Couple of links

[maharetr]

The books that Diana Wynne Jones mentions as being too hard for adults but loved by kids are The Homeward Bounders and Charmed Life. The whole essay is worth reading and can be found here.

And for something slightly different, there's a really interesting post/discussion about writing openings to SF/fantasy stories here. Her whole journal's worth a look, actually.

ETA: I put in a good word for Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game to a patron at the library yesterday. I recant. I recant. I recant.

Comments

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Just because 90% of his writing is preachy, shallow and crap doesn't stop Ender's Game from being a good book.

[buoy-wonder.livejournal.com]

Stops the sequals from been worth the paper they are printed on though.

Saying that I didn't mind Speak for the Dead.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

In a moment of second hand enthusiasm I bought books 1 and 2 of Homecoming Earth and it's fkn awful.

[buoy-wonder.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly they are quite chunky.

So in fact you have brought two book ends.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Not tooooo chunky, slogged through the second book and gave up all interest in having the set, which for *me* is unusual.

[terrycat.livejournal.com]

I loved the short story.
Everything else was whaffle, to my mind.

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

True. But I have trouble seperating the author from their work at the best of times, and when their politics are polar opposites from mine it tends to seep into how I view their work, too.

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Understandable but a shame. It;s still a good book even if the author is a preaching, moralising bastard.