New at Reason

David Weigel | June 9, 2006

Nick Gillespie dusts off his English PhD and listens to some new arguments about why certain people read certain novels.

Comments

|6.9.06 @ 8:36AM|#

Great article. The evolutionary theory may help us to figure out why we read. I'm not sure it may help us with what the work means though. Nonetheless, this is very interesting work.

|6.9.06 @ 8:43AM|#

No Heinlein on the men's list? Guys were lying. "Stranger" rules.

|6.9.06 @ 8:51AM|#

I'll start the inevitable and tell you I would go with; it would be one of these three:

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

or

Bulgakov's The Master and the Margarita

|6.9.06 @ 8:52AM|#

Fiction is for women and bedwetters.

I only read instruction manuals and letters.

|6.9.06 @ 9:14AM|#

Hey, Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, have you read Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory? It just occurred to me that it might be a book you'd like. It's got religious overtones, of course, but it also takes some lovely shots at the Church.

I'm not sure I can point to books that influenced me that much. I started reading very young, so my early influences were either the Hardy Boys or Asimov :) I reject Rand as a major influence, because I was a libertarian long before I read her stuff. I suppose the Stoics influenced me a bit--so Meditations and The Discourses could go on the list. I like Dumas quite a lot, but influenced? I haven't run anybody through with a sword or plotted revenge on an epic scale, so I'd say no.

I must think on this.

|6.9.06 @ 9:17AM|#

Pro Libertate,

I've read a few of his spy novels.

As to influence, I was thinking more a long the lines of what did you read in the past that still influences your tastes, reading patterns, political beliefs, etc. today.

Jeff P|6.9.06 @ 9:19AM|#

But...but...JK Rowling was voted Greatest Living British Author!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5058220.stm

I weep that the Western canon has been distilled to a handful of relatively mediocre books.

|6.9.06 @ 9:26AM|#

I weep that the Western canon has been distilled to a handful of relatively mediocre books

Stop that weeping, or you won't be allowed to read from the men's list. It'll be all Oprah for you, Mr Sensitive.

|6.9.06 @ 9:35AM|#

I'm disappointed that Watership Down didn't make either list.

|6.9.06 @ 9:38AM|#

Watership Down is AWESOME!

Pro Libertate - Brideshead Revisited is a good book for taking pops at the church.

|6.9.06 @ 9:49AM|#

Hmm. I'm really fond of the redemption theme, which either came from a Christian upbringing or some book or books. Or all of the above. Can't think of a specific book though.

Style-wise, I tend to like simpler, more direct writing. That clearly came from reading Asimov at a young age--interesting ideas, plots, and settings delivered in a clear manner. I like Hemingway for similar reasons. On the other hand, I like a lot of older fiction (esp. French--Dumas, Hugo, Voltaire), which isn't written that way at all.

I give up. If I am granted total consciousness on my deathbed, I'll probably determine that the most influential books on me were nonfiction, anyway. Except for maybe Geisel's seminal work, Hop on Pop.

|6.9.06 @ 9:56AM|#

The funny thing is, a lot of the women's books are female romantic and/or angst books. Seriously, how is the Handmaid's Tale any more deep than 1984? Heck, it doesn't hold a candle to Brave New World.

I should note, in the dystopia genre BNW and 1984 are duking it out for who is gonna be most accurate.

|6.9.06 @ 10:00AM|#

Does anyone else think Catch 22 is the the most overrated thing after pop tarts?

I must have tried reading that book three or four times and it just plain sucks.

|6.9.06 @ 10:03AM|#

"...the last Modern Language Association conference�serves notice that literary studies is already in the thick of a serious engagement with science, to the benefit of critics and readers�and scientists, too, who need the human implications of their work to be explored fully�alike."

If only libertarian studies could do the same.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.9.06 @ 10:16AM|#

Hmmm, I don't read fiction much at all. In fact, since college, I've read exactly three novels of fiction. All of my reading has been histories, biographies and true stories of adventure.

I guess my favorite work of fiction is Heart Of Darkness, but it's gleaned from a VERY small sample size.

|6.9.06 @ 10:17AM|#

Mine'd be:

Crime and Punishment - our very own Fyodor
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.9.06 @ 10:18AM|#

If only libertarian studies could do the same.

