The Thurb Revolution, by Alexei Panshin

[sophia_sol]

This is a science fiction novel from the 1960's, featuring a cast of odd characters wandering their way through interactions with each other In Space. It's mildly sexist in that 1960's way, it's hard to keep track of all the characters, and honestly I'm still not sure what the plot was -- but I still mostly enjoyed the process of reading the book.

I just really enjoyed the writing style! I wish I could articulate what it's doing that I like so much. The prose is pretty pared-down yet expressive, and it does things via odd juxtapositions of ideas and events. It's fun and engaging and it made me want to pick it apart to figure out just what it was doing!

So like....I don't think I particularly enjoyed this book as a book, but I'm still going to hang on to my cheap second-hand copy and maybe refer back to it in the future.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

Sounds like a success in its own way, then!

[sophia_sol]

yeah! I'm definitely glad I read it!

[pauraque]

Huh, I read a different book by Panshin a while back and it was nothing like this! (Well, it did have Space and vague 1960s sexism.) I wonder if this was a departure from his usual, or if the one I read was.

[sophia_sol]

huh, interesting! I'm very curious now what his usual style was! I just tried searching around a bit to see if I could find anything about it in discussions of Panshin as a writer or in reviews of Thurb Revolution but I didn't find any useful info, unfortunately.