WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, as I have mentioned, is a fascinating snapshot of a time that really never was (how well-to-do White folk thought the world was in 1933), and there are lots of non-PC moments. But AWC is flat-out racist. The bad guys are "Japs" and "Asiatics" and the Caucasians of all represented nations are noble and heroic to a man. (Women barely count, of course!)

Times before when I have read the first book I have thought about how it could be filmed (NOT as George Pal did it!*), and there is much that could be brought up to speed with the modern world with very little effort -- but the second would be like the old joke about jacking up the paint and slipping a new car underneath.

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* The Pal movie is fun, but it has only the basic concept, expressed in the title, in common with the book.

I'll admit I skipped about halfway into the book after slogging thru fifty or sixty pages. In the introduction, Niven apologizes for name dropping, claiming (and rightly so) that it's unavoidable given the nature of his career, but I still had to jump over pages of Binky Hendlington-Smythe to get to Errol Flynn and Paulette Goddard!

Mostly fun, once the Hollywood stuff starts, tho Niven does have a habit (something his editor should have caught) of using Show Biz slang without telling us what it means. "Went down to the PZ for the QRF and we all had a GKW!" That sort of thing.*

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* At a con I once found myself seated next to a colorist who quickly demonstrated his own tendency to do just this. After the tenth or twelfth fan had wandered away from his table with a bewildered look on his face, I leaned over and whispered "English!"