Oh, and I have to comment about this odd little quirk in my library... I LOVE the fact that my Library has 777 books in it. I LOVE AIRPLANES! My dad repaired airplanes for the military and he passed on his love of all things airplane to me. I've been super happy to watch my library have 737, 747 and now 777 books in it! wewt!

(I think he was hoping I'd become an aerospace engineer one day... sorry dad, I'm less mechanically inclined than a blind rabbit, as well as being a total klutz! No, really, ask PDE about my ability to smack into things -- you won't believe it.)

posted by kassetra at 9:52 am (EST) on Apr 3, 2008

tolerance and understanding of alien cultures, acceptance of species different from humans as equals, even his women characters seem real instead of cardboard cutouts like some stories of the time.
YES. YES. YES. Even for stories of TODAY his women seem VERY real! His women aren't whiny little wusses that couldn't manage to find a serious thought with a map -- UNLIKE many of the women you find in today's 'liberated' sci-fi! When I was reading these books -- I just knew that all of these women (my stars, you do NOT cross his librarians/punch operators!) were capable of re-paving their own driveways whilst holding down their day jobs and taking care of a family (not unlike my own grandmothers!), I mean, I sure as hades wouldn't have wanted to cross any of his woman NOR my own grandmothers! His alien characters were JUST as capable and JUST as oblivious to things that they considered 'normal' behaviour as the humans were -- how much more equal can you possibly be? I mean, if his aliens had 'acted' as if they knew they were 'alien' then it would just go to show the reader that Doc Smith thought they were not 'normal'! He's much farther ahead of the game than many, many of his contemporaries.

First time I ever saw my last name in print - I'm one of the Kinnison clan...
Kinnison is an AWESOME name, and you're way lucky to have it. Doc Smith managed to have MANY names that just 'ring' in my ears, and that's one of them. Verrrrrry cool. My big excitement came from the redheads. I have the same exact golden-red hair colour (it's called Titian Red, after well, Titian's paintings -- they all had 'golden red' hair...), and I was soooooo very excited to read about strong, decent female characters with the same colour of hair (most sci-fi depicts the blonde, brunette, or black-haired woman....). It's actually a 'family' colour, since almost ALL of the women on one side of my family have had golden-red hair.

Admittedly we've just recently met, but I think you'd give anyone trying to drag you off a pretty good run for their money...8^}
HA! Before my opinions were formed, I was a pretty good candidate for brainwas--training in these sorts of matters... later though in my life, it wasn't always so easy for people to drag me off, but truth be told, PDE actually flew in one night and dragged me off with him 10,000 miles away. (Seriously!) heh. He's quite proud of that one.

posted by kassetra at 9:46 am (EST) on Apr 3, 2008

LOL yeah. I used to be heavily into babylon5 and star wars (pre-episodes i, ii, and iii!) -- and both JMS and Lucas have given much credit to Doc Smith's space opera. My step-dad is a BIG sci-fi reader too, so I asked him about them and he rated them as some of his all-time favourites -- so, I snapped up some copies from my local used book store... and I was hooked.

To this day, I STILL love them as my own personal favourite #1 space opera, and STILL don't see ANYTHING wrong with the way he portrayed women (the feminists will be dragging me off to assertiveness camp for that one...). :)

I could really go on a giant gripe about how genders are supposed to be different, how unisexual sci-fi is bland and asinine, but... I doubt you'd want to read that, I mean, I wouldn't even want to read it, and it's my own writing! ha! I could go on another gripe about vampire books as weepy wispy emo goth kids in a teenage crisis, bad, bad romance novels hidden in sci-fi, but... then this comment would be HUGE.. er... huge-r than it already is... wow, I'm making *myself* cranky today... jeez... ok, I'll stop now.

posted by kassetra at 11:26 pm (EST) on Apr 2, 2008

drneutron,

Yeah, my wife just got me into the lensmen series; and so far, I really enjoy them!

Cheers,
Greg

posted by PDExperiment626 at 5:31 am (EST) on Mar 29, 2008

I'll keep you posted on the laptop issue. Right now I'm with your wife, I'm leaning toward the MacBook.

I'm going to try them out on Monday. My husband sells them in his store so I'll get a discount. Yay!

posted by littlegeek at 4:08 pm (EST) on Mar 14, 2008

Hello Jim and thanks for the comment about the book. I was glad to get it because I had been looking forward to The Somnambulist and got a bit worried when I read the other comments. I'll put it back up near the top of the TBR pile now.
When I've finished it I will certainly let you know what I thought of it.
Thanks again, Jody

posted by Jodyreadseverything at 5:43 pm (EST) on Feb 22, 2008

Thanks for the link! I can't wait to try them out. And I will let you know what I think.

posted by KimberlyL at 11:26 am (EST) on Feb 21, 2008

thx

posted by GatorJoker at 1:32 pm (EST) on Jan 31, 2008

Thanks for the welcome! Yes, I was born in New Orleans and lived there until I was 17, when the hurricane hit. I visit as much as I can, I love the city.

posted by catalina7 at 7:29 pm (EST) on Jan 27, 2008

Hey, DrNeutron!

I enjoyed your reviews of 13 Bullets and 99 Coffins.

Like you I dislike vampire stories where the vamps are just weepy people in black lace with superpowers.

Some other vamp stories you might wanna check out are They Hunger by Scott Nicholson and The Summoning by Bentley Little.

posted by jseger9000 at 1:18 pm (EST) on Jan 25, 2008

Excellent! I loved all of the series, hope you and your wife do as well.

posted by KimberlyL at 9:41 pm (EST) on Jan 1, 2008

I'm familiar with the area you speak of. I lived in Vicksburg, MS in 2005 and went to Monroe a couple times. Happy Holidays to you.

posted by raggedtig at 3:47 pm (EST) on Dec 24, 2007

So, are you originally from Louisiana, or just currently living there? What part of Louisiana? Just curious. I'm in Biloxi, MS.

posted by raggedtig at 10:33 am (EST) on Dec 20, 2007

Thanks for joining 40 Something Library Thingers!

posted by MDLady at 12:45 pm (EST) on Dec 7, 2007