Shouldn't you be out planning the future death of wireless site workers?

|6.9.06 @ 10:22AM|#

Thomas Paine's Goiter, you should read some more fiction. There are some great books out there, well worth the read. Though you hit a great one with Heart of Darkness. Conrad was a fine writer--amazing that English wasn't his first language (or even his second, probably--French was the language of educated people in Eastern Europe at the time).

If you like history, then historical fiction should be an easy segue into fiction reading.

|6.9.06 @ 10:24AM|#

Pro Libertate,

French is still the language of educated people. :)

|6.9.06 @ 10:26AM|#

Sherlock Holmes is the best.

|6.9.06 @ 10:27AM|#

"These cognitive mechanisms," writes Zunshine, "evolved to process information about thoughts and feelings of human beings, seem to be constantly on the alert, checking out their environment for cues that fit their input conditions. On some level, works of fiction manage to cheat these mechanisms into believing that they are in the presence of material that they were 'designed' to process, i.e., that they are in the presence of agents endowed with a potential for a rich array of intentional stances."

Judging from this sample, the resurrection of lit-crit is greatly exaggerated.

BTW, I'm a man, and my picks would be:

- Moby Dick

- A la recherche du temps perdu (Proust) (And no, I'm not gay.)

|6.9.06 @ 10:28AM|#

"No Heinlein on the men's list? Guys were lying. 'Stranger' rules."

This survey was done in the UK, so I would imagine that would explain some of the oddities. Based on my knowledge of other people's reading habits, there's no way Camus would come up #1 in a US poll and I strongly suspect Catch-22 would be in the top three.

|6.9.06 @ 10:29AM|#

PL - The Other,

You know, it's rather pathetic that I don't know French. As I noted above, I'm a big fan of Voltaire, Hugo, and Dumas, and I also like Montaigne and Montesquieu.

It's also pathetic that I don't know Spanish, but that's due to where I live and the fact that I grew up with Spanish-speaking friends, rather than for literary reasons. I can curse in Spanish, at least :)

|6.9.06 @ 10:30AM|#

"Does anyone else think Catch 22 is the the most overrated thing after pop tarts? I must have tried reading that book three or four times and it just plain sucks."

Really? I think it's great. Certainly one of the funniest pieces of "great literature" out there.

|6.9.06 @ 10:33AM|#

Really? I think it's great. Certainly one of the funniest pieces of "great literature" out there.

I wanted to like it so much. I just thought it was silly.

'Something Happened' on the other hand, I quite liked, although it's a bit heavy going.

Confederacy of Dunces made me laugh. Also overrated, but quite funny.

And all you libertarians should read 'The Dirty Havana Trilogy'. Nasty!

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.9.06 @ 10:36AM|#

Thomas Paine's Goiter, you should read some more fiction. There are some great books out there, well worth the read. Though you hit a great one with Heart of Darkness. Conrad was a fine writer--amazing that English wasn't his first language (or even his second, probably--French was the language of educated people in Eastern Europe at the time). If you like history, then historical fiction should be an easy segue into fiction reading.

I read boatloads through high school and college, but in the last decade, hm, or so, since, I just don't find it interesting. I'm much more captivated by real stories -- "The Darkest Jungle", "Endurance", "Eastern Approaches" -- they may lack the beautiful prose, but the stories are just as good, often better.

Besides that I've been a history buff since I could read, and all these years later, I still can't learn enough history. It's almost an addiction. I've certainly read "the greats", in fact, I've read all but three books on the Top 20 lists for men and women in Nick's article. And I've read countless more great works of fiction, but they've just never interested me.

|6.9.06 @ 10:39AM|#

Thomas Paine's Goiter, I'm sympathetic. I go through long phases where all I'm reading is nonfiction. But then that copy of Dune or whatever catches my eye, and I'm back to the fake stuff :)

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.9.06 @ 10:47AM|#

Thomas Paine's Goiter, I'm sympathetic. I go through long phases where all I'm reading is nonfiction. But then that copy of Dune or whatever catches my eye, and I'm back to the fake stuff :)

I veered from the history path with the Bourne Trilogy (received as a gift) a few years ago and I read those in a week. I then read almost all of Ludlum's stuff in the next few months, so I have my fiction quota for the next 5 years :)

|6.9.06 @ 10:50AM|#

1) Did Gillespie's ass-kicking leather jacket come with the PhD?

