"Forgive the kids, for they don't know how to live. Run the alleys, casually cruel, cruel."
My thoughts are well and truly scattered this morning. No, excuse me. This afternoon, as it is now 12:58 p.m. CaST (though only 11:58 ayem EST, hence still morning). I don't feel like resorting to numbers and bullet points today, either, so bear with me, or don't bear with me
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Comments 25
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Erm...I numbered them in a funny way? Not sure I see that.
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I can get that way, too, and I've never been to those parts of the South at all. (I've been to Florida, but I know that doesn't count: it doesn't feel like the South. We drove through Georgia to get to Florida, but I barely remember it; we probably just ate fast food or didn't stop long enough to eat at all.) Also, I hope I'm not squatting on other peoples' culture by liking collards. "Hey, I'll like this ONE SPECIFIC THING you guys like and act like I own it!" or something. Yes, I worry about this.
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I don't really worry about "cultural appropriation." Not in the melting pot that the post-internet world has become.
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As an aside, for years I believed that traditional fantasy other than Tolkien wasn't my thing. The world building felt hollow and the characters didn't do it, but then a friend told me I had to read Mercedes Lackey and I figured out that it wasn't all fantasy I disliked, just an awful lot of it. So holes to fill.
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I know why I haven't read McCaffee/LeGuinn, but how did I miss that particular L'Engle?
Especially given it's the first of her novels, and the most renowned.
More books to find once I get a Nook.
Aigh! Screw Schnooks. Go analog.
The world building felt hollow and the characters didn't do it, but then a friend told me I had to read Mercedes Lackey and I figured out that it wasn't all fantasy I disliked, just an awful lot of it. So holes to fill.
I feel as though I'm being excessively negative in this comment. I do not mean to be. That said, I think Lackey is an example of what's wrong with contemporary fantasy. I tried once, and found her amazingly shallow.
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And I totally understand - Lackey is like junk food, and the only ones I really liked were the gay mage (Varnel?) group of books. But it did make me see that there's other fantasy out there worth reading even if it's not the same. Were it not for being basically forced to read those books I never would have read a word of GRRM, Gene Wolfe, Phillip Pullman, Terry Pratchett or even Neilhimself's fantasies (which are more magic realism than most and I love magic realism). Consider it a gateway drug back to fantasy that I found in my 30's, and I know it's mostly crap.
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Especially given it's the first of her novels, and the most renowned. Your list has 'A Swiftly Tilting Planet', but I think you meant to put in 'A Wrinkle in Time'? The latter was her first novel; 'Planet' was the third in the series that started with 'Wrinkle'.
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The first SF that stuck with me was Harlan's "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin". I was 8 or 9, and spent my allowance at the corner store on a copy of Orbit. I didn't understand it all, but I wanted more.
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The first SF that stuck with me was Harlan's "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin".
Given it's a sort of surreal, horrific story about drug use, and the mental degeneration that can follow from drug use, I have trouble thinking of "Shattered Like a Glass Goblin" (a story I adore) as science fiction. Oh, how these boxes get us into trouble and vex.
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SF has always meant Speculative Fiction to me.
This is a good thing.
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Drinking a rather nice pint called Ammonite atm.
An actual beer called Ammonite?
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