…we don’t stand much on protocols here. I’m CJ, not ma’am, flamers will be assigned a marshmallow stick and set in a corner to do something more useful, and we generally just ask that people be courteous toward each other.
If your membership ever should disappear, it probably got caught in our tougher spamcatcher, me: I’m always suspicious when I see a user name that could not be replicated without a codebook. If this happens, nothing personal: if you post once, you enter my memory bank, and it’s less likely to happen. Besides, part of the fun around here is people getting to know one another, and we have some of the most interesting hobbies and pets and people on this site.
We are tightly linked to two other sites, listed over in the left sidebar, with a clickable link. Lynn doesn’t have memberships on her site—anybody can post; Jane’s site requires a membership to post (it’s the spammer thing) and if you join this site, might as well zip over there and join hers, and zip over to Lynn’s and comment, too. But we are all 3 the owners/managers/artists/writers of Closed Circle, which is how we sell our e-books: we all 3 used to share one roof: now we’re at opposite ends of the country from Lynn, but we’re all working on the same project. If you want pix, Jane’s site has lots of them, and if there’s anything going on that’s picture-worthy, Jane almost always has them—the more so since she finally got a replacement for the camera which kept shedding parts as you took pictures. It ran out of parts to shed, and she finally got one of those little jobs you can carry in your purse or pocket. Pix may now blossom all over the place.
I first found you in the Fortress Novels. I couldn’t read them fast enough. Then I enjoyed my way through everything else you’ve written. The Foreigner books are my comfort reading.
I am the proud Mom of three beautiful children, two grandsons, my dog Jake, and my cat C.C. ( which stands for Cool Cat if he’s sleeping or Chaos Cat when he’s awake).
Welcome in! Jake, even sleeping, looks like a character; and is that CC in the photo? I wish I could make the avatars bigger!
Doggies make good Kitty pillows, usually as compensation for
being trampled by the dog in passing. Cats expect others to go
around, but most dogs have no concept of personal space.
Kalevala Vol 2 is up on gutenberg. #33089.
If this keeps up, children will be able to find the good stuff
without a trip to the big city library.
Someday Brenssaga will be on the same shelf.
If you want nostalgia, try community audio at archive.org
and do a search for Buddy Holly. I haven’t heard some of
these in far too many years.
Somewhat unrelated topic: Has the change in diet helped
or is it still too soon to tell? If you start feeling better
it is usually a lot better sign than anything the scale
tells you.
I guess I am a typical CJ fan, I have read most of series (and I have been reading most of the blog post).
From my own point of view I am a lurker, but I have recently signedup in order to be able to add comments.
Since I am an infrequent visitor, I might add comments a bite late, (but hopefully not to late).
Confession: I usually check the progress meter prior to checking everything else on the site.
I first remember being introduced to sci-fi/fantasy when I was in year 7 when a teacher was reading Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonquest. Technically I suppose I’ve always read it as my parents had tonnes of Clarke, Asimov and E E Doc Smith, but it think I must have taken if for granted because it was always there.
My teacher then lent me the Weis and Hickman dragon books and the Dune trilogy. I think my first Cherryh was The Pride of Chanur and I think I’ve read most others – about half way through the Fortress books but I haven’t gotten to Foreigner yet.
CJ’s books constantly tempt me to go back to Uni to do a Masters in English. 🙂 I have a half-formed plan to read my entire collection over a couple of months, taking notes for each book to see if I have enough material for a thesis.
😆 Welcome in!
I’ve never gotten used to science fiction being respectable—I had to argue mightily with my 7th grade English teacher to let me do a book report on one of Willy Ley’s books: it was the first book report on a science fiction book ever allowed at one of 2 junior highs in the city of Lawton, and probably the first, period. 😉 I did it up with great enthusiasm and even illustrated the report. I got an A on it. Bravo for Mrs. Schultz, for flexibility. But I did argue that I had read all the classics they wanted me to read, and it would be cheating to do a report on a book I’d already read, wouldn’t it?
I did my high school AP English final paper on Robert A. Heinlein’s novels, specifically The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starman Jones so I could compare early and later style. In history, we were studying the Civil War, and I wrote a sci-fi term paper about that; my teacher asked if I had ever read TMIAHM, and I pulled the copy I was using for my English paper out of my bag 😉 It was a good excuse to buy good sci-fi.
I was able to *take* SF/F/H classes in college, but they didn’t count toward my major… and now you’re saying I could do a thesis on them? Can I do a thesis on anime?
Jack Williamson wrote is doctoral thesis on H. G. Wells. This was sometime in the late ’50s or early ’60s. It’s been done many times since. Your mileage may vary. Ask somebody in your department.
Any literature (shuddery word) that makes a difference has to be subversive, suspect,
and frowned upon. Without that it is just slapping the self on the back in congratulation.
Science fiction had a nasty habit of pointing out what a trend might do if you allowed
it to continue, but not always to a bad end.
Academe can examine and comment on anything, whole careers are built on amazing obscurities,
however I seriously doubt an in depth analysis of the meaning of the Majat Hives as a
cultural dynamic teaches you any more than a day watching an ant nest will.
A quick look at the covers of the early SF will make you realize why it wasn’t exactly
mainstream. I tried to make a consistent picture of R E Howards racial descriptions
across a number of stories and finally realized he didn’t have one himself and wasn’t
about to slow down in the intensity of storytelling to make one.
I also find suspect the idea of a Golden Age when all was fame and glory in SF, because
what happened is the torch suddenly passed from the early male predominance to female
writers who were just as good or better.
I think it was just the discovery by academics that there was a substantial body of
good work that gave the genre any respectability.
Fortunately, the Closed Circle upholds the honor of the field by resisting the impulse to
ruin it into literature.
First post – I once briefly ‘spoke’ to you (CJ) on a Compuserve web chat ca. 1985 (!) – my question was “what were the pots in “Pots.” The reason for the question is: I grew up at the Jersey shore, at a time when solid waste from the Staten Island Fresh Kills landfill was constantly washing up on the beaches. Among the objects all over the beaches were ribbed plastic items of women’s feminine hygiene – I mean all over the place, up and down the beach. So, naturally when I saw the reference in “Pots” to ribbed items that I thought of wasn’t coke bottles.
That’s it, love the books – well, most of them (you can’t please everyone…I love space opera), looking forward to exploring the site, and asking some questions that have long puzzled me like the battle scene in Downbelow – how did it get from 15 ships to six, if 14 got into the battle and from the conversations afterward it appeared that only two were lost, and how the heck do you play “Company War”, a game we never could figure out). But I’ll ask those in the proper place on the site.
By the way, our eldest son got “Malory” as a middle name, in honor of Signy….It was desperation on my part since in accordance with Jewish custom, we needed a name that began with an “M”, and I could never saddle the poor kid with Morty, or Manny.