Books!

[LooNEY_DAC]

Heard of  Eleanor Cameron?  I knew people who knew her!  (My grandparents lived near where she did, in Monterey, and I'm familiar with many of the settings of her novels.)  Her books were among my favorites growing up, and I still have "A Spell is Cast" on my bookshelf.

The sad thing is I've been kind of AWOL from the Forum since the start of the year, between work pressures and time-consuming things on the home front.  So I'm sorry I wasn't around to respond in real time to your post, LooNEY.  (As it is, it's long past my bedtime but I couldn't resist talking about her.)

What were some of her books that appealed to you -- the "Mushroom Planet" series?  As for the "Danny Dunn" books, they appealed more to my brothers than me, but I'm sure they inspired many a future scientist or inventor.  Likewise the Alvin Fernald books. 

Holy cow, am I having flashbacks now, to all those yellowing little Scholastic paperbacks, so cheaply printed with the pages falling out, which my brothers and cousins and I bought by the dozens at garage sales and left around the house until they got thrown out or sold at a garage sale in turn....

Thanks for bringing back some fond childhood memories, LooNEY!

My mom got me the three Mushroom Planet books she found in the library discard sale, "The Wonderful Flight", "Stowaway", and "Time and Mister Bass". By the time I came around, and considering that we lived 300ish miles down the coast from her home turf, little or nothing else was available--I eventually found the other two Mushroom Planet books, and "The Terrible Churnadryne", but that was it. It was rather frustrating at times.

As for Danny Dunn, Irene wasn't a draw? She was going to be a botanist, but it was made quite clear that it was by her own choice rather that any lack of intelligence on her part.

[urbicande]

Heard of  Eleanor Cameron?  I knew people who knew her!  (My grandparents lived near where she did, in Monterey, and I'm familiar with many of the settings of her novels.)  Her books were among my favorites growing up, and I still have "A Spell is Cast" on my bookshelf.

The sad thing is I've been kind of AWOL from the Forum since the start of the year, between work pressures and time-consuming things on the home front.  So I'm sorry I wasn't around to respond in real time to your post, LooNEY.  (As it is, it's long past my bedtime but I couldn't resist talking about her.)

What were some of her books that appealed to you -- the "Mushroom Planet" series?  As for the "Danny Dunn" books, they appealed more to my brothers than me, but I'm sure they inspired many a future scientist or inventor.  Likewise the Alvin Fernald books. 

Holy cow, am I having flashbacks now, to all those yellowing little Scholastic paperbacks, so cheaply printed with the pages falling out, which my brothers and cousins and I bought by the dozens at garage sales and left around the house until they got thrown out or sold at a garage sale in turn....

Thanks for bringing back some fond childhood memories, LooNEY!

Wow, Eleanor Cameron and Danny Dunn. Memories!

I actually reread The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet a year or two back for a convention panel I was on.  Loads of fun.

[IKEA]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned already, but for LOTR/fantasy fans, the Eragon series is very good, and a longer read, if you like that sort of thing. The series is finished, so no cliffhangers there either. 

Eh, Eragon always struck me as way too derivative of other series like LOTR, Dune, Wheel of Time, etc. Wheel of Time, by the way is excellent if you like your fantasy long, intricate and epic. (Warning: skip Book 10. Literally nothing happens in nearly 1000 pages).

[Athena]

Eh, Eragon always struck me as way too derivative of other series like LOTR, Dune, Wheel of Time, etc. Wheel of Time, by the way is excellent if you like your fantasy long, intricate and epic. (Warning: skip Book 10. Literally nothing happens in nearly 1000 pages).

(shrug) idk, probably a bit of childhood bias for me,  guess. It was one of the first fantasy-style books I read after LOTR and I loved the whole world and characters and everything. It's kinda stuck with me over the years. It is really based off LOTR and stuff and is pretty cliche in world-building/storyline but meh. still really good!
I should check out Wheel of Time...

[urbicande]

characters and everything. It's kinda stuck with me over the years. It is really based off LOTR and stuff and is pretty cliche in world-building/storyline but

That happens.  I mean, people like the Sword of Shannara, which is a) totally derivative of Tolkien and b) a book so badly written that a 15-year-old me literally threw it across the room in disgust.

[LooNEY_DAC]

That happens.  I mean, people like the Sword of Shannara, which is a) totally derivative of Tolkien and b) a book so badly written that a 15-year-old me literally threw it across the room in disgust.

I've never read the Shannara series, but I really like the Magic Kingdom of Landover series by the same author (Terry Brooks), though it's his less popular series.

[IKEA]

(shrug) idk, probably a bit of childhood bias for me,  guess. It was one of the first fantasy-style books I read after LOTR and I loved the whole world and characters and everything. It's kinda stuck with me over the years. It is really based off LOTR and stuff and is pretty cliche in world-building/storyline but meh. still really good!
I should check out Wheel of Time...

