Greetings
Check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Arcot-Morey-Wade-Complete-Invaders/dp/1846774934/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_3
Incase you don’t want to click the link, it’s called "ARCOT MOREY & WADE”, a collection of 3 books. It costs $23.99
Now, check out this KINDLE download
Incase you don’t want to click this link either, it’s “The Ultimate Science Fiction Collection: Volume 1 to 3 (80+ Books).
80+ books. That’s more than 80 books by my count. The cost of this? $1.99. That’s less than 2 dollars. (I love math). And, guess what the first 3 books of the 80+ are? They are the “ARCOT, MOREY & WADE” books. My word.
I didn’t actually by this collection of books. I should’ve, but didn’t see it. Instead, I bought just VOLUME 1 for $1.00. For another 99 cents, I could’ve had 60 more books.
I’ve read 2 of the three books. The KINDLE shows me that I’m 4% through everything. I don’t know how many pages the first 3 books are, but my sense is that they’re pretty small.
These books, the first 3 in particular, are from the early 1950’s. Time were different then. Their idea of cutting-edge and advanced technology was quite different than how it planned out. Its extremely interesting and fresh. Its fresh because no one today can write what they did back then because most of its just plain wrong.
50 years from now we’ll probably look back at the books of today and say the same thing. You can already see it en-masse in the movies. How about those monochrome monitors in the ALIEN movies?
These books, written in the 1950, take place in the future. In the future:
- Planes are still the primary mode of transportation, but they’re much bigger. To accommodate the larger size, they have more propellers.
- When they go to Venus, the bad guys have absolutely massive air planes… they completely dwarf anything earth has ever come up. They have even more propellers.
- Nothing is known about the other planets. They are believed to have life and oceans, etc.
- There is no concept of satellites. Even when the cast because space borne, they can only communicate with earth via line of site. So, they have multiple listening stations around to earth
- Lots of talk about radio tubes, transformers and relays. No mention of computers.
They also have lots of things that never came to be, and still seem kind of clever. After a failed alien invasion, we learn that the alien space ships are powered by captured condensed light. This is called light electricity instead of matter electricity. (that might not be exactly right, but you get the idea).
It must’ve been liberating to be able to write anything you want about anything you want without science and facts and evidence getting in the way. To do that today, you’d have to venture out to another solar system or another time.
Its a real pleasure reading these books. I have no idea what’s coming next in the 20 or so books I bought for a dollar. That’s kind of liberating too; just keep reading these stories by authors that I’ve never heard of, and gain some perspective on yesteryear at the same time. There aren’t any new books that I get excited about; if Tom Clancy ever writes again, I’d be into that, but I can’t think of anything else I’d run out to buy. I could read any of the hundreds of novels that Stephen King released this month for $8 each, or browse the bookshelf hoping to come across something good, but there’s no need. My queue is full with many books. If I start to run low, another dollar will get me through another year. How can you beat that? Even at used book store, a single book will cost you 50 cents or so.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find out what happens next. The combined forces of Earth and Venus just repelled an invasion of an unknown alien race. The downed alien space cruisers are blowing up on a massive scale. The main characters are busy at work trying to devise a weapon to more effectively deal with the remaining cruise ships. Maybe if I’m lucky, they’ll listen to some AM radio.
No comments:
Post a Comment