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Posting a reply to: Re: Pick and Mix 2016

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[QUOTE]dustydigger - 2016-03-12  11:26 PM

I too wonder about the fallability of memory. I do remember reading an Andre Norton book belonging to a friend way back in somewhere around 1963,1964. I remember nothing whatsoever about it except for a little woodcut illustration at the start of the book,where a boy,presumably the teenage hero is looking out of an open window. A climbing rose is winding its way up beside the window. And thats it,nothing about the story at all,only a vague warm glow that I had found it very enjoyable. lol. Oddly enough I met up with the friend at a school reunion  in the 1980s and brough this up as we reminisced about books we had read back at school,and she said she still had it,and would send it to me,but I never heard from her again,she was living in another part of the country,and I lost contact with our mutual friend,so that was that. A warm glow and a woodcut of a rose tree isnt really much help ,is it?
I do have The Stars Are Ours on my RYO challenge lists for this year.She seems to have an awful lot of books with the word Star in the title.
Meanwhile I have just completed a double,two Samuel R Delaney novellas,The Ballad of Beta B and Empire Star,early Delaney but good fun. But my brain is still stunned from Empire Star,which starts off as a seemingly straightforward tale of a boy who is handed a jewel like lifeform by a dying person on a crashed spaceship and sets off to go to Empire Star to carry an important message to someone,though at the start he knows neither said message nor the person it is intended for.As the little story of his journey progresses we encounter time loops and learn time is not linear in any shape or form. For example,he is sent off on his journey by an incredibly aged old woman,whom months later he will meet as a teenage princess!. Enormous fun,but the stunning explanations are made in two paragraphs right at the end of the book,too rushed to take in at a sitting.It will take time to sort it all out in my poor weak simplex brain! lol.Apparently Delany wrote this novella in a mere 10 days.and its a mindtwister.
Very much enjoyed Arthur C Clarke's Fountains of Paradise, about the building of a space elevator. I am a sucker for Big Dumb Objects and Clarke makes the building of the elevator and the dealing with an accident very exciting. Some of the subplots were a bit unnecessary really,but where the book scored with me was the way it restored some of the awe and wonder of the near space around us.We may not have attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orionas in Bladerunner,but Clarke managed to renew the feeling of wonder at space on a more prosaic but believable level,just above our heads.Clarke's rather dry style works perfectly with the dry engineering stuff,making it plausible,and the protagonist is made likable enough that we can identify with him in the tense later sections of the tale.
I think this is one of my favourite Clarke books as far as entertainment goes. I often found it moving and absorbing. Very enjoyable.That was Hugo winner #47/64.Next up will be #48.Joan Vinge's The Snow Queen,probably in May. Lots of wrist-breaking tomes coming up for that WWEnd list! 
Now I am nearing the end of John Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline,and[/QUOTE]

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dustydigger

Posted 2016-03-12 11:26 PM (#12981 - in reply to #12239)
Subject: Re: Pick and Mix 2016

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I too wonder about the fallability of memory. I do remember reading an Andre Norton book belonging to a friend way back in somewhere around 1963,1964. I remember nothing whatsoever about it except for a little woodcut illustration at the start of the book,where a boy,presumably the teenage hero is looking out of an open window. A climbing rose is winding its way up beside the window. And thats it,nothing about the story at all,only a vague warm glow that I had found it very enjoyable. lol. Oddly enough I met up with the friend at a school reunion in the 1980s and brough this up as we reminisced about books we had read back at school,and she said she still had it,and would send it to me,but I never heard from her again,she was living in another part of the country,and I lost contact with our mutual friend,so that was that. A warm glow and a woodcut of a rose tree isnt really much help ,is it?
I do have The Stars Are Ours on my RYO challenge lists for this year.She seems to have an awful lot of books with the word Star in the title.
Meanwhile I have just completed a double,two Samuel R Delaney novellas,The Ballad of Beta B and Empire Star,early Delaney but good fun. But my brain is still stunned from Empire Star,which starts off as a seemingly straightforward tale of a boy who is handed a jewel like lifeform by a dying person on a crashed spaceship and sets off to go to Empire Star to carry an important message to someone,though at the start he knows neither said message nor the person it is intended for.As the little story of his journey progresses we encounter time loops and learn time is not linear in any shape or form. For example,he is sent off on his journey by an incredibly aged old woman,whom months later he will meet as a teenage princess!. Enormous fun,but the stunning explanations are made in two paragraphs right at the end of the book,too rushed to take in at a sitting.It will take time to sort it all out in my poor weak simplex brain! lol.Apparently Delany wrote this novella in a mere 10 days.and its a mindtwister.
Very much enjoyed Arthur C Clarke's Fountains of Paradise, about the building of a space elevator. I am a sucker for Big Dumb Objects and Clarke makes the building of the elevator and the dealing with an accident very exciting. Some of the subplots were a bit unnecessary really,but where the book scored with me was the way it restored some of the awe and wonder of the near space around us.We may not have attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orionas in Bladerunner,but Clarke managed to renew the feeling of wonder at space on a more prosaic but believable level,just above our heads.Clarke's rather dry style works perfectly with the dry engineering stuff,making it plausible,and the protagonist is made likable enough that we can identify with him in the tense later sections of the tale.
I think this is one of my favourite Clarke books as far as entertainment goes. I often found it moving and absorbing. Very enjoyable.That was Hugo winner #47/64.Next up will be #48.Joan Vinge's The Snow Queen,probably in May. Lots of wrist-breaking tomes coming up for that WWEnd list!
Now I am nearing the end of John Varley's The Ophiuchi Hotline,and

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