Posts by andrew llewellyn
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"Have to say that I have never grokked Heinlein"
Aha! Because you only read Stranger in a Strange Land? It's been a long time but I remember thinking that one was like it was written by someone else entirely.
Wasn't someone going to make a movie of it? Obviously came to nothing.
Willard Price taught me that to escape drowning when caught by a giant clam when the tide is rising, one must saw off one's own foot. Knowledge that has saved my life more than once also.
Still waiting to try surviving attack by a giant boa constrictor, although when a python skin was found in the Botanical Gardens some years ago I took to carrying a pocket knife, just in case.
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Yes, despite a magnificent cast, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Fred Astaire, John Houseman... the movie of Ghost Story sucked chunks.
I'd forgotten about the Stainless Steel Rat.
And someone should make a big TV series of the Flashman books, starting with Tom Brown's Schooldays (there was a mediocre movie starring Malcolm McDowall)
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Those lips WERE creepy.
Gosh this could go on & on - someone mentioned Safari Adventure way back, I devoured all those Willard Price Adventure books.
Never rated Stephen King, but a sometimes collaborator of his called Peter Straub wrote the scariest book I have ever read & called it Ghost Story (there are no ghosts).
Ursula Le Guin, I LOVE the Wizard of Earthsea Trilogy, and to invoke the old Douglas Adams joke - the fourth one was the best.
And I liked her Left Hand of Darkness too.
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"After a session of play he'd often bring the grass in and we'd pat him and make a fuss of him and generally reward him for the "kill". Dead animals were greeted with silence."
So you didn't see fit to smack him?
heh - sorry, was just reminded of some goon that told me all dog owners beat their dogs to house train and so he should be able to smack his kids.
for the record, I have never beat any dog I have owned.
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I loved the Vintner's Luck. And the Plumb Trilogy.
And earlier... the (first 3) Foundation books - not to mention the Asimov robot stories & pretty much everything Arthur C Clarke & Robert Heinlein churned out... never did re-read Starship Troopers though, because the film didn't seem to bear any resemblance to my memory of the book...
And of course, at the age of 13, the Lord of the Rings entranced me.
And recently, I found a very soft spot for Audrey Niffeneger's The Time Traveller's Wife.
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"Don't have the Simon Templar books anymore, in fact don't have many books from that time (not even the Doctor Who collection, sob.."
Did you read the E E "Doc" Smith Lensmen books about age-old galactic warfare, genetic tampering & weapons races?
Or more to the point, did you trade them all at the local bookshop when I left home?
There seemed to be about 40 of them, none of them worth the paper they were printed on, except strangely gripping.
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Bro' I read the final Blaise & Garvin episode that you gave me at Christmas & passed it on to Brian L when he visited.
Truly awful stuff, but fantastic all the same. I always wanted to be able to throw knives like Willie.
Very sad, like losing old friends.
Did I also bequeath you all the Simon Templar books?
BTW - I believe it was our dad who started me on all those.
And from the ridiculous to the sublime - I was deeply moved by Bernard Malamud's The Assistant - I still have the copy I bought for Eng 101.
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One of our cats brings them in & leaves them alive, the young one found a rat curling up in the jersey she'd casually tossed beside her on the couch - her squeal disturbed it & I came up the stairs to find an indignant rat descending to the cat door & freedom.
Another was spied peering from behind the fridge - unbelievably, the Mrs, quicker than a ninja, shot an arm in & caught it by the tail, it was unceremoniously hurled out into the bush.
We were awestruck - it must have been adrenaline because normally she'd shreak & run away.
Meanwhile, I may steal your observation that the police won't attend burglaries so chances are they won't attend smackings... and use it ... somewhere else!
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I love Calvin & Hobbes.
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" THE Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said `Bother!' and `O blow!' and also `Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. "
One mole's struggle to take it easy.