Rejoicing with the Truth

From suededsilk, Louis L'Amour.

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?

I've heard of him for a long time, but never really read any Westerns. Then my cousin Nick lent me a book our uncle Warren had bought for him: the paperback The Hills of Homicide, a collection of non-Western P.I. short stories L'Amour wrote in the 1940s. SO exciting - these stories were fairly Chandler-esque, but downright hair-raising in parts with a good bit of violence. (My first introduction to real fist fights in fiction, actually.)  That was enough to get me into his other work. One of the first was Hondo, which I got from the local library. It had to be my senior year of high school.
At Texas A&M, I discovered that despite its later-found deficiencies in important things like Saint books and Campion books, the main library excelled in L'Amour. I don't know that even one was missing, and there were duplicates of many. I must have read dozens my freshman year.  Initially reading for the excitement, I ended up learning so much history, plus Western basics. I found, and still find, it all fascinating. L'Amour had a passion for research, and it really shows.
I really haven't bought many, considering my already-overflowing bookshelves, though I collected a few favorites from my local USB. Bro. No. 1 promptly read those, then (not being at A&M) went and bought a lot more... which I then read in turn!


2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?

Oh, I'll not move away from L'Amour.  Eventually I discovered that he did have some formulas for a number of books. So some of the books are less memorable than others. And then after I'd pick up the pattern, I'd end up reading a book that was totally new. The man was overflowing with ideas.  And I find most of them very re-readable.


3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?

Borden Chantry (definite mystery element), The Man Called Noon, The Daybreakers, Catlow, Hondo, Flint, The Proving Trail, The Broken Gun


4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?

No, I never have. I'm not sure that much of one exists... I suspect he's very much Yesterday's News, besides that the whole Western genre is more or less politically incorrect.


5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

I think there's a lot more to appreciate and enjoy than people my age realize, but I think it'll also be difficult to get them into it!



From jordannamorgan, Indiana Jones.


1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?

Bits and drabbles! That's what happens when you (almost) grow up with something.

Once when I was small (under 10, and I the oldest of four), we were on a family vacation. Bedding down for the night where we were staying, my parents turned on the TV and my father immediately recognized it was the very end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. That definitely being something kids under 10 oughtn't to see, he turned it off... of course I was curious, though.

Then Dad has always been a soundtrack person. I grew up familiar with the themes for Star Wars, Patton, Superman, A Bridge Too Far, etc. in tapes made from his records.  He also had a real cassette tape of the Raiders soundtrack. I LOVED that thing. I listened to it over and over again until I knew every second of every track.

One very memorable Memorial Day, which we always spend at my grandmother's house with aunts and uncles and cousins, someone turned on the TV again and found Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - at the beginning this time!  I'm not sure how old I was; probably early teens.  Anyway, that time we DID watch it, and I was enthralled.

For Christmas that year I asked for and received my first CD, the soundtrack to Last Crusade. I had to get as familiar with it as I was with Raiders! To this day it is my favorite soundtrack of all, and one that I can always listen to.

At some point soon, whether the same year or shortly after, we finally saw Raiders.  It was so good. And it was near-magical to be watching something totally new - and yet feeling the music move and knowing what was coming next, just from the music. (What actually happens in "The Basket Game"! The wonder of "The Map Room"!) I've never had that experience since.


2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?

I will NEVER move on!  They taught me how amazing adventure stories can be, and particularly the piquant joy of mixing serious action with humor.  (These elements together I treasure now in Alistair MacLean, for example - as desperate and dangerous as his books can be, there are few without humor.)  And as I've gotten more into the world and popular culture of the 1930s and 40s, I realize how subtle a mixture of imitation, tribute, and tongue-in-cheek fun the Indiana Jones character is to the serials and B-movies of the time, like the "I Love a Mystery" OTR series.  I can't imagine such a thing being made now. If a new franchise were to use the same source material, it would merely amplify the explosions and double the sex, and be Deadly Serious throughout.

Indiana Jones is the epitome of Adventure.


3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?

I've never seen Temple of Doom; many people, friends and family alike, recommended against it, and I can't say I've heard anything since to make me think I ought to fill that in. Last Crusade is my favorite. Besides being the first seen, it's lacking the romance with Marion (who I find faintly annoying), and adding the joy and delight of Dr. Jones, Sr. 


4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?

Nope. Apparently it's crazy active, and very guy-dominated (not that that's a problem) and I suspect takes itself a bit too seriously at times.  I would love to go with fancyfrocks and suededsilk to the IndyGear summit some year, though!


5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

Actually, I've been rather shocked recently to learn how many people my own age and younger are almost totally unacquainted with Indiana Jones!  I'd thought it was nearly universal. But although most of have at least heard of Indiana Jones, few have seen the movies... or any but Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Which could have been better, yes. But while I wasn't blown away, I thought it was amazingly successful at continuing similar elements in a new period of time.)
So... yes!

Hmm, interesting meme.  The hard part is limiting myself to only 15, because I pick at least one favorite character in everything I read. And I'm just now over 600 books on LibraryThing, and not finished cataloging. >.<

List fifteen of your favorite characters from different series, and ask people to spot patterns in your choices, and if they're so inclined, to draw conclusions about you based on the patterns they've spotted.

