Official Announcement: DAZ terminates agreement to publish HiveWire 3D animals!

[JOdel]

Paksenarrion. Yes. That was a rather outstanding debut trilogy, wasn't it? And made it clear from the get-go that Elizabeth Moon has the ability to keep in control of a complex plot over an extended story arc without losing track of the details.

On the whole, I rather prefer her science fiction. But when she finally went back and revisited the Paksenarrion world for a 2nd series a few years ago, I'd say she did even better. The original trilogy showed too much of the RPG influence -- that she admitted to. By the time she went back there wasn't't any obvious gaming influence pushing the plot around at all.

 

[quietrob]

My first scifi book was a Wrinkle in Time. I got it in one of those school flyers that they passed out and kids could order books from. Loved that book!

I'm more of an Azimov and Heinlein person. Especially liked The Foundation series and the robots series.

I was 12 or 13, I needed an escape from the culture shock of living on a military base to a rough neighborhood. I had went through through the Nancy Drew Mysteries, the knocked off the entire Hardy Boys series and still I wanted more. The librarian, bless her dear heart was always there with an idea of what a young boy would like to read. She introduced me to a book called, "Have Space Suit, Will Travel", by Robert Heinlein and I never looked back. I went through his "juvenile" series like Time for the Stars, and such then just as my hormones were peaking, I was introduced to a story called "Stranger in a Strange Land, and the other stories of Adult Fiction by Heinlein". My mind was officially blown. I still reread "Time Enough for Love", by Heinlein every few years. It meant something different at each stage of my life. It is my all time favorite Novel followed by to Sail Beyond the Sunset.

I enjoyed the Foundation series and I found there is a difference between Great ideas and Great story telling. No doubt about it. As you speak of the Masters of Science Fiction, Heinlein is the best story teller I ever came across. Roger Zelanzy, Jack Chalker also must receive honorable mention.

I watched the original Star Trek as a little boy, got my heart broke when it was cancelled but time as revealed me wise for liking that show.

@Hornet3d and @Terre That is interesting. In this country, the list of betrayers goes Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold and then everyone else. Yes, Yes, we yanks across the pond were traitors to the throne but we told you. "No Taxation without Representation." Ya shoulda listened! LOL!

Oh and Lincoln did free the slaves. Typically, the President gets the credit and the blame for what happens on their watch. Because we're not a monarchy, no one can accomplish anything alone but certainly leadership is responsible for all the good and bad things that happen in this country on a general scale. Columbus? I think I read he didn't discover the USA but we still named a city after him.

 

[Miss B]

I'm more of an Azimov and Heinlein person. Especially liked The Foundation series and the robots series.

Azimov is my all time favorite sci-fi author, and I have all the Foundation series, as well as the Second Foundation Trilogy Series by Gregory Benford, Greg Bear and David Brin, written with permission from Mrs. Azimov, after Isaac Azimov passed. I also read the Robot novels, and of course the original I, Robot, long before they made it into a movie. I never got into the huge Robot collections.

I'm also a huge fan of Anne McCaffrey's huge Pern series, which are probably 80% sci-fi, with about 20% fantasy. After all, there were dragons.

I never got into Heinlein at all.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

Barely mangled.

I read The Deed of Paksenarrion and absolutely loved it. But then ... anything with a strong female main character generally appeals to me.

Though ... I can't say the same for female news anchors / news casters / etc. Watched one recently who was dressed as if she were going clubbing?!? Seriously? I don't get why so many women who do the news have such high pitched voices. Or maybe that's a criteria to be on the news?

Anyone here ever read "The Deed of Paksenairan"? (I just know I've mangled the girl's name, but I don't have the book at hand to be certain of the spelling.)

 

[Miss B]

I read The Deed of Paksenarrion and absolutely loved it. But then ... anything with a strong female main character generally appeals to me.

I wasn't familiar with that series, so just took a look, and it sounds good. I also like strong female main characters, though lately I've been reading more crime fiction series, where the female character is a cop, lawyer or private investigator, so not sci-fi at all. I just may have to put Deed of Paksenarrion on my To Read list.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

I think the Pern series started out mostly as fantasy, which is what attracted me most. In the later books, they gained access to the original colonists technology, and it definitely became more sci fi than fantasy. Which is when I lost interest.

 

[Stezza]

My first SciFi book that I can remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old was a hard cover of VTTBOTS

 

[JOdel]

Moon's novels are usually swarming with strong female characters. Chiefly because they are usually told with a female PoV (there are exceptions when the PoV shifts among a group of characters) and her points of view are not wimps. And they are typically not "token women" plopped into a standard male adventure tale. There are a *lot* of secondary female characters as well. And they are not all alike. Particularly in the SF novels. Which, for the record are almost always military-based. Or become so.

So are most of the fantasy novels, for that matter. 'Sheepfarmer's Daughter' opens with Paksenarrion deciding that bucolic drudgery was not for her, and ran off to join a mercenary company.

 

[quietrob]

My first SciFi book that I can remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old was a hard cover of VTTBOTS

...I never got into Heinlein at all.

No one is perfect, though I'm quite certain you come close!

 

[Miss B]

Everyone has their own preferences.

 

[Bonnie2001]

Some people over here do that. We call them bicycle robbers.

 

[phdubrov]

First SciFi/Fantasy stories that I can remember (7? or 8?) were Ghost V (Shackley) and Leaf by Niggle (Tolkien), than Bester (still the best SciFi stories for me), Asimov, short stories of Zelazny (don't like Amber), LOTR and Silmarillion, and so on and so on...

 

[Terre]

My first SF book? When I was 9 mu dad gave me Star Trek 6. I'd been watching the show and immediately recognized the stories in that compendium and started looking for the others. i don't remember what the first Fantasy novel was. One of the first I purchased myself was A Spell for Chameleon when it first came out in paperback. I still consider it the best Xanth book.
ETA: I just remembered my first fantasy: The full boxed set of Narnia.

