Re-reading books from my youth

[DougGraves]

I got a gift certificate to Amazon and am using it to buy ebooks that I can't get from the library.  Mostly books I read when I was a teenager and loved but have not read since.  And the results have been mixed.

 

Conan - I still love.  Fast paced, lots of action.  Endings are dramatic.  The attitudes are certainly from 100 years ago, but the stories hold up.

 

Fafhrd and the Grey Mousesr - Very mixed.  Lots more telling than showing.  Some stories I just found too boring, a few were still good.  After one book I did not feel the need to read more.

 

Thieve's World - I can't stand these stories now.  They are supposed to be gritty, but they feel like the authors are just substituting grit for story and character.  I am so disappointed, because loved the books as a teenager but could not even finish one book now.

 

Conclusion - teenagers and old men have very different tastes.

[TheOtherTed]

There are a few books I read avidly in my youth that I know my older self would hate, notably Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series and Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series.  Even just typing them out brings a grimace to my face.  Pure escapism, and I have no doubt that the more "adult" aspects of the former (maybe both?) would make me grimace even more.  But to give credit where it's due, the Wrinkle books may very well have jump-started my brain into thinking about seriously weird s**t.

 

On the flip side, I'm still digging pretty much anything by Jules Verne. H.G. Wells, and JRR Tolkien (plus all the stuff his son kept burping out).  On the flip side of the flip side, I didn't like the Dune books when I was younger, and now that I'm older, I can see why.  Plus, I'm not as fond of Asimov and Clarke as I once was - although I might re-read the Rama books.

 

I read 1984 in, well, 1984, and re-read it a couple of years ago.  I liked it then, but didn't realize how deep it was.  All I really remembered from the first read was big loud TVs everywhere with Big Brother's face on them.

 

Childhood and teenage classics that I've been meaning to re-read and just never do include the Earthsea books and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Maybe someday.

 

One book I shouldn't have read as a kid and doubt I'll read again is Satan, his Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

I started reading Terry Pratchett books when I was a teenager and still do re-read them.

Except for Shepherd's Crown. Which is the last one.

Which... I don't wanna.

Because then there wouldn't be any more to come.

It's stupid, I know, but... somehow it helps.

 

Also, recently cleaned my Mum's house and found she'd been hiding boxes of stuff from when I was a kid. Hopefully I get to sit down with my great-nieces and do Asterix (with voices, natch, the same way I did for their mum 18 years ago.) 

[Luminara]

I still love everything Anne McCaffrey wrote.  Barbara Hambly's Windrose trilogy hasn't lost any of its magic for me, either.

 

The Piers Anthony novels I enjoyed as an adolescent, though, come across as obsessed with sex, poorly veiled pedophilia in many cases, and not as scintillating as they seemed to my younger self.  Some of what he wrote is still interesting and imaginative, but even the good material is overshadowed, in my estimation, by his failure to reign in his erotomania.

 

The AD&D novels that fired my imagination and filled me with wonder, though, come across as bad fanfic now.  The only reason most of them were even published was because they were in-house.  With all of the grammatical and spelling errors, and the childish writing, no respectable publisher would've ever given the manuscripts a second glance.

 

These days, I spend most of my reading time on subjects like building a brick oven, heating water without electricity, dam engineering and hydrodynamics and other things applicable to improving my life in the cabin, so I don't revisit the books from my past (other than McCaffrey/Hambly novels, which i re-read annually).

[DougGraves]

Boy Piers Anthony - yeah, Xanth is fun stories as a kid.  On a Pale Horse was fantastic.  But the pedophilia was strong in so much of his works.  I have avoided them.

 

I loved Anne McCaffrey but have avoided re-reading them, worried they would not hold up.  I should try them though.

 

The D&D novels I read as a young adult.  There were a few I enjoyed a lot.  Rather than seeing them as poorly written, they clearly spelled out how overpowered D&D spellcasters were as the fighters became useless and the spellcasters became like gods.

