Walking on the Moon

This is a classic Czech SF novel by Karel ?apek, the fellow who coined the term robot. What strikes me most is how satirical it is on multiple scales. It does a fine job skewering individuals right up through nations and companies. It does so less in a structured way of stacking individual flaws into structural flaws – you don’t see nations acting the same way as nationals – and more as just showing the multi-scale irrationality of it all. And it’s a fun snappy read as it goes. I mean, it’s not going to wind up anywhere good, but with more whimsical resignation than call to action.

It was written in the 30’s so a lot of the satire of people and their ethnicities foibles has aged badly. The overall tone goes a long way in making it seem more misguided than nasty to me. The perceived quirks of the English middle class don’t really underlie the follies of humanity as a whole, so I rolled my eyes more than hung my head.

Overall an interesting piece of SF. Recommended.

I’ve read some great books from random recommendations on line. And I’ve read The Pussy Detective. That’s too cheap a shot to pass up but it’s unfair to The Pussy Detective.

The book is billed as a Blacksploitation Sex Magic novel, and it completely delivers on that. It creates a really fun Blacksploitation environment and uses the sex and magic ideas as mysterious elements to talk about the world. It would have been a fun 90’s Vertigo series. But it doesn’t rise beyond a pretty niche genre piece. To be fair, I don’t think that was DuVay Knox’s goal. In print, it overstayed its welcome a bit for me, though I did enjoy the Wash U pokes.

I want to be super clear. This is just a case of a work that I’m not the audience for. Knox builds a well-written unique book here. If you have an inclination to check it out, you’ll get a good ride.