WAITING FOR GOODTEXT - GENERAL HOSPITAL GENRE
In 2014/15 I spent a lot of time hanging out in various hospital and other medical care facility waiting rooms. (Not because of any issues with my own health, I'm just visiting or accompanying others.)
While there, I decided to amuse myself documenting interesting books found in the lounges, waiting rooms and other small repositories.
I don't need to identify the places, just note that my favourite genres seem to infilitrate everywhere and everywhen! :)
This quartet of books found in a waiting room bookcase includes:
1) A well travelled omnibus edition of four of the Douglas Adams books in the six volume Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy. (!) A rather ironic volume to find amongst the well intentioned but endlessly tedious Vogonity of any large hospital. It does not contain the fifth DNA novel in the series, Mostly Harmless, or the Eoin Colfer written sixth installment, And Another Thing....
I reckon this battered edition comes from around about the mid to late 1980s. That means it's been kicking around for about three decades, which is indeed Wholly Remarkable. Hospitals being the angsty places that they are, there should be a call 'unalarm' near this book, that is to say, a "DON'T PANIC BUTTON".
2) The Vesuvius Club is a 2004 spy novel with a Science Fictional theme about a villainous plot to trigger a new eruption in Italy's iconic but deadly volcano. It is the first novel in the Lucifer Box espionage series, by Mark Gatiss. It's a racy trilogy, that's spiced up by Mr Box's willingness to use his bisexuality as just another tool in his spy kit. The author who created this dashingly dangerous portrait painter/spy character, is of course also associated with the comedy television series, The League Of Gentlemen, as well as working on and in (as a writer and an actor) the telly shows Doctor Who and Sherlock.
3) The Sioux Spacemen was originally written in 1960 by the incredibly prolific cross-genre author, Andre Norton. It's a 'standalone' title, not part of the beloved author's many ongoing series, and features a space-going Lakota Native American who finds himself in the position of helping enslaved aliens free themselves from another group of aliens. Rather typical theme for a Norton novel!
4) The Many-Colored Land is the first book in Julian May's very successful Science Fiction/Fantasy series, the Saga Of Pliocene Exile, which was popular back in the 1980s. The books elaborately chronicle the collision between aliens and enhanced human exiles from the 21st/22nd Centuries, the latter who have travelled back through time to Earth's Pliocene period, some 5 to 2 million years ago. I swear I've read this one, and there's a copy sitting on my own bookshelf, but for the life of me I can't remember much about the story itself.
WAITING FOR GOODTEXT - GENERAL HOSPITAL GENRE
In 2014/15 I spent a lot of time hanging out in various hospital and other medical care facility waiting rooms. (Not because of any issues with my own health, I'm just visiting or accompanying others.)
While there, I decided to amuse myself documenting interesting books found in the lounges, waiting rooms and other small repositories.
I don't need to identify the places, just note that my favourite genres seem to infilitrate everywhere and everywhen! :)
This quartet of books found in a waiting room bookcase includes:
1) A well travelled omnibus edition of four of the Douglas Adams books in the six volume Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy trilogy. (!) A rather ironic volume to find amongst the well intentioned but endlessly tedious Vogonity of any large hospital. It does not contain the fifth DNA novel in the series, Mostly Harmless, or the Eoin Colfer written sixth installment, And Another Thing....
I reckon this battered edition comes from around about the mid to late 1980s. That means it's been kicking around for about three decades, which is indeed Wholly Remarkable. Hospitals being the angsty places that they are, there should be a call 'unalarm' near this book, that is to say, a "DON'T PANIC BUTTON".
2) The Vesuvius Club is a 2004 spy novel with a Science Fictional theme about a villainous plot to trigger a new eruption in Italy's iconic but deadly volcano. It is the first novel in the Lucifer Box espionage series, by Mark Gatiss. It's a racy trilogy, that's spiced up by Mr Box's willingness to use his bisexuality as just another tool in his spy kit. The author who created this dashingly dangerous portrait painter/spy character, is of course also associated with the comedy television series, The League Of Gentlemen, as well as working on and in (as a writer and an actor) the telly shows Doctor Who and Sherlock.
3) The Sioux Spacemen was originally written in 1960 by the incredibly prolific cross-genre author, Andre Norton. It's a 'standalone' title, not part of the beloved author's many ongoing series, and features a space-going Lakota Native American who finds himself in the position of helping enslaved aliens free themselves from another group of aliens. Rather typical theme for a Norton novel!
4) The Many-Colored Land is the first book in Julian May's very successful Science Fiction/Fantasy series, the Saga Of Pliocene Exile, which was popular back in the 1980s. The books elaborately chronicle the collision between aliens and enhanced human exiles from the 21st/22nd Centuries, the latter who have travelled back through time to Earth's Pliocene period, some 5 to 2 million years ago. I swear I've read this one, and there's a copy sitting on my own bookshelf, but for the life of me I can't remember much about the story itself.