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Lädt ... Armageddon 2419 A.D. (1928)von Philip Francis Nowlan
![]() Keine Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. I read this for no particular reason. I believe it's essentially a 1962 re-editing of the original pulp stories from 1928 (the quotes below seem to be from the originals, but they're almost identical to the edition I read). It was really awful. The forgivably awful things were that it was fairly dull; that a man who'd been asleep for 500 years could awake to find himself a tactical military genius; and that the science was just nonexistent. But those really just arise from it being a pulp I guess. But, apart from all that, it was just amazingly racist. The narrator gleefully annihilates the "Mongol Chinese" (known as the Hans), who had conquered America, at every given opportunity - soldier and civilian alike as "not even the terror could conceal the hate in those faces". Nowlan also transforms some North American placenames in an offensively simplistic way - for example Nu-Yok, Bah-Flo, Si-kaga, and, possibly the best, the "Nu-Yok-A-lan-a liner". His racial theories go further than just the Mongol Chinese: "the noble brown-skinned Caucasians of India, the sturdy Balkanites of Southern Europe, or the simple, spiritual Blacks of Africa, today one of the leading races of the world--although in the Twentieth Century we regarded them as inferior." That last quote was from the final couple of pages, and he does attempt some kind of reluctant climb down from his 200 page hate-crime, speculating that the Hans "sprang from a genus of human-like creatures that may have arrived on this earth with a small planet (or large meteor) which is known to have crashed in interior Asia late in the Twentieth Century". He probably could have left it at that, but no: "The theory is that these creatures ... with a mental super-development, but a vacuum in place of that intangible something we call a soul, mated forcibly with the Tibetans". I don't know why the Tibetans had to be dragged into all this. Anyway, a far cry from the Gil Gerard series from my childhood. This should really be 1 star or less, but it is interesting as a cultural artifact. And, as Umberto Eco may have said, it's a good example of a bad book. Still, cool covers. This is a darned entertaining bit of classic pulp sci-fi, complete with post-apocalyptic dystopia and evil overlords. It's also the first appearance in print of Anthony Rogers, who in later treatments got the nickname "Buck", although this one takes place completely on Earth, and in fact in North America. And once you get past the idea that a man could pass out in a Pennsylvania coal mine full of radioactive gas and then awaken, 500 years later, perfectly fit and preserved, well, the rest of the science isn't actually all that bad. OK, except for the death rays. But: death rays! This book and its sequel [b:The Airlords of Han|6328975|The Airlords of Han|Philip Francis Nowlan|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328308448s/6328975.jpg|6514606] demonstrate what seem to me to be some really progressive ideas about the capabilities of women and their roles in society. While there may appear to be a racist tinge or even bias to the book, if that bothers you I encourage you to read on through the sequel; things are not quite as they seem at first. Now, if you're a fan of the Buck Rogers comic strip, serials, or TV show, I should warn you that it's not the same, and some familiar characters will be absent. It's also not Flash Gordon :-). keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
Gehört zur ReiheBuck Rogers (1) Ist enthalten inAuszeichnungen
In Armageddon - 2419 A.D., Buck, a victim of accidental suspended animation, awakens five hundred years later to discover America groaning under the tyranny of the villainous Han, ruling from the safety of their armored machine-cities. Falling in love with one of America's new warrior-women, Wilma Deering, Rogers soon become a central figure in using newly-developed scientific weapons - disintegrators, jumping belts, inertron, and paralysis rays - to revolt against the Han. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.52Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1900-1944Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:![]()
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In 1928, 2 stories appeared in the magazine Amazing Stories. Those stories, Armageddon 2419 and The Airlords of Han, were the begging of the legend of Buck Rogers.
In this novel, by Philip Francis Nolan, the two original stories are brought together in Armageddon 2419- The Seminal "Buck Rogers" Novel.
I had a lot of fun reading this book. I have little experience with Buck Rogers besides reading some comic strips and comic books. I never saw the show on TV- just didn't watch much of any TV back in those days.
Some of the writing is very detailed especially when describing battles (I scanned through some of that) but I enjoyed the trajectory of the story. I appreciate that the stories originated in the latter 1920's so am not offended by some of the racial descriptions of the Han... very Chinese-like. I found it interesting each time the American's were referred to as a 'race'. In fact, that the people of the different countries were all considered different races.
The ingenuity of the American's was very on point for the time period. How even when they were beaten down nearly to extinction by the evil Han, they were able to come back and create and invent many things to improve their circumstances.
If you are looking for a deep "sci-fi" book, this isn't for you.
If you are looking for a fun read and a generally feel good book, I think you will enjoy this. (