Product Description
Roger Micheldene is full of gluttony, sloth and lust, bounding with anger and affronted by everything on the American scene. He is an English gentleman who fails to see how his presence might adversely affect Anglo-American relations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Rude and hilarious
It's a pity this book, first published in 1963, is out of print. Though not one ofKingsley Amis's better known novels, it is brim full of his usual brio and highly intelligent writing style. The title character inthis case is Roger Micheldene, a dyspeptic Englishman in America for twoweeks who is at odds with everyone he meets. Roger, who considers himself"qualified in gluttony, sloth and lust but distinguished inanger," feels himself surrounded by idiots and frequently lets themknow it. He spends most of the novel trying to get into bed with the wifeof a friend, or indeed any woman, and thoroughly disrupting Anglo-Americanrelations in the process. Amis manages to make us like, or at least beinterested in, a person whose chief behavior trait is "beingawful." Fortunately, he surrounds Roger with a panoply of vividsecondary characters, such as the American literary agent who is crazyabout all things British, the obnoxiously smart college student, thepersistent priest who sees in Roger a soul in conflict. In his quest forself-gratification, Roger loses as often as he wins, but the contests areextremely entertaining and the author's observations about American andBritish sensibilities are priceless. ... Read more

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





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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
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