Oh, this is exciting! A brand new blog just waiting for us to fill with words. We’re both recovering professional reviewers who have discovered that we still have a lot we want to say–hence our tagline, “We have things to say about books.” Which is pretty prosaic, but you know, it gets the job done.
What we hope to accomplish here is to talk about books we love (or don’t love) and why. To take a look at what’s going on in publishing and the different genres we’re interested in.
I have a number of rereads planned, including one in which I will be inflicting late Heinlein on myself (the first Heinlein I ever read was To Sail Beyond the Sunset–this explains so much about me). Never fear, I am planning on rereading some books that are actually good, too.
Anyhow, we hope you stick around and join in the conversation. We’d love to have you.
The first Heinlein I ever read was The Number of the Beast (I am STILL bemused by the fact that some teacher, who had obviously never read it, gave t to my brother as the prize in a grade-school math contest). We must have some sort of kinshp based on those experiences. (I think TNotB is still a much better book than TSBtS, though definitely edging in that direction, but it’s still ridiculously self-indulgent of RAH and definitely not the place to start.)
Well, TNotB is one of the books I’ve ordered to reread, so I’ll let you know how it stacks up to the utter insanity that is TSBtS! I remember not being able to follow TNotB real well when I read it back in the late 80’s, due to lack of familiarity with some of the stuff he was riffing on.
Hmm, I think Have spacesuit, will Travel may have been the first Heinlein novel that I ever read, and at the time, I was the right age group. I don’t remember anything about it. I picked up Starship Troopers in the 80s, and I wasn’t very impressed. I didn’t read anything else until my husband convinced me to read the unabridged Stranger in a Strange Land. That’s definitely more impressive, but I still don’t love him as a writer.
I really don’t like the unedited Stranger–I think the original 1963 version is better, mainly because a lot of what’s added is not substantive. I’ve never really been a fan of his juvenile novels and while I was a huge Heinlein fangirl in my teens, I’ve certainly moved past that–it’s been a good 10-15 years since I’ve read any of his stuff, so I am looking forward to rereading.