MauveMaz Meanderings

OK - found this out there today - it takes me back to the brilliant Arvon Sci-Fi writing course that I had the absolute pleasure of goining on in the summer. We complied out list of fave books and authors, and the list was very similar to this one.

Following is a list of The Most Significant SF & Fantasy Books of the Last 50 Years, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. (Note: not Time magazine.) Bold the ones you have read, strikethrough the ones you read and hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put a star next to the ones you love.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien* (1)
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov 
3. Dune, Frank Herbert *
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin *
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe *
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. *
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Color of Magic, Terri Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison *
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison *
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffery*
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card *
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin ***
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny *
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon *
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute *
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson *
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

What a rare delight - to spend a few days remembering my early days online (1997 when I first met Tlyr, arachne, Mandragora and whitecrow in the wild outpost of ASCEM) via the wonderful Voyager-fest currently occuring on seperis LJ, then update my fanfic website and finally dust off those old C/P stories (cringing at their awesome purpleness, and awfulness!)and post them, and re-watch the C/P songvid that I spent a lost weekend making a couple of years ago when I needed to teach myself iMovie for work, and THEN, just when I was all warm and fuzzy with the Chak/Tom love, to find a totally fucking amazing NEW C/P story from from filenotch.

I think I have died and gone to a parallel universe named after a mythical paradise called heaven.
Indeed - I have a little lump in my throat and a desire to blink a little faster than usual.

I LOVE the fact that I was a fangirl back in the day, when the flame wars raged, and ASCEM and CPSG and BLTs were the cool hangouts, and we were all so fired up with the idea of writing better stories that we set up Slash and Burn to give our little coterie some REAL feedback with crit and everything. And we still meet up for a fangirl squeefest and a ritual watching of the Methos nose painting moment on at least an annual basis, and I still love my cosmic twin Tlyr.

*sigh*

So - a new fandom lures me back into the world of LJ. Haven't fallen so hard for a TV show since the Horsegirls pimped Methos and we all watched the face-painting scene fifty times with appropriate squeee!!!

Life on Mars - a work of genius.
The slash potential is the icing on the delicious cake really - the whole thng is so fabulous. I have been forced to make icons. Am practicing uploading them here with the whole LJ Cut thingy before braving the LOM community. Here goes:

( LoM Icons Away! )

Back to work in earnest today, with a distinct lack of ICT considering I'm an ICT teacher and all!

Had a rather strange experience today that has made me wonder if it was wise to venture back into fannish waters. I really wasn't expecting it, and it although I should know how fen are, I am still unsettled enough to consider disappearing back into the world of the lurker. I think the fact that I reacted by behaving a little like a petulant teenager has made me feel a little foolish. I'd forgotton how it goes...

*imagines the wise and beautiful T'lyr shaking her head and saying..."exactly my dear - why did we retire all those years ago in the first place..." and nods sadly*

Hmmmm. Will leave any drastic decisions until the weekend. Maybe I should just ressurect the website, and leave the LJ thing alone.

*exasperated sigh*

So here I am, languishing in the Purple Palace on a Bank Holiday, trying to summon up the Energy/Will/Desire to paint the bathroom. have the Paint, the Tools, the Bathroom, the Time, but no Energy/Will/Desire.

I do, or course, have plenty of E/W/D to read Pros and Due South Slash, re-read all those SAB e-mails and remember in amazement when I was a proper fangrrlll, with a Yahoo Group and a Fandom, and stories and everything, read other people's LJs and wish I could update mine more regulalry, and more witty-ly...

I also have much E/W/D to play endlessly with Photoshop, seek out unusual Pros pix, learn new texturising techniques and create fanart.

*sigh*

Life on the fan fringes. It keeps me sane.

 

 

Had a lovely time in Cape Cod - second time and finally got to read Henry Beston's Outermost House while actually looking down on the beach where the house used to be. Divine.

Am testing this LJ cut thing:

( Read more... )

 

So now I have icons, and a suitably mauve colour scheme, and I have started the processs of resurrecting my fan-fic website, which was languishing in a Geocities vault with a username that it lost in the mists of time...
I am spending so much time lurking on other people's Live Journals that I decided to venture into the LJ world fr myself. We'll see what becomes of the MauveMaz persona. I can sense some new fan-fic simmering - my usual response to stress in RL is to retreat into fandom. Will have to watch some Due South and have a go.

So...the lure of LJ has been too strong to resist finally. And so it begins...