Oh yeah, I understand the feeling. I am still a big Redwall fan because I grew up reading it, even though the whole series is kinda cliché and cheesy.

[Yuuago]

Speaking of badly-written fantasy novels, I've fallen face-first into the Last Herald Mage trilogy after not reading anything from Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series in about 15 years, and oh my gods. The cheese. The sparkly, sparkly nostalgic cheesiness of it all.
(But it pushes my buttons so right, I don't even know...)

[Mélusine]

Speaking of badly-written fantasy novels, I've fallen face-first into the Last Herald Mage trilogy after not reading anything from Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series in about 15 years, and oh my gods. The cheese. The sparkly, sparkly nostalgic cheesiness of it all.
(But it pushes my buttons so right, I don't even know...)

Mercedes Lackey. I was... 14 ? 15 years old maybe ? Just after some Anne McCaffrey, and maybe just before discovering David Eddings's Belgariad and Weis & Hickman's Death Gate Cycle. (Joy for the teenager who was reading everywhere, every time : when discovering a book followed by four or more other books ^^) So, before Terry Pratchett, I assume... Memories, memories...
If I think I could re-read The Death Gate Cycle, or at least try because Haplo was such an unexpected main character, I don't plan to re-read Mercedes Lackey or David Eddings now. Too many books waiting to be read.

[Pupunen]

If I think I could re-read The Death Gate Cycle, or at least try because Haplo was such an unexpected main character, I don't plan to re-read Mercedes Lackey or David Eddings now. Too many books waiting to be read.

I used to love David Eddings in my early teens but I have the sneaking suspicion that his books maybe aren't quite as good as I thought back then, so I don't want to re-read them. It's better to keep my happy memories.

[Mélusine]

I used to love David Eddings in my early teens but I have the sneaking suspicion that his books maybe aren't quite as good as I thought back then, so I don't want to re-read them. It's better to keep my happy memories.

The books were good for someone who begin to read fantasy (If I can use "fantasy" to define them ?) and teenagers. Today, I would probably see them as too... errr... "classical" ? You know, you have a Chosen one, a wizard, a thief, a princess... Now I'm looking for things different

[urbicande]

All too often, books we LOVED in our youth have been visited by the suck fairy.

[Mélusine]

All too often, books we LOVED in our youth have been visited by the suck fairy.

Not always I'm still re-reading The Giver and still loving it
And I started to re-read Timothy Zahn's Star Wars trilogy which, strangely, is still nice to read for me 15 years after. Good surprise.

[Kiraly]

Oh gosh, we're talking about all my high school-era fantasy loves now! (Well, and some of my not-so-beloved books...I regret reading so many of the Wheel of Time books, it took SO long for things to happen and looking back I'm pretty disturbed by the way women were treated. But...I know lots of people really like those.)

Mercedes Lackey is one of those authors who I can't help loving even though her books are massively cheesy. Lots of nostalgia there, and I still read her books as a guilty pleasure now and then. (She was also the first author I read who wrote gay characters, which was pretty eye-opening for teenage Kiraly living in a conservative small town).

I loved the Belgariad and some of the Terry Brooks books too. I read a handful of Shannara books and somehow never noticed the similarity to LOTR until years later when one of my housemates went on a tirade about them. The Magic Kingdom books were entertaining too, sort of reminiscent of Piers Anthony's Xanth books which I also loved (even though I probably missed like half of the references).

And the Redwall books were one of my first great reading loves - and probably, come to think of it, my first fandom. Not only did my friend and I make a gingerbread version of Redwall Abbey one year, but we also got a large group of our family and friends together for an actual Redwall feast, complete with costumes. We actually made Turnip 'n Tater 'n Beetroot Poi (pie), which was not as tasty as the books made it sound.

[Yuuago]

Oh gosh, we're talking about all my high school-era fantasy loves now!

Mercedes Lackey is one of those authors who I can't help loving even though her books are massively cheesy. Lots of nostalgia there, and I still read her books as a guilty pleasure now and then. (She was also the first author I read who wrote gay characters, which was pretty eye-opening for teenage Kiraly living in a conservative small town).

Yeeesss. It's been ages since I revisited her stuff, but I'm having such a grand time, I'll probably read more. If I remember correctly, the Bardic Voices novels were my favourites, but... man. The Last Herald Mage books sure are something else. Re-reading them now, all those emotions are coming back - I remember being so utterly floored that there were novels with a gay protagonist from a mainstream publisher and I could just walk into my local library and read them... (and a likeable protagonist, too, or at least I liked Vanyel a lot at the time). Ahh I'm getting a little teary-eyed from remembering. :') But yeah, these books meant a lot to me.

And... reading through now, I can definitely see that Lackey influenced my writing in some ways that I'll probably never be able to scrub out. orz But that's okay.