Host ,'Not Fade Away'
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."
the books are by turns hilarious and exciting and really dark, which is all I could have asked for in the 6th grade.
If a book can give me all those things right now, I'm very grateful. Then again, I do think I'm sort of 12 for way over half my life now, so maybe it's just me. I'll definitely try to find them - thanks, Nutty!
It's an incredibly exciting time right now in children's fiction. Some of the newish stuff that has come out (last 10 years) would rival what you see for adults.
Thanks for the validation, guys!
Hmm. I know he got into Dick because he loves Blade Runner with a passion (he's studying film), and I think I gave him Gibson's Neuromancer a few years ago and he finally read it recently and liked it. I don't really know of any other authors he likes--like I said, he doesn't really enjoy reading, which is why I really want to encourage him reading the stuff he does like. I'd guess that it's the ideas he finds really exciting in both Gibson and Dick, and probably the cyberpunky style too (at least in Gibson--Dick preceded cyberpunk, didn't he?).
Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Dick preceded cyberpunk, but Blade Runner-the-movie is a pretty big influence on the subgenre. (I really like both the movie and the book, but they're completely different entities.) So my revised recommendations, slanted towards the cyberpunks, would still include Delany (who's cited as an influence by many cyberpunks), the cyberpunks listed, Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man (also precursors; flashy prose, brilliant idea spinning, lousy gender politics), and Raphael Carter's The Fortunate Fall (a beautifully written second-generation cyberpunk novel) if you can find it, and, as David says, Storming the Reality Studio.
Weird outliers you could try: Paul diFilippo's Ribopunk (I cannot stand diFilippo, he's much too flippant and surfacy for me, but he's knowledgeable about genre, smart, and inventive); Charles Stross; Cory Doctorow; Candas Jane Dorsey's collection (Learning About) Machine Sex; Michael Swanwick's Jack Faust or The Iron Dragon's Daughter; Lewis Shiner, although his latest stuff has been published as mainstream rather than SF.
Pretty much all the writers called "cyberpunk" have gone off and done different things since the movement heydey in the late eighties/early nineties.
At one of my temp jobs last summer my coworkers thought it was very odd that I still read YA/childrens' books. I smiled politely at them and returned to my Peter Dickinson.
Peter Dickinson.
Who doesn't love Peter Dickinson? He's one of the best.
"King and Joker" and "The Last House Party" are two my favourite books.
Oddly enough, those are the first two Dickinson books I ever read!
Micole, what did you think of the sequel to "King and Joker"? I bought it, it was immediately borrowed, and I never saw it again. Worth going out and rebuying?
I enjoyed Skeleton-in-Waiting, but it's not as charming or as striking as King and Joker. I'd probably go looking for it, but (A) I like Princess Louise; and (b) I'm a completist.
Micole, I adored Louise as well, so off I go to get another copy.
I can't for the life of me remember who borrowed my first copy, damnit.
Is it really pathetic to go to the children's section of your local library to check out books for yourself?no. I do it all the time. I could justify - because I work in a library where I do reference for both Children and adults, but I don't. There is a program in the schools around here called accelerated reading - kids read books of a list and and take quick little test on them - for the younger grades it is a really good tool - it helps them do a lot of reading . points are basded on reading level/lenght of book. The problem is there is a point where reading 'at you level' is somewhat silly - if you are a reluctant reader you are only going to read things you are interested in , and soon the simpler books will not be enough. Reading a boreing book at you level, is not going to make you read more or better. If you are a good reader- if you are interested , you will read the book. whatever the level. Which is what I tell parents and other people. read what is good and what you like. I read children's, ya and adult books