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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Heaven: Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
Oh yes, it's very dangerous to do that. In a charity shop a couple of years ago, I found a novel based John of Gaunt's mistress, then wife, Katherine Swynford, which I adored about 40 years ago. I bought it, read it, hated it! Another fond memory bit the dust ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Helen-Eva
Shipmate
# 15025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doone:
Oh yes, it's very dangerous to do that. In a charity shop a couple of years ago, I found a novel based John of Gaunt's mistress, then wife, Katherine Swynford, which I adored about 40 years ago. I bought it, read it, hated it! Another fond memory bit the dust
I know someone who read history at Uni because she read that book and fell in love with John of Gaunt!
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I thought the radio 3 announcer said "Weber" but it turned out to be Webern. Story of my life.
Posts: 637 | From: London, hopefully in a theatre or concert hall, more likely at work | Registered: Aug 2009
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Helen-Eva:
quote:
Originally posted by Doone:
Oh yes, it's very dangerous to do that. In a charity shop a couple of years ago, I found a novel based John of Gaunt's mistress, then wife, Katherine Swynford, which I adored about 40 years ago. I bought it, read it, hated it! Another fond memory bit the dust
I know someone who read history at Uni because she read that book and fell in love with John of Gaunt!
She sounds like a gal after my own heart! When I'm down or life sucks I lose myself in history ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
I was similar with Jamaica Inn. Loved it first time, but when I re-read it 10 years later I was rather underwhelmed.
I'm now wondering if I can ever re-read other books I've loved lest the same thing happen.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Author Jo Walton created a term for this. It is the Suck Fairy. "What happened to Little Women? It was so great when I was eleven! But in the intervening thirty years the Suck Fairy got to it."
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Author Jo Walton created a term for this. It is the Suck Fairy. "What happened to Little Women? It was so great when I was eleven! But in the intervening thirty years the Suck Fairy got to it."
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Most of the books I loved when I was younger have stood the test of time for me when I go back and reread them.
One I read over and over when I was in my early 20s that I have never gone back to reread in the last 25 years is Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy, which was quite popular in some Christian circles when it came out because of the author's friendship with C.S. Lewis. Did anyone else here read it? When I was young I thought it was an incredibly moving memoir about a beautiful and tragically doomed love story, but as I think back on it from the perspective of adulthood I think of it as being about a pretty dysfunctional relationship, actually. I think if I did go back to that the Suck Fairy would have gotten there first.
Little Women is timeless for me because even though I read it as a kid, the only two things that bothered me then still bother me now and otherwise I love everything about it. Those two things being, obviously, the deep narrative wrongness of pairing Laurie up with Amy instead of Jo, and the passivity of the entire family in sitting around watching Beth die without appearing to attempt any medical intervention whatsoever.
I guess those are spoilers but I think I am safe in assuming that book has passed the sell-by date for spoilers.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doone:
Oh yes, it's very dangerous to do that. In a charity shop a couple of years ago, I found a novel based John of Gaunt's mistress, then wife, Katherine Swynford, which I adored about 40 years ago. I bought it, read it, hated it! Another fond memory bit the dust
I still love this book. There is one place where it jars for me though, when Geoffrey Chaucer looks at Katherine and is sure that Neptune must be prominent in her astrological birthchart. Neptune wasn't discovered until 1846.
One book that I've revisited which I loved at the time in my 20s and found very refreshing on the first read was George Macdonald's "Phantastes". I re-read it recently and thought what a load of old twaddle it was, and unbearably twee with it.
I've now finished reading "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was certainly interesting but felt quite contemporary (it was set in postcolonial Nigeria in the 1960s), and went on far too long. The Biafran War is obviously a subject the author feels passionately about but the book seemed to meander and by two-thirds of the way through I just wanted the novel to end so I could read something else. (Of course I could have but someone had lent it to me and I felt obliged to finish it.)
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I too found the eventual union of Laurie and Amy to be totally unreasonable. And I found Prof. Bhaer unconvincing as well. However, I am in a position to do something about it. I wrote a short story in which I entirely repaired the motivations between Laurie and Amy.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
After I finished Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen I went on to a reread (after many years) of Emma Bull's The War for the Oaks. I am happy to sy the Suck fairy did not intrude and it was just as good as I remembered. So I decided to read some of her other works, which i had never done. I started with her second book, Falcon. Sadly I am not in love with it. It's good enough that I want to finish it, but not great.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Alas, there are books that there is a time in your life to read. If you fail to read them at the perfect age, it is a lesser experience to come upon them in age. Consider comic books, or horse novels, or sword-and-sorcery epics. There is a perfect age (young) to read these. If you pick up Misty of Chincoteague or Iron Man for the first time in your fifties, you may well fail to be enchanted.