 

I read the first Dune book and did not like it.  I've never been a fan of chosen ones born with great powers and abilities.  I also can't stand Ender's Game.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, DougGraves said:

Boy Piers Anthony - yeah, Xanth is fun stories as a kid.  On a Pale Horse was fantastic.  But the pedophilia was strong in so much of his works.  I have avoided them.

 

In revisited the Bio of a Space Tyrant series, the Tarot series, the Mode series, the Apprentice Adept series and the Incarnations of Immortality series a couple of years ago, when all I had was a tablet and not much else to do but read.  It was an eye-opening experience, having read all of them decades ago and seeing them in this light now.  Rings of Ice held up well to the test of time, and I do believe he's a good science fiction writer in general, but being bludgeoned by his libido in so many books took all of the charm out of them and left me wishing I hadn't re-read them.

 

2 hours ago, DougGraves said:

I loved Anne McCaffrey but have avoided re-reading them, worried they would not hold up.  I should try them though.

 

The conclusion to the Freedom trilogy felt strangely out of pace with the other two stories in that series, like it was rushed to print before she'd finished it.  I had a similar feeling about the final Crystal Singer novel, Crystal Line, it just took an entirely different tone from the preceding novels and left me wondering if I was reading something from a different author.  And the end of the Talent series, The Tower and The Hive, relegated The Rowan to a background character, which irked me.  It was still good, but it wasn't The Rowan good.

 

But everything else still hit me in the same way it did the first time.  I blazed through all of the Dragonrider, Talents, Dinosaur Planet/Planet Pirate and Brainship novels and they held up really well, despite having read some of them for the first time over 35 years ago.

 

Her son took over the Dragonriders franchise after she died... I can't say he's carrying the torch well.  I didn't enjoy any of his entries.  I don't recommend them, though you might take something away from the experience of reading his works in comparison to hers.

 

I also delved into the Acorna series.  I don't think McCaffrey contributed anything but a name on the covers.  The writing style is definitely not hers, and the quality isn't even on par with the weakest of her works.  Avoid this series.

[DougGraves]

I'll have to check for McCaffrey from the library then.  She has a lot of books to read if I still like them.  Worth putting the effort in.

[Oubliette_Red]

Once we get a new house, I'll be able to unpack my library that I've spent a lifetime collecting.

Crystal Singer was one of the first books I bought for myself (outside of Scholastic Books anyway). Spent years buying books through the Sci-Fi book club. I look forward to reading them all over again when they're all unpacked... all 800 of them...    Granted I have 4 sets of encyclopedias, I probably won't be re-reading those.    <.<

 

[WanderingAries]

Something I'm sure many forget, until they see the title. (not my vid, but the one I found years later)

 

 

[Techwright]

On 12/14/2021 at 4:26 PM, TheOtherTed said:

On the flip side, I'm still digging pretty much anything by Jules Verne....

 

Childhood and teenage classics that I've been meaning to re-read and just never do include the Earthsea books...

 

While I do like Verne, I must say I was sorely disappointed in "Master of the World".  I read it for a couple of reasons:  1) I'd heard it focused around another superweapon far ahead of its time (much like the Nautilus)  2) I'd heard Verne wrote it after he visited the mountains of North Carolina and decided it was the perfect locale for a new book.

 

Well, I live a mere couple hours drive from where the story centered.  I'm up that way frequently and consider it part of my region, so I was intrigued.  But...Verne got the idea of a volcano in the Appalachians all wrong.  Not only would that look completely awkward, but the people in these parts, by the scores, would not hesitate to climb that thing and look inside out of overwhelming curiosity.  In essence, what would have worked as a disguise in, say, Washington State, would be a complete failure of a hiding place in the Carolinas.   In addition, the superweapon, though concept-wise was intriguing, was ridiculous in execution, in comparison to the Nautilus.   I think there were a couple of other "off" things I've forgotten.  I really tried to like that book, but it just never took off in my mind.  Perhaps some Hollywood writer can make it work some day.  I know there was a 1950s movie from the book.

 

As to Earthsea books, I discovered the first on a bookshelf of a house I was house sitting at age 14, and didn't get a wink of sleep that night, finishing the book around dawn.  I read the rest over time, but none ever had the impact for me as that first book did.