2) Not even a mention of Hemingway...probably because his short stories are better than the novels.

|6.9.06 @ 10:51AM|#

But then that copy of Dune or whatever catches my eye, and I'm back to the fake stuff :)


Dune is good. The rest of the follow ups were pretty weak.

Aaah man, I will never forget the look on this chick's face when she saw me reading R.A Salvatore's Underdark Drow Trilogy on the bus. God, she was so pretty and I was sat there reading the lamest, most tiny-cocked book you could possibly imagine.

|6.9.06 @ 10:52AM|#

I veered from the history path with the Bourne Trilogy (received as a gift) a few years ago and I read those in a week. I then read almost all of Ludlum's stuff in the next few months, so I have my fiction quota for the next 5 years

See, there's your problem. You starved yourself, and then when you couldn't take it anymore you binged on junk.

|6.9.06 @ 10:59AM|#

Bubba Zanetti,

Oh, I don't know about that. I think that The Sun Also Rises is my favorite Hemingway work.

|6.9.06 @ 11:04AM|#

jp,

What else do you like? I also tend to answer Moby Dick or In Search of Lost Time when asked the favorite novel question. Maybe you should be recommending books to me.

|6.9.06 @ 11:06AM|#

Whoever said 'The Master and Margarita' by Bulgakov was dead on -- super overlooked and managed not to get killed by Stalin, guy deserves a statue or something just for that...

'Jude the Obscure" Hardy

'St Petersberg' Biely --

those would be my old skool

New school:

Death and the Penguin - kharkov

|6.9.06 @ 11:11AM|#

Pop-tarts are overrated? Just the opposite if you ask me.

|6.9.06 @ 11:24AM|#

Mitch -- That's an interesting coincidence. You don't by any chance subscribe to both Opera News and Juggs?

As for novels . . . I don't know if any of these will strike your fancy. I like them:

- The big ones by Sinclair Lewis -- Main Street, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, Arrowsmith, and especially It Can't Happen Here

- The mature novels of the highly underrated James Gould Cozzens -- The Just and the Unjust; Guard of Honor; By Love Possessed; Morning, Noon and Night; plus others

- The House of the Seven Gables, though I'm not a huge fan of The Scarlet Letter other than the framing chapter.

- The five or so novels I've read of Balzac's, especially Lost Illusions. I plan to read more of his.

- Middlemarch

- Some of James -- Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady, The Aspern Papers. I plan to read more of his, too.

|6.9.06 @ 11:31AM|#

Does anyone else think Catch 22 is the the most overrated thing after pop tarts?

No, Moby Dick is.
Put me in a coma.
The fraud that keeps going and going and going.
Worst. Book. Ever.

|6.9.06 @ 11:37AM|#

Moby Dick is quite good, in my opinion. If you have trouble with it, get one of the abridged versions that leaves out the big section on whaling. I also like Catch-22, though the whaling section in it should also be omitted :)

I have my suspicions about Ulysses, but I haven't built up enough desire to attempt to read it yet, so I'll refrain from commentary.

|6.9.06 @ 12:02PM|#

"Aaah man, I will never forget the look on this chick's face when she saw me reading R.A Salvatore's Underdark Drow Trilogy on the bus. God, she was so pretty and I was sat there reading the lamest, most tiny-cocked book you could possibly imagine."

Heh, and I've known more than a few hot goth-nerd women with a bookshelf full of Salvatore (and Weis, Hickman, and every other fantasy hack on the planet); there are worse things to be caught reading.

ed|6.9.06 @ 12:11PM|#

Actually I thought the first few pages of Moby Dick were quite funny. Next thing I knew I was in a dimly lit hospital room with priests hovering about and an orderly going through my belongings. Dangerous reading.

Warren|6.9.06 @ 12:18PM|#

"Dune" is hands down the greatest tome ever assembled in the English language. It's a shame that it's part of the heavily stereotyped sci-fi genre. But, I can't say it "changed my life".

The most life-changing work of fiction, well that just has to be "Fun with Dick and Jane". I mean what is more life changing than learning to read. I have to mention "Green Eggs and Ham" as well, because, while one is learning to read, it's essential to have something worth reading.

The book that has had the biggest impact in my adult life is "Fundamentals of Physics" by Halliday & Resnick.

