The Spinster's Exploits

I love some of the novels by Philip K Dick – dodgy on women, but amazing imagination and thoughts on the condition of man/the male of the species as well as flowing prose.

Michael Sheen actually championed Dick on “Great Lives” and like me is a fan of “Do Androids…” and “Flow My Tears The Policeman Said”. Interesting background stuff about drugs, times, and dead twin. Like idea of Sheen using Dick as part of inspiration for Lear.

I read my first Banks on a friend’s recommendation – “The Algebraist” – but it was a struggle. So I was considering a Dick (provide your own rudery here) but got waylaid by Heinlein instead. I had “Stranger in a Strange Land” on the kindle and whizzed through it – forgotten what a page turner he is. I’ve not read him for decades (literally) – he tended to do short adventure pulp SF tales and long more philosophical bricks of novels. I enjoyed “Stranger” which was about an earthling brought up martian who believed in ritual canibalism. As a result of enjoying it so much – especially after Banks! -I then read print version of “Time Enough for Love” about an elderly male brain being transplanted into a young woman.

Heinlein has some very dodgy sexual politics that seem based on a fifties fantasy of horny men and willing women – very macho, but at least – unlike Dick – he likes them, even if they are very much fantasy women who fall for difficult crotchety old men…

Oh! Did I mention the spanking? From my closeted (is there such a word?!) days I remember the thrill from the threatened spankings that seem to crop up in his stories – all part of the fifties fantasy of macho men and sassy girls who like being bossed around. In “Time Enough…” there is an actual spanking and a fair amount of spanking talk.