 

Growing up, at a time when paperbacks were $2 each, I had hundreds of dollars in Star Trek books.  I eventually sold the lot, but looking back now, there are only two authors whose works I'd consider re-reading: Diane Duane, and John M. Ford.   Duane's Trek masterpiece, IMHO, was My Enemy, My Ally.   It advance Romulan society concepts, and presented really fresh concepts, for its time, in out-of-the-box combat tactics and alien crew appearances (meaning no humanoids for these).  Ford's masterpiece was The Final Reflection, and although it was outdated when Worf first hit the screen, it's study in pre-Next Generation Klingon culture was astonishingly good.  Fans still try to get Paramount to incorporate elements of his take on Klingon society, especially many versions of "Klingon chess", including the live, gladiatorial version.

 

There is one series I only read one book from, and always wished I'd read the rest.  I refer to Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan series.  Perhaps I'll look into that soon. 

 

Other childhood reading collections included a Tom Swift book series from the late 1970s/early 1980s, now sadly forgotten, but in my mind superior to the 1950s books, and Sherlock Holmes.  Dad started me off with the complete set of the original stories, then I started collection the works of other authors. Some were really wonderful.  Even picked up some cool games along the way.  I retain everything I bought in regards to Sherlock Holmes, though most is packed away.  I'm not a member of the Baker Street Irregulars fan club, but it's likely I have the largest Sherlock Holmes collection in an area of approximately 1 million people.

[TheOtherTed]

8 hours ago, Techwright said:

While I do like Verne, I must say I was sorely disappointed in "Master of the World".

I haven't read it, but I have to confess that the last book I'd read (in order of publication) was "Around the World in 80 Days" (1873).  In contrast, MotW was published the year before his death (1904), and he wasn't in top form health-wise.

 

That said, even in his best years he wasn't exactly afraid of plot holes that one could drive a truck through - "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" and "From the Earth to the Moon" both challenged my suspension of disbelief long before I'd even heard the phrase "suspension of disbelief."  Also, I found "Paris in the Twentieth Century" (written in 1863, revealed in... 1989?) to be, well, kind of meh,

 

BTW, thanks for the (unintended?) heads-up that he published about a million billion books that I'd never seen or heard of.  Gotta get cracking if I'm going to recover my Verne cred.

[Techwright]

2 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

I haven't read it, but I have to confess that the last book I'd read (in order of publication) was "Around the World in 80 Days" (1873).  In contrast, MotW was published the year before his death (1904), and he wasn't in top form health-wise.

 

That said, even in his best years he wasn't exactly afraid of plot holes that one could drive a truck through - "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" and "From the Earth to the Moon" both challenged my suspension of disbelief

 

BTW, thanks for the (unintended?) heads-up that he published about a million billion books that I'd never seen or heard of.  Gotta get cracking if I'm going to recover my Verne cred.

It's a fair point that it was late in his career and he wasn't top form.

 

I never read "From the Earth to the Moon", but I did "read" HG Wells' "The First Men in the Moon" via one of the old Classics Illustrated comics which were pretty fair adaptations.  Suspension of disbelief is a must have with that, but it is still a lot of fun.  (I'd love to find those old Classics Illustrated and re-read them.)

 

I did not know that Verne was that prolific. 🤯  It rivals, maybe even surpasses, Alexandre Dumas.

[TheOtherTed]

I read The First Men in the Moon for the first time about two years ago.  Definitely a fun sci-fi travelogue, even if everything about it is pure fantasy.  On the spectrum from Jonathan Swift to Arthur C. Clarke, Wells leans a bit to the former IMO, and Verne to the latter.  Wells isn't too fussed about the science, but Verne really gets into it - to the point that he practically explains in the book why From the Earth to the Moon couldn't actually work, then gives an unsatisfying reason as to why they should try it anyway.

 

Take that with a  grain of salt, though.  I haven't read it in mumbledy-mumble years, so I could just be making stuff up.

