From Way, Way Back in Your Reading Life

[Extollager]

I read the first 60 pages or so of Raymond Jones's Winston SF juvenile Son of the Stars recently. I'm quite sure that I read the book around eighth grade, many many years ago. Alas, it didn't seem all that interesting now. Perhaps the most interesting thing was the degree to which the tensions in the story are between the youthful protagonist and his nervous xenophobic mom and also a narrow-minded military officer. Interesting for a book from the 1950s. Of course pallid compared to what you'd find typical now.

The cover (my interlibrary loan copy was coverless) is way cooler than the book seemed to be.

 

[Extollager]

Just started a rereading, after about 45 years (I suppose), of Silverberg's Conquerors from the Darkness, a juvenile. I was surprised to see the 18-year-old hero kill a man in cold blood.

After I read this book as a youngster, I remember that I wanted to "play" it, or at the very least I was borrowing the hero's name for some kind of backyard scenario with friend(s) (who had not read it)!

 

[beenorthern]

A few months ago, I was going through my ''C'' boxes in a futile attempt at pruning. I took out and reread (after probably 20 years) Arthur C. Clarke's *Masters of Space* (*Prelude to Space*), which ends with the protagonist watching the millennial celebrations from a city on the moon.

The Biosphere 'mission' failures make it pretty clear that as of 2012, we have neither the knowledge nor the technology to design a stable closed ecology ... so a moon colony is not coming anytime soon ...

The book just made me feel sad, and I gave it away.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

When I tried to reread Sanders Anne Laubenthal's Excalibur the better part of forty years after my first reading, I realized there was no real need to persist with a book that wasn't interesting me very much

I liked Excalibur better on rereading the book. The first part is a bit slow, but once the fantasy really kicks in the prose is lovely.

 

[Extollager]

I liked Excalibur better on rereading the book. The first part is a bit slow, but once the fantasy really kicks in the prose is lovely.

I probably need to get back to it and read some more, then. Thanks.

 

[clovis-man]

I read the first 60 pages or so of Raymond Jones's Winston SF juvenile Son of the Stars recently. I'm quite sure that I read the book around eighth grade, many many years ago. Alas, it didn't seem all that interesting now. Perhaps the most interesting thing was the degree to which the tensions in the story are between the youthful protagonist and his nervous xenophobic mom and also a narrow-minded military officer. Interesting for a book from the 1950s. Of course pallid compared to what you'd find typical now.

The cover (my interlibrary loan copy was coverless) is way cooler than the book seemed to be.

I did a similar re-read of this one this year:

Actually written by Lester Del Rey, it wasn't all that bad considering it was designed for a teen in mid twentieth century.

Also read The Weapon Shops of Isher by Van Vogt for the first time in 50 years. All the mystery and intrigue that I remembered from my youth has evaporated. Not a good read now.

Then another 50 year hence read of The Space Merchants by Pohl & Kornbluth. But in this case, I found it to still be relevant and thought-provoking. Almost frighteningly so.

 

[Rosemary]

I re-read the entire series of The Malazan Tales - again!

Now I am on the last few chapters of 'Russka' written brilliantly by Edward Rutherfurd. A wonderful historical fiction about the birth and life of Russia.

 

[Extollager]

Didn't finish a rereading of Conquerors from the Darkness, just as I didn't complete a rereading of Son of the Stars. I hope wouldn't be too disappointed by Wollheim's Secret of the Ninth Planet, which really appealed to me when I was a kid.

 

[Extollager]

I liked Excalibur better on rereading the book. The first part is a bit slow, but once the fantasy really kicks in the prose is lovely.

I put my copy back in storage... I'd tried to stick with it, but -- alas! Maybe its moment will yet arrive.

 

[AE35Unit]

AE35Unit finds a book from way back to be tedious now. Have others found that books or stories that they once seemed to like a lot, are unappealing now?

I'm going to hazard the surmise that this kind of unsatisfactory rereading happens more often with fantasy than with science fiction. If others think so too, maybe we can discuss why that might be.

The thing is the Ballard book IS science fiction, not fantasy. But not all old re-reads are bad, some keep their undimming lustre.

 

[Extollager]

I'm going to start a second reading of Richard Adams's Shardik, which, unusual for me, I bought when it was new, back on 26 Dec. 1975, and read soon after.