Which means YOU, my dear friends list, get to play psychoanalyst. Enjoy! :p 


1. Albert Campion (author Margery Allingham)
2. Nhi Vanye i Chya (Cherryh's Morgaine books)
3. Kelly Robinson (I Spy)
4. Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Shaara's The Killer Angels)
5. Lord Peter Wimsey (author Dorothy Sayers)
6. James Eckert (Dragon Knight series)
7. The Duke of Sale, a.k.a. "Gilly" (Heyer's The Foundling)
8. Sir Gareth Ludlow (Heyer's Sprig Muslin)
9. Simon Templar, the Saint (author Leslie Charteris)
10. John Carter (MacLean's The Golden Rendezvous)
11. Tuppence Beresford (author Agatha Christie)
12. Tyrel Sackett (L'Amour's Sackett books)
13. Donald Lamb (author Erle Stanley Gardner)
14. Aragorn (The Lord of the Rings)
15. Kimball Kinnison (Lensman series)

I used a random sequence generator, so don't make anything of the order. I will volunteer that except for Tuppence, these are all men. :p

(Note - it says "series," but that may be geared toward TV series and I don't do many of those. I'd rather focus on favorite characters, period. Which is hard enough... I know I'm leaving off some dillies...)

This one from seawasp. 


1) What author do you own the most books by? Not sure. With the weekend's acquisitions, I have 32 Saint books, so that's probably the highest.  The Agatha Christie and Nancy Drew collections surpass that, but both are jointly owned by my mother and I. And the majority of the Louis L'Amours are Nathan's.

2) What book do you own the most copies of? With far too little space for the books, I don't like having multiple copies of many things unless there's a reason for a particular edition. I have duplicates of some Austens and Sherlock Holmes, but I think the winner is Bibles, with five. In length-of-ownership order, I have the Living Bible I was given for Christmas in... 1989, I think; the NIV I got for Xmas in 1992 or 1993; a slimmer NIV, this time from the church, upon my high school graduation in 2001; an 1855 pocket-sized KJV I bought on ebay while in college to use for 1860s reenacting, and which I often carry to church because it's the smallest; and the NIV study Bible given to me by Mr. and Mrs. Klob when I graduated from college in 2005.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? Nope. Sometimes I try to avoid it in my writing, but only when it doesn't sound too contrived.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? Oh, I love Richard Diamond, but that's hardly a secret; and he is a radio character, not a book character. There's plenty of others I could love, but none come to mind right now when I want them.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life? Err.  I never keep count. The Bible, Ben-Hur, Alistair MacLean's Where Eagles Dare and The Golden Rendezvous, Rifles for Watie, maybe Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime and The Man in the Brown Suit; probably lots more. I love to re-read.

6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old? Nothing stands out; probably a Nancy Drew. I read all of Mom's before I was 8, and I added to the collection for years.  I also loved The Black Stallion; it's one of the earliest books I remember reading, certainly before first grade.  I would have read it to death except that I never owned it.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year? Not sure. Probably the book I stumbled across on Project Gutenberg that ends unhappily, with the central character going rather nuts - after the reader's been suckered into really really rooting for him and the woman. I loathe books wherein the main character(s) really, truly are insane.

8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year? Impossible to say. Thanks to Project Gutenberg and Google Books, it's a choice among hundreds.

9) If you could force everyone you know to read one book, what would it be? I can't think of one. People tend to hate what they are forced to do. I sure do!

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature? Not a clue.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie? There was something I was thinking about recently, but I'm dashed if I can think of it now... I would love to see the Lensman books made into good movies, but there's No Way In The Universe that's going to be done acceptably.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie? There's an ocean of drivel that should never be given the shred of dignity conferred by movie release. And then there's the Lensman books, as I just mentioned; honestly, I would cringe if I heard they were being filmed, because they wouldn't be right.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character. I don't remember my dreams. This phenomenon has long been a cause for passing puzzlement and frustration.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult? I have no pretense to any brow. This question and all its implications annoys me.

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read? Maybe the textbook for discrete mathematics, although I don't remember a thing about it. It's more likely the first programming text I had, since it hopelessly confounded me for the first fourteen minutes and put me to sleep within the fifteenth.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen? Neither The Tempest nor King Lear is obscure, methinks.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? As authors, neither. Judging from what I've read, French, for the sake of Victor Hugo and Jules Verne.

18) Roth or Updike?  Who?

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? Who?

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? Shakespeare. I haven't read enough Milton to know for sure, though.

21) Austen or Eliot? Austen.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? The biggest gap would probably be the so-called "Lost Generation" writers, both American and British. I have little-to-zero interest in the worldview of those writers or the content of their writings, and no plans to ever close that "gap" in my reading.  I'm not embarrassed about this gap.  I do wish I had read more 19th-century literature back when I had more time and less tired brain cells, but it's still a strength in my reading and I'm planning to continue.

23) What is your favourite novel? Another impossible question. I'd probably have a list of 50, even if I limited favorite authors to one book. The ones I've read multiple times are there.

24) Play? The translation of Molière's Tartuffe, or The Hypocrite in my high school lit book is hilarious and made of awesome. (So is Wishbone's version of The Hypochondriac!)  I want to find out which translator did it and get Tartuffe, and others if possible, by him.

25) Poem? Not sure. Maybe If.

26) Essay? Either "On Faerie Stories" or one of C. S. Lewis's writing ones, such as "On Writing for Children" or "On Science Fiction."

27) Short story? I have no idea. There are way too many to tell, especially considering the SF ones.

28) Work of non-fiction?  The Bible. Aside from that, Costume in Detail. I've pored over the drawings in that book for years, and it still never fails to fascinate me.

29) Who is your favourite writer? I can't pick one. Alastair MacLean is waay up there.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today? No idea. I read little that was published in the last 10, 20, or 30 years.  I'd take a stab at Stephanie Meyer, but for all the raving I haven't heard anyone actually building up her writing.  (I don't seek out such discussion, though.)

31) What is your desert island book? Swiss Family Robinson.

32) And… what are you reading right now? LJ, with forays to Wikipedia (drama on the Lost Generation talk page, ahoy!), Amazon, and my tags list, to garner links.