Customer Reviews (1)

Not Free SF Reader
An interesting introduction, with a note first talking about what SF is.Amis suggests that the New Wave was on a whole deleterious, Ballard's characters not doing much, Spinrad being good at swearing, and a couple of yanks in there too, etc.

Things like Zoline's Heat Death of the Universe, much liked by Aldiss he says, but is no fan of such writing tricksiness with science fictional trimmings, being basically a story about a common woman in California that isn't SF at all.I'm with you on that one, Kingsley.

Also talks about people like Asimov moving more into non-fiction as possibly having run out of stuff.

He also says (talking of Peter Nicholls suggesting much genre blending is a great thign": "There are usually good reasons for the existence of barriers, and this specimen has always been permeable by individuals on both sides of it.Breaking it down altogether would at the best of times be likely to have the same result as, say, the amalgamation of Lake Victoria with the Indian Ocean."

He dedicates the book to Edmund Crispin, who did a Best SF series, that was not a Year's Best series.I stumbled across this name in a library catalogue just last week, actually, and here he is talking about the man.One for the list.

An average of 3.59, but enough interesting intro stuff to boost it into 3.75+ish round to 4 range.

This book is from 1981, and Amis concludes his intro on page 27 with "Science fiction has lost its innocence, a quality notoriously hard to recapture."

Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Quest for Saint Aquin - Anthony Boucher
Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Xi Effect - Philip Latham
Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Tunnel Under the World - Frederik Pohl
Golden Age of Science Fiction : Old Hundredth - Brian W. Aldiss
Golden Age of Science Fiction : A Work of Art - James Blish
Golden Age of Science Fiction : Harrison Bergeron - Kurt Vonnegut
Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Voices of Time - J. G. Ballard
Golden Age of Science Fiction : Specialist - Robert Sheckley
Golden Age of Science Fiction : He Walked Around the Horses - H. Beam Piper
Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Game of Rat and Dragon - Cordwainer Smith
Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Nine Billion Names of G0d - Arthur C. Clarke
Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Streets of Ashkelon - Harry Harrison
Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Country of the Kind - Damon Knight
Golden Age of Science Fiction : The Machine That Won the War - Isaac Asimov
Golden Age of Science Fiction : Student Body - Floyd L. Wallace
Golden Age of Science Fiction : Its a Good Life - Jerome Bixby
Golden Age of Science Fiction : Sister Planet - Poul Anderson

Robotheology aims.

3 out of 5


Spectrum shrinking supremely serious.

4 out of 5


Brain capacity reduction circuit.

(maybe a 3.25)

3 out of 5


Bear shoulda got it.

2.5 out of 5


Composer impression.

4 out of 5


Handicap gravity uplift termination.

4 out of 5


Galactic goodbye.

3.5 out of 5


Need a new Pusher.

3.5 out of 5


A English diplomat in Prussia, in 1809, performs the titular action and disappears. The story is told in documentation about the event.

3 out of 5


Another actual use for a live cat. Fight you little bastich.

4 out of 5


Ubergeek monks finish a cataloguing project, and with it comes some serious consequences.

5 out of 5


Native superstition addition.

4.5 out of 5


Violent man gets odiferously ostracised.

4 out of 5


Coin flip strategy.

3 out of 5


Things change really fast around here.

4 out of 5



When Anthony is born, he uses his abilities to transport his whole town to somewhere else. After that, everyone is extremely careful around him, as when he comes across something he doesn't like his extreme powers of transmutation and transfiguration can do bad things, and he is also somewhat telepathic and has degrees of animal control. Basically a young, sociopathic supervillain.

3 out of 5


Venusforming violence.

3 out of 5





... Read more

Product Description
Jim has fallen into a job at one of the new red brick universities. A moderately successful future beckons as long as Jim can survive a madrigal-singing weekend, deliver a lecture on "merrie England" and resist Christine, the girlfriend of Professor Welch's son, Bertrand. ... Read more

Product Description
The legend continues! Stand by for more adventures with the world’s greatest secret agent, as his most thrilling missions are collected for the first time ever!

When James Bond’s boss, the enigmatic M, is kidnapped in Greece, Bond must race to his rescue — with only some local fishermen to help! But 007 uncovers a plan to sabotage a USSR summit... and the evil Colonel Sun is planning to frame the British Secret Service for the crime!

This new, never-before-collected edition, features Kingsley Amis’s only James Bond story, plus a new introduction by Britt Ekland, and exclusive features examining the post-Fleming comics and Kingsley Amis’s Bond work! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Would be great to have Graphic Novel in the item name
Bought this for my husband's birthday having no idea it was the graphic novel version.Didn't realize it until I took it out of the box to wrap it.He'll be pretty disappointed tomorrow when he opens his gifts, because this is definitely not what he is expecting. Guess I learned my lesson about waiting until the last minute to wrap presents!

not what I expected
Nothing in the Amazon descriptions said this was a collection of comic strips from the newspaper. I was expecting the novel by Kinglsey Amis. All the others in the series (I now see) say "graphic novel" in their title.

An absolute "must-have" for all dedicated James Bond fans
Latest in a series of James Bond daily strip collections, James Bond 007: Colonel Sun by the team of Kingsley Amis, Jim Lawrence, and Yaroslav Horak is a graphic novel compilation of black-and-white daily newspaper strips that adapted Ian Fleming's classic James Bond action-adventure story "River of Death" and Sir Kingsley Amis' James Bond story "Golden Sun" to comic format. In addition to flawless reproductions of the original strips, James Bond 007: Colonel Sun includes an introduction by Britt Ekland, a summary of how Kingsley Amis came to continue the Bond legacy after Fleming's passing in 1964, and an interview with comic-strip artist and adapter Jim Lawrence. James Bond 007: Colonel Sun is an absolute "must-have" for all dedicated James Bond fans.

Thanks for the non-Fleming titles
Colonel Sun has always been my favorite non-Fleming novel and I've followed the Daily Express strip collections eagerly. I'm actually more interested now in the original stories for the paper, such as River of Death which is included in this volume. I think the art suffered after losing the original illustrator, however it's still great fun, especially since the strips haven't been movie influenced to a great deal, but stick very close to Fleming's concept. ... Read more

Product Description
This delightful anthology celebrates a rich and pleasing--if often underrated--tradition of English writing.The choice of poems reflects the great variety of light verse as well as the tastes and views of its distinguished editor.The selections range from genial satire to nonsense verse, from epigrams to limericks.More than 250 poems by some 80 authors provide a witty and consistently entertaining survey of English verse from Rochester and Ben Jonson to Anthony Powell and Philip Larkin.

As Mr. Amis explains in a lively introduction, the principles on which he based this selection differ from those used by W.H. Auden in selecting for The Oxford Book of Light Verse (first published in 1938). Auden's definition of "light" was closer to "popular" than "humorous." Amis's collection--which includes familiar favorites as well as previously unpublished masterpieces--is lighter in heart, closer to a modern understanding of the meaning of "light." ... Read more

Product Description
This presents the original selection of poems as made by Sir Kingsley Amis, which appeared in the "Daily Mirror". One poem was published each day for a year and the selection was intended to be read as a sequence throughout the calendar year. They are accompanied by Amis' commentary. The poems, from the English literary tradition are designed to appeal to the widest possible audience and include many of the best-loved and most frequently recited verses. ... Read more