach maturity at ten years old, but should they
> prove to be a serpent's egg, a threat to the "floating world",
> assassins are sent after them by the Kangaroo Court, seen as a portent
> in the sky of a kangaroo. The offspring of four experiments join up to
> form a magic twelve, including in their number a psychic python, an
> unborn elephant, a wolverine, a bear, a computer, and a few humans.
> the epilogue (written by a whale) claims that half the book is lies.
>
> but the prize goes to Not to Mention Camels--the, and I emphasize the,
> strangest book I've ever read
>
> R. A. Lafferty has created three memorable creatures in Pilger Tisman,
> Pilgrim Dusmano, and Polder Dossman. Pilger is a protean figure of
> phantasmagoric qualities; Pilgrim’s fragmented existence lies in
> thousands of minds besides his own; Polder is eidolon-man and
> cult-figure, hypnotic, electric, magnetic, transcendent.They are all
> world-jumpers in a meta-cosmosic universe. What hellish worlds they
> jump to—Hieronymus Bosch landscapes that thrive on anti-matter,
> anti-space, anti-time. What mind-and-body-searing challenges they are
> confronted with. For Pilger, Pilgrim, and Polder are one man.
>
>
> On 9/18/09, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for the tip.  I've never read nor head of Lafferty, but I'll do
>> myself that favor you mention.
>>
>> But, man!  This book is expensive, new or used.
>>
>> Would you have full-length novels by him to recommend?
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 11:19 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> after reading R.A. Lafferty, most mainstream sci-fi to me became
>>> pretty inane and laughable. Lafferty was a practicing Catholic,
>>> ex-alcoholic who resided mostly in Oklahoma, who sympathized with the
>>> Choctaw among other things
>>>
>>> do yrself a favor, read the short story collection, Nine Hundred
>>> Grandmothers. guarantee you'll read a couple of those stories and
>>> think, what the fuck was that? (and laugh smiling)
>>>
>>> http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Hundred-Grandmothers-R-Lafferty/dp/1880448971
>>
>
>