The Eighty Minute Hour
by Brian Aldiss
science fiction
copyright 1975
read, in part, April 2014
rated 4: bad but could be read
According to an author's note, this book was written, paragraph by paragraph, while on tour with another author. It shows. The book is a series of vignettes. After fifty-plus pages, a series of unrelated vignettes.
Okay, I can see how they could relate. So far, I can see no reason why I should be interested in the way that the stands of story could be linked.
According to the back-cover blurb, this is "a genuine space-opera".
What it misses, is a genuine space opera plot. In fact -- and I admit that page 56 is still early in the 284 page book -- what it misses is any plot at all.
Space opera is whizz bang adventure, heroes fighting insuperable odds and winning, science advancing in leaps and bounds... The Eighty Minute Hour offers boring discussion, dislikeable characters doing pointless things and science already gone mad.
There is nothing to capture my interest. No character that I want to follow. Vague hints but no clear conflict that I would like to see resolved.
Not space opera. Just random vignettes from an author with a negative view of the world. An author who thinks that unpleasant is funny.
What happens next ?
I'm not interested.
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Problems ? Solved
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