Cheryl’s Comments (group member since Nov 29, 2022)

Cheryl’s comments from the Beyond Reality group.

I'll have to look for it - kids' rec's rock!

Fairy Tales of Frank Stockton
Some are very clever, almost in a sort of The Phantom Tollbooth way, some are just odd and dated.

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter — Then, Now, and Forever - not my specific interest but I do like how John McWhorter writes about other linguistic topics.

Thanks for the reminder; I just requested a copy and it's at my branch.

Any of the adults in The Secret Garden. Or the kids for that matter.

What Kathi said. I have a lot of classics to catch up on, but some of the new stuff is interesting, too.

MadProfessah wrote: "It’s incredible. In the end one is NOT rooting for the humans to win…."

Brilliant, right?

Richard wrote: "“This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
And then the dragons came.”

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Dragons must be about the on..."

Good point! And they wouldn't fit; I'm glad they aren't included!

Sleep is good!

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl who lived with her stepmother and her two step sisters."

And then the dragons came.

Well, yes, I'm reading Cinderella stories today (for another group). But wouldn't the story be much better if there were actually dragons?!

Devil World by Gordon Eklund, a Star Trek book that happens to be next on my stack, has the word mysterious twice on the back blurb.

edit - done already, short, not great.

I've read it twice in the past, loved it.

Gary, I can definitely see that those are polarizing titles. Brown's bestseller wasn't satisfying to you, I'd guess. And perhaps Faulkner was too "Capital L - Literary" and/or pretentious. At least, that's how I'd probably react to them if I ever tried either. (I've not read any on your list but they all are famous.)

Dawn, I agree with many of the titles you list in msg #4.

I'll just admit that the only thing I have enjoyed by Le Guin is The Word for World Is Forest. Don't know why, but I just cannot click with her classics, Earthsea, Dispossessed, and the rest.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is worthy of being called a classic, and it's a Newbery book, too. Avi knows how to engage young people and the young at heart. And, as I recall, the setting was important, not just the ship but the sea itself.

(CJ, good luck with chemo, I send the warmest wishes. And I'm following you for your comments about this and about The Other Valley. :)

Really enjoyed Mal Goes to War. A little bit Puppet Master, a little bit Murderbot, but very much its own story. Normally I wouldn't like so much violence etc., or page-turning adventure, either, but there's something about what Ashton does that just works for me.

By Walter Tevis, author of The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Queen's Gambit, and others, I recommend Mockingbird. At one point I wanted to read it badly enough that I bought it, but then I shelved it and now it's getting dusty. But I still want to read it!

The cover blurb is by the LA Times and says "A moral tale that has elements of... Brave New World, Superman, and Star Wars. Hm. From the back blurb I see more akin to the old short story The Machine Stops or City by Clifford D. Simak. Robots doing most things for humans, as a species dying out - perhaps relevant with AI becoming such a big deal right now! Sounds very intriguing to me!

Mockingbird, 1980, 275 pp.

Ugh. So much potential. But imo it wasn't good literature, or good speculative fiction. I mean, I can't imagine liking it if I were looking for a mainstream work, because I didn't care about the characters and I didn't appreciate the writing, and the premise is too SF. I didn't find even one passage to mark as insightful or interesting.

Otoh, reading it as spec. fic. was even worse, imo, because nothing was really speculated. There's still too much use of alcohol to ascribe motivations to. Too much reliance on the easy way out of having just another brutally sexist societal structure. Nothing really original, nothing really What If. I didn't find even one passage to mark as provocative.

Too much like Time Travel. And I've read a lot of good, and mediocre, and bad Time Travel. So, after all, maybe it's just me.

Lieutenant Data of Star Trek!

It's on my nightstand!