Comments | revdorothyl: Three new Star Commandos novels, and why on earth I care so much

revdorothyl

Three new Star Commandos novels, and why on earth I care so much

Oct 30, 2004 22:15

I'm operating on less-than-optimal amounts of sleep, today (for reasons which will become obvious), but please bear with me. Or don't. You can skip the dull parts about a series of books you may never have read (which I'll hide behind the cut-tags), and just get to the part where I hope the relevance to my own recent journey will become clear ( Read more... )

reading, favorite sf reading

Comments 4

willowgreen November 2 2004, 21:12:29 UTC

Okay, I finally got around to reading this and these books are now on my must-read list. (Although I have to confess, sadly, that I've never much liked anything I've read by Andre Norton. I didn't pick up any of her books till late junior high, though, and friends tell me that for the best effect, you have to start reading her in late elementary school.)

I recently read a book that made me think of you: "Wise Child" by Monica Furlong. It's about a young girl in Ireland, sometime in the Middle Ages, who gets adopted by a witch. The witch has no problem with the Christians, but the Christians have a lot of issues with the witch. The author was a lifelong member of the Church of England, but clearly had a lot of sympathy for the pagan viewpoint.

I'm also wondering if you're a fan of Patricia McKillip and/or Barbara Hambly? Strong recommendations for both, if you're not familiar with them.

revdorothyl November 4 2004, 13:29:46 UTC

I read some Patricia McKillip early in my SF reading (back when I first joined the SF Book Club), but I'm very much a fan of Barbara Hambly. I still re-read her first Star Trek" novel Ishmael (which is really a crossover between the original Trek universe and that of "Here Come the Brides", playing on the fact that Mark Lenard played both Sarek on "Trek" AND semi-villain Aaron Stempler on "Brides" by having amnesiac Spock masquerading as Aaron's nephew in 19th century Seattle!) almost annually, just for the sheer pleasure of it. And though I'm behind on much of her non-media-related work (I very much enjoyed her "Star Wars" novels), I loved the series beginning with The Ladies of Mandrigyn. Can you recommend some other Hamblys or other series of hers I should seriously get to know ( ... )

willowgreen November 6 2004, 15:26:19 UTC

Ishmael cracked me up too, even though I don't think I ever knew that Mark Lenard was on "Here Come the Brides." I just wanted to be that big girl with the little sisters-what was her name? I loved the Ladies of Mandrigyn series, too ( ... )

"Brides"/Ishamel trivia revdorothyl November 8 2004, 10:45:58 UTC

"I just wanted to be that big girl with the little sisters---what was her name?"

Candy Pruitt? She was the tall red-haired girl who was the unofficial leader of the New Bedford girls (none of whom were her actual sisters, but she was acting as "Big Sister" to them all, come to think of it). And her "side-kick" and comic relief (on the show "Here Come the Brides" as well as in Ishmael -- though Hambly's version was closer to what I understand was the real historical situation, in having only some 20 girls come out from New Bedford, rather than the 100 potential brides which the demands of episodic T.V. required) was Biddy Cloom, the "plainest" and most "spinsterish" of all those marriageable young women the Bolt brothers had brought out from New England to marry their loggers and turn Seattle into a real, settled city ( ... )