Joyleg, by War Moore and Avram Davidson

Joyleg is the story of an old bootlegger who has lived on an $11 a month pension for....a couple hundred years. Just who is Joyleg, how old is he, and of what war is he a veteran?

Joyleg is basically a political satire (a "folly" it states inside its pages) with a slight SFF premise to work as a Macguffin - with "slight" being the key word. It also states on the copyright page that the novel was previously published in a magazine as a shorter version, and I have a feeling that the short story version is the one to read. It's all pleasant enough, and some of the folksy charm and comedy is genuinely good, but there just isn't enough there to warrant much of a recommendation.

While reading, I kept waiting for something surprising to happen, but the whole thing plays out exactly how I thought it would, by the numbers. Granted, that in and of itself isn't grounds for dismissal (I'm not one to criticize something just for being predictable), but I expected more great things from two SF greats (Moore and Davidson).

Redbeard, by Michael Resnick

Redbeard takes place in the post-apocalyptic American East Coast, and details the struggles between the mutants born from the atomic fallout, and the Normans (the normal people who survived). The titular character is a hotheaded, savage blowhard too stupid to realize that he's being played by both sides of the conflict, and just street-smart, battle-hardened and lucky enough to survive and somehow rise in the political and social ranks of the ruling lords.

It's not a great book by any stretch, but it is a fun read. It's brash and violent, like a mix between Conan and the Horse Clan books with Groo the Wanderer in the lead role. I wouldn't seek it out, but if you stumble across a copy you could spend your time with worse books.