Novel by Walter Tevis

I read this book because its author is the author of a book upon which one of my all time favorite movie based. The movie titled “The Hustler” is about a small-time pool hustler who works his way with his manager across the United States from his hometown of Oakland, California playing games here and there and anywhere to make his living. But his real reason his he wants a match with the greatest player of his day a player named Minnesota Fats.

The movie was great! Check it out. But I never read the book — still, haven’t.

So since I am retired and have lots of time I was checking out Walter Tevis and found her also wrote science fiction books! I thought, wow! what a difference from “The Hustler”! I found he wrote more than one and I picked this one because it had a really neat title and cover. Also, the plot summary did sound interesting.

I am not going give the whole thing away and spoil it for you if you want to read it but for me, it was a bit of a disappointment.

For one thing, I need a book that is commonly called a “page turner”. That’s the kind of book that makes you want to just read a few pages, then a few more, then a few more. I just don’t want to put it down. This was not that kind of book.

But because it was something as I said written by someone who had written something else I liked I stuck with it.

Finally, near the middle of the book, some interesting things started to pop up. One was sex. Seems the main character had some issues, to say the least. I will let you read the book to see what they were. Now I don’t mind sex in a novel if it fits in and is not just there gratuitously. But after the first time it came up it just kept popping up on and on throughout the remained of the book. In short, I didn’t really see the need to keep bringing it up be there it was over and over again. Still, I stuck with the book.

Then there were a lot of “flashback” sequences for the protagonist. Again over and over. And they were not science fiction stuff they were more about his personal experiences growing up, his conflicts with his mother and father, his wives, girlfriends, but I didn’t really see how doing this over and over again contributed to the story except to keep killing any momentum on why he was in space, where was he going and why.

There were some cool planets he lands on and some really neat interfaces between he and some alien lifeforms he meets. Also, some very interest materials encountered.

But bottom line, when I got to the end I felt I has really not gotten any satifying payoff for all the pages. I haven’t read any of his other books yet but based on this one I would not suggest it.