Just wondering ... what is everyone reading now?

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taxlady said:
I think I started reading SF when I was 7 or 8. I learned very quickly that there was a picture of a rocket on the spine of SF books at the library.

But, back then, SF was considered crap literature. It wasn't something you talked about. Then between my junior and senior years of high school (11th & 12th grades, 1966) I took a summer course called "Honours Radiation Biology". Two smart, science oriented kids from each of about 15 high schools were chosen to attend.

The teacher mentioned a voder. The girl sitting next to me said, "I didn't think that was real." She had read the same SF story as me, about a Martian who whistled, but spoke English using a voder. Then, the topic of SF came up with the rest of the kids. All of us were SF fans. :LOL:

I never kept my mouth shut about SF to English teachers again. I challenged them to read it if they thought it was crap.
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By the ninth grade I'd gotten so tired of hearing from english teachers that SF & F were worthless that I wrote my research paper on why SF & F were valid forms of litterary expression. I had to write it out in cursive pen. It had to be at least six pages, one side only thankfully, long. It was ten. I hated writing in cursive and I still hate writing in pen, but I was determined. Fortunately I had a really cool ninth grade english teacher and she thought it was great.
 
purple.alien.giraffe said:
By the ninth grade I'd gotten so tired of hearing from english teachers that SF & F were worthless that I wrote my research paper on why SF & F were valid forms of litterary expression. I had to write it out in cursive pen. It had to be at least six pages, one side only thankfully, long. It was ten. I hated writing in cursive and I still hate writing in pen, but I was determined. Fortunately I had a really cool ninth grade english teacher and she thought it was great.
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My first thought was that I was surprised that this attitude was still around when you were in ninth grade. Then, I realized that it still exists to some extent. There is even an attitude in "media" about SF. Some really good actors can't get jobs outside of SF, once they start doing SF. Patrick Stewart come to mind, as does Claudia Christian. Sigourney Weaver is the exception to the rule, but she was well known when she starred in Alien.
 
I started reading The Hunger Games at about 7pm yesterday. I finally put it down and went to sleep at 4:30 this morning. Woke up at 10:30am and was finished with the book by 12:30pm. It obviously kept my attention. I have this feeling in the back of my mind that there's an OLD movie with a similar concept but nothing in the book triggered a solid memory. Now I have to see if the library has the second book that continues the story.
 
taxlady said:
I think I started reading SF when I was 7 or 8. I learned very quickly that there was a picture of a rocket on the spine of SF books at the library.

But, back then, SF was considered crap literature. It wasn't something you talked about. Then between my junior and senior years of high school (11th & 12th grades, 1966) I took a summer course called "Honours Radiation Biology". Two smart, science oriented kids from each of about 15 high schools were chosen to attend.

The teacher mentioned a voder. The girl sitting next to me said, "I didn't think that was real." She had read the same SF story as me, about a Martian who whistled, but spoke English using a voder. Then, the topic of SF came up with the rest of the kids. All of us were SF fans. :LOL:

I never kept my mouth shut about SF to English teachers again. I challenged them to read it if they thought it was crap.
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Voder - "Star Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein...
 
taxlady said:
Right author, wrong novel. I was mistaken, the alien was from Venus. It was Between Planets - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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That's right...it was an interpreter for Lummox's race that had a voder. Time to start re-reading for nth time.

I love this description: "Initially, no one associates Lummox with the newcomers, in part due to the size difference (Lummox was overfed). Lummox is identified as royalty, complicating the already-tense negotiations. It is discovered that, from her viewpoint, the young Lummox has been pursuing her only hobby and principal interest: the raising of John Thomases. She makes it clear that she intends to continue doing so."
 
PrincessFiona60 said:
That's right...it was an interpreter for Lummox's race that had a voder. Time to start re-reading for nth time.

I love this description: "Initially, no one associates Lummox with the newcomers, in part due to the size difference (Lummox was overfed). Lummox is identified as royalty, complicating the already-tense negotiations. It is discovered that, from her viewpoint, the young Lummox has been pursuing her only hobby and principal interest: the raising of John Thomases. She makes it clear that she intends to continue doing so."
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I looked at the summary of the plot of Star Beast and I don't think I ever read that one! I can't imagine how that happened. I guess I better find it and read it. :)
 
taxlady said:
I looked at the summary of the plot of Star Beast and I don't think I ever read that one! I can't imagine how that happened. I guess I better find it and read it. :)
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I can mail you a copy if you can't find it.:) A new Heinlein...I'm jealous.
 
Thanks for the link, Princess. I found a lot of formerly favorite authors and will be working on reading them again.
 
Purple alien, I've become convinced that the entire purpose of lit classes (at least up to grade 12, never took college level) was to make kids hate to read. For me, "reading" (in elementary), then "English" (in middle and early high school, lit was encompassed along with spelling, grammar, etc) were really a drag. Once a teacher (I think I was a HS sophomore) made us keep journals, and though goody-two shoes I was, i finally wrote in it that I was incredibly bored by the class. She called me after class, sat me down, and gave me the final, which I aced. She thought I was just being snotty. She couldn't get me into an advanced class (I'd tried when signing up for classes, but newbie students, which I always was, were low on the totem pole). Gave in and gave me a reading list to do reports on, and told me during class I was to tutor other students. Yay! But even the instructor I liked a lot, at my last high school, well, the way the curriculum was set up you over-analyzed a book to death (and this was the hippie days) looking for stuff that just wasn't there! Then I never understood how you could possibly take a poem from one language, translate to English, and it rhymed? How is that?

But it was an Easy A, so I took all of the lit classes, BS'd my way through the greater meaning of the novels, and swore never to take literature again. I mean, whoever decided we had to read Shakespeare every darned year?
 
Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton. Picked it up with trepidation, knowing in was paranormal in genre. Once I "got it" after the first 30-50 pages I really got into it. Mushy at the end, but enjoyable.

I don't read a lot of Sci-Fi, and when I do it is because a Sci-Fi loving friends sends it to me. I like her selections, but don't go looking on my own, except that there are a couple of mystery (my favorite frivolous genre, with some authors I can go through a book or more a day) authors who have Sci-Fi settings (can't think of the authors off-hand) that I really like.
 
Claire said:
Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton. Picked it up with trepidation, knowing in was paranormal in genre. Once I "got it" after the first 30-50 pages I really got into it. Mushy at the end, but enjoyable.

I don't read a lot of Sci-Fi, and when I do it is because a Sci-Fi loving friends sends it to me. I like her selections, but don't go looking on my own, except that there are a couple of mystery (my favorite frivolous genre, with some authors I can go through a book or more a day) authors who have Sci-Fi settings (can't think of the authors off-hand) that I really like.
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Oooh, if you think of them let me know. Mystery in a Sci-fi setting sounds interesting.
 
Just finishing up book 8 of Jack Campbell's series "The Lost Fleet". Good military-themed sci-fi, in the spirit of Bradbury or Asimov. I've been reading this series since March. Problem is this is the last book for now. The next one is not due out until May of next year. :(
 
Steve Kroll said:
Just finishing up book 8 of Jack Campbell's series "The Lost Fleet". Good military-themed sci-fi, in the spirit of Bradbury or Asimov. I've been reading this series since March. Problem is this is the last book for now. The next one is not due out until May of next year. :(
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Is there a lot of description of battles?
 
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