The Lifetime "Re-Read" project.

[zespectre]

The Black Company - Glen Cook
Meh... I remember feeling that this book was a little, um, disjointed the first time I read it. Though I still enjoyed it.

The re-reading still felt somewhat akin to driving over speedbumps. There's a certain amount of fun but I felt like it took a lot more effort than it should.

Honestly not a bad re-read but for "gritty military fiction" I think David Drake has a better style.

[richvalle]

Originally Posted by zespectre

The Black Company - Glen Cook
Meh... I remember feeling that this book was a little, um, disjointed the first time I read it. Though I still enjoyed it.

The re-reading still felt somewhat akin to driving over speedbumps. There's a certain amount of fun but I felt like it took a lot more effort than it should.

Honestly not a bad re-read but for "gritty military fiction" I think David Drake has a better style.

I enjoy David Drake books but he tends to lose me when the fighting starts as I can never picture where everyone is and what is going on. I've wondered if he does it on purpose as part of a 'fog of war' thing.

It's better in books that have maps but on ones that don't I just give up and don't even try to track what is going on, just read the story to see what happens.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by richvalle

You know, I've been meaning to start a thread about this. And maybe I should so I don't hijack yours... but I was wondering if anyone had gone back and re-read books from way back when that they liked and then on re-reading finding they didn't like them.

I had two that came to mind.

A Robert Heinlein book (and one reason I didn't start the thread is that I have to look up the title to the book). Starts off with a guy going to a party, meets a girl, her father, the lady hosting the party... they leave the house and it blows up and they are trying to escape whoever is trying to kill him.

I found the dialog... weird. It just didn't ring true. But the kicker was when the lady hosting the party asked the girl if she had had sex with her own father. The girl looks down and say no, but she would have if he wanted to because she loved him that much. The lady says something like 'good for you!'.

If I read this as a teen, and I probably did as I read many of his books, I probably just wrinkled my nose at the weird thought and kept going. As a father to a teen girl I had a WAY different reaction to this and stopped reading.

I do want to pick up another of his books... maybe Stranger in a Strange Land or Starship Troopers, and see if I still like them.

The other was Sword of Shannara. I REALLY liked that book way back when. I tried to re-read it and... uggg. Just couldn't get though it.


I did re-read Hitchhikers guide recently. I still liked those but not as much as I did the first time around.


Interesting project you have set yourself and I'm looking forward to any more you have to say on it.

rv

Originally Posted by orlok

I'm pretty sure that it's "Time Enough for Love", the story of Lazarus Long, who lives through 23 centuries. I loved this book as a youth, and maybe this thread has inspired me to finally give it another go.

Originally Posted by ATDrake

My ghod, someone else tried reading The Number of the Beast!

Or it could still be Time Enough for Love, as suggested upthread. Heinlein was kind of … special that way.*

I still like much of his work anyway. Even some of the later stuff which was even more … special.†

* I personally chalk it up to late-in-life wish-fullfillment fantasy on his part: having the strong, ultra-healthy, ultra-fertile protagonist with no health problems who could solve everything and was always right and pioneered new worlds and stuff; whereas he was stuck with increasingly frail health and a declining space program and no kids due to infertility issues and a world where his views were kind of increasingly out-of-date and old-fashioned compared to shifting social change etc.

† I freely admit to often having trashy taste.

ETA: I should add that the most recent time I re-read my favourite Heinlein, Citizen of the Galaxy, it held up pretty well. But some of his other stuff from the same period simply didn't impress me as much as it might have when I was 10, although in retrospect, I think some of it might not have impressed me much at all.

I should probably add that all his classic stuff was written well before I was born and I originally found them as the really old books in the school library shelf, so it's not really a case of nostalgia working on me, because they were already "retro" when I started reading.

I'm pretty sure it's The Number of the Beast, from the description...and I have to admit here that I LOVE that book, have it in hardback and still re read it every couple of years. It's one of the few Heinlein that I enjoy that much.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

I'm pretty sure it's The Number of the Beast, from the description...and I have to admit here that I LOVE that book, have it in hardback and still re read it every couple of years. It's one of the few Heinlein that I enjoy that much.

You could be right - it's 30 plus years since I read any of them. May be time for a re-visit

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by richvalle

A Robert Heinlein book (and one reason I didn't start the thread is that I have to look up the title to the book). Starts off with a guy going to a party, meets a girl, her father, the lady hosting the party... they leave the house and it blows up and they are trying to escape whoever is trying to kill him.

I think this sounds like The Number of the Beast

[EDIT: Late to the thread again!]

[zespectre]

The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
I understood it better this time around. I enjoyed it more as a youth.

Something Wicked This Way Comes- Ray Bradbury
Loved it then (I still remember the delicious terror) and still loved it after the re-read.

Most of the works of HP Lovecraft - HP Lovecraft
Lovecraft doesn't give me sleepless nights as an adult the way he did when I was younger...and yet on those still, dark, nights when it's foggy and creepy outside, scenes written by Lovecraft tend to creep into my mind more than any other horror author short of Poe himself.

[richvalle]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think this sounds like The Number of the Beast

[EDIT: Late to the thread again!]

I'm going to do a serious hunt for the book so I can end the guessing. And only fair if I'm going to quote out of a book to get it right. The problem is that we're packed up to try and sell our house so many, many books are in storage. I think I tried the book post-packing but I'm not sure.

My remaining books are stacked 3 deep on small books shelves so not easy to spot one book. I've looked at the outside books but no go.

rv

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by edbro

The Dick and Jane Series.

"See Spot Run. Look Jane, look".

I just don't get it now.

(if you didn't grow up in the US in the 60's you won't understand)

I beg yo pardon, Edbro - I remember those tomes with great joy - along with Dumbo the Elephant, & others I can barely remember. Among them one [obviously American] about a Summer Camp, where the hero wore Keds basketball boots, which I HAD to have. My parents somehow found a supplier here, and I got 'em for a birthday. Black and white,canvas, great thick comfy soles, long white laces- brilliant, I was the envy of the whole school ! [They must have been very expensive, I didn't get anything else that Birthday. ]

The story contained a description of a "new girl" in school, that I have never forgotten............
"She had a smile like the front end of a Buick" !

She had braces on her teeth - which seemed to us a very strange thing to have inflicted on someone !