Cherryh is really good with aliens, making them actually alien and not just humans in costume. Chanur and Foreigner are my favorites of hers.
'Safe'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
I saw that the author of "The Phantom Tollbooth" has died. I think it came along when I was too old to be part of the target audience, but I saw that he'd died.
No one is too old for The Phantom Tollbooth!
What Steph said.
I wasn't too old - I think I actually read it at one point - but I was a good deal older than its target audience when it came out. I missed a fair number of iconic pop culture things.
So, I decided to expand my Golden Age of Detective Fiction education and read some Margery Allingham. Started with the first Campion book, The Crime at Black Dudley, and I don't think it's for me, although I can well imagine Marsh reading it and deciding to write A Man Lay Dead. Is anyone here a fan, are later books maybe different?
The last Chanur novel is more of a TNG-type spinoff than a direct sequel, although it deals with a lot of the same issues. It's just that the Chanur of the title is Hilfy, rather than her aunt Pyanfar. And I like Hilfy, but Pyanfar is totally badass.
Hm. Not completely certain I did read that.
Thirding the Chanur books. All Cherryh's scifi is at least engaging--my favorite being a little morsel titled Merchanter's Luck--has a Firefly ring to it.
And if you're a fantasy fan, Cherryh's got you covered there, too--from Gates of Ivrel and Faded Sun trilogy through The Tree of Swords and Jewels on to her Russian folk tales: Rusalka, Chernovog, et al.
I enjoyed the Pride of Chanur series - had them all at one point. The Faded Sun trilogy was good, as were most of the others I remember reading.
I liked Margery Allingham; I think her best was Tiger in the Smoke. You might try Josephine Tey as well - her best known book is The Daughter of Time, which isn't a traditional mystery.