Larry Shone's brief comments on some genre works

Fellow novels' blogger talks of some authors first read during 2009, & some of their works.

Couple of comments:

1. Jack London: "never came across any of his books anywhere!"
   I've a feeling most of what he's written is now in public domain. Try places like Project Gutenberg.
   
   I've'nt read a lot by him, but he can be hard to read except perhaps for native English speakers. Uses a lot of colloquial words, if I recall correctly - probably North American slang.
2. Lensman series of "doc" Smith: I've read only the first 3 books. The real classic so far has been the first half of the 3rd book ("Galactic Patrol", I think). Also, the first book in the series, "Triplanetary", is online at Project Gutenberg.
3. Jack Vance: One of the best known novels of linguistic sf is his "The Languages of Pao". I've'nt read a lot of his novels, but what I've read of his short fiction is generally very cool.