If you're going to insist on a life-changing adult novel, I guess that would probably be "The Fountainhead".

|6.9.06 @ 12:38PM|#

I've shared TPG's near-obsession with non-fiction for the past 6-8 years, my favorite probably being Massie's biography on Peter the Great.

I took a break a couple of years ago to re-read Shogun then jumped right back to biographies and histories.

I spent my teen years reading Clancy, King, Ludlum, etc. but they just don't have the pull for me anymore. I've liked some Hugo and Hemingway. But truth is indeed often more fascinating than fiction. I'm currently reading Keegan's history of WW1.

|6.9.06 @ 1:10PM|#

The thing with Moby-Dick (and Ulysses, too, really) is that while it has some very profound things to say, in many cases you need to stop taking it so damn seriously and realize that it's full of penis jokes and satire.

I mean, not knowing Melville, Moby-Dick can seem really boring, but knowing him, it's hard to pick any part out of it and not find something incredibly amusing.

I mean, the whole part where he classifies whales... you have a schoolteacher subdividing a group of animals, who he has just self-righteously declared fish, against the science of the day, into groups arbitrarily by size, and then assigns to them terms generally assigned to books (the smallest whales are the folio, for example).

It's amusing. It shows you the sort of guy Ishmael is: not a guy who really gets the deeper things. But somehow the guy who survives.

|6.9.06 @ 1:11PM|#

I've shared TPG's near-obsession with non-fiction for the past 6-8 years, my favorite probably being Massie's biography on Peter the Great.

Oh, yeah, that's a good read. Of course, Peter was a fascinating character.

|6.9.06 @ 1:11PM|#

For fear of being obvious, Moby-Dick is my favorite novel.

|6.9.06 @ 1:37PM|#

Green Eggs and Ham made me willing to try unknown foods and made me the gourmand that I am today. (Age 6)

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time made me a fearful of big government conservative (at age 12).

Catch 22 and MASH were influential for me in that I learned that I must avoid the insanity of military service at all costs. (Age 17)

Rand's novels and essays changed me from a fiscal conservative to an anarcho-capitalist (probably not what she was aiming for-hahaha) and from an agnostic to an atheist. (Age 16 to 18)

Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings didn't change me philosophically, but it did bring out a love of adventure-fantasy. (age 21)

Ian Fleming's Bond novels were fun to read. (Age 22-25)

Heinlein was a mainstain read in my twenties and reinforced philosophies I already held.

In my thirties and forties, I quit reading fiction, too busy with work and family.

A "Road to Damascus" experience and the Bible changed me from an atheist to a believer. (Age 42)

Reading Tolkien, and then C. S. Lewis's Narnia stories to my daughter (age 49 to 51) (daughter's age 6 to 8) in order to teach her to love reading rekindled my love for fantasy-adventure.

Last month I bought a boxed set of the Harry Potter books for my daughter (now age 9) and she is midway through the second book. I am now reading the fifth book of the series. J. K. Rowlings is a good story teller, but I can't say the books are changing my life, just adding enjoyment to it. (One month from my 52nd birthday)

I've picked up a few of Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear my ex-wife has left in my house. Looks like an interesting narrative. I might start reading those next.

As for dislikes, I have never been able to read Hemingway. He puts me to sleep. As did Faulkner. Steinbeck was forced on me in High school and only served to anger me as I felt no sympathy for his characters.

I hope this (the subject of Nick's blog entry)portends a new direction for literary criticism away from the threadbare Marxist-Freudian rut it has been in for fifty years.

|6.9.06 @ 1:39PM|#

Wow. There are probably even fewer women whose favorite novel is Moby Dick than there are women libertarians.

Ken Silber|6.9.06 @ 1:42PM|#

Nick, Sokal's a physicist. No chemistry professor would have written "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity".

Warren|6.9.06 @ 2:10PM|#

NoStar,
Did that "Road to Damascus" experiene involve a blow to the head?

|6.9.06 @ 2:14PM|#

I REALLY like Umberto Eco. "Foucault's Pendulum" and "The Name of the Rose" are must reads. You have to make it all the way through them to get it, but there is big payoff if you do.

I also nominate the original Dune. None of its follow ups were of that caliber.