What makes a book a classic is if it speaks to all ages, all genders. Hamlet says something different to you when you read it at 20 than it does when you reread it at 40.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
One I read over and over when I was in my early 20s that I have never gone back to reread in the last 25 years is Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy, which was quite popular in some Christian circles when it came out because of the author's friendship with C.S. Lewis. Did anyone else here read it? When I was young I thought it was an incredibly moving memoir about a beautiful and tragically doomed love story, but as I think back on it from the perspective of adulthood I think of it as being about a pretty dysfunctional relationship, actually. I think if I did go back to that the Suck Fairy would have gotten there first.
Yes, I read that more than once - also its sequel "Under The Mercy" which wasn't as memorable. My memories of it are much the same as yours and I completely see what you mean about it actually being a dysfunctional relationship - certainly immensely claustrophobic and introverted. Did the author marry again, do you know?
As a young and ardent convert back in the 80s I was much impressed by "Where Eagles Soar" by Jamie Buckingham (author also of "Risky Living"). I still have my copy but don't think I could bring myself to reread it. I remember one particular passage where he talks about taking a belt to his son and getting into bed with his teenage daughter. All in the context of an incident of sibling teasing and subsequent father-daughter reassurance, but even so - yikes! ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
I guess I'm just gullible - I completely bought into the Laurie/Amy pairing and while I always identified with Jo I was entranced by the account of Amy "prinking" herself for the dance with Laurie, tying up her golden curls and draping herself in white muslin. I was convinced by the idea that Jo needed a man rather than an immature boy. And I just blubbered over Beth... was a doctor really not mentioned at all?
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
If Beth had tuberculosis there wouldn't have been much point in summoning a doctor as there were no effective treatments for it in the 19th century. No antibiotics, no vaccines, no CAT scans...
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Didn't Beth have heart problems as a result of rhumatic fever as a child? Not that anything could have been done about that either...
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I don't think Beth has tuberculosis. I had a vague impression that whatever she had was a long-term complication of the scarlet fever she suffered as a young girl (I was thinking of heart trouble, but it's rheumatic fever, isn't it, that can leave you with a weakened heart?). Tuberculosis is the great literary killer of nineteenth-century heroines, but I don't recall Beth coughing into blood-stained hankies much, though I could have forgotten that. It just seems strange to me that when the topic of Beth's illness is introduced in the second part of the book, when she's in her late teens, there's never a single mention (as their was with her earlier illness) or her seeing a doctor, or any sort of treatment, or even being told there's no hope of treatment. There's no specific diagnosis and everyone just seems to accept that she's dying. Even for the 1860s that seems a little cold for a girl of 19 or so.
Beth dies of a terminal case of Authorial Intent.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
Cross-posted with nicolemrw ... maybe it was rheumatic fever she had. I thought it was scarlet fever. Nice assortment of fevers to choose from in the good old days.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
unfortunately rheumatic fever is still very much with us, and here seems to be a disease of the poor exacerbated by crowded living conditions.
I am tempted to go into a political rant here, but it's heaven, so will spare us all.
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
Cross-posted with nicolemrw ... maybe it was rheumatic fever she had. I thought it was scarlet fever. Nice assortment of fevers to choose from in the good old days.
AIUI both are caused by strep...I think.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Beth died of complications following scarlet fever, the story is apparently based on Louisa May Alcott's sister.
I always thought Jo was so devastated by Beth's death that she couldn't take the luxurious life offered to her by Laurie, and her marriage to Professor Bhaer was continuing self-flagellation for her failure to take her share of nursing the Hummel's child, because she was writing. Whereas Amy, as both youngest and least affected psychologically by a requirement to be responsible, gladly took the proffered life-style.
I've never been sure it did Laurie much good though.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
Is that when Beth becomes a zombie? Or am I confusing this with Pride & Prejudice?
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Beth died of complications following scarlet fever, the story is apparently based on Louisa May Alcott's sister.
That link doesn't actually give much in the way of a plausible diagnosis -- just says that she never fully recovered and that she got weaker and weaker until she died. Is that something that would actually happen, five or six years after having had scarlet fever? What would the actual cause of death be?
