One fan, two or more fen... Don't you grok fannish? Standard terminology, at least amongst the more traditional (or more American?) side of SF fandom.

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."

I may not grok fannish, but I do grok spock...

I really liked stranger in a strange land (the book where we find the first use of the word grok) but I wish mt Heinlein (I think it was he) had been as revolutionary in it about the roles of women in his vison of the future, seeing as he was attacking every other social structure/assumption of the time.


Can't have everything.......



My reality check has just bounced again.......

Haven't read 'Stranger in a Strange Land' in a long time. got some of his others - usually shorter too - and like them. Most of my s-f tends to be on the vintage side. Anyone else read Edmund Cooper. British writer of 60s/70s

"Grok". Can be used with object "fannish" or "Spock". Meaning not obvious - could it be "understand"?

I found Heinlein rather too right-wing for my tastes, I'm afraid.



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That which does not kill us makes us stranger.
(Llewelyn the dragon, Ozy and Millie)

Sarah

According to the book, "Grok" means "Drink" (as a symbol of how massive a part water plays in Martian ritual) but yup, understand, percieve, recognise, know. To understand something so competely as to recognise love/hate it as if it were part of you type thing. It gets a *lot* of coverage in SIASL..

And I've just thought that it might actually be by Mr I Asimov. My memory, she is not what she was...

Neither is my mind.



Post Edited (04-29-03 22:45)

My reality check has just bounced again.......

the very first sci-fi book I ever read was "Have Spacesuit Will Travel" by Heinlein. Got me hooked. He's one of my fave authors, although his stuff got weirder and much more sexual the older he got. But I love the sly comedy in a lot of the books and the technology was spot-on, which I thought was really cool. It always sounded so plausible. If you go back and look, a lot of the technology he wrote about is here now or is close and in development. Now that's what I call Sci-fi (not fantasy!)

I used to read sci-fi and fantasy almost exclusively. It wasn't until I was about 25 that I branched out and started reading classics and enjoying some more mainstream literature. So I'm still catching up on the classical stuff, but I'm getting there.

I've actually been told that someone tried to patent the waterbed, only to discover that they couldn't, because Heinlein had described it perfectly, and in fair detail, in Stranger in a Strange Land. Of course, he'd envisioned them being used in hospitals to prevent bedsores.

The one thing Heinlein didn't envision was the miniaturization of technology. He had huge computers with vacuum tubes, and a character who could do lighting fast math in his head was nicknamed "SlipStick" (slide rule).

I agree that his early stuff is more hard core sf, while the late stuff got weirder, more sexual (in an incestuous sense in some cases) and he tended to thow in more and more characters from other books. The first thing I tried to read was "The Cat who Walks Through Walls", which went fine through the first half (I particularly liked the bit after they land upside down in a shuttle: "I undid my seat belt and made a quick efficient descent to the ceiling by falling on my face."). Then suddenly he pulled in characters from a dozen or so of his other books that I hadn't read, utterly confusing me. Being the stubborn type, I read all the other books, and then reread that one. Took most of my juinior year of college, as I recall.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Read a lot of Heinlein when I was younger, most of the fatter books as I recall. I liked 'The Cat Who Walked Through Walls', thought it was a great title. And a great name for a cat too - Pixel. I decided at that point if I was going to have a cat, that would be its name.

Some of his stuff was a bit weird - I'm thinking the one where the old guy had his mind/brain transplanted into his secretary's body (can't remember the title offhand). Stranger in a Strange Land was good and I also liked 'Job - a comedy of justice', though it did go a bit wacky towards the end (and what's wrong with the surname Graham, anyway??)

Similar(ish) author is John Varley - I really like his stuff - less right-wing than Heinlein, but has a similar feel to Heinlein.

Give it a try - go for 'Steel Beach' first as a good starting point. His books are all set in the same 'universe' (not the right word - they all have the same history/background - aliens have kicked mankind off earth, so they are forced to live on the moon and other planets - luna is run by the Central Computer, which reminded me a lot of the RPG Paranoia). Great fun.

If I remember correctly then that Heinlein book about a brain-transplant story was called 'I Will Fear No Evil'.
I read quite a few of Edmund Cooper's books back in the late '70s, but don't recall looking at any of them since then.

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."

that's the puppy.

I like classic SF - Edgar Rice Burroughs 'John Carter of Mars', EE Doc Smith's Lensman and Family D'Alembert.

top stuff. Pulp SF is superb.

I used to like Burroughs, but these days I find that I can only manage a few pages of it at a time. Agreed about Doc Smith, though. Two slightly later & less pulpish SF authors (both deceased, & relatively little-known nowadays) whose works I recommend highly _ if you can find them _ are H. Beam Piper and James H. Schmitz.

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"Some days I diet, other days they serve lasagne."

I also read quite a few Jack L. Chalker ones. To this day, seeing or hearing about centaurs gives me the willies!

Ben! No! Heel! Heel I say! Don't do it!



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I am very interested in the Universe. I am specialising in the Universe and everything surrounding it. - E. L. Wisty

Gnnn. Gnnnnn. Musst ressisttt....



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

ruht roh...now I'm scared...did I say something American that translates poorly in British?

(and by "seeing centaurs" I meant seeing them in movies and whatnot! not real life!)

(and by "gives me the willies" I meant it freaks me out and makes me feel all creepy inside!)

Now you can get your mind out of the gutter Ben!

My mind had already progressed well beyond the gutter, and was already coming back out of the ball-returning thingummy (what is that thing called, anyway?)...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

the ball return.

Well what do you know...



PSD

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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.

I've read some Jack Chalker stuff myself. Can't say I'd be in the queue to be a female character in one of his books.



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"I've often said that the difference between British and American SF TV series is that the British ones have three-dimensional characters and cardboard spaceships, while the Americans do it the other way around."
--Ross Smith

Magda: great to see another Bujold fan. Her books are so entertaining and well written. I borrowed one off a friend and got hooked. I later loaned one to another friend and he got hooked. I don't start reading one unless I've got nothing urgent to do that day.
Sadly, they are not so easy to get hold of in the Uk. Only odd copies of the newer ones are in most bookshops. Could always try the Sheffield Space Centre if I get desperate.