Guilty Pleasures
When I was 10 to 15 years old I devoured everything by Andre Norton I could find. The first one of her books was bought for me from one of the english bookshops in Brussels - it was Tales of the Witch World and was a Daw paperback with a good and pulpy cover. I still have it, though it may be in storage. I've got rid of many bad teenage books[1] over the years and moves but I've never parted with my Andre Nortons - it had taken me years to track them down as Catseye seemed to be the only one of her books in print in the UK.
Tales had a few stories in it but the two long ones stick with me - one was about a woman who was pregnant after a rape and was determined to have her revenge on the man who was responsible. Things don't go quite to plan. The other was about a woman in a group marriage type society who never felt comfortable there and escapes with an outsider man who gets captured by her tribe. There's a description of a pool with sand next to it and a sort of elemental woman made from the sand, that I've always loved.
Catseye is like a distilling of her skiffy - dystopian galaxy with space travel, people in a 'Dipple' after a civil war and ancient alien artifacts. The hero ends up working for an alien pet shop and bad things happen. In fact, while trying to remember details of the plot rather than impressions, I've realised I really want to re-read it.
Anyway, all this was by way of background to asking if anyone else wants to talk about their teenage guilty reading pleasures.
[1] Anne McCaffery and Katherine Kerr. I was young, they had women characters. I am wiser now.
Tales had a few stories in it but the two long ones stick with me - one was about a woman who was pregnant after a rape and was determined to have her revenge on the man who was responsible. Things don't go quite to plan. The other was about a woman in a group marriage type society who never felt comfortable there and escapes with an outsider man who gets captured by her tribe. There's a description of a pool with sand next to it and a sort of elemental woman made from the sand, that I've always loved.
Catseye is like a distilling of her skiffy - dystopian galaxy with space travel, people in a 'Dipple' after a civil war and ancient alien artifacts. The hero ends up working for an alien pet shop and bad things happen. In fact, while trying to remember details of the plot rather than impressions, I've realised I really want to re-read it.
Anyway, all this was by way of background to asking if anyone else wants to talk about their teenage guilty reading pleasures.
[1] Anne McCaffery and Katherine Kerr. I was young, they had women characters. I am wiser now.