[GM Crumpet]

I find Arthur C. Clarke very hit or miss. The first book in each series is good and intriguing, the rest not so much. Rendezvous with Rama was amazing, the rest of the series went downhill very fast. 

 

Anne McCaffrey was a childhood favourite, and my mother loved her books too. Pern went downhill after White Dragon and dragondrums though, and much of her later work is basically her son with her name on the front. He's not a good writer. 

 

David Eddings is still a personal favourite, I'm currently re-reading The Elenium/Tamuli. You can tell when his wife started co-writing though, as the early stuff (Belgariad and Elenium) is a lot less complicated and fun than the later ones (Mallorian/ Tamuli). As a standalone book The Redemption of Althalas is really fun and a great riff on time travel and changing history to put things in place to help when you get back to your own time. 

 

And just to be controversial, I don't rate Lord of the Rings at all. I find them horrible to read despite having a really great story, and much of what a modern writer would consider essential is relegated to throwaway lines. "Gandalf, how did you escape the Balrog?" "I did a thing" OK, moving on."............. "Gandalf, what happened there?" "Oh there was a massive battle that raged for days". "OK sounds like it was a good job we missed it".

[TygerDarkstorm]

4 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

And just to be controversial, I don't rate Lord of the Rings at all. I find them horrible to read despite having a really great story, and much of what a modern writer would consider essential is relegated to throwaway lines. "Gandalf, how did you escape the Balrog?" "I did a thing" OK, moving on."............. "Gandalf, what happened there?" "Oh there was a massive battle that raged for days". "OK sounds like it was a good job we missed it".

I cannot stand the LotR books and I know that garners me many dirty looks from avid readers, but I hate Tolkien's writing style. They're like one of the only cases for me where I like the movies better than the books.

 

One book from my youth I always enjoy going back to is Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies; that story seems to have held up well over the years.

 

I still enjoy reading some of the Redwall novels from time to time as well. Most of my books from my youth are packed up until I'm able to have a home large enough to put together a library (I also inherited hundreds of books from my great grandma), so I haven't been able to revisit them. I'm curious if the Anne Rice vampire novels, Eragon novels, and Harry Potter novels still hold up all these decades later since I last read them.

[GM Crumpet]

6 hours ago, TygerDarkstorm said:

I cannot stand the LotR books and I know that garners me many dirty looks from avid readers, but I hate Tolkien's writing style. They're like one of the only cases for me where I like the movies better than the books.

 

One book from my youth I always enjoy going back to is Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies; that story seems to have held up well over the years.

 

I still enjoy reading some of the Redwall novels from time to time as well. Most of my books from my youth are packed up until I'm able to have a home large enough to put together a library (I also inherited hundreds of books from my great grandma), so I haven't been able to revisit them. I'm curious if the Anne Rice vampire novels, Eragon novels, and Harry Potter novels still hold up all these decades later since I last read them.

I loved early Heinlein, but the later books got weirdly sexual. Still fun stories, even if the endings never landed. He seemed to want to tie all his stories into one timeline where everyone had sex with everyone else no matter the biological relationship

 

[Techwright]

On 11/17/2024 at 6:57 AM, GM Crumpet said:

And just to be controversial, I don't rate Lord of the Rings at all. I find them horrible to read despite having a really great story, and much of what a modern writer would consider essential is relegated to throwaway lines. "Gandalf, how did you escape the Balrog?" "I did a thing" OK, moving on."............. "Gandalf, what happened there?" "Oh there was a massive battle that raged for days". "OK sounds like it was a good job we missed it".

 

On 11/17/2024 at 11:40 AM, TygerDarkstorm said:

I cannot stand the LotR books and I know that garners me many dirty looks from avid readers, but I hate Tolkien's writing style. They're like one of the only cases for me where I like the movies better than the books.

 

I'm curious:  did either or both of you have a youth steeped in the stories and writings from the Medieval and or Renaissance Ages?  As the son of a bookstore manager, my life experiences were different than most, and Dad made certain I was exposed to many different historical works, making me perhaps more comfortable reading something stylized like Tolkien's writings, because I'd read works from the past.    I'm probably off on that.  

