Neutron Star

[dreamer_easy]

Before sending it off (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. :-)

Comments

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

That's marvellous! I'm so glad it went to a good home (and will go to others, too :-). I haven't read Moorcock fantasy since I was a teen, really, but I remember liking the first Elric book (Elric of Melibone, I assume) and The Sleeping Sorceress (aka The Vanishing Tower). IIRC, this latter contains the line "Ah, what agony is this life!", which we took the piss out of in high school. "How's life, Elric?" "You know. Agony."