[ 19. February 2016, 23:37: Message edited by: Trudy Scrumptious ]
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Heart failure of some sort, if I remember correctly. My mother was worried about it with me (but then, she always worries ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif) ).
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
This blogger discusses the two issues much more cogently IMO.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
This blogger discusses the two issues much more cogently IMO.
Thanks ... that's my blog.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Goodness! I had not noticed! I should send you a copy of the story I have written, repairing the Amy-Laurie relationship. It has been in a couple of e-anthologies here and there.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
Personally I don't have a problem with the plot lines in Little Women.
Scarlet fever often had fatal consequences. It's still dangerous now (i.e. can have long term effects on health) if it isn't spotted and you don't have antibiotics within approximately a week, though fortunately only a certain percentage of the population is susceptible, as far as I recall.
Beth wasn't sent to school, but I don't think Meg or Jo were either? And Amy was withdrawn after an incident her mother wasn't happy with. The standard of education was limited in the local school and they had access to plenty of resources at home and next door.
As for Jo and Laurie, I think they ended up with the best of both worlds. They still lived close to one another and remained good friends without having to battle with traditional roles and expectations. Amy, interestingly, fades out once she's got her rich husband and her child. Jo was far brighter than Amy and far less conventional; she needed a partner with age and experience, and his background in a different country made it possible for them to invent their own rules.
I'm grateful to Louisa May Alcott for having created a role model for male/female friendship that never becomes physical. It seems remarkably difficult for people to accept this possibility even now, but it works if it's what you both genuinely want.
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Complications from Scarlet Fever from the NHS website - apparently scarlet fever can lead to rheumatic fever - which can affect the valves of the heart and lead to later heart failure (from following the links through), which is what the descriptions sound like here.
(I just accepted it as people died much more easily before antibiotics, like the school friend in Jane Eyre.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
My grandmother had scarlet fever that led to rheumatic fever when she was young. It left her with heart problems, though she married and had 4 children. She died of a heart attack when she was about 54 yrs old.
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There was no compulsory education in those days. If you felt like it and could afford it, you could send your kids to school. Or you could send them off to work, perfectly OK. If there was a son, he got first dibs on the educational dollars -- he would be expected to support a family and possibly his sisters, if they were spinster, so it was worth investing in him. Since women could not have careers, and were expected to marry and start popping out babies, there was no point in educating them in any rigorous way. Better to have them learn Italian and how to play the harp, so that men might be allured by them and take them off your hands.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
My memory is that Jo and Meg had both been to school but were finished at the time the book opens and expected to be contributing to the family income in such ways as were acceptable for young girls of their social class. Amy was still in school when the book opens, but Beth had never been sent because her shyness made in intolerable.
One of the things I wrote about in the blog post Brenda linked above is how fascinated I am by how not just physical but also mental illness was treated differently in the past. Beth would almost certainly be diagnosed with severe social anxiety today, but the family's response is not "How can we fix Beth?" but "How can we change the environment so Beth will be able to function?"
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
It is also worth keeping in mind that the family is not rich. Four daughters is a heavy load for any man to bear (do you remember Fiddler on the Roof, and Tevye's cri de coeur, "I have FIVE daughters!"), and then Mr. March is off to the wars where (I assume) he is not contributing significantly to the family economy. It was probably a relief, not to have to pay for Beth to go to school. We get no details, about what the March family was living on during this period. A small competency, perhaps? Certainly none of the women are earning a dime.
There was almost nothing a decent girl could do in that period, to earn money. She could not hold an office job, certainly, or have a career. She could not vote nor sign a legal contract. She could be a nurse or a teacher, neither a path to riches. Or she could (as Louisa May Alcott did) turn to her pen. Otherwise your only preserve from want was to marry.
