Brian Aldiss' highly inventive space opera is a mind-expanding range of songs and science that takes us, twisting and turning, through a cornucopia of intergalactic merriment and melodrama. Eccentric characters burst into full-throated song with each meandering plot.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Special Offers and Product Promotions
- This item is eligible for our 4-for-3 promotion. Eligible products include select Books and Home & Garden items. Buy any 4 eligible items and get the lowest-priced item free. Here's how (restrictions apply)
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Free SF Reader,
By Blue Tyson "- Research Finished" (Legion clubhouse) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Eighty Minute Hour (Paperback)
Britain nuked right under.
They weren't the only ones either, plenty of other places copped it, Australian included. This book was set at the end of the 20th century, and with this level of disaster there certainly seemed to be a lot of improbable technology running around for the time period, from holograms, cyborgs, micronauts, people on other planets, just to name a few. Maybe even a bit of mind control. Whackiness of stuff, and whackiness of language. In other words, this book is really not very good.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Weird but worth it if you're capable to keep all the threads together,
This review is from: Eighty-Minute Hour: A Space Opera (Paperback)
Now, this is one of the weirdest novels I have read. It builds on the same kind of scenario as Frankenstein Unbound i.e. time slips as a result of nuclear war. But this story in infinitely more complex. There are I think five or six parallel stories with different character that only in the very end are connected to each other (think about that, I guess about ten main characters equally important, and you have to read six or seven chapters to find out what happened when the last chapter ended).It is written as a kind of musical comedy, I kid you not, the character repeatedly break out in song! Since time is acting up, there is no simple way to tell the story (like chronological order) so it does get confusing at times.The theme of the book could be said to be a kind of mystery that asks who actually rules the world. It seems that the world is run by computers (the Zeitgeist people should read this), but who runs the computers?
It is also at times almost Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy-level silly, though not as funny IMO. And incredibly thought provoking as well. Aldiss in all his books is fond of alluding to different works of literature etc, but here it at times get absurd (I guess it is because the narrator is far from a neutral observer): I found a joke that you would only get if you are fairly well versed in liturgical terminology. It does kind of come together in the end, but at times it does feel like a bit too much. So, high marks for ambition, slightly less so for execution. But it is well worth the read.
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Could not finish it,
By
This review is from: Eighty-Minute Hour: A Space Opera (Paperback)
I usually finish any book I read, but this one did not entertain me; it did not interest me in the characters, setting, nor concepts. I'm surprised it's still in print, since it was first published in 1974 and doesn't seem to be worth reading after 25 pages.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
