Are You There ILB? It's Me, Scott.

Think I may finally get to Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children, a Scott pick from way back, maybe one of the first times I came to ILB. Recently uncovered an ancient thrift store purchase, the 1965 edition, with intro by Randall Jarrell. Much bigger than I remembered, but that should be okay.

Scott! I had to drive up your way today for a nasal swab (!) and passed your store, craning my neck to see if you were open (?) and inside

Glad to see you here though and know you're doing alright....

The Man Who Loved Children is a baggy monster but hell, it's good - and that Jarrell intro is excellent.

The Demon Breed – James H. Schmitz (I loved this. I didn’t know J.H. Schmitz at all. This is my kinda non-epic SF.)

Hi Scott, I have read a few Schmitz short stories in the not too distant past - the much-anthologised 'Grandpa' in Penguin SF Omnibus selected by Brian Aldiss, 'The Second Night of Summer' in Oxford Bk of SF Stories selected by Tom Shippey, 'Balanced Ecology' in Norton Bk of SF selected by Le Guin & Attebery. Good clean prose and inventive world building etc - a lot of his stuff seems to have young adult protaganists, tho the stories I read didn't exactly feel like YA SF à la the Heinlein of Podkayne of Mars etc - thank god, maybe.

I also have this nice old Ace pbk waiting to be read - the following in the blurb on the back made me laugh - "The story of Telzey Amberdom, the one in a million mentalist..."

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