 

[Hornet3d]

Yes being from the UK with a West Indian mother, we've talked about this. We both agree that in the UK at least, tearing down those statues and building names will just feed into the collective amnesia that is UK knowledge of UK history. Of the truly horrific things we did during the Empire. People say empire was bad like they say the black plague was bad - ancient history that has nothing to do with today. People don't comprehend the full horror of what we did and why countries legitimately hate us. They seem to think that people should get over it. I disagree - I caught one of those Indian partian documentaries - 15 million people displaced, 1 million dead and thousands of women raped - all thanks to how Britain decided to leave and partian India. The people who suffered are still alive. There is so much we don't know and were never taught and will never learn if those statues etc. are removed. They should be contextualised, a plaque with the bad things should be placed next to the good.

And yes I have no idea who Benedict Arnold was - I don't remember being taught any US history.

I think one of the reasons I dislike it the fact that is removes the possibility of people wondering why there is a statue built or a building named after them and individuals then researching why. I know this is not likely to happen very often but anything that makes it more difficult to forget is a plus in my book.

I find your opinion very interesting as it is often people with a background like yours that the lobbyists say they are trying to protect stating that you may be offended by such statues. I remember some years ago taking a tour of the rocks area of Sydney in Australia part of the tour included the history of the docks and the guide described the practice of the British in delivering criminals banished from our shores. Many never made it as the owners of the ships were paid for the number of people transported and from that they had to be fed. There was nothing in the contract that took account on the number of souls still alive at the destination and so many starved saving the cost of food. Strange thing was the guide later apologised for his views thinking I would be upset. I assured him I was not upset, shamed maybe but I shared his anger in such acts. After the toru we had a very adult and frank discussion and we learnt so much about each others views. It just shows we should not assume what others feel about matters, far better to talk to them and understand how they feel before jumping to their defense, to not do so risks only adding more hurt on the victims. Sadly I fell that often in the politically correct world some shout a lot and talk very little.

 

[Hornet3d]

When I was a child, there was Star Trek (in syndicated repeats ), then SPACE: 1999, and then Star Wars.

But for a while in the early 80's I was into fantasy. It kind of had its first big discovery by the mainstream at that time (beyond Tolkien). Conan the Barbarian, Dragonslayer, Excalibur, and other movies were popular. Shows like Mr. Merlin on TV. I enjoyed fantasy for a while. My drawing books from that era are full of knights and dragons, etc.

But I kind of fell out of it when I was about 16 and realized my heart belongs to scifi.

I've tried to read LOTR five times since I bought it in one volume when I was 12. Every time I get about halfway through and I'm like "oh dear god not another 25 page song about five thousand years ago"...lol

I'm exaggerating, and of course I have huge respect for Tolkien, but I just can't get through it. Loved The Hobbit, though. Perhaps because it's bite-sized. ...Like hobbitses.

Well that certainly lists my viewing for the later part of my teen years and beyond. There was Dr Who and Blake's Seven in there somewhere as well.

 

[Terre]

Thanks for the bit of history, Hornet.
As a student here in the US in the late '60s and '70s all I was told was that many criminals were sent to Australia, often for minor crimes. The conditions on some of the ships was never mentioned.

 

[Terre]

Fantasy on tv... Fantasy Island, Mr. Merlin, a movie called Fugitive from the Empire (which I later learned was supposed to have been the pilot for a series). I know there were one or two others that I didn't catch because I was more into tracking down anything that was SF. I still missed a lot as I read more than watched tv.
Come to think of it my reading prior to being introduce to Stat Trek and Lost in Space when I was 9 was animal stories, history, ecology, and science. LOTS of science of any kind, hard or soft. Those 2 to shows introduced me to SF and Fantasy.
And I don't mean young children's science either. When I was 7 & 8 my parents introduced me to the Life Nature Library series by buying several for me. The Universe, Early Man, The Mammals, The Birds, Evolution.

 

[Hornet3d]

Thanks for the bit of history, Hornet.
As a student here in the US in the late '60s and '70s all I was told was that many criminals were sent to Australia, often for minor crimes. The conditions on some of the ships was never mentioned.

The irony is that many that survived the journey it was the making of them as they were able to build far better lives than they ever could back in their home land.

 

[James R.]

Well that certainly lists my viewing for the later part of my teen years and beyond. There was Dr Who and Blake's Seven in there somewhere as well.

Doctor Who arrived in my life in late 1980. The only channel that broadcast it in my area (TVOntario) was still showing Tom Baker episodes from a couple of years before, but what a great introduction to the Doctor!

TVO was a wonderful channel back then, importing British sci-fi TV shows we wouldn't otherwise get on any other 'mainstream' station, including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Day of the Triffids, etc. I'm grateful that those last two programs introduced me to Douglas Adams and John Wyndham.

 

[CWRW]

When I was six our school had a book fair. What grabbed my attention were those beautiful book covers of the Narnia series by Roger Hane. I saved up my pennies and bought the boxed edition of that for a whopping $7 based on those covers and still have it to this day. LOVE the Narnia books and they've been reread a zillion times over the years Another series that had a big influence on me as a kid and that I still absolutely adore, was the fabulous Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula LeGuin. I've read some of her more sci-fi and enjoyed those too though not as much. The later Earthsea books are wonderful too.

Def dug the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series- too fun! Read a bit of a lot of the other authors mentioned here back in high school. Did finally get through LOTR too in high school after a couple of "false starts" Watched my fair share of Star Trek as a kid on our old b&w TV too

Later on I really had fun reading the Dresden Files books. These days I devour anything by Carlos Ruis Zafon