where's my bookmark

i picked up a copy of l. sprague decamp's THE GLORY THAT WAS in an old pan paperback edition at the british eastercon last weekend. i'd never read it, and needed something for the plane. i remember enjoying decamp's INCOMPLETE ENCHANTER books when i was much younger. this was apparently one of his earliest books. it leads you to believe that it's a time travel story, but it's really science fiction with a mad emperor creating a replica of ancient greece and peopling it with modern greeks whose mind have been "conditioned" with implanted memories by a mechanical device to believe they are living the real thing. it wasn't a bad read, but more interesting for the 1950's view of the future (story takes place in the 27th century) than for the story itself. decamp accentuates the bad food, bedbugs, and constant physical exertion in a way that's now classic, but must have been new and startling at the time her wrote. robert heinlein wrote a preface to the 1970 pan reprint, and waxes lyrical about how decamp was the only true humorist writing science fiction. but you know, i just didn't see much humor in the book. maybe i didn't get the jokes that were political humor fifty years ago?

then i started sharon shinn's ARCHANGEL - which i've been meaning to read for several years. i like shinn's writing very much and found this one immediately engrossing. i remember that we discussed SUMMERS AT CASTLE AUBURN last year for a first friday meeting, and that jack disliked it intensely. even people who liked it, say it as a kind of fluffy "coming of age" story, whereas i saw it as a book about slavery. now reading ARCHANGEL, which has a similar theme, i'm thinking that maybe i wasn't so far off.