Tim Cavanaugh|6.9.06 @ 2:16PM|#

I have my suspicions about Ulysses, but I haven't built up enough desire to attempt to read it yet, so I'll refrain from commentary.

Tim Cavanaugh and Marilyn Monroe (two stars who are too beautiful for this world) are in complete agreement: Ulysses is just jake.

|6.9.06 @ 2:22PM|#

In my early thirties I read the entire Dune series. I was impressed how fairly Herbert could address and champion conflicting themes. The books themselves had no apparent change on me.

|6.9.06 @ 2:26PM|#

On the really, relly bad side of things are the ostensibly grand Ana Karenina and An American Tragedy. Stupid people doing stupid things overwritten with an author's voice telling us that the world made them that way and they aren't responsible. If the novel goes like that, I'm not interested.

|6.9.06 @ 2:28PM|#

I'd hazard to guess that more of the locals have been transformed by Reason magazine than by any novel. I don't know what that says or about whom, but there you go.

|6.9.06 @ 2:29PM|#

Okay, Tim, I'll read the danged book. Maybe :)

Dune is a great read. I actually like the later books, too, which apparently is uncommon. As novels, none of them equal the original, but they are all interesting. I always read the whole series when I re-read Dune. Incidentally, I cannot abide the new versions written by Brian Herbert et al.

|6.9.06 @ 2:29PM|#

Warren,

No, no blow to the head, just the revealed and still felt presence of the Ruach HaKodesh (The Holy Spirit). Since this occured almost 10 years ago, I have been able to stop my migraine headaches and depressions with only prayer. Relief is within minutes. Other people say that my hands give them relief from pain, (but others maintain that my puns cause as much pain as I relieve.)

|6.9.06 @ 2:46PM|#

In the category of 'favorite', as in fun,...
I Second the motion for Master and Margarita

also,

Don Quixote
Candide
Alice in Wonderland!!! Still killing it!
Pretty much anything by Vonnegut or George Saunders

JG

|6.9.06 @ 2:47PM|#

Not even a mention of Hemingway...probably because his short stories are better than the novels.

I read his short stories. They made me feel suicidal. I then read Stranger in a Strange Land and felt better.

|6.9.06 @ 2:51PM|#

Ken Silber,

Sokal was really fisking other physicists.

|6.9.06 @ 3:22PM|#

I was a student of Dr. Zunshine's last semester. She's a great teacher and scholar (and I think a libertarian!). Second, I can't just choose one novel so I'll choose three or four (or five):

"Book of the New Sun" by Gene Wolfe;
"Little, Big" John Crowley;
"Ulysses";
"Crying of Lot 49" Pynchon;
"The Plague" Camus

|6.9.06 @ 3:26PM|#

Nobody has yet mentioned a few personal favorites:

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

JR by William Gaddis. A great comic novel about business and more. Written almost entirely in unattributed dialog, it'll take you at least 75 pages to get in the swing of things, but from then on you'll be able to recognize dozens of characters simply by the way they talk. In one scene, you can tell who just walked into a room by the way everyone else changes the way they speak. Amazing.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. A funny and very deep novel about academia and literature and much more.

Any of Neal Stephenson's last four books.

Anything by P.G. Wodehouse.

Yes, I have a soft spot for literature that makes me laugh.

|6.9.06 @ 3:46PM|#

Cavanaugh,

Stay away from my girl.

|6.9.06 @ 3:50PM|#

Ray Bradbury's work is definitely in the Dune category of being criminally underappreciated due to bullshit conventions of "correct" literary genres.

|6.9.06 @ 4:01PM|#

Bubba Zanetti, good point. Bradbury is a heck of a writer. I love his short stories! The earliest non-children's book I can remember reading was his short story collection, S is for Space. And, of course, Fahrenheit 451 is a masterpiece.

|6.9.06 @ 4:11PM|#

Pro, he has an arrestingly good short story called "Pillar of Fire." I will not give it away, but read it if you can, it's in 3 or 4 different short story collections.

|6.9.06 @ 4:22PM|#

In Search of Lost Time changed my life. I started reading it when I was 22 and when I finished I noticed I was 25.

|6.9.06 @ 4:23PM|#

Bubba, it's in S is for Space. Going to the Incinerator--it's my friend ;)

|6.9.06 @ 6:08PM|#

"Any of Neal Stephenson's last four books." - PapayaSF

No way! That must make us two of six people in the U.S. who have actually read the Baroque cycle all the way through. I've got to say, tho, that I enjoyed Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon more than the Baroque books.

|6.9.06 @ 6:24PM|#

ROB GOT 69.

