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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book that influenced my writing career,
This review is from: Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman: The Remarkable Exploits of (Paperback)
I read this book when it was first published -- I think in a library copy. I was just a kid, and at that time hadn't really decided I would be a professional writer.But I loved the book. I don't write this particular style, true, but I enjoy reading it. And I enjoyed it more as a kid. As a budding writer, this book taught me the value of vivid characters who behave in a consistent manner. I learned one of Robert A. Heinlein's rules from this book -- that what a writer is selling is entertainment. That your work competes for the book-buyers beer money. Later, when I saw R.A.H. articulate that rule, I understood what he was talking about. For myself, I slowly hatched the ambition to grow up to give other people the kind of sheer, soul-satisfying, good READ that Nelson S. Bond gave to me. Of course, there were many other authors that contributed to that ambition, but you know what? I bought this book at a convention at a premium price in the 1970's - and I still have it on my treasure shelf. As a professional reviewer and teacher of writing, I recommend this book for readers in the 10-16 age group -- and those mature enough to be able to enjoy a book aimed at younger readers without being embarrassed. If you like Farscape, Stargate SG-1, and/or Star Trek's new ENTERPRISE -- you really should read this book. This is their source-material. Parents should read this book with an idea to judging at what age their own children would be able to appreciate it. But they'll be asking you what you're laughing at, you'll be having such a howling good time reading. This kind of writing is timeless and can appeal to readers of all ages, if they're mature enough to enjoy for the sake of enjoying. And this is the kind of book no home sf/f library should be without. Live Long and Prosper,
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Now I Am the Ruler of the Space Navee",
By
This review is from: Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman: The Remarkable Exploits of (Paperback)
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, there emerged a curious form of present-as-future space opera based on the modern navy. Book length treatments of this type of story include Nelson S. Bond's _Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman_ (1950) and Malcolm Jameson's _Bullard of the Space Patrol_ (1951). Individual stories of this sort include Robert Moore Williams's "The Red Death of Mars" (_Astounding_, 1940) and the Ensign de Ruyter stories by Arthur Porges, in _Amazing_ during the 1960s. According to these stories, there will be fleets of spaceships in the future, either military or merchant. People will talk in space navy slang. There will be rival football games (or some other futuristic sport) between different space academies or spaceship crews. There will be Admirals and Skippers and First Mates and Cooks (usually bad ones). There will be testy, short-tempered doctors. There will be radio operators nicknamed "Sparks." And there will be Scottish engineers:
"Ye're no suggestin', Mr. Biggs," he said, "that I try to dooble the _Saturn's_ speed?" "You must!" MacDougal grinned mirthlessly, nodding his grizzled head to designate the laboring, old-fashioned hypatomics in the firing room. "Yon motors," he said, "is calculated to carry us from Venus to Earth in ten days. By babyin' 'em, we can make it in nine. By strainin' 'em, we can maybe make it in eight. But if we force 'em beyond that limit"-- he shook his head--"we'll arrive at Long Island spaceport as a bonny conglomeration of assorted bolts, plates, an' rivets. "Ye woulndna like that, Mr. Biggs." (67) Did you really think that Scotty, Kirk, and McCoy from _Star Trek_ had never been done before? _Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman_ is based on a series of stories written between 1939 and 1943 for _Amazing_, _Fantastic Adventures_, and _Weird Tales_. Bond rewrote the original stories somewhat to smooth them into a more novelistic form. The result is an enjoyable piece of light entertainment as the gawky, awkward mate on the _Saturn_ gives his space-dog captain high blood pressure by getting the crew into one jam after another... yet always manages to save the day in the proverbial nick of time. Nelson Bond had a sense of humor similar to a pair of other up-and-coming pulp writers of the forties, Robert Bloch and Fredric Brown. For my money, Bond's stories were more stylistically polished than those of Bloch and Brown. But the other two authors wrote more novels than Bond, and that made all the difference. They hit the big time, while Bond's reputation has remained more modest. Still, there are pleasures to Bond. I have always had a sneaking fondness for many of his stories. _Lancelot Biggs_ is not a classic. It never was. But it has a certain old-fashioned charm that makes it worth reading even today.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic SF from the pulp magazines,
By
This review is from: Lancelot Biggs: Spaceman: The Remarkable Exploits of (Paperback)
He was the nicest, most helpful spaceman on the Venus cargo run . . . and just happened to be the biggest menace in all of space! A classic science fiction novel, originally published in science fiction pulp magazines in the 1950s. Still a lot of fun and better than much of what is being published today.
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