Sunday, January 2, 2011

Bombers, Blue Potatoes and Glowing Alien Donuts

One of the first SF writers I met when I moved to Tulsa in '89 was Warren Brown (married to writer Lana Brown). He was the genial president of the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers group, and had sold stories to OMNI, F&SF, Amazing Stories and anthologies.  Over several years we heard chapters from his SF coming-of-age novel, What Happened In Fool The Eye.  Set in the years leading up to the Vietnam war, Fool The Eye appeared as an e-book, but then disappeared from availability.


Now it is again available from Smashwords and Barnes&Noble.




The war in Viet Nam is a looming shadow as young Andy Anderson contemplates his place in life. When he meets intelligent and captivating Reeseanne McAuley and her physicist father, they begin to suspect that the eccentric Hagar Bixly, self-proclaimed guardian of the nearby woods, is involved in a mystery from beyond Earth that could alter their lives forever.


This is the kind of SF novel you rarely come across these days, filled with wonderful characters and tightly written, evocative of the sort of wonderful, imaginative novels with heart written in the 50s and 1960s -- think Clifford D. Simak (Way Station, The Werewolf Principle, City, Mastodonia).


Warning. There are no space opera cat-people armed with energy weapons.  No knockoff Starship Troopers in Halo gear.


But there are wonders galore, unforgettable characters, humor -- and a B-25 bomber.


Check it out.


http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/21609


http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?store=BOOK&WRD=what+happened+in+fool+the+eye&page=index&prod=univ&choice=book&query=What+Happened+in+Fool+the+Eye&flag=False&hgg=y&hgg=Y&ugrp=1





1 comment:

  1. Nice, Simon. It's one of those books where you can't tell anyone the ending for fear of ruining the effect, but I'll never forget reading it for the first time.

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