| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Great Unsung Satirical Novels,
By
This review is from: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (Mass Market Paperback)
Published under this [] title JOURNEY BEYOND TOMORROW, its real title is JOURNEY OF JOENES and it is one of the strangest, most brilliant and touching satires ever written. If Jorge Luis Borges and G.K. Chesterton stayed up all night doing coffee and shrooms, this is the book they'd come up with. As Mike Resnick said in his review, the section about the Octagon is so mind-blowing and so full of comic paradox you'll need to take a deep breath and have a cocktail while your cerebellum cools off. This book takes place after the world has ended. The conceit is that it is a collection of "folk tales" by the only survivors of the human race, Polynesian storytellers. The storytellers, each with separate idiosyncracies, go around the campfire telling the stories that were passed down to them about The Old Times. About how the world came to an end because of a Mythic Innocent named Joenes who accidentally causes the End of the World. In the process, he finds Jesus Christ in the Hollis Home for the Criminally Insane, is hired as a college professor but has no idea what he's teaching, finds that scientists and lawyers now worship superstition with a random number generator as their oracle, that doctors are creating diseases that cannot be cured, that maximum security prisons have more guards than ever because everyone is trying to break *into* prison, and that the world's most advanced computer humiliates Satan and takes over his job inspiring mankind to a new level of cruelty and war. I can't tell you how much I love Sheckley. His stories are, as Spider Robinson once said, lean, mean and funny. And his best novels, like Journey of Joenes (aka Journey Beyond Tomorrow, ugh what a title!) are profound masterpieces of satire on the level of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, CATCH 22, JURGEN, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER or THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY. Read this, his other ingenious satirical novels DIMENSION OF MIRACLES and MINDSWAP, and his greatest short stories, especially in the collection IS THAT WHAT PEOPLE DO?
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent satire,
By
This review is from: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (Mass Market Paperback)
An excellent satire. The first of Sheckley's three brilliant humor novels of the 1960s (the next two being MINDSWAP and the unsurpassed DIMENSION OF MIRACLES). This book is worth the price just for his description of the Octogon, the most confusing government building ever created.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An SF Classic,
By Speaker to Animals (NY, United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (Gollancz classic SF) (Paperback)
If you can get your hands on a copy of this before they vanish from the earth, you'll be doing yourself a favor. The remaining copies I've been able to find are in tatters. If you are a fan of SF and have not read (or even heard of) this work, then all I can say to you is, for shame!
This is an amazing piece of literature. No more from me on this. It's a short novel. Read it yourself and for gosh sakes, post a review! Maybe someone will think to get this back in print. Hell, I'd even settle for an e-book. Sheckley is just grand. OTHER BOOKS TO READ: - The Status Civilization - Untouched by Human Hands - Dimension of Miracles - Citizen in Space - Notions: Unlimited (I am not prioritizing here, and there are quite a few more ... just get them while you still can).
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