 

I kind of understand because I have a love/hate relationship with Louis L'amour's works.  He often writes, deliberately, in the style of a bard of oral history, and I find the pattern sometimes sets my teeth on edge, though the stories are very good.

 

I also have a problem with the style of James Fenimore Cooper, but then, most people do as well, I suspect.  Mark Twain wrote a scathing, satirical essay about Fenimore Cooper's works.  To quote but a sample:  "Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. "    That said, I do love the stories.  I once considered sitting down and re-writing them for my nieces, to clean up the issues, and give them a chance to enjoy the stories, but alas, that would have been a huge project.  

[TygerDarkstorm]

4 hours ago, Techwright said:

 

 

I'm curious:  did either or both of you have a youth steeped in the stories and writings from the Medieval and or Renaissance Ages?  As the son of a bookstore manager, my life experiences were different than most, and Dad made certain I was exposed to many different historical works, making me perhaps more comfortable reading something stylized like Tolkien's writings, because I'd read works from the past.    I'm probably off on that.  

 

I kind of understand because I have a love/hate relationship with Louis L'amour's works.  He often writes, deliberately, in the style of a bard of oral history, and I find the pattern sometimes sets my teeth on edge, though the stories are very good.

 

I also have a problem with the style of James Fenimore Cooper, but then, most people do as well, I suspect.  Mark Twain wrote a scathing, satirical essay about Fenimore Cooper's works.  To quote but a sample:  "Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. "    That said, I do love the stories.  I once considered sitting down and re-writing them for my nieces, to clean up the issues, and give them a chance to enjoy the stories, but alas, that would have been a huge project.  

No, my youth didn't involve works from those eras. I was always reading as a kid, and reading fantasy novels and such, but from modern day authors.

 

I respect what Shakespeare did in the world of writing as well, but I can't stand his works either. 😅

 

On a side note, I've been meaning to revisit Jane Yolen, Tamara Pierce, and the Warriors novels by Erin Hunter to see if any of those have held up over the decades.

[GM Crumpet]

15 hours ago, Techwright said:

 

 

I'm curious:  did either or both of you have a youth steeped in the stories and writings from the Medieval and or Renaissance Ages?  As the son of a bookstore manager, my life experiences were different than most, and Dad made certain I was exposed to many different historical works, making me perhaps more comfortable reading something stylized like Tolkien's writings, because I'd read works from the past.    I'm probably off on that.  

 

I kind of understand because I have a love/hate relationship with Louis L'amour's works.  He often writes, deliberately, in the style of a bard of oral history, and I find the pattern sometimes sets my teeth on edge, though the stories are very good.

 

I also have a problem with the style of James Fenimore Cooper, but then, most people do as well, I suspect.  Mark Twain wrote a scathing, satirical essay about Fenimore Cooper's works.  To quote but a sample:  "Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. "    That said, I do love the stories.  I once considered sitting down and re-writing them for my nieces, to clean up the issues, and give them a chance to enjoy the stories, but alas, that would have been a huge project.  

I read voraciously as a kid. Mostly sci fi and fantasy, so Jules Verne, Robert Heinlein, HP Lovecraft, Mark Twain, Madeleine L'Engle. All the classics like Black Beauty, Dracula, Frankenstein. I found the Hobbit delightful, and Lord of the Rings was a fun read when I was 11 but later reads were a slog. I loved the Swallows and Amazons series as a kid, but another series that lost it's appeal as an adult. 

[UltraAlt]

On 12/14/2021 at 12:41 PM, DougGraves said:

I got a gift certificate to Amazon and am using it to buy ebooks that I can't get from the library. 

 

For the older stuff, you might want to check out https://www.gutenberg.org/ 

 

"Choose among free epub and Kindle eBooks, download them or read them online. You will find the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired. Thousands of volunteers digitized and diligently proofread the eBooks, for you to enjoy." 

 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Robert+e.+Howard&submit_search=Go!

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=H.+P.+Lovecraft&submit_search=Go!

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Jules+Verne&submit_search=Go!

