Books

Last revised: 07/25/2000

My life, my love, my joy. I've owned some of my books longer than I've known most of my friends. I knew my way around a library before I knew my way around town. (Yes, Virginia, I am a dork.)

Currently Reading

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" -- this is some of the most well-written kids stuff I have had the pleasure to read in a LONG while. After I finish this, I'm going back to re-reading Spider Robinson's Callahan sequence; "Callahan's Key" was sweet stuff.

Confessions of a Bibliophile

Before alternative was Top 40, before Star Trek: TNG made it cool to like science fiction, I've been reading sci-fi and fantasy. Some of my childhood favorites include The Girl with the Silver Eyes, The House with the Clock in Its Walls, Chronicles of Narnia, and L. Frank Baum's Oz offerings. I can't wait to pass them on to my new niece.

These days I'm still into series, only they're in slightly smaller print with slightly fewer pictures. Among my collection, I have (in quantities taking up large portions of or even multiple shelves):

 Marion Zimmer Bradley: the Darkover series. For the most part, she's quite good, and for those who like to sink themselves into series for weeks on end like I do, she's a godsend - there's at least 15 books in the series, as well as unending numbers of short-story anthologies written by other authors. I'm still mad at her for dying, though; dammit, she's supposed to be as immortal as her fiction! Humph.

Orson Scott Card: Dark, disturbing stuff. Ender's Game provided me with college essay material, and since I wound up with a juicy scholarship, I am quite obliged. The Tales of Alvin Maker is also fascinating multi-volume reading, an alternate history of America's settler phase that stirs in a little magic as an everyday tool.

Alan Cole and Chris Bunch: the Sten series. Fabulous entertainment, as well as a beginner's primer to politics, war strategy, bartending, cooking, extra-terrestrial relations, and general kick-assedness. The repartee is on par with early "Moonlighting".

Robert Heinlein: This man gave me stretch marks on my brain, one of the first authors to ever challenge the way I thought. If I could be Mama Maureen from To Sail Beyond the Sunset, or at least have her as a good friend, I would in a heartbeat. The man deservedly had a prolific career, and I'm on my way to owning all of his stuff.

Michael James: Good luck finding his stuff -- it's the work of one of my best friends, with contributions from the random maniacs in our circle of chuckleheads. His ongoing series features the daredevil intergalactic escapades of Mace's Marauders. (It doesn't hurt its "favorite" status that my alter ego, Moira, is one of the characters.)

Robert Jordan: Call it cruel and unusual reward, but the man should have a keyboard handcuffed to his wrists, so he can finish the damn Wheel of Time series already! This piecemeal stuff is going to drive me batty.

Mercedes Lackey: She's not too deep, but she's so entertaining. I like her Valdemar series, as well as her Diana Tregarde brain candy. And then there's all the elven stuff. She's the literature equivalent of comfort food.

Anne McCaffrey: The Dragonriders of Pern, the Crystal Singer books, The Ship Who Sang and its sequels, and most of the rest of what she's done are good reads. Lately, though, she's had to rely on collaborators in order to keep up the quality and the quantity, which is truly a damn shame.

Spider Robinson: I STRONGLY recommend the Callahan books, the Stardance trilogy, and ANYTHING else he has written. The man is that good. (Forgive me the capitalization, but you really should read some of his stuff. The puns alone are worth it.)

Connie Willis: Her "To Say Nothing of the Dog" rocked my world. She is Mistress of the Absurd, making the daily battle against idiots and incompetence hysterically funny.

Roger Zelazny: the Amber series. If you haven't read it, your literate so-called friends obviously don't like you enough to lend you the books.

Suggested Reading:

So you've read all of the above, have you? Authors I've read recently (but don't own yet in mass quantities) or not so recently (but were good enough to still stick in my head) that I would recommend are listed below.  Have I missed somebody? Please, tell me! I'm always on the lookout for another good book. Here's a good way to reach me: kpitsch@imsa.edu

Get thee to a library!

(or call me for a loan -- I can be very generous when it comes to turning someone else on to a book.)