Herr Rau rated As I walked out one midsummer morning: 4 stars

As I walked out one midsummer morning by Laurie Lee
It was 1934 and a young man walked to London from the security of the Cotswolds to make his fortune. …
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It was 1934 and a young man walked to London from the security of the Cotswolds to make his fortune. …
Maybe four stars? But the sheer audacity of it, the throwaway ideas and scenes that would be enough for a hundred silver-age DC stories, the proto-cyberpunk - tiger tattoo, burning man, radioactive scientist/special agent, a retro-future not unlike Cordwainer Smith's, psionics, technically enhanced human bodies, grisly high-speed open-heart surgery (well, heart removal, actually), seeing outside the visible spectrum - all this makes me honour this with all five stars. It is a perfect example of what it is.
Flaws: The ending, too fast. The main character's growth, too fast. The story calls out for 800+ pages, but I'm still glad I got to take the 250-page-rollercoaster. (Definitely more a six-part tv series rather than a single film.)
Alle 2021 im Wochenendmagazin der "Frankfurter Rundschau" erschienenen Kolumnen.
A re-telling of The Tempest in modern form, with quite a clever conceit as its base: After years of professional exile, a de-throned theatre director secretly gets to produce one more play in favourable conditions with his rascally former colleagues and usurpers as a captive audience. It is, of course, The Tempest.
I kept wondering what to expect. Would he go full Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood on them? Would his own plans be crossed by other players? In the end, the central performance reminded me of the final episode of The Prisoner: weird. And after the end, there are long in-world analyses of the play and its characters, and a summary of the original play. I was surprised by this pacing, but didn't mind it; I'm interested in literary theory anyway.
A fun read.
Jacqueline Carey: Miranda and Caliban (2017, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)
"A lovely girl grows up in isolation where her father, a powerful magus, has spirited them to in order to …
Philip Marlowe, a private eye who operates in Los Angeles's seamy underside during the 1930s, takes on his first case, …
When the last honest citizen of Poisonville was murdered, the Continental Op stayed on to punish the guilty--even if that …
Not one of my favourite O. Henry collections, and I've read them all. Bleaker and less poetic - still, not bad. There are several stories on the theme of - misplaced envy? Misunderstandings about how the other half lives? About, say, a poor guy looking hungry while being full, and a swell guy looking comfortable but secretly starved.
The pinnacle of this is "The Social Triangle", with working-class Ikey Snigglefritz being proud to shake rich Billy McMahan's hand, who is then shown to be proud to shake classy Cortlandt Van Duyckink's hand, who is finally happy upon shaking the hand of - Ikey Snigglefritz.
This reminded me of William Tenn's short story "The Servant Problem", where in a dystopic world, where everything and everyone is controlled by one person and ultimate ruler, except for one person, who secretly rules him, who themselves are secretly beholden to one other person who …
Not one of my favourite O. Henry collections, and I've read them all. Bleaker and less poetic - still, not bad. There are several stories on the theme of - misplaced envy? Misunderstandings about how the other half lives? About, say, a poor guy looking hungry while being full, and a swell guy looking comfortable but secretly starved.
The pinnacle of this is "The Social Triangle", with working-class Ikey Snigglefritz being proud to shake rich Billy McMahan's hand, who is then shown to be proud to shake classy Cortlandt Van Duyckink's hand, who is finally happy upon shaking the hand of - Ikey Snigglefritz.
This reminded me of William Tenn's short story "The Servant Problem", where in a dystopic world, where everything and everyone is controlled by one person and ultimate ruler, except for one person, who secretly rules him, who themselves are secretly beholden to one other person who is totally under control of yet another one, who is enthralled by that very first ruler. "This was the day of complete control" is the story's catchphrase.
Not one of my favourite O. Henry collections, and I've read them all. Bleaker and less poetic - still, not bad. There are several stories on the theme of - misplaced envy? Misunderstandings about how the other half lives? About, say, a poor guy looking hungry while being full, and a swell guy looking comfortable but secretly starved.
The pinnacle of this is "The Social Triangle", with working-class Ikey Snigglefritz being proud to shake rich Billy McMahan's hand, who is then shown to be proud to shake classy Cortlandt Van Duyckink's hand, who is finally happy upon shaking the hand of - Ikey Snigglefritz.
This reminded me of William Tenn's short story "The Servant Problem", where in a dystopic world, where everything and everyone is controlled by one person and ultimate ruler, except for one person, who secretly rules him, who themselves are secretly beholden to one other person who …
Not one of my favourite O. Henry collections, and I've read them all. Bleaker and less poetic - still, not bad. There are several stories on the theme of - misplaced envy? Misunderstandings about how the other half lives? About, say, a poor guy looking hungry while being full, and a swell guy looking comfortable but secretly starved.
The pinnacle of this is "The Social Triangle", with working-class Ikey Snigglefritz being proud to shake rich Billy McMahan's hand, who is then shown to be proud to shake classy Cortlandt Van Duyckink's hand, who is finally happy upon shaking the hand of - Ikey Snigglefritz.
This reminded me of William Tenn's short story "The Servant Problem", where in a dystopic world, where everything and everyone is controlled by one person and ultimate ruler, except for one person, who secretly rules him, who themselves are secretly beholden to one other person who is totally under control of yet another one, who is enthralled by that very first ruler. "This was the day of complete control" is the story's catchphrase.