Friday, December 01, 2006
 
Book Report: Ballroom of the Skies by John D. MacDonald (1951, 1968)
I bought this book for $3.00 from Hooked on Books. It's gotten easier to tell, since Hooked on Books has begun marring the inside front covers with large labels attesting to the fact. It's perhaps slightly less risable than stamping the page edges, but not much.

It's one of MacDonald's science fiction efforts (he calls it science fantasy, but it's the same difference). In a world not too far in the future, after the First Atomic War, India has risen into prominence in the world, vying with Irania and Brazil for power. As tensions escalate, a United States diplomat tries to engage calm tensions, but they get to him. His assistant investigates and finds that a dark conspiracy of alien forces with psi powers are fomenting tensions on earth, and he has to discover why.

Which he does. MacDonald's science fantasy books are somewhat less than his crime fiction, and let's be frank, this is an old example anyway. But the book was engaging and moved along fairly well. After working on Emma for a couple weeks, it was nice to run through a book in a couple of nights.

Books mentioned in this review:


 
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."