Does anybody read Adams any more -- especially, anything other than Watership Down?*

*I ran across an interesting little piece by Rex Collings, who published Watership Down after it had been turned down by various high-profile publishers. Collings had just started his own company and the book was a risk. I don't know if the Times Literary Supplement piece is available online, but if you can get hold of the 6 Dec. 1974 issue, there you'll find it. I was looking at an actual copy of the issue. I've probably mentioned before how my university library was compelled to shed most of its old magazines a few years ago, so I made multiple trips between it and my office, carrying rescued old issues. I ended up with about 30 years' worth of TLS and selected issues of other magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post issues with some Heinlein, Bradbury, and serialization of John Christopher's No Blade of Grass. ... Looking at these old TLS issues, I'm struck by how much attention they gave in the Seventies to Mervyn Peake.

 

[Bick]

Great thread. I only got back into SF in a big way a few years ago, and I felt that I couldn't remember some of the greats that well, so I re-read a fair few books in that time as a means of getting back into the groove, so to speak. Also, I had a stroke about 18 months ago, and for a while afterward I found that some authors I'd enjoyed 20 years previously were the easiest to read. Let's see - I re-read lots of Asimov, including all the Foundation books, the Robot books and stories, and various other novels and story collections. I also re-read some ACC and some Niven. I have an enormous fondness for Asimov now, as he helped me get through the worst of my illness.

 

[Mr Fraaz]

I recently re-read a few books I first read in the late 80's:

Thieves' World, the anthology by Robert L. Asprin (ed.). It was better than I remembered, actually, there are a few pretty cool characters in it.

I also tried to re-read Swords against death by Fritz Leiber but couldn't be bothered to finish it. In fact I don't think I did when I tried the first time either.

And then, best of all, I re-read (or re-played?) some of the gamebooks about the Lone Wolf by Joe Dever, with great artwork by Gary Chalk. Sweet nostalgia!

 

[Christopher Lee]

I recently re-read a book called The Long Patrol by Brian Jacques. One of his many Redwall books that early in my childhood got me hooked into the claws of reading in the first place.

 

[Mouse]

I recently re-read a book called The Long Patrol by Brian Jacques. One of his many Redwall books that early in my childhood got me hooked into the claws of reading in the first place.

Excellent books. I have most of them, I think (or a lot of them, anyway!) and I'm certain The Long Patrol is one of them. The Taggerung was one of my faves.

 

[GOLLUM]

IDoes anybody read Adams any more -- especially, anything other than Watership Down?*

Probably an emphatic No I'm afraid to say, at least as a collective response from my reading colleagues here in Melbourne.

I've never read anything other than Watership Down so I would certainly look forward to reading comments regarding any of his other works inlcuding Shardik...

Also I wish to say that I too find this a very interesting and informative thread.

 

[hitmouse]

Just re-read the 8 Hawkmoon books by Michael Moorcock for probably the first time since I bought them in second hand bookshops in the early 80s with teenage pocket money. I collected second hand Moorcock obsessively during that period.
Not bad. Not his best, but pretty good. He puts some proper pervy nastiness into what would otherwise be uncontroversial YA fantasy.

I tried re-reading the first Conan collection again last year. This made a terrific impact on me when I was 11. Almost unreadable now.

The John Carter Books by ERB are still brilliant. As are the Susan Cooper Dark is Rising Books.

My most re-read books are probably the Gormenghast Trilogy. I haven't opened them for a few years, but my youngest loves Captain Slaughterboard. Pleased to say that my oldest is currently devouring Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books.

 

[Christopher Lee]

Excellent books. I have most of them, I think (or a lot of them, anyway!) and I'm certain The Long Patrol is one of them. The Taggerung was one of my faves.

Ah, I always knew you had good taste, mouse! If I had to give a top three it would be The Long Patrol, Marlfox, and Taggerung. I own all but the last three published. Redwall will definitely be a world I introduce to my own child when I have one.

 

[Extollager]

Probably an emphatic No I'm afraid to say, at least as a collective response from my reading colleagues here in Melbourne.

I've never read anything other than Watership Down so I would certainly look forward to reading comments regarding any of his other works inlcuding Shardik...

Also I wish to say that I too find this a very interesting and informative thread.

Thanks! I would recommend that you give Richard Adams's The Girl in a Swing a try, one of the most convincing and worthwhile supernatural stories of the last 60 years I would suppose.

 

[Extollager]

My most re-read books are probably the Gormenghast Trilogy. I haven't opened them for a few years, but my youngest loves Captain Slaughterboard. Pleased to say that my oldest is currently devouring Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books.

That's heartening, about Peake's trilogy. I have reread Titus Groan, but every time I try to reread Gormenghast I seem to bog down, perhaps with the pages of Prunesquallor's verbal flutterings -- something that seems to have amused Peake himself a great deal, but not me. I may have to try again and just skim some of that material, because I'm sure it would be a shame to let exasperation with those pages keep me from rereading the rest of the book.