Perhaps, if Beth was not going to be the Sickly One Doomed to Die, she was on the hook to be Mama's Support And Prop in Her Declining Years. The other more marriageable girls would leave the nest, and Beth would stay home to brew Papa's tea and read aloud to Marmee when vision failed. It would be very period, and there are plenty of literary analogues -- Mary, in Pride & Prejudice comes immediately to mind, and in real life Emily (and for that matter Charlotte) Bronte.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I'm pretty sure both Meg and Jo are wage-earners at the beginning of Little Women -- doesn't Meg have a nanny-type job for some awful little children, and Jo is a paid companion to Aunt March? Although in Jo's case it seems whatever pittance she's getting from Aunt March, the real hope is in the payoff they hope to get if Jo stays on the old lady's good side and she leaves the family her money when she dies. A lot of financial hope is being pinned on the death of Aunt March. I'd have to reread to be sure but I think both Meg and Jo are earning a little bit at the kind of genteel occupations acceptable for girls of their class, but you're right, it wouldn't have been much and they would have very limited career prospects. Marriage was the real career.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Right, I forgot about the governessing and companioning. Ugh. And women were systematically underpaid -- a male tutor of those exact same brats would have been paid more than Meg.
Have you read March, by Geraldine Brooks? She has some fine speculation about the March family finances.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
Quite. Meg, of course, marries Laurie's tutor John Brooke, and ceases her own paid work at that point. Presumably John is better paid than Meg for what he does; he's teaching at a more advanced level, but has just one pupil. I think he must have got another job after marrying Meg though, as Laurie went off to college?
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
He's doing a lot of work for old Mr. Laurence at one point, once Laurie goes off to college, but somewhere towards the end of the book it is mentioned that Brooke did well and lived to see his name above the door. Which implies he becomes at least a part-owner in the firm. He is not a tutor as a career. What was he in the end, an accountant? Something at involved going to an office every day.
In the later books, I forget which one, he does die leaving Meg a widow. Again there are no medical details at all.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Fascinating. Makes me think I should read LW sometime just for the insight on female employment prospects in the 19thC.
Actually The Song of the Shirt would be a good title for a thread on the topic. Hint.
Firenze
Heaven Host
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
It was perfectly OK if you were working-class. You could be a servant, work in the mills, till the soil -- all kinds of jobs open to you. The big problem was if you were of middling or upper class, like the March girls. The number of jobs that a lady could do could be numbered on the fingers of one hand.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
We've had a lot of mileage out of "Little Women", but if anyone wants to post about other books on this thread, please feel free.
I'm re-reading Frank Herbert's "Dune" trilogy, which I haven't read for years, and enjoying it. I found it cryptic at the time, but am now realizing how much I missed the first time around.
If anyone is interested in the themes and etymology there's a good article here.
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
We've had a lot of mileage out of "Little Women", but if anyone wants to post about other books on this thread, please feel free.
I'm re-reading Frank Herbert's "Dune" trilogy, which I haven't read for years, and enjoying it. I found it cryptic at the time, but am now realizing how much I missed the first time around.
If anyone is interested in the themes and etymology there's a good article here.
Oh, l loved Dune trilogy years ago. I'm a little wary of re-reading it (given my experience with Katherine as explained above), think I might give it a go at some point though, I'm reading the Feb Tyler book at the moment.
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
Oh, forgot to say, brilliant link to article! ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
I loved reading the Dune series, but I ended up getting to into it I read the first 5 books between doing my mock GCSEs and my finals and subsequently dropped a grade on 7 subjects.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
I loved reading the Dune series, but I ended up getting to into it I read the first 5 books between doing my mock GCSEs and my finals and subsequently dropped a grade on 7 subjects.
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
The first book or two are seminal in the field, but when the franchise was handed off to others there was a sharp drop.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The first book or two are seminal in the field, but when the franchise was handed off to others there was a sharp drop.
Mm, I loved the first three, but not the subsequent ones so much, so I tend to agree with you.
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There is a movie, and I seem to recall a TV dramatization as well. The movie was horrible.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Another Dune fan here. Yes,avoid the film. The mini series is much better.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
Yes, I've seen both and agree (though the books are much better in my opinion).
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I enjoyed the trilogy and the film, but didn't like the subsequent books much. A series often seems to lose its way after a while and I felt this was one such.
Has anyone else been reading something interesting/enjoyable?
[ 22. February 2016, 18:08: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I like the first 5 original Dune books, the sixth one was becoming a bit too vague for me.
The posthumous prequels and sequels, some of them are reasonably good SF books in their own right. But they don't live up to Frank Herbert's standard. And many fans (including me) dislike the direction in which they've taken the Dune universe.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
I've just finished Anthony McGowan's Hello darkness.
A compelling exploration of mental illness in the style of a noir thriller set in high school with an ending that is both inevitable and unsatisfying.
(To continue the tangent, the Dune novel I most enjoyed was Chapter house, which probably makes me persona non grata!)
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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