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Journal Entry 1 by  Wyando from Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen Germany on Sunday, August 03, 2003
Synopsis (from amazon.com)
From Publishers Weekly
With Slam (1990), Shiner began the move away from his roots in science fiction towards the mainstream, a trend that continues in his latest effort. Here he adds a sci-fi touch to what is essentially a story of middle-aged angst. As Texas stereo repairman Ray Shackleford approaches 40, his marriage is moribund, his dreams of playing rock-and-roll guitar are fading and his estranged father has died in a scuba-diving accident. The twist comes right up front: working in his shop, ruminating on his troubles and fantasizing about the never-completed Beatles album Get Back , Ray finds he can not only imagine the music in extraordinary detail but can also make it play from his speakers. Mystified, Ray records the results and sends the tape to an oldies record producer, beginning an odyssey during which Ray goes on to finish the Doors' Celebration of the Lizard and other albums, eventually having seemingly real encounters with dead rockers the likes of Brian Wilson and Jimi Hendrix. While his life takes this odd turn, Ray begins to work through some of his problems, maturing and coming to terms with his father's death. Shiner writes with intense feeling about the music Ray loves and the turmoil he endures. The novel sparkles with painfully perfect evocations of the yearning, anomie and need that wrack Ray, yielding a story of uncommon sensitivity, insight and redemptive power. First serial to Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Shiner ( Slam , LJ 8/1/90, among others) has written what may be the first rock n roll time-travel novel. Ray Chackleford is a self-employed electronics repairman whose marriage is foundering and whose father has recently died. These unresolved relationships are complicated when Ray travels to the Mexican site of his father's death and promptly falls in love with a woman even more unstable than he. In the midst of this emotional turmoil, Ray--a rock drummer during his youth in the late Sixties--begins to hear in his head and manages to transfer to tape legendary unfinished recordings by Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson, and Jimi Hendrix. This music is accompanied by "journeys" into the troubled lives of these rock musicians. Shiner's appealing main character and his gripping style overcome the less believable aspects of his story. With the current comeback of the Sixties, this novel should be widely popular.
- A.J. Wright, Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
Can the 60's cure the 90's? That's what Texas stereo repairman Ray Shackleford struggles to prove in this strenuous fantasy of rock- and-roll hits that never were. Shortly after his unloving father drowns in Cozumel, Ray starts to imagine he's hearing impossible songtracks that he's able to record directly from his head. He takes his tape of the Beatles' never- recorded hit ``The Long and Winding Road'' to L.A. producer Graham Hudson, who's already remastered three volumes of Glimpses from rock's legendary past, and Graham persuades him to go after bigger game. So Ray travels back in time, changing history enough so that Jim Morrison can record Celebration of the Lizard and Brian Wilson can persist in his breakthrough album Smile. There's money to be made here, of course, but what Ray and Graham really want is to save the world by recalling the aging rock audience to its ardent roots. (Maybe a little too ardent, as when Ray wonders, ``Was it that way for everybody, music and sex and politics and love all inextricably part of each other, or is it just me?'') Trying to come to terms with his hated father's death, Ray takes time out to retrace his steps in Cozumel, attempting to re-create his own experience of the 60's more directly in 1989, but his romance with a diving instructor seems to open wide the rift in his ten-year marriage without giving him a satisfactory alternative, and he ends up repeating his father's experience instead of accepting it. So it's back to the past for one last try--with a Jimi Hendrix album that Ray hopes can keep the 60's from ending. As you'd expect from versatile fantasist Shiner (Slam, 1990, etc.), Ray's attempts to keep the faith by resurrecting Jimi and laying his own father to rest are powerfully affecting. Much more than yuppie reunions like The Big Chill, this captures a generation's sweet, desperate yearning for the 60's--though it ends up as authentically woolly as the period. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Remarks
rescued from a flea market trader
Found by frank-63 in my home...
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Journal Entry 5 by teckster at Marios Ampelmännchen, Ludwigstraße - geschlossen - in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg Germany on Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Released on Tuesday, June 08, 2004 at Ampelmännchen in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg Germany.
zurück beim Meetup. O je mein Englisch!!
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Glimpses
