Monday, February 27, 2012

Reading

Something unexpected showed up on my Kindle: in one of the rock-bottom-price collections of classic SF, a couple of Andre Norton Westerns!

Or a Western and a Civil War novel featuring overlapping casts, both nicely plotted. Norton's writing is something like Shaker furniture, devoid of stylistic frippery (aside from some dialog tics found in much of her early work), and these two yarns deftly follow young orphan Drew Rennie through final years of the War (Ride Proud, Rebel!) and then out West, reclaiming his past (Rebel Spurs).

Both seem to be well-researched and accurate in details like weaponry, horsemanship, and the South's supply situation (and what the troops did about it) in the latter parts of the Spirited Disagreement.

...Presently working my way through Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep, this in paperback. Only difference between paperback and Kindle (and between paperback and hardback, for that matter)? Too heavy to read as I am falling asleep! Paperback falls on face: no big deal. Kindle or hardback, I wake up as it slips from my fingers.

4 comments:

Matthew said...

"Working through" is a good description, as I recall, of reading Fire Upon the Deep.

Read it a decade ago on breaks and lunch at the night shift at the Insulfoam plant. Never visualized distance as time in a cosmic sense before. Probably worth a reread in more than 10 minute increments with a bit of perspective to hand.

Joe said...

you inspired me t o"buy" them for my Kindle. The price was right...

Stretch said...

"Spirited Disagreement" is a description of The Late Unpleasantness I've never heard. Thank you!

Other names include:
The War of Northern Aggression
The Second War of Independence
Mr. Lincoln's War
The War of the Rebellion as in The Official Records of ...

lelnet said...

Yeah, but you lose your place when a paperback falls on your face. When your kindle falls down, it just times out after 10 minutes and then turns off.