dreamer_easy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamer_easy) wrote2007-03-27 01:52 pm
dreamer_easy) wrote2007-03-27 01:52 pm
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Neutron Star
Before sending it off (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tysolna, I still need your snail mail), I re-read three of my favourite Larry Niven stories from his anthology Neutron Star - the eponymous Hugo winner, At the Core, and perhaps my favourite Niven story, Grendel. I probably haven't read these since I was a teenager, when I was in love with Niven's "Known Space", its species and its physics and its gadgets. (More recently, I was similarly delighted by the physics of the galaxy in Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep.) The stories are arguably reeeaaallly science essays, but they're written so crisply and wittily that it doesn't matter. (As a grownup used to squeaky-clean TV heroes, I'm also rather pleased by Beowulf Schaeffer's self-interest and slightly dodgy ethics. :-)
Five bits - some of which I still quote occasionally:
1. Bey! What'll I do?
2. "You would be interested in a high-paying job?" "I'd be fascinated by a high paying job."
3. Oho, said I to myself, said I. [years later I discovered this in turn quotes Gilbert and Sullivan.]
4. "My General Products hull just failed." "I beg your pardon?"
5. "I was thinking that the two of you are like a medium-sized beach ball standing next to a baseball bat."
ETA: I can't help but imagine David Tennant as the seven foot tall, skinny as a rake Schaeffer. :-)
tysolna, I still need your snail mail), I re-read three of my favourite Larry Niven stories from his anthology Neutron Star - the eponymous Hugo winner, At the Core, and perhaps my favourite Niven story, Grendel. I probably haven't read these since I was a teenager, when I was in love with Niven's "Known Space", its species and its physics and its gadgets. (More recently, I was similarly delighted by the physics of the galaxy in Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep.) The stories are arguably reeeaaallly science essays, but they're written so crisply and wittily that it doesn't matter. (As a grownup used to squeaky-clean TV heroes, I'm also rather pleased by Beowulf Schaeffer's self-interest and slightly dodgy ethics. :-)Five bits - some of which I still quote occasionally:
1. Bey! What'll I do?
2. "You would be interested in a high-paying job?" "I'd be fascinated by a high paying job."
3. Oho, said I to myself, said I. [years later I discovered this in turn quotes Gilbert and Sullivan.]
4. "My General Products hull just failed." "I beg your pardon?"
5. "I was thinking that the two of you are like a medium-sized beach ball standing next to a baseball bat."
ETA: I can't help but imagine David Tennant as the seven foot tall, skinny as a rake Schaeffer. :-)
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I shall Bookcrossing it into the ether - I plan to release a bunch of books during the Comedy Festival and see where they end up.
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