Several weeks ago, I posted my last few reviews for the Official TBR Pile Challenge, and now it’s time for the wrap-up post. You can find my original list (with all linked reviews) here.
The books on the list ended up being a pretty mixed bag for me.
On the negative side:
- It confirmed that I really don’t like Philip K. Dick (even if his concepts are interesting)
- I still think that S. T. Joshi is incredibly pretentious (though he does know how to spot quality writing)
- An early 1980’s anthology provoked some nostalgia for my first forays into sci-fi, but I realized just how obnoxiously preachy a lot of it is.
On the plus side:
- I now want to read more by Georgio de Maria (The Twenty Days of Turin was excellently weird)
- I thoroughly enjoyed something completely different from my usual reading with Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine)
- Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism provided a much more nuanced version of some basic info I got in seminary.
The challenge was a nice “push” to read books that I kept putting off. Thanks to RoofBeamReader for hosting it!
Joelendil's Kingdom of Books 
Well, poop to that about Joshi 😦 I’ve got several of his Cthulhu anthologies lined up and now I’m going to have to see just how pretentious he is. sigh, why can’t editors just pick good stories and leave well enough alone?
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Yeah, Joshi’s collections are generally good…he just takes himself and H P Lovecraft much too seriously, especially in his “Black Wings of Cthulhu” anthologies. He tends to sniff at any actual full-scale appearance of Cthulhu and company as “a pastiche” unworthy of his anthologies and prefers Lovecraftian allusions and themes.
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Thankfully there are a LOT of other anthologies so I won’t have to suffer too much 🙂
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I’m still trying to figure out if I like Philip K. Dick or not. I think I’ve figured out that I enjoy Robert A. Heinlein more. Congrats on completing the challenge!
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Something about Philip K. Dick just rubs me the wrong way (beyond his bleakness and cynicism which I can only take so much of anyway).
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