From: "Ernest Lilley" <elilley at mindspring.com>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Has anyone read any good books lately?
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:35:11 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Actually, what I like about the detective genre in general is the
exposition. I like the way detective characters notice everything and report
on it in terse prose. Also the way they often seem to know the history of a
place.

Ernest Lilley

Home/Office: 703 371 0226
EJ: 757 581 4146
email: elilley at mindspring.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike B. [mailto:omni at omniphile.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 11:21 PM
To: WSFA members
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Has anyone read any good books lately?

At 10:49 PM 3/24/05 -0500, Ernest Lilley wrote:
>I like a certain amount of the mundane in books. I'm sort of a fan of
>exposition too, handled right...as for food, my favorite parts of Nero
Wolfe
>were the dining scenes.
>
>Ernest Lilley

I'm the exact opposite...I like the strange and wonderful in books (and
friends ;-) and if they leave out eating entirely, it's fine with me.

I like the "what if?" kinds of stories, like Niven's teleporter shorts, and
stories that explore potential future possibilities in a plausible way,
wether those possibilities are technological, sociological, psychological,
biological or cosmological.

I also like fantasy, especially if it mixes some reality in, as with the
Doomfarers of Cormond or The Wiz Biz.  The contrast of magic and technology
is fun and opens lots of new possibilities for mixtures.

If something is cleverly done I'll probably like it, as with David Drake's
Horatio Hornblower in space trilogy (Through the Breach, Fireships and
Igniting the Reaches) where he got the feel of old sailing ship stories
while still having it be with interstellar travel and feuding planets
rather than empires.

Drake doesn't live all that far away if I remember right (NC?)...any chance
of him being a GOH at some point?  Or did that happen while I was "away"?

-- Mike B.
--
Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.