A Seed Saver's Garden

[meadow]

Andre Norton's, The Crystal Griffin, was one of my favorites of hers. I think it holds up as a standalone read.

 

[Zeedman]

With Foster, you sort of need to read the peripherals to get the full effect of the Flinx novels. It helps to read the books on the founding of the Human/Thranx alliance to get the whole system in perspective, and Skua September's appearance in Flinx in Flux is a lot better to understand if you have already read the Icerigger Trilogy. I always wondered why he stopped writing stories in that universe. There could be some interesting things there (for example, since, by the time Tran Ky-Ky goes through it's next warm cycle, the Tran will have presumably started traveling in space, there are probably going to be THREE kinds of them, Cold Weather, Golden Saia, and an intermediate form (with the cold weather's heavy coat, but the Saia's lack of chiv and dan, since neither would be much use on a space ship or any other planted that DOESN'T have a nearly universal frozen ocean like Tran Ky-Ky.)

Agreed. Some of the supposedly stand-alone novels of the Humanx Commonwealth help to understand people & places in the Flinx series. Which makes Foster's work alone a huge - and entertaining - undertaking. It took me years to work my way through it. The "science" is really questionable, but Foster is a great world builder.

 

[heirloomgal]

No ! Space Opera released a self title album in 1973. Unfortunately for them the album went nowhere. I liked many of tunes on the album and I still have the original copy I purchased. LOL !

I googled 'space opera album' and found the album you're talking about! Good tunes! I liked it!

 

[heirloomgal]

I certainly have some new inspiration for literature!

 

[ducks4you]

Eldest DD was reading before K. In 3rd grade her teacher created a reading curriculum for her.
She read series of books, including the Little House of the Prairie series, and the OZ series.
Oldies, but goodies and great and clean fiction for your kids.

 

[Jack Holloway]

I've been trying to not turn @heirloomgal 's post into a book recommendation one, but I broke down, again. Carl Hiaasen has seven YA books out. I've only read the first four Hoot, Flush, Scat, and Chomp. The fifth book I stopped reading when the adult's (helping the protagonist) foot was run over. Didn't know that there were two more books after that one. They are quite funny, but realize that the YAs in the books are often in danger of one sort or another and can get hurt. You also might have to have your kids read up on Florida, as all the books are set in Florida. I think Hoot was made into a movie.

Holes by Louis Sachar (also made into a movie) has good reviews and is on my shelf to read. I've also got Hoodoo by Ronald L. Smith to read.

 

[heirloomgal]

I've been trying to not turn @heirloomgal 's post into a book recommendation one, but I broke down, again. Carl Hiaasen has seven YA books out. I've only read the first four Hoot, Flush, Scat, and Chomp. The fifth book I stopped reading when the adult's (helping the protagonist) foot was run over. Didn't know that there were two more books after that one. They are quite funny, but realize that the YAs in the books are often in danger of one sort or another and can get hurt. You also might have to have your kids read up on Florida, as all the books are set in Florida. I think Hoot was made into a movie.

Holes by Louis Sachar (also made into a movie) has good reviews and is on my shelf to read. I've also got Hoodoo by Ronald L. Smith to read.

This Hoot sounds very interesting! It has several elements that we are all fascinated with, ---> esp. scary animals that can seal your fate! Like alligators! We have a NaGeo documentary about the everglades that we've watched many times for that reason. (Shark Week is popular here too). I googled 'Hoot' and the author's name & turns out some of the chapters are narrated on youtube! We all LOVE audiobooks and have been listening to them as a family for years, especially in the car - where we are alot. Coincidentally, I recently tried to get my daughter an audiobook subscription online (audible.ca) but one book per month for their monthly fee hardly seems like a deal. I see that Hoot is in their listings. I really need to find a good audiobook place. We'll need to check these books out for sure!

Yes, Holes! We have both the book as well as the video, and it hasn't been picked up yet, though I've been wanting to read/watch it for years. I think years ago when DS & DD were much younger they asked me what it was about and I joked that it was a story about kids who were enrolled in a camp where kids do nothing but hard labor; I actually had no idea I was just running with the cover image in jest. That seems to have instilled a permanent resistance in them.

 

[flowerbug]

Eldest DD was reading before K. In 3rd grade her teacher created a reading curriculum for her.
She read series of books, including the Little House of the Prairie series, and the OZ series.
Oldies, but goodies and great and clean fiction for your kids.

Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were both good but i finished those series rather quickly and now could not recall much about any of them. in more recent times there have been other series that the kids were/are reading but i've been away from the library now long enough that i couldn't say what is popular.

Goosebumps was one of them, then for YA it was Harry Potter, Twighlight and the Divergent series, and some others too. i never got into vampire stuff too much so i don't know that genre very well. i just like science and geeky things and fantasy too if it is done well.

 

[digitS']

I have read and then re-read only a few books - some have been mentioned. The number is even fewer of those from childhood days and then again as an adult. You have now touched that era and that brings Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn to mind. As a kid, it is likely that reading it brought emotions to the surface that a teenage boy may have been trying to out grow . I know that those emotions resurfaced when I reread Huckleberry Finn as an adult.

I started off right, I guess, reading Tom Sawyer first. Started to read it again, all these years later but despite that amazing Twain writing ability shining out on every page - I decided that I had really outgrown that book. That was recently!

Years of adulting ... I had to read the Harry Potter books before I was gonna feel that they would be okay for my youngest child ...

Steve

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Agreed. Some of the supposedly stand-alone novels of the Humanx Commonwealth help to understand people & places in the Flinx series. Which makes Foster's work alone a huge - and entertaining - undertaking. It took me years to work my way through it. The "science" is really questionable, but Foster is a great world builder.

And even THEN, there are a few questions I'd really like to ask Foster in person, like whether Tran can retract their chiv independently of each other (I assume they have to be able to do that, or turning while chivaning would be impossible (you can't turn on three blades side by side, that's sort of why rollerblades largely replaced roller skates)) , exactly how Tran ky-ky is pronounced (I've always assumed it was supposed to rhyme with Waikiki. All we know is that is isn't with hard "a"s for the y's), and how Thranx actually breathe (the fact they drown if their abdomens are submerged indicated spiracles like one would find on an earth insect, but the fact that they can breathe at their sizes on Earth would seem to actually require something like lungs, since passive oxygen absorption doesn't work at that scale.)
As for the science, he probably did the best he could with space plus and minus. The moment you want to write about a trans-planetary, let alone trans stellar, world, you run into the whole speed of light limit problem to get around, as well as all of the relativity problems that come along with traveling anything CLOSE to the speed of light . Roddenberry solved it with the Warp Drive and Spatial distortion, Foster used Space Plus and Space Minus. I went with the Tachyoverse and the tachyon pulse engine. Until we have a verifiable function way to break it, it's more or less anyone's guess. And if there really IS no way to break it, or even function anywhere near close to it, then you'd more or less have to chuck nearly ALL interplanetary interstellar commonwealth or empire stories, there'd be no way for anyone to even communicate effectively planet to planet.