Return From The Stars by Stanislaw Lem

The Slice of Sci Fi podcast guys gushed about Lem and specifically this novel. I believe they were discussing it in the context of Solaris, a movie adapted from another one of his novels. It sat on my Amazon wishlist for a good while, until I was able to procure it through paperbackswap.com.

Translated from the original Polish, it’s a story about a space traveler’s return to earth 127 years after his departure and his efforts to adapt to the new world.

It’s pretty well written, but kind of… well… dull.

I read this by a reviewer on Amazon… This is a relatively contemplative work by Lem – he saved his blatant humor for other works… [cut] This might not be the best intro for someone new to Lem. I’d recommend his lighter writing to start with. Still, it’s a good one. At the end of the book there are blurbs about his other works, and I have to agree that the other ones sound more entertaining.

So, perhaps I’ll give him another chance.

Can’t Wait To Get To Heaven: A Novel by Fannie Flagg

I think got this book for our beach vacation earlier this year, and as I enjoyed Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man: A Novel and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: A Novel, I added it to my To Be Read pile.

I was not terribly engaged by the read, and given that I was engaged by her previous works, I’m curious as to why. I see three possibilities…

1) Can’t Wait just isn’t as good as her previous works.
2) I’ve changed as a person since I read the other books about 10 years ago.
3) I’ve since read The Rattlesnake Master, which is a superior work in the southern-small-town-stories genre.

I’m inclined to think it’s a combination of the above.

I can’t understand why Beaufort Cranford doesn’t enjoy the same popularity as Fannie Flagg. Maybe because nobody made a movie of his one book. Possibly because he only wrote one book. , poke him on that, won’t you? Fannie is flagging, somebody’s got to pick up the slack.