Too easy!

[Mike Sales]

This Grok reminds me of the Groke from Moominland.

Wherever she stands, the ground below her freezes and plants and grass die. She leaves a trace of ice and snow when she walks the ground. Anything that she touches will freeze. On one occasion, she froze a campfire by sitting down on it. She seeks friendship and warmth, but she is declined by everyone and everything, leaving her in her cold cavern on top of the Lonely Mountains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Groke

In some ways a fitting name for the sucker up of fluff and dirt?

[Mick F]

Nothing to do with Grockles then ( or Emmets!)
I have read some of Heinlein's books, but not that one. I'll look it up, I like Science Fiction.

I don't know what Grockle means, though know what they are.
An Emmet is Cornish for "ant" as they swarm all over the place.

Stranger in a Strange Land was a monumental book, but very dated even when I first read it in 1981.
It tells the story of a human brought back to Earth from Mars. His parents were humans but lived on Mars with the Martians, and Michael (the subject of the book) was orphaned and brought up by Martians so had Martian ideas and thoughts, plus was able to go into trances and shut down into almost a death-like suspension.
He spoke Martian, thought like a Martian, but was human and could speak English too.

Read the Wiki page, but better still, read the book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_ ... range_Land

[reohn2]

....Stranger in a Strange Land was a monumental book, but very dated even when I first read it in 1981.
It tells the story of a human brought back to Earth from Mars. His parents were humans but lived on Mars with the Martians, and Michael (the subject of the book) was orphaned and brought up by Martians so had Martian ideas and thoughts, plus was able to go into trances and shut down into almost a death-like suspension.
He spoke Martian, thought like a Martian, but was human and could speak English too.

Read the Wiki page, but better still, read the book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_ ... range_Land

On your recommendation I've ordered it,so it better be a gud 'un

[Mick F]

Enjoy, but be prepared to be disturbed by it.

Religion, mysticism, weird stuff, politics, sex ............... but no rock and roll!

[reohn2]

Enjoy, but be prepared to be disturbed by it.

I'm already disturbed

Religion, mysticism, weird stuff, politics, sex ............... but no rock and roll!

And I've delved deep into all of that,except I prefer folk rock and jazz

It sounds like my sort of book,I'm liking it already

[al_yrpal]

I have a box set of all Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. If you want 'dated' read them! Apart from casual racism, things are often a bit queer and the prawn cocktail is the height of sophistication! Absolutely charming though, I read them all in the early 60s, it just reinforces how much the world has changed. On someone's recomendation I recently read an Arthur C Clark, that wasnt very easy. Still, these things are Classics and are worth our attention.

Al

[reohn2]

I have a box set of all Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. If you want 'dated' read them! Apart from casual racism, things are often a bit queer and the prawn cocktail is the height of sophistication! Absolutely charming though, I read them all in the early 60s, it just reinforces how much the world has changed. On someone's recomendation I recently read an Arthur C Clark, that wasnt very easy. Still, these things are Classics and are worth our attention.

Al

There are some "classics" not worth the effort IME.

[al_yrpal]

I agree R2. But, when you read the first few pages of something like Bleak House it convinces you to explore further.

BTW this thread was about banning folk. Just noticed it ooks like the OP got banned.....again Hilarious!

Al

[merseymouth]

Hi all, I'm currently working through the "Politically Incorrect" output of W E Johns! A bit more worthy of rebuke than Herge, another of my favourites.
Biggles always prevails, much in the same way as Perry Mason . (the Burgers are on him always).

Takes one back to the 1950's. MM

[al_yrpal]

Biggles, if I remember correctly, was always on about the 'natives'. And, it was set in the 1930s. My hero was Ginger, because I was ginger once and still am in a few places

Al

[reohn2]

I agree R2. But, when you read the first few pages of something like Bleak House it convinces you to explore further.

I've had a go at a few Dicken's novels and found them hard work TBH.

BTW this thread was about banning folk. Just noticed it ooks like the OP got banned.....again Hilarious!

Al

He'll probably pop up in some other quise sick people are like that

[Ben@Forest]

Biggles, if I remember correctly, was always on about the 'natives'. And, it was set in the 1930s.

The first Biggles book was set pre WW1 and many of the books were about WW1 because, unsurprisingly enough, the author, W E Johns, was a pilot in the RFC during that conflict and in the RAF in the interwar years.

I remember reading about him talking about veracity in fiction. Stories often seem absurd or too good to be true but he had in real life met a pilot who'd flown into the cable or cables of a barrage balloon and managed to slide down a cable. As he said 'l saw the man's hands myself, but it would be too fantastical to put it in a Biggles book'.

It makes me wince to even think of the condition of the bloke's hands.

[Oldjohnw]

I enjoy John Buchan. His granddaughter gave a lecture here last year.

But not! Racism, anti-Semitism, British superiority, Imperialism and up the Empire and sheer snobbery! Great yarns though.

[Cugel]

Hi all, I'm currently working through the "Politically Incorrect" output of W E Johns! A bit more worthy of rebuke than Herge, another of my favourites.
Biggles always prevails, much in the same way as Perry Mason . (the Burgers are on him always).

Takes one back to the 1950's. MM

Perhaps you will enjoy Dornford Yates or Frank Yerby? They will also take you back to puggled past eras where pekooliar attitudes prevailed. My mam had bookcases filled with strange novels of yesteryear, all of which I read avidly. It's a wonder I didnae go mad! (Oh no I didn't).

Robert Heinlein tends to the somewhat over-individualistic Davy Crockett mode of thinking for my taste. For a rather more subtle and wide-ranging appreciation of human nature and the associated doings, but still from a similar point of view, try Jack Vance. Much less of the po-face, which is always a danger with many of the Yank SF writers of the Heinlein-Niven-Asimov era.

Cugel

[Ben@Forest]

A classic is Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household. I haven't read it since l was a teenager but even then remember thinking how 'modern' it felt despite being written in 1938.

It has apparently been an influence on everything from Ian Fleming's James Bond to David Morrell's First Blood, upon which the first Rambo film was based.