Way to go, Dude!

|6.9.06 @ 7:27PM|#

Rob: Yeah, overall Cryptonomicon was the most fun, but there were a lot of great bits in the Baroque Cycle: Waterhouse and Newton trying to buy lenses and prisms with various kinds of money, picking the galley slaves ("Take him, he snores!" "Where do you want to row today?"), etc. etc. But Eliza's coded letters were rather tedious, as I wasn't interested in trying to crack the code.

Scott Stein|6.9.06 @ 9:36PM|#

-Shameless self promotion alert-

I don't claim that it will make any literary critic's list of the top twenty novels of all time (too bad for the critics), but I know Reason readers -- even the ones who say they don't read fiction -- will enjoy my new novel, Mean Martin Manning, due out later this year.

Not that I assume any of you will remember, if you read them, but two of my satires have been published in Liberty: "Garghibition" (1999) and "Zero Tolerance" (2005).

There's a description of Mean Martin Manning at http://www.encpress.com/MMM.html

-End of shameless self promotion-

|6.10.06 @ 12:15AM|#

The Modern Library - 100 Best Novels

|6.10.06 @ 12:28AM|#

Dune is AWESOME.

I still think God Emperor of Dune was my favorite because it was just so damn...alien. It took the previous empire society, which is pretty recognizable in terms of most human societies, and stood it on its head: the proud Fremen reduced to pathetic museum pieces, armies based on women, Duncan Idaho reborn again and again and again..., and of course the insanity that comes with a giant worm-man ruling the galaxy...

|6.10.06 @ 7:36AM|#

"Budding Prospects" by TC Boyle is probably my favorite fiction novel. Hysterically funny and quite sad and cynical as well. "East is East" was also quite enjoyable.

My taste in fiction generally runs toward popcorn trash like Conan, Elric, and Mac Bolan, and sci-fi. I really enjoyed Jeff Noon's "Pollen" and "Vurt" and of course I love me some PKD and Heinlein.

Mostly I read non-fiction though, often history or social history, though I am not a scholar.

Books that changed my life might be such as "Magick in theory and practice" and "The Book of the Law" by Crowley. Allan Watts' writings on zen. "Book of Five Rings" as well. I've been struggling through Hermes Trimegistus and a good book on Kabala, and I cannot yet say they have changed my life, although they all do to some extent, don't they?

And, oh, yeah, I've been cracking open the 'Bible' lately, though mostly on-line. I flipped through a book at Borders that essentially claimed that the Bible is a mystical instruction book with lots of Magick rituals in it, etc. I might pick that up, or a better book if a good recc comes my way. Also, the wife and I have this crazy notion that we are going to learn Latin together and so I am looking for some good edumacational texts etc. on that subject.

Provided, of course, that I survive this flu that is wracking me at present.

|6.10.06 @ 5:56PM|#

NoStar - Huh???

PapayaSF - Cryptonomicon was definitely a jewel! But I haven't read a book by Stephenson I haven't liked, to tell the truth. Including the stuff he wrote as Stephen Bury ("Cobweb" and "Interface").

But I definitely prefer his earlier "Stephenson" novels to his later stuff or earlier stuff. The Bury books are dumbed down versions of his sci-fi work and the Baroque stuff is just plain tough to follow because of the looping nature of the simultaneously occurring plots.

The Waterhouse bits, the Shaftoe bits, & the Eliza bits were good and I definitely enjoyed the series. I just thought the organization of it needed more work prior to publication... I'm a fairly leierate and literary guy, but I found it a bit tough to follow at times.

|6.10.06 @ 10:48PM|#

NoStar,
Careful with the "Clan of the Cave Bear" series. Better to just try to ship it to Al Queda and other would be bombers of public places. It's mostly pornography dressed up as anthropological/historical fiction.

|6.11.06 @ 12:12AM|#

Rob: Yes, I agree it could have used some tightening. Not that it proves anything, but here's a picture of the manuscript.

|6.11.06 @ 4:36PM|#

PapayaSF - WOW. Neal REALLY needs to hire an editor to help him out! :)