Things Look Up!

Suddenly it's boom time, on Trade Me - at least as far as I'm concerned. Nine books sold since the beginning of the month. Someone picked up two of the Alistair McLean titles I had; two other people have bought sporting books when I was beginning to wonder if anyone ever did anymore (and one of those books I've had almost since I started back in late 2006); an audio book on CD went (Minette Walters' Devil's Feather); a thriller went, a sci-fi collection, and a hymn book. How's that for a mixed bag?

I'd picked up the hymn book at the recent Regent Theatre non-book sale - it cost me rather more than I really wanted to pay for it - and it was only after I'd begun to advertise it that I discovered that it had a church's name stamped on it. Dear me. Let's hope it wasn't 'borrowed' long term!

Theological Sci-Fi

Sold a Philip Jose Farmer title today: Jesus on Mars.
I have a feeling I read one of Farmer's early novellas, The Lovers in Startling Stories, many years ago. It's about a man who falls in love with an alien parasitic insect that has taken the form of a woman. Certainly that plot idea rings a bell.
Farmer seems to specialise in stories that push the boundaries of sci-fi, especially pushing them in the direction of taking theology way beyond what we normally imagine. (Actually most of us are pretty unimaginative when it comes to things theological; we rely on those who are theologians to tell us stuff, and often they're not the best people to do so.)
I read some of Azimov's early stories a few weeks ago; things in them are already very dated, though the themes themselves are not. No doubt at the time he wrote the stories there was something amazing a computer that could keep track of all the world's data; or scanners that could read hardcopies in the blink of an eye. We now take such things almost for granted.