Believe it or not, this 55-piece collection of writings on sf is a first for the prolific, erratic, unself-critical Asimov. Most of the items are from the late 1970s (the two 1962 introductions to volumes of Soviet sf are painfully out-of-date); they include 22 editorials from his Science Fiction Magazine, pieces from Newsday, from encyclopedias, sf fanzines, TV Guide, Natural History (as well as three not previously published); the content is correspondingly varied and variable. In the first section, "SF in General," Asimov takes five stabs at defining sf (the same examples crop up) and still comes up empty-handed ("surely not all sf can be viewed as travel tales"); "The Predictions of SF" contains one essay with some bite (how sf can foresee and help solve problems), and a second that's no more than a list of future possibilities. "The Writing of SF" is all editorials—mostly routine exhortations to budding writers ("under no circumstances should you describe Titan as a satellite of Jupiter"); "SF Fans"—editorials too—might be of some interest to Trekkies and other perennial convention-goers. "The History of SF" has its anecdotes, as does "SF Writers"—on Campbell and his wife Peg, H. L. Gold, Gernsback, Weinbaum. There's also a blurb-style discussion of Bradbury, and a mention of Asimov's mutual-admiration society with Arthur Clarke. "SF Reviews" features Asimov's only serious attempt at criticism: he tackles 1984 from an sf point of view (but why assume it's sf? Orwell didn't) and comes disastrously unstuck. On firmer ground, he gleefully chews up and spits out "Battlestar Galactica" and other "Star Wars" imitations; and wheels out Byron, Coleridge, and Sterne to attack critics in general. Bringing up the rear, "SF and I" more or less describes itself. What it all adds up to is hard to say: cognoscenti will find it repetitive, shallow, and banal; intelligent general readers will be repelled by Asimov's opinionated verbosity and facile attempts at humor. But dutiful disciples of the Master will at least give it a once-over.
Pub Date: April 17, 1981
ISBN: 0246120444
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1981
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