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=fritz+leiber&submit_search=Go!

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=edgar+rice+burroughs&submit_search=Go!

 

 

Edited 18 hours ago by UltraAlt

[TheOtherTed]

On 11/17/2024 at 6:57 AM, GM Crumpet said:

And just to be controversial, I don't rate Lord of the Rings at all. I find them horrible to read despite having a really great story, and much of what a modern writer would consider essential is relegated to throwaway lines. "Gandalf, how did you escape the Balrog?" "I did a thing" OK, moving on."............. "Gandalf, what happened there?" "Oh there was a massive battle that raged for days". "OK sounds like it was a good job we missed it".

Not so controversial.  As much as I love the books, I warn potential new readers about two issues.  The first is that so much of the work can be summed up by a tour guide saying "...and we're walking, and we're walking..."  The second is that The Return of the King has at least one too many endings for comfort.

 

As for the problem of things happening off-scene and never satisfactorily explained, I hadn't considered it before.  My immediate take is that it reminds the reader that things are happening in the story outside the narration, which, IMO, adds to the world-building.  My second take is that "The Hobbit" movie trilogy was made worse by having Galadriel, Elrond, and the Wizards take on The Necromancer one by one like it was some kind of rap battle.  If I ever watch it again, I may have to mute it and play "The Real Slim Shady" just to get through it.

[GM Crumpet]

4 hours ago, TheOtherTed said:

Not so controversial.  As much as I love the books, I warn potential new readers about two issues.  The first is that so much of the work can be summed up by a tour guide saying "...and we're walking, and we're walking..."  The second is that The Return of the King has at least one too many endings for comfort.

 

As for the problem of things happening off-scene and never satisfactorily explained, I hadn't considered it before.  My immediate take is that it reminds the reader that things are happening in the story outside the narration, which, IMO, adds to the world-building.  My second take is that "The Hobbit" movie trilogy was made worse by having Galadriel, Elrond, and the Wizards take on The Necromancer one by one like it was some kind of rap battle.  If I ever watch it again, I may have to mute it and play "The Real Slim Shady" just to get through it.

I kind of got splitting Hobbit into two films, a lot of the stuff that took half a page needed fleshing out, but three films was pushing it.

[Techwright]

5 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

I kind of got splitting Hobbit into two films, a lot of the stuff that took half a page needed fleshing out, but three films was pushing it.

 

That was the core problem of The Hobbit trilogy.  New Line Cinema insisted on 3 films (seeing money signs, of course), and Peter Jackson (who replaced the former director at the last minute) and crew were forced into the unenviable position as to how to do that.  They first went to the appendices and Tolkien's notes and scrap notes (Tolkien had been constantly rewriting The Hobbit to bring it more in line with The Lord of the Rings).  That gave them the events of the Necromancer at Dol Goldur, but even exhausting these resources they had 2 large movies, or 2.5 regular movies.  They should have stuck with that, but NLC was not satisfied, so then they invented material "whole cloth", and those were the big mistakes.  With that we got the utter rubbish that was the character Alfred, and the ridiculous romance triangle (in lightning time, no less) of a dwarf and a she-elf and an opposing elf.  Actually, the idea of a she-elf captain of the wood elves was not a bad creation and might have worked quite well, if focused solely on that.  Trying to create any romance triangle with her was, however.  There was also the in-mountain combat between the dwarves and the dragon.  It's rather silly and just a time filler.  It never happened in the books. 

 

Curiously, some of what was in the books was not in the film.  It should have been.  That is the birds of the Lonely Mountain.  The thrush breaking nuts on the rocks in the book is key to finding the missing keyhole in the books. In addition, the dwarves for generations were allied with sentient, talking ravens (or was it crows?) much like the sentient great eagles.  It was the ravens, at the request of Thorin Oakenshield, who alerted Dain and the Iron Hill dwarves to what was happening in the Lonely Mountain.  

 

  I'm told someone had edited out most of the fluff, creating something much more like the books.  To see it, one has to provide proof of purchase of a video of the Hobbit trilogy, though.