Not every book triggers great cascades of thought. Sometimes my reaction to a book is little more than a shrug. A lot of the time I know I want to say something about it, but also know that those thoughts can’t be stretched out into a full review. These facts are especially true of short books. The sort of book that you can read in a single sitting and then move on with your day.

I’ve read/listened to quite a few of these teeny tiny tomes lately, so I’ve decided to bundle my short thoughts into one article for your consideration. Don’t worry, it won’t take you long to read.

In Our Hands, The Stars, by Harry Harrison

A scientist on the run from Israel travels to Denmark and creates an anti-gravity submarine. It’s certainly a zany plot, and the adventure flows thick and fast. Yet while it’s undeniably entertaining, there’s not a whole lot to chew on in here. The science is accomplished with waves of the hand, the politics little more than surface level, and none of the characters make an impact. Oh, and the ending is incredibly underwhelming. It was a fun read, but I’ve reached the conclusion than Harrison is someone I won’t get much more out of.

Limits, by Larry Niven

Coming of the back of the incredible Destiny’s Road, this short story collection was a massive let-down. It doesn’t help that the stories are a mix of science fiction and fantasy, the latter of which I don’t think Niven is particularly skilled at writing. The rest of the stories fall somewhere on the spectrum between okay and average, with one exception. The Roentgen Standard is a brilliant piece of satire about getting rid of nuclear waste by turning it into coins. As an essay, it’s the shortest piece in the book, but the best by a long margin.

Murder in the Gunroom, by H. Beam Piper

Hear me out, because this one is not a science fiction story. Instead it’s a crime novel by one of my favourite Golden Age SF writers. It’s also weirdly prescient in the matter of Piper’s own death (though I believe his own death is a rather conclusive case of suicide with no suspicions of foul play). I know nothing about guns, so the enthusiasm for firearms collecting shared by just about everyone in the book was oddly concerning rather than helpful, but the investigation itself was brisk and filled with red herrings, more than one of which had me tricked. Some of the noir pulp descriptions of the characters showed their age, but overall it was a good time. and to justify it’s appearance on this SF blog, one of the character sis a gun-collecting sci-fi writer, much like Piper himself. So there.

The Silkie, by A. E. Van Vogt

I cant believe that the same man who wrote Empire of the Atom wrote this. Yes, Van Vogt is an acquired taste, and eclectic at his best, but this is an absolutely dire novel. I think it’s a fix-up of short fiction, but it jumps around so much that it’s difficult to tell where one might end and the other begin. It’s nonsensical, badly written, and worst of all, it’s completely forgettable. This will probably be my last Van Vogt. At the price of a single pound, I still